Deep, or at Least Random, Thoughts for the New Year

Suddenly, we've arrived at the end of 2012. Because I’m too exhausted to party after last week’s celebrations, I’m sitting here in my jammies waiting to ring in the new year with Anderson Cooper and Kathy Griffin on CNN. I have my celebratory Diet Squirt ready to pop at 10:00 p.m. mountain time when that ball drops in NYC.

Some random thoughts cross my mind:

• I have turned 50. 50! I don't know quite what to do with that, except maybe take a nap. I'm told that the 50s are a time to give back. Hmmm. Wait, was that give back or get back? Perhaps it is time to get back at people for all the stuff they've done to me.
• Just because I live with cats, doesn't mean I'm not also a "dog person." Why do you have to be one or the other?
• I like kids. Just not the ones that throw rocks at my windows.
• Money does not buy happiness, but it sure makes some things easier.
• Nothing enlivens the middle of the night like an anxiety attack.
• With my father's passing, I am now part of the oldest generation in my family. Whether this renders me a wise sage guiding the younger folks through the life's bumpy paths remains to be seen. More likely, a niece or nephew will be wondering whether they should invite old Uncle Bill to Sunday dinner this week, or could they put it off until later. I have started to practice asking my niece, Hannah, "Can you take me back to the home now? Matlock's on at 10:00."
• Buying that new (TV, computer, blue ray, etc.) didn't solve all my problems.
• It's difficult to be philosophical about vacuuming when the cats regularly throw up hairballs onto the newly cleaned carpet.
• One of the cats, Charles, will not allow the litter box to be clean. If I scoop the poop out, he immediately uses it. I don't get to enjoy a clean litter box even for a minute.
• Cooking at home saves money but sometimes the food isn't very good.
• Things are, over all, getting better. Sure, we have to deal with climate change and that supervolcano in Yellowstone is going to blow any time. But Obama was re-elected in spite of the typical Republican shenanigans. Technology, while challenging, really does improve our lives. Homophobia is in decline. The crime rate (high profile murders not withstanding) is falling to the point where they are even closing prisons in some places.
• Sometimes the only reason you do something is because it's the right thing to do.

Happy New Year.

Perky Coworker Reminds Me I'm Old

She sings a chipper "Good morning!" to me every day. I grunt in reply.

She literally texts her friends while she works, with no apparent distraction. I have to wear headphones so I'm not distracted by her giggling with other twenty-somethings nearby.

Either I'm too old or she's too young. She's 24. I'm 50 next week.

When she was born in 1988, I was older than she is now.

I have t-shirts that pre-date her. Most of my pots and pans were purchased before she existed, with S&H Green Stamps no less. I guarantee she doesn't know what Green Stamps are. If you don't know, Google it - it's how we used to get free stuff before credit card rewards programs.

In 1988 I was in graduate school, already jaded and cynical.

In 1988, Star Trek: The Next Generation debuted. I'm just now getting around to watching it.

I did watch a show called Thirtysomething, about some old people in their 30s.

In 1988 I also watched the Golden Girls. They were funny old ladies back then. When I watch the same episodes now, they seem much younger - how did that happen?

The youngsters I work with don't seem much bothered by our age differences. It's my hang up. They, like I, work hard and are deserving of respect.

Meanwhile, I'm thinking I should clean out my spice cupboard - some of that ground basil may remember the 1980s as well.

Dental Care a Harbinger of Change

I noticed at once that everything was different. The receptionist was a different woman. So was the hygienist. It was she who told me that my old dentist had sold the practice and with no warning, I was to be in the care of a new dentist.

I've been in the same dental practice for many years. But this is the fourth dentist in that same time period. The practice keeps being sold.

I originally chose Dr. Coveyduck because he was so good with a friend of mine who lived with special needs. No sooner did I get established as his patient than Dr. Coveyduck decided to retire, leaving me in the hands of a stranger. The new dentist turned out to be ok, but it was only a matter of luck.

As a whole, I've had mixed luck with dentists. My teeth are excellent. I didn't have my first cavity until I was 40 or so.

My perfect teeth didn’t stop one dentist, a flashy, good looking blond who I chose because he was gay, from trying to hard sell me cosmetic dental work. I had previously thought I looked just fine but apparently I had a gigantic space between my front teeth.

The next dentist I tried 10 years later put a big red X on my file and refused to see me except at the last appointment of the day, so the instruments could be sterilized. I told him that I thought they should sterilize after every patient, not just the ones that fit my particular demographic profile. That's when I went looking for Dr. Coveyduck.

Now I'm on Dentist number four in the same practice. It reminds me of when I had the one checking account which rode through multiple corporate consolidations resulting in my unintentional patronage of five different banks. I finally switched to a credit union.

Nothing is as constant as change, they say. I still call that big department store May D&F (others know it as Macys).

I  don't care how many people live in the Stapleton part of town - to me it will always be the old airport.

The bookstore may have moved north years ago, but that building at First and Milwaukee is still the Tattered Cover building as far as I'm concerned.

Is it a sign of age that I can't adjust to the changes around me? No - my mother accused me of resisting change when I was in my 20s. She claimed they had to trick me into accepting a new teddy bear when I was a toddler and the old one disintegrated because of over-use.

I'm pretty much set in my ways. My neighbor saw me carrying a bag into my condo the other day. "Sunday," she said. "Must be bar-b-que."

Servers Regan and Betty don't even bother to give me a menu at the Village Inn any more. They know what I'm going to order.

When I took a week off from work recently, everyone in the office just assumed I was going to San Diego because that’s where I always go. Ha! Fooled them! This time I went to Minneapolis instead.

See, I can vary from my norm once in a while. I might even have bar-b-que on Saturday this week, just to shake things up.

The Hate State

As I bask in the glow of such great election results - the re-election of an excellent president and the surge of support nationally for gay marriage, just to name a couple - I can't help but reflect on elections past which didn't leave me feeling so positive. The most striking example is what happened in 1992. It was 20 years ago that Colorado voters approved an amendment to the state constitution which systematically denied equal protection in any form to Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgendered persons.

This wasn't, like today, a disagreement about gay marriage, but was a referendum in which the majority got to vote on the fundamental rights of a minority.

Amendment 2's passage sparked shock and outrage at home and prompted a nasty boycott of the whole state which ironically put many LGBT establishments out of business. Think about it: all that LGBT money which was not spent in Colorado, was also not spent at LGBT businesses which depended on that money.

I took Amendment 2 personally. How could my adopted home state betray me so profoundly? As I grew up on the plains of Nebraska, Colorado represented openness and diversity. If I sang "Somewhere Over the Rainbow," which I didn't very often, I was thinking of that colorful state on the horizon where I wanted to live when I grew up.

I moved to Denver as a 27 year old in the late 1980s. I was very much at home in the thriving mile high gay community. Denver had (still has) a huge annual pride parade. I was able to join a gay friendly church and I could go to a gay doctor and a gay dentist (I don't now, but it seemed important at the time). There was a large population of other gays in which I could find friends and dates. I could be out of the closet and free.

When Amendment 2 reared its hateful head, our first mistake as a community was to believe that it really didn't have that much of a chance. After all, a similar local measure had failed in Denver the year before.

But we did what we could. We attended rallies, marches, and fund raisers. We went to the places like the state fair and campaigned. We spoke to church groups and put up "No on 2" signs.

As the election got closer, the hate grew uglier. Right wing churches practiced chanting anti-gay slogans. Hate crimes increased. One of the backers of Amendment 2 was overheard to say that if he had his way, all the gays would be gathered up and shipped out by rail, much as the Nazis disposed of the Jews in the 1930s and 40s. The fact that he was absolutely serious was chilling.

The night Amendment 2 passed, the same night Bill Clinton was elected President, my partner and I were at a campaign party in Capitol Hill. When the TVs announced the passage of the Amendment, a sudden quiet descended on the hall. Shock quickly turned to palpable fear. The fear threatened to combust into rage.  A speaker suggested that queer bashers now might think they had open license to attack.

My partner and I decided to head home before a riot started. From our living room, we watched television images of angry crowds gathering downtown, reportedly heading for other campaign parties where could be found elected officials to hold accountable. As TV reporters harassed dazed individuals, Mayor Wellington Webb finally appeared and tried to calm the crowd.

The next morning, amid talk of a boycott and news of celebrities canceling their visits to Colorado, the newspaper announced that a new nickname was catching on: The Hate State. Grimly, I wondered if we should put that on our license plates.

It was tempting to move after that. But where would we go? The backers of Amendment 2 promised to carry their crusade to other states. We decided to stay and fight. But it wasn't easy. As the rest of the world boycotted Colorado, I refused to spend money in any county where Amendment 2 had passed. That pretty much limited my shopping to Denver and Boulder. To this day, I still have misgivings about going to Colorado Springs, the political epicenter of homophobia, though I do understand that not everyone there is homophobic.

Amendment 2 was eventually declared unconstitutional by the U.S. Supreme Court. The 1990s saw whole new waves of activism and LGBT community development across the state. Equal rights advocates learned to cultivate relationships and education in the suburbs as well as in the city. Entities like the Gay and Lesbian Fund for Colorado strategically donated to causes of broad interest in order to create positive visibility. It took a while, but my trust and faith in Colorado returned.

Fast forward two decades. Colorado is a progressive state, one where discrimination against LGBTs is against the law. The new speaker of the house is openly gay. Colorado, happily, voted for Barack Obama twice, and was the first state (along with Washington) to vote to legalize marijuana.

Lots of people don't even remember that Amendment 2 happened. I think we should remember in order to see how far we've come, and also to see what can happen again if we aren't careful.

The Best Dog

When I was a kid we had a couple of dogs. It was mostly my responsibility to care for them, particularly Gypsy, the poodle. I don't remember my dad being particularly interested one way or the other in Gypsy, but I adored her. My mother didn't care for Gyp. She always claimed that a puppy was more work than a human baby, and as soon as we grew up, there were to be no more dogs in her house.

In retirement, my parents disagreed on the issue. Mother won. With the exception of occasional visiting grand-pups in later years, there were no dogs in the house.

But upon Mom's death, after a suitable period of perhaps a month, my dad adopted Peggy.

Peggy was a huge, black lab-shepherd mix, as good natured as could be. She had a fierce bark when the doorbell rang, but we always said that she'd probably end up licking the burglar's hand as he picked through the jewelry.

Peggy was devoted to my father. She kept track of his movements through the house. She woke him up when it was time to move from the chair to the bedroom. She never jumped up on him as he tottered with his cane because she wouldn't want to knock him down.

She was a good dog. The best dog.

She was always happy to see me. I think it's because when Dad had some heart trouble while we were visiting Wyoming, I took care of her. Peggy slept on my bed in the hotel and lived in my car while I sat with Dad in the ICU. I would walk her up to his window to look in so they could see each other. I bonded with Peggy that week and we were best friends from then on.

When Dad died earlier this year, the first question asked by many friends was, "What's going to happen to Peggy?" Our question wasn’t, “What shall we do with her?” It was, “Which of many good homes being offered would be best?”

Peggers was as much the center of conversation as arranging the funeral and other details the week Dad died. At the funeral home, my sibs and I got into a somewhat lengthy conversation about whether Peg should attend the service. Would it be appropriate? Where would she sit? The funeral director finally, tactfully asked, "Who is Peggy?" It must have sounded like Dad had a mistress hidden away and we didn’t know what to do with her.

Last week, after 11 years of bringing happiness to others, Peggy's hip gave out. Surgery, with its inherent discomfort and recovery time seemed a dubious option. Her pain was great and wouldn't respond to medication. Suffering was not to be an option for Peggy and she was released from this life. I don't know exactly what happens to us when we die, but I do believe something happens. And I like the idea of Peggy being reunited with my father, wherever they may be. Mom will just have to tolerate it.

 

(Thanks to Anne Talbot for the photo of a resting Peggy.)

Surprise! People Actually Read This!

In the middle of a recent medical appointment, my doctor looked up from his notes and mentioned that he'd enjoyed several entries of BillsWeek, the blog which you are currently reading.

I was a bit nonplussed. After all, the man who has examined some of my most private places may have inadvertently learned something personal about me.

I was in a meeting at work recently when a manager casually mentioned that she, too, had read BillsWeek. After a moment of surprise, my mind quickly reviewed all content from the last several months to see if there were anything I didn't want people at work to see.

Ooops - should have thought about that before.

That's the thing about putting stuff on the Internet. While odds are slim that any one person will actually see it, chances are good that someone will, and it's unfortunately not going to be the people we want. For example, I wish a certain neighbor would see what I wrote about her unsupervised child throwing rocks at my window a while back, but I'm fairly certain she doesn't read BillsWeek, or anything for that matter. My doctor, however, now knows, whether or not I want him to, that I have a problem with the way children run wild in my neighborhood.

Nothing on line is private. As I have said to many new employee classes: don't post anything that you wouldn't want your mother to see. One only need recall that photo of former Congressman Anthony Weiner's wiener to know that even sending "private" text messages is risky.

The Internet is like a tattoo. When you're young, it's fun to do something outrageous in the spur of the moment, just for shock value. But do you really want that future hiring manager to see it?

I'm careful not to write about some personal things in BillsWeek. It's not that I'm ashamed of much. It's just, unfortunately, not in my best interest to give some people information they may use against me later. I'm also careful not to complain about my job (not that I ever would, of course) or trash individuals that I know personally - with one or two exceptions, such as neighbors' children, one of whom will probably be my boss someday.

With All Eyes on Colorado, I'm in Minnesota

It's fun to live in a swing state.

Make room, Ohio. Colorado's electoral votes are hotly contested and could be pivotal in this year's presidential election. As a result, the candidates visit often. Disrupted traffic is a regular event as motorcades transport President Obama to and from Air Force One which is usually parked out at the local air force base.

The first debate between the President and that other guy will be at the University of Denver this Wednesday. The national press will descend upon the Mile High City like they haven't since the Democratic National Convention in 2008, which nominated Mr. Obama for his first term.

When you watch the focus groups and pundits and analysts and news anchors in Denver on October 3, just 10 minutes away from my home, don't worry about me being stuck on I-25 - which will be closed in the middle of town at rush hour. 

I'm 900 miles away in Minnesota. Can I time my trips or what?

I haven’t been here for several years, but Minneapolis is still a progressive, beautiful, northern city. Is Michele Bachmann really from around here? No, I am told. This is not her district.  

Minnesota is a blue state, radical right-wing congresswomen notwithstanding. It’s not a swing state so things are a little quieter here, though a hotly contested anti-gay marriage amendment and an anti-immigrant voter ID amendment are on the ballot. So I am reminded that you don’t have to live in a swing state to have a contestable, divisive election.

I’ll be watching the debate on TV with Minnesota friends, who like me, are cheering for the President and hoping the challenger will really blow it. In addition to the usual comments and zingers from the candidates, I’ll be listening closely to what the national media are saying about my home town.

Meanwhile, though far from I-25, I suppose I could still get caught in a Minneapolis-St. Paul traffic jam.