Expecting Gunfire is Normal Now

A piercing, ear splitting sound crashes through my head. It is accompanied by bright blue flashing lights from red fixtures placed every few meters along the wall. As I recover from temporary disorientation, the sound is interrupted by an electronic voice saying, "There is an emergency reported in the building. Please evacuate immediately. Do not use the elevators. Please evacuate immediately."

It's always the worst possible time. Usually I have had to go to the bathroom for a while and I've been putting it off. Now, who knows when I'll get another chance. I pull myself from the project I've been concentrating on, lock my computer screen, and zip up my back pack - I'm not leaving the building without my back pack. Sorry if that's frowned upon. If this is a real emergency, I may never see my personal belongings again.

Hundreds of us slowly file down flights of stairs, masses merging calmly from each lower floor we pass. We are composed. We are pretty sure it's a drill. We don't hear shooting. We don't smell smoke.

That's right. In addition to sniffing for smoke, we listen for gun shots.

What used to be known as a fire drill is now a more general evacuation exercise. After all, it seems just as likely to be someone in the building with a gun as it is a fire.

It has come to this in 21st century America. Angry or crazy people brandishing guns in public are normal enough that companies have procedures in place for responding to it.

My job consists largely of designing computer based training for employees. A lot of it is very technical and dry. Once in a while, however, I get to do something more interesting, such as a presentation on how to handle inter-generational situations or the best way to conduct a job interview.

But when asked recently to create training for what to do if an active shooter enters the building, that was a little too exciting. Apparently Homeland Security and some police departments around the country have issued guidelines which we could draw on. And oh, I was instructed, don't make it scary.

Right.

Shootings in public places occur so regularly that we only hear about the really extreme ones now. Recently, a building in downtown Denver was evacuated because a woman was shot in her office. She was the only "victim," though I would argue that everyone nearby was also victimized. It was not even the top story on the local news that night.

It's so common to have a shooting at the office, school, movie, mall, church, or night club, that we aren't surprised to hear about it any more.

We are afraid maybe, but not surprised. I hope we are still horrified, that we haven't become numb.

Gun violence is normal in the United States. This doesn't happen to the same extent in other civilized countries. Sensible people already understand why. A vocal and organized minority controls and intimidates the majority of politicians in power so that nothing can change. Until the NRA is out-organized and defeated by the more lackluster majority of citizens, the insanity of our gun culture will continue.

I'm not saying anything that hasn't been said already. I guess I just feel like it has to be said again and again until something changes.

Understanding Bridezilla's Point of View

I heard an interesting theory the other day: a justification for the high cost of wedding services.

As Clyde and I prepare for our September ceremony, I've noticed in my research on invitations to caterers, how much everything costs. And when you put the word "wedding" in front of it, it's twice as expensive or more. It's what I call the over priced and over hyped "Wedding-Industrial Complex."

So the justification for this inflating, this nuptial gouging, from dress makers to cake bakers, is: that brides are especially difficult customers. With the singular goal of having THE perfect wedding, these "bridezillas" are impossible to please. They demand way more time than the average customer, they change orders at the last minute, and they are bitchy. Throw in their mothers, future mothers-in-law, and a couple of "helpful" bridesmaids, those poor vendors have their work cut out for them.

Point taken. And by the way, let's face it, the grooms are usually absent at this stage of the planning, unless there are only grooms in which case ...

So anyway, I am not ready to excuse the excesses of the WIC. I still think it's a huge rip off. I have a co-worker who spent $24,000 (yes, twenty-four thousand dollars) on his wife's engagement ring last year. I asked him why he didn't just buy her a wedding car. He also told me how much they spent on invitations, the wedding venue, the amount of money per guest at the formal sit down dinner, and the honeymoon in Mexico. It was jaw dropping.

He asked how much Clyde and I were spending. When I told him that we bought a kit on Amazon and printed invitations at home for about $25, his jaw hit the floor.

We're trying to spend money wisely. The wedding will be small - just some family and a few very close friends. We won't have a formal dinner, just some nibbles and a cake at the reception.

We're splurging on a few things, of course. We're going to buy new suits - sensible ones that we can use again. Not that I will - I haven't owned a suit in decades.

I can see the points of view of wedding vendors. I wouldn't have the patience to deal with a bridezilla.

I can also sort of relate to the bridezillas. I haven't had a melt down in a bridal shop, yet, but I do want things to go well. Even a simple wedding is stressful. There are lots little things to take care of.

For example, when we first made a list of what we needed to do, we remembered important details like meeting with the priest, planning  a honeymoon, and buying rings, but we didn't remember that we need to get a marriage license, the part that makes this LEGAL. I have no idea how or where to get it. It simply hasn't been part of my experience. I assume we go to the city and county building, but beyond that, I'm pretty clueless. What does it cost? Do we both need to go? How far ahead do we need to do it? And flowers. One of our church friends asked what we planned to do about flowers. Flowers? Huh. What else are we forgetting?

We have some advantages that most brides don't have. We're men for one thing. Unlike many little girls, neither Clyde nor I grew up dreaming of our wedding with a thousand little fantasies to live up to. Perhaps some gay men did, but we didn't. My fantasy growing up was just to have my own apartment and a boyfriend. Done and done. I never imagined I could have a legal, church sanctioned wedding. This is gravy as far as I'm concerned.

Another advantage is that we're older. We have some perspective that young couples may not have. We know things don't always go as planned and we're pretty ok with that. Our priest told us that the important thing to remember is that if she shows up (and she promises she will) and the two of us show up, we'll get married. That's all that really matters.

Caught Between a Dumbass and a "Bitch" - Does it Really Matter?

As often happens, the office chatter around me zeroed in on this year's unusual presidential election. Typical of the national conversation, my coworkers could neither comprehend ignorant dumb ass Donald Trump, nor could they fathom a bitch like Hillary Clinton at the presidential helm.

With earphones stuck to my head and my eyes glued to the monitors, I really tried to stay out of it. No one's mind is ever changed by these conversations, and while most of the others treat the topic as casually as they do a jawing about local sports, I would just get really mad and take it personally if I got involved.

But when one of the senior managers pronounced that in fact, it didn't really matter who was elected because none of our lives would actually change based on the outcome, I just about boiled over.

"That's easy to say if you're a straight, white man who has lived in privilege all his life," I fumed. "You take your wife for granted and you don't have to worry that the next Supreme Court appointment could lead to the invalidation of your legal marriage. You have never had your civil rights threatened by a majority vote of your fellow citizens. You have never been threatened with ejection from your home country just because your parents immigrated without proper papers when you were too young to understand what was happening. You were never denied the right to vote just because you didn't have a current driver's licence..."

... is what I would have said, had I been participating in the conversation.

Just to clarify, I don't think Hillary Clinton is a bitch. That's just what some people I work with think.

I've never understood why so many people hate Hillary Clinton so much. To many, she represents cold, conniving liberalism at its worst. She is seen as a shrill, calculating, and ruthlessly ambitious liar.

Of course, many of these adjectives wouldn't be nearly so uncomplimentary if they were describing a man. Men who are ruthless and ambitious are actually admired. And they are never described as shrill.

I have always really liked Hillary. Ever since her controversial 1992 comments that she wasn't just some cookie baking housewife standing by her man, I've admired her intelligence and chutzpah.

She has always come across to me as warm and hard working, deliberate and thoughtful. So sometimes she's a little awkward when she tries to tell a joke, but hey, do we need a comedian in the White House or a President? Hillary is an effective behind the scenes leader who works well with others to get things done, as demonstrated by her performance in the U.S. Senate. Sure she's outspoken, and her views have evolved. She is tough but has a human side as well, though she is criticized for showing the slightest emotion - the woman can't win, really. She's either too tough or too vulnerable.

For the "family values crowd," she takes marriage more seriously than many Republican counterparts, having never been divorced though it would have been totally justified had she chosen to do so. I love that she's a committed member of the United Methodist Church. Let's see, has Donald Trump been divorced? Is he a church member?

As for her alleged "crimes" - Benghazi, the email scandal, Vince Foster's suicide ... One by one, Clinton has been repeatedly cleared of wrongdoing, or doing nothing outside of what was normally also done by Republican peers. The fact is, Republicans can't find that she's done anything really wrong, so they make stuff up or exaggerate because they can't stand the thought of her coming into power.

And while I'm at it:

I really don't understand why so many people are supporting a Trump presidency. He has consistently and blatantly lied. He has demonstrated tremendous lack of knowledge about general civics (such as how government and elections work). He has openly declared and bragged about his own racism and ignorance regarding the world outside of the U.S. He has brazenly offended entire populations of the world with Mexicans and Muslims leading the way. It totally defies logic that he could be elected - and yet he is going to be the Republican nominee.

Donald would make a terrible President. If he even listened to advisers, they'd have to spend their time teaching him the basics of how law is made and why he can't just do whatever he wants because Congress figures in there somewhere. All constitutional checks and balances would be sent into overdrive just to make sure his whimsical power trips don't upset the fragile nature of our form of government.

At least we are presented with a choice this election season. I remember elections past when people complained that there was really no difference between the candidates.

I'm getting married this summer. To a man. For the first time in my life, this is legal in every U.S. state. It isn't too much of a stretch of the imagination to comprehend that if Donald Trump is elected, he could appoint someone to the Supreme Court who could reverse the decisions that made my legal marriage possible. That would only be the beginning.

The person who ends up being President matters to me, to a lot of people, personally.

A Reasonable Response to Restroom Hysteria

Some of those nutty right-wingers are in a huge tizzy about the possibility of sharing public restrooms with people of a different gender. In some places, they are actually exploiting this fear to pass laws which blatantly discriminate against transgendered, as well as lesbian, gay, and bisexual citizens.

Consider this: a regular looking, clean cut sort of person with, say, a trim beard, perhaps wearing shorts revealing muscular hairy legs, and a t-shirt covering a well proportioned torso with just a little chest hair coming out of the top -- I'm sorry, what were we talking about? I kind of got caught up in an attractive image ... Anyway, he finds himself in need of a rest room. If anyone were to look at his birth certificate, which no one does by the way, they would see that he happens to have been recorded as female in his first minutes of life. But as a result of years of struggle to reconcile a gender he believes himself to be, to one assigned to him by society because of the genitals he was born with - a struggle that is frankly none of our business to judge or comment upon, by the way - he now appears to be and functions as the gender he most closely identifies with. According to new laws in North Carolina and Mississippi and probably many other places (I've lost track), no matter how he sees himself, and no matter how much personal progress he has been able to make, this man is required by law to use the women's restroom.

In fact, if this guy walked into a men's room to privately relieve himself, no one would notice and nothing unusual would happen. But can you imagine the reaction if this hairy beast walked into a crowded women's room in Mississippi? Any proper southern lady would be mighty scandalized.

But I'd like to take a step back and ask something I've always wondered. Why can't we all just share the same restrooms? What is each half of the population hiding from the other, exactly?  Is it that women's rooms are so much nicer than men's? I've heard that's the case. That they have like, nice furniture and stuff. Is it true?

We all know what happens in restrooms, whether men's or women's. Generally speaking, people go in there to void their bladders and bowels. These are necessary bodily functions required by every human being on Earth. There is really no difference between the waste produced by males and the waste produced by females. It looks and smells about the same. These are not particularly nice smells, and most of us go out of our way NOT to encounter them, regardless of the gender of the person who produced them.

For that matter, we also don't tend to watch what other people are doing in the restroom. It would be considered bad manners. And just to avoid accidental lookage, there are generally private stalls or dividers between receptacles.

According to the logic of the wacko reactionaries trying to reinforce segregation of the restrooms, I, as a gay man, should not be allowed to use public men's rooms lest I succumb to my animal nature and leer at other facility users. Just to be clear, having used men's rooms for many decades, I can assure you that the only animal instinct I have in there is to GO. I usually just do my business, wash my hands, and get out as quickly as possible. For the record, I'm much more likely to check out other guys on the street than in the loo.

Back in the 80s when I was doing time with the Presbyterian Church, I was lucky enough to live in student housing at New York's very progressive Union Theological Seminary. I lived in a dorm with mostly seminary students. That community welcomed me, a non-student, into their poetry readings, anti-apartheid awareness raising, and drunken late night theological discussions. There was one large bathroom on our floor in Hastings Hall. It was shared by everyone, men and women.

That's right. A co-ed bathroom. I took showers (private showers mind you) adjacent to women and men. I often shaved chatting with a woman who blow dried in the mirror next to mine (many of us had mullet hair in those days). I regularly peed in a stall next to one of the resident lesbians. Though we could hear each other's noises, we never "saw" anything except each other's shoes. It was only strange the first day. After that we never thought about it.

For the past 30 years I've wondered why there weren't more places with desegregated restrooms.

We have to get over our hangups about the human body. What, really, is there to be afraid of? Can we just grow up? This hysteria about encountering someone of a different gender in the restroom is a massive waste of energy. There are real things out there to worry about, folks. I'd be much more alarmed at running into a Republican presidential candidate in the men's room than a man who used to be a woman.

Mindi Lahiri is Today's That Girl!

Of the tens of thousands of movies and TV shows on Netflix, I've seen every single one. At least clicking through the content leads me to believe so.

Browsing through suggested offerings created by algorithms especially for me (categories such as Gay Romantic Comedies, Disaster Documentaries,  and Dramatic TV Series Featuring a Strong Female Lead), I find myself saying out loud, "Seen it. Seen it. Seen it."

It briefly occurs to me that I could spend less time staring at the big screen in our living room, but then what would I do during dinner? The coffee table, where we eat, is right in front of the TV. The dining room table is too covered with mail, books, laundry, and other assorted junk to use for dining, except twice a year at Thanksgiving and Easter when we clear it off.

Premium cable complete with "On Demand" doesn't help much. Even with our multi-channel DVR, there are limitations to the available programming we can watch. For example, I can't record the current season of Grey's Anatomy because Clyde and I are only on season 7 in Netflix. Plus, it's frustrating to have to wait a whole week before the next Scandal or Madame Secretary airs (note: dramas featuring strong female leads).

I need a new source of programming to feed my binge watching addiction.

So I signed up for Hulu, one more paid TV subscription. And I sprung for the higher priced, commercial free version.

Hulu has a lot of stuff that Netflix and cable don't, particularly in the category of classic TV. Through the magic of Hulu, for example, I've rediscovered the 1960s sitcom, That Girl, starring a bright young Marlo Thomas who plays the bubbly Ann Marie. I used to watch it as a little boy and dream I'd grow up to live in my own apartment in the big city, complete with a boyfriend like her Donald. I can still hum the theme song. Of course it's very dated and corny, but when you think back to 1966, it was pretty gutsy to show a single young woman living alone in big old New York City. Sure, she had a boyfriend to get her out of the worst jams, but she paid her own rent.

Another series I'm enjoying on Hulu is more contemporary, The Mindy Project. Mindy Kaling plays another "single gal," Mindi Lahiri, also in New York City.

It's fun to note the similarities between the two. Both feature independent career women who live alone, at least initially. Both women get into a silly new situation in every episode. Both are a bit shallow: Mindy is obsessed with celebrity gossip; Ann because, well, that's just how young women were portrayed in those days.

The differences are also notable. With 50 years between them, Mindy is a little freer than Ann. While Ann and Donald date for years, there is absolutely no hint that they ever have sex. Mindy, on the other hand, openly sleeps with a succession of boyfriends, usually on the first date. Ann's career options seem limited - she wants to be an actress but often works as a waitress and retail clerk. Mindy is a full blown medical doctor, an OB-GYN. While Ann and Donald are about as white as you can be, Mindy is of Indian descent, though she is thoroughly American. When someone asks her religion, she thinks she might be Hindu but she's not sure.  Ann and Donald don't discuss religion.

It might be interesting to discuss whether television influences or reflects who we are. What can we learn about 1966 from watching That Girl? What does The Mindy Project tell us about our own times, 50 years later? All I know is that I learned from Ann Marie that happiness means getting your own place in the city and having your very own boyfriend. Poof! Here I am. Speaking of my boyfriend, while I watch my stories, Clyde spends his free evenings reading, mostly, though he's just as hooked on Grey's Anatomy as I am.

Who the Hell is Johnny Poling?

I rarely block people on Facebook. If we differ on politics or religion, I may scroll through your posts a little quicker, but I won't unfriend you. Like you, I hope that exposure to my views might change your mind over time. At least I'll get to see a picture of your cat.

But there's a lot more junk on Facebook these days. Whereas I used to spend my FB time catching up with friends and seeing what my nieces were doing, now I seem to be scanning through an increasing number of ads. I'm getting a lot of unsolicited information about local realtors, bridal consultants, South American vacations, and available singles in my area. At this rate, I'll have to find some other way to learn about my high school classmates' grandchildren.

Most requests I get for Facebook friendship come from people I know. Sometimes they are people I used to know and don't remember. If I see that we went to the same high school or university, or if we are from the same hometown, then I figure we must have some connection and I agree to accept the friend request.

Increasingly, I get friend requests out of the blue from complete strangers - people I don't know, never knew, and have no connection to. It's flattering to assume that a perfect stranger likes my posts and doesn't want to miss editions of BillsWeek, but face it, I'm not that much of a public figure.

I'm fairly certain that the scantily clad woman from eastern Europe who wants to friend me because I'm "cute" is not interested in my blog. Not only is she really barking up the wrong tree, she is usually trying to sell me something. When a handsome young man from south Asia wants to become friends "just to get to know me better," I know that someone's marketing is a little more sophisticated.

Which brings me to Johnny Poling. He first showed up on my Facebook feed a couple of months ago. Initially, I assumed he was a friend of a friend or something because those kinds of posts are not that unusual. When he kept showing up, I drilled into his profile a bit to see what our connection was. Turns out, we have no mutual friends. He doesn't go to my church and is not from any town where I ever lived. He appears to be very young, straight, and has long hair. Not that there's anything wrong with any of that stuff, but there is no discernible reason why he would continually be asking me to friend him.

He also asks me to answer odd, random questions in the reply section. "Rate your Freak Level from 1 to 10." "Describe yourself using the first initial of your first name." "Who doesn't have roaches?" "Comment your battery percent and add who likes it." And most ironically, "If you're a real account, comment real under here ..."

All of my real friends occasionally rant about Donald Trump or gun control. Many of them like the daily Bloom County cartoons. But no one real has ever asked about my freak level.

What is a freak level?

It is finally occurring to me that Johnny Poling is not a real person, but a kind of "phishing" persona who is used to gather information on Facebook users, people like me, who are innocently checking their feed for news of friends. When he asks those inane questions he always asks, he's actually learning how to direct advertising to me. They think I will be too polite to refuse his continuing requests.

Well guess again, Johnny. I am not falling for that. Consider yourself blocked.

On the other hand, if you are a real person, indicate it by posting your opinion about Donald Trump.

POSTBLOG from San Antonio: Everything is Huge, Except for the Alamo

Here’s what I’ll remember about the Alamo: crowds and traffic. It’s true what they say, that there’s really nothing much to it. If Clyde hadn’t pointed it out, I would have missed it completely.

This is in contrast to the rest of San Antonio, which is huge. I was surprised to learn that it’s bigger than Dallas. So why does Dallas get all the attention?

But after Houston’s endless freeways and strip malls, San Antonio is charming, historic, and loaded with character. As we drove through Clyde’s old neighborhood, Alamo Heights, I thought of how this city reminds me in equal parts of Omaha and Pueblo: Omaha for the hills, lack of sidewalks, and thick tree lined streets; and Pueblo for the mixture of old and new, and pervasive historic Spanish influence.

Only I would make that comparison.

San Antonio is part of that often overlooked, rich southwest swath of the U.S. which includes Santa Fe and Albuquerque. You cannot be here without acknowledging that Americans come in all flavors, speak multiple languages, and thrive in diverse cultures.

But America it is: San Antonio is one of the more overweight of cities. Obesity is a huge deal here.

After the 24 crash course in San Antonio, it’s back to Houston to celebrate Clyde’s mother’s birthday.

It’s fun to be with Clyde’s family: sister, nieces, nephew, and mother. They are friendly, generous people. I’m already looking forward to the next Texas visit.