It so happens that Ray is also my massage therapist, and has been for nearly 15 years. In the last few years, he and his partner bought a property out in the desert (Cathedral City, near Palm Springs), and Ray has been spending about half his time out there and half in San Francisco. That means I need to call him and find out when he is here to schedule my appointments. Usually our phone calls are quick, just business, but that particular evening, as we were wrapping up, he asked me if I didn't have a Facebook account, since he has used his for updating his travel schedule with his clients. I do, I told him, but I had been there once in almost a year, and that was to retrieve something specific. Same thing goes for MySpace (or as I call them, Mybook and FaceSpace, I have a page, but it is neglected, I never go to check it out, or to contact other Space-outs. I also added, "and I don't tweet" (meaning I don't have a Twitter account) and plan to keep it that way.
Ray chuckled, and then told me that although he had FaceBook and Twitter accounts, he has serious misgivings about both of them. Once more, it's proven to me that we are indeed simpatico. He told me that when he first put his FB page up, he was far more into using it, but as of late he was really only using it for business purposes. "As for Twitter", he tells me "very early on I would read people's updates and think 'I can't believe they are saying that' to myself, and was disenchanted with it pretty quickly on". Good boy, I think to myself.
I told him, and I've said it from the time that I first heard about Twitter, that most of the time, the "updates" are rants, almost Tourettes-like. It was my supposition that in the pre-online social networking days, 90% of what people will now put in their "status" message were ideas that probably would have never left their head and come out of their mouths
Note: All 3 previously mentioned sites have a spot right on the cover page where one can enter their current status. You'll see everything from "Sally just took a big dump and feels so much better" to "Rick hates the world and thinks everybody should just die" to downright libelous statements at times: "Larry is a thief and a big stinking bag of shit that likes to steal boyfriends, especially when he's high". I kid you not here, and even worse, none of these even approach the depravity of the worst ones I've seen. I'm not going to give examples, because I purposefully blocked them out of my memory (when I was still internetworking and reading them). Besides, it's bad enough that somebody wrote those things down in the first place, I see no need to give that crap any more attention then it has already had.
But back to the pre-sidebar point I was making with Ray: It was my belief, I told him, that because of the ability to instantly publish anything you put out onto the web and have it available for millions to admire, that people were frequently posting status updates containing information that should have never left their head. You've heard of diarrhea of the mouth, I'll call this phenomenon diarrhea of the keyboard. Typing without thinking is essentially the same as speaking without thinking, in my book. In the Old School days, where we wrote in our journals and diaries onto paper with a pen, I doubt that even half of that above-mentioned drivel would have ever even made it to the page. As for what did get written down, that would get locked up and hidden in your room where nobody (hopefully) could find it. But no more for that; now, one can say the most onerous, libelous or disgusting thoughts that they have and then share these with the whole world. I can only speak for me, but I have a lot of thoughts that I would never let leave my head; I believe that this is true of just about anybody in the population at large. The difference between me and the bloggers/spacers that I've described is that I actually don't let these thoughts out, except maybe sometimes to my shrink or best friend, if at all. It has to be someone that I can trust to not judge.
The whole thing has me really perplexed. I'm not sure if this is attention-seeking behavior, anger management or somebody sharing what they think are witty observations about themselves - or some combination of the three. Now I'll admit, there were some that have been very insightful, some which really made me think and/or some that were just downright funny. But in the case of the latter, it's been my experience that attempting to be funny and succeeding at it are two very different things, and the ability to attain the second goal is more often than not unrealized.
I'll admit that I actually do still have one medium where I post status messages still, and that is with Gmail (Google's email client). On your personal gmail cover page, you have the ability to post a status message next to your name, along with a picture that anyone who is on your contact list (and invited to Gmail chat, which is also part of Gmail - basically an IM client) can see. You can change it as often as you want, or you can leave it blank. Generally, I've kept mine pretty neutral; for weeks, I was putting in a Dave Barry (humorist, satirist, columnist) quote, and changing it daily. I've also posted YouTube links to hilarious (to me) videos that I want to share. In both cases, about the only personal insight that one might glean is how humor reflects one's outlook on life. I believe that humor can frequently be used as a snapshot into the mind of the person who finds said humor funny, and then you the reader can suppose to yourself what this says about the person. For me, I would say that if you read between the lines of my humorous updates, what you would probably get is that I find farce in life in general, that I don't suffer fools lightly and that I'm continually amazed by people's lack of common sense.
The other kind of updates I might do are personal insight observations, but these are generally statements that I would also be likely to share in person. A good example is my current update: "Sick and tired of bitching about being sick and tired of being sick and tired". Now this is something that has been a frequent theme in this very blog you're reading, and though I do write in a very stream of consciousness style, there is a big difference here: I may write it, but I don't publish my writing for at least a day after I finish it, and that means usually I've edited it twice. This allows me the opportunity to edit out those thoughts that should have stayed in my head, so that they can then locked back up in my head, where they belong.
Over this last year, there have been many times that I have debated with myself as to whether or not I should just delete my FaceSpace and Mybook accounts. What has been holding me back is that for a few people, that is the only way that they know how to contact me. Sure, I could make sure everybody has my email address and just do it, but between the two sites, I probably have 500+ (and I use the word loosely) friends.
As most of you know, a friend just means that they are the people that have access to your page. It means more than that to me, and I can tell you with absolute certainty that I do not have that many friends. It's a word that I don't bandy about lightly, being a friend actually means someone of great significance in my life, not just people I went to high school and university with, former coworkers and fellow drag queens or fellow dog show hobbyists.
I'm not sure what my final answer is going to be, Regis, the jury is definitely still out, but for now, my pages sit out there, unmaintained for over a year now. If you want a snapshot of my life back then, that is about all that you will get, if you even get that. You will definitely find some of my favorite pictures of me Brian and Mikey in drag, and I love that, but if that is the only thing that I really want to share, I should be using my Flickr account, which I do not.
I'm less than 45 days away from my 50th birthday. Though I'm generally hesitant to read too much into numbers, a day or any span of time that is some sort of anniversary, this marker post in my life, signifying half a century of me walking this planet does seem extraordinary. I think it's partly because I (and most people who have been in my life for a long time, for that matter) never thought I would make it this far. I don't know anybody from my early years in San Francisco (1984-86, let's say) who were HIV+ back then that are still alive, besides me. 10-15 years ago it was different. I would occasionally run into somebody on the street (usually in The Castro) who was in my life during that time so long ago. It's funny, and most of the time it wasn't said as much as it was implied, but if you read between the lines of what we said, it was something to the effect of the one speaker saying how glad he was to see that the other person was still alive. With a couple of people that I knew then, I'll use this guy David as an example, when we would run into each other, we would stop and play a little catch-up with each others' lives. In the case of David, and like I said before there were a couple of others, invariably one of us said "every time I see you I have a sigh of relief; both that I'm not the only one out there who is still here, and also that I'm genuinely happy for you, and for your loved ones." I also have to tell you that it has been at least 5 years since I've seen David. He is very easy to pick out of a crowd, so unless his look has changed dramatically, I'm left to conclude that either he is no longer in San Francisco, or that he has met his final fate in this life. I have to sadly admit that at that moment, I tend to think that the latter is the case.
I've tried to figure out for years why I'm still alive, since there are so few from my "generation of infection" that are left. I remember that when I found out (1987, when I finally had the guts to get tested) one of the first things I thought/asked of the universe was to make it to the new millenium, 2000, both because it was historically significant and also because that was the year I turned 40. At that time, I was going to be happy if I made it that far. That said, deep down, I don't think that I ever completely ruled out growing old with HIV still coursing my veins. Then 40 came and went, and that year I said "if I live to 50, I will be happy and consider it to be a great accomplishment. Now, with my 50th birthday approaching rapidly, I've ditched that inner dialog and torn those pages out of my inner autobiography. Now, I just want to live as long as I can, still having enough health to have a decent quality of life, and I don't see why that can't put me well into old age.
As I've said, there was a big part of me that just never believed that HIV was going to kill me. My usual attitude about obstacles would invariably kick in when I was questioning my longevity and resilience: I just never thought that it was possible that I couldn't live to old age. Nobody told me that I couldn't, though there might have been inferences that the likelihood was slim to none. Now, I've allowed this attitude free reign overy my psyche. I'm not going to set any number of years for how much longer I can live; if anything, my goal is that I would like to make it into old age, independent and self-reliant, with a degree of health relative to where I was at pre-interferon. That means that I do have limitations, some pretty big ones at that, but none of them has every stripped me of the ability to enjoy a life of quality and purpose. My mother was a child of The Great Depression; she instilled in me, and frequently I might add, the notion that you work with what you have to attain what you want. In other words, you don't reinforce disappointment by setting unrealistic goals, but you also don't undersell what you have.
My obstacles are many: I have limited energy, mobility that is often limited by pain, and very often, an appetite that is killed by the drugs I have to take, just to name a few. There are many more. I need to minimize my exposure to disease-causing organisms, something that was an extra challenge this year, since I couldn't take the flu vaccine, and it was a potentially devastating flu season. I have to be ever vigilant to make sure that I'm getting proper nourishment. What energy I do have, I need to prioritize how I spend it. First, I have to make sure that I have good meals to eat for when I am unable to cook. This last year, I accomplished that by taking a couple of months to prepare and freeze home-cooked meals. I made well over 100, and it was not a wasted effort. In the last 7 or so months, I've probably used 2/3 of the dinners that I originally made. Additionally, when I now prepare a meal that could potentially feed 5 or 6 people but I'm the only diner, I'll take the leftovers and turn them into dinners. Each dinner has the following three components every time: there is a protein (usually animal), a starch and a fresh vegetable. They are 100% homemade and the produce and meat are for the most part organically or sustainably farmed and locally produced.
This was a brilliant idea from the outset, if I may take a moment to pat myself on the back. It is an idea that has worked so well that I plan to continue it indefinitely. That is the beauty of having a stand-alone freezer, I can store and preserve a lot of food while still having a minimal impact on it's nutritive attributes. Another benefit (and this wasn't something I had consciously considered at the outset) is that I have decreased my food waste considerably. It is the exception to the rule for me to have to throw away leftover food. Any that I still have to do bothers me, and I'm looking for ways to decrease it even more. But I also make use of the waste - it becomes my compost, except for meat and dairy of course, not good things to compost. I've also taken to religiously vacuum-sealing any perishables that I can: Breakfast cereals, nuts, cheeses and baked goods are examples. I can't remember the last time I had to throw away nuts or cereal that had gone stale. I can take lunch meat that I can't eat right away and vacuum seal and refrigerate it and it lasts for weeks, or freeze it and have it last months. I'm not only keeping my conscience clearer by cutting waste, I'm also saving a lot of money.
I don't know if you had heard or not, but our economy is in big trouble, has been for awhile now. More than anytime in my past I've approached my finances with pretty consistent vigilance and scrutiny to keep myself withing a reasonable budget. I define reasonable as one that is reasonably attainable (not too stringent and not too generous) while still having the least impact on my reserves. I'm getting a lot better at this. After Ken died, even though I was paying a lot more attention to finances (Ken pretty much did that for both of us when he was alive), I really hadn't curbed my spending in any significant manner. At times I was actually worse that I had been before he died. The only thing I can say that is good about that time is that I kept myself aware of how much over budget I was going each month. Though that sounds half-assed, the consistency that I set there was the first step toward living within my means, which I am now much closer to that I've ever been in my adult life. I've been able to accomplish this without feeling deprived, and that was what I considered to be the ideal outcome when I started the process.
There are a lot of considerations that go into budgeting yourself so that you are living within your means. The first is to do an inventory of what you have; as a general rule, the more that you have (children, property, pets, vehicles etc.) the more it will have an impact on your finances and the more money you need to have to maintain it all. If you own property, you have mortgages. You also have maintenance and upkeep, insurance, taxes, homeowner's association dues etc.. The more children you have - well, that's a no-brainer, same with pets. With vehicles, it depends on what you have. I have a nice car, a beater and an older RV. All are paid for, so there is no bank note to pay, but there is insurance, license and registration times three. Then there are repairs, maintenance and fuel. Then there are the usual typical monthly obligations: utilities, groceries, medical bills (obviously a big expense for me), entertainment and there are in my case what I call "mandatory" discretionary monthly maintenance costs - the gardener (only $105/month and he comes every week - a bargain) and also the housekeeper, who comes three times a month. With all the animals that I have, I need that much cleaning help; this last year, it's been all that I can do to keep up on the basics in between cleanings. When you feel like crap, cleaning the house is about that last thing that you want to do.
In my budget, entertainment is pretty all-encompassing - dining out, movies, theater, sports, hobbies, vacations pretty much all get categorized under discretionary spending. Since none of it is mandatory spending, it can logically be bundled up as a package. That isn't even all of the discretionary spending: There are clothes, which I haven't shopped for in at least 2 years. If you know me, or if you were to look in my closet, it would be pretty evident that I really don't care much about fashion. For me, clothing is pretty much utilitarian. I do care about how it fits more than anything. I'm not going to wear clothes that make me look dumpy (unless maybe I'm out gardening and wearing clothes from my "old fat clothes that can get trashed" pile. I won't just buy some cheap old Mom jeans - fit is my one vanity with clothing. I have a weird physique (no curves, no hips, just a straight line down from armpit to floor. In profile, I'm almost 2 dimensional); clothes that fit it aren't always that easy to find. For example, on a lanky body, low rise pants (esp. jeans) look best. But if, like me, your waist and hips are pretty much the same circumference, low-rise pants will be down at your ankles in a manner of minutes. Even with a belt, unless you cinch it so tight that you get welts on your waistline, they're still going to fall. At 50, I'm just a little old to be showing crack, and walking around hiking up my pants every 5 minutes doesn't look very pretty either.
Then there is the other discretionary spending; for me that is mostly things for the kitchen and the garden. In my case, this is where I get into the most trouble. I will drop a couple of hundred at Home Depot or Costco or Target without even batting an eye. This last year, I put thousands into my landscaping. It would have been less if I could have done more of the work myself, but that was out of the question. But I also have a penchant for plants, and always like the priciest ones, of course. In the kitchen, well, you can ask my friends. My friend Brian ribs me all the time about all the kitchen gadgets I have. The smaller list would be the list of gadgets that I don't have. This is a typical exchange with Brian:
(we're cooking in his kitchen)
Brian - hey Missy (me), will you make the gravy?
Me - of course, give me a pan and a gravy whisk.
Brian - here's the pan, but my whisks are metal and the pans are all non-stick. Plus I don't think I even have a gravy whisk.
Me - You have all that non-stick and no silicone-coated whisks? Girl! I have like 4 silicone whisks, including 2 different kinds of gravy/sauce whisks.
Brian - of course you do (said with a tinge of snide and sass).
Me - Shut up bitch.
I would both shudder and be embarrassed if I estimated what I spent in the kitchen this last year, so I won't even go there, but my spending that I need to curb the most is my spending on my home. I hardly eat out anymore, and rarely go to a movie or a play. I took no vacations last year, and this year, I'm going on a cruise in October, but it's a budget cruise. We (me and my friend Chris) took the cheapest cabin, so it's not much over $1000 for the whole thing.
It's funny, but my life doesn't seem that complicated to me, until I look at something like this, and then it looks impossibly complicated. This last year it's been exceptionally overwhelming, because I often haven't had the mental energy to deal with it. After three years, it is just now that I'm finally starting to feel like all of the fallout from Ken's death has settled down - I've moved, sold and bought homes, remodeled the new one, replaced a car (that died in a fiery collision) and settled the estate. This is just what I can remember off the top of my head, there is certainly more. And all this complication brings me to what was originally my intended topic of discussion: Simplifying my life; finally figuring out that if I'm able to make what I want (materially) encompass only what I need, my life will simplify itself exponentially. In short, I'm trying to figure out how to live more sustainably, more socially responsibly and in a far less consumptive manner. If there is good to be had from this crappy economy, it's that modest living is the new black. As to whether these lessons will stick when things turn around, well, I can hope, but history would tell otherwise. Greed is a hard demon to kill.
The first part of this process is really the most important part to me, and something I've been doing for the last three years: It's my period of sorting out. It's making lists, both on paper and in my head. I'm trying to look at what I think I want, what I think I need, what I already have, and of what I have, what I don't need any longer and can get rid of, in one way or another, preferably by recycling it. When I was moving out of Diamond Street, I probably got rid of a third of my belongings. As I've been going through my house the last few weeks, there is easily another third that could go without me really noticing any impact on my life. In theory, it's an easy thing to do - go through what you have and use the three year rule: If it's been three years since you last used it or looked at it, why do you still have it? Let it go. In theory easy, but at least for me, as soon as I start the process, I'm trying to rationalize keeping nearly everything that I really should be getting rid of. That is ridiculous, and for me, it's the time when I need to summon my inner bad cop. I'm just about there right now, since every time that I think about and/or look at everything that I have, I'm overwhelmed, and I haven't even broached the subject of dealing with it. Not only will my physical space be more manageable with less clutter, it's going to make me a happier and more peaceful person. I'm hoping that this hypothesis that I have is true; I postulate that the more that I'm able to let go of, the easier it will be to rid myself of other clutter (both physical and emotional) after that point.
Then there is one more key component to this life-improvement plan, and that is that I need to not let the empty space that I create by getting rid of clutter be filled with new clutter. I need to spend with a social conscience. I need to consider the global impact of my spending, environmental and socioeconomic. The carbon footprint that I'm contributing to by buying unnecessary crap may not be noticeable to society at large, but one has to lead by example. By encouraging others to decrease waste, and also by leading with example by decreasing my own wastefulness will have a bigger impact. I'm not much fond of proselytizing, but when it comes to saving our planet, this is one time that I don't mind getting up on a soap box. Someone has to counter the voices of the global warming deniers; as if global warming was some sinister plot by Al Gore and company to get back at the right for a stolen election.
This brings my back around to the start of a very big circular thread, one that started many essays ago, and that is the big theme of my life: Letting go. I've said it many times, and I'll say it again: Although I didn't like the circumstances that brought me to such an intensive self-examination, one started three years ago, it was in the end a great example of making some good come out of a devastating tragedy. My lather, rinse and repeat mantra of the last three years could be easily summarized as observe, sort out and let go. It all sounds so easy, doesn't it? It's only taken me three years to be able to be able to recognize the problem, break it down and find the most rational way to approach it. I guess it's not so easy.
Doggydad's Life Now: The Viral Monologues by Parry Tallmadge is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.
Based on a work at doggydad.blogspot.com.
Permissions beyond the scope of this license may be available at http://www.runnymedesilkys.com.
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