Things to Do Before I Die

I've reached the part of midlife where a man typically buys a red sports car, dates a teenager, and gets hair transplants in the futile attempt to recapture his youth.

I’m in no danger of doing any of those things. But between a recent birthday and the coming of a new year, I sense mortality creeping ever closer.

I have no desire to be young again but it has occurred to me that at this point there's more time behind me than in front. As a result, if there's anything I want to do I'd better get it done before it's too late.

So to commemorate the passing of another year, I set out to make a bucket list. In case you don't know what that is, a bucket list is a list of things you want to do before you die.

Turns out it isn't as easy as I thought.

It's tempting to write down the usual clichés, but most aren't things I really want to do. For example, I could list sky diving, but I'm not trying to speed up the end of my life. Another typical item for people in this part of the country is climbing all 54 fourteeners (mountains over 14,000 feet) in Colorado. I can't think of much I'd rather not do more.

I've really already done most everything I ever wanted to do. I've lived in some varied places. I've earned a Masters degree. I get paid to do what I love, which is writing. Granted, my technical and training materials aren't best sellers, but still...

Just surviving this long is quite an accomplishment considering how I spent my 20s. Some of my friends didn't make it this far. I'm a lucky guy.

So what is on my list?

I've always wanted to stay at the Brown Palace - Denver's finest historic hotel. It's luxurious, dripping with Victorian elegance, and expensive. It's also haunted. I've never been able to justify spending the money it costs to stay there. But one of these days, I'll just cough up the dough and go.

I would like to visit the three states I've never been to: Alaska, Maine, and Vermont. Saying I've been to all 50 states seems more doable and frankly more interesting than 54 mountains.

I'd like to learn Spanish. It's a prominent language in the U.S. and likely to become more so (in spite of the narrow-minded efforts of some who would like to legislate it away).

And then I'd like to go to South America and speak it. One fun fantasy is to walk down the Avenue de Mayo and sing, "I want to B A part of B A, Buenos Aries, BIG APPLE!" In case you're not gay, that's from the musical, Evita.

That's my short list. I guess I'm pretty lucky to have had such a satisfying life, or at least reasonable (low?) hopes and expectations. And upon reflection, I probably have plenty of time to do these things before I kick the bucket. But perhaps I’d better Google Spanish classes just in case.

A Huge Leap in the Right Direction

Today’s  65 to 31 vote in the U.S. Senate to overturn the misguided 17 year old compromise allowing gays and lesbians to serve in the military (NY Times story), but only if they keep it a secret, is a major step forward for our country.

There are times when I think we’re going backwards, what with all the political extremism and ignorance so evident among candidates in the recent election.

But today let’s put that aside and celebrate a huge leap in the right direction.

Yes, it shouldn’t have taken so long.

No, it’s amazing that we are so far behind other countries like Israel where everyone has to serve, without consideration of sexual orientation, and Canada, where in every province, gays and lesbians can get married.

Clearly we have a long way to go. But I believe we’re going to get there.

When I came out of the closet at age 17, the military was the furthest thing from my mind. I registered for the draft, but I had no intention of joining up, and I was quite relieved when I realized that they wouldn’t take me anyway. It never occurred to me that it should be my right to serve. I just wanted to move to the big city where the other gays were and live my life in peace.

Back then, I never would have imagined that legalized gay marriage would be the central controversy of the gay rights movement. We’ve come a long way.

Sure, I want things to happen more quickly, but this kind of change is hard fought. Women’s suffrage took nearly a century. Slavery required a bloody war. But eventually, missteps, battles, and all, we eventually get to where we need to go.

And of course there is still sexism and racism, and there will always be homophobia. But sexism and racism are fringe in the 21st century, unacceptable to the mainstream. Homophobia is now one step closer to the fringe as well.

Desegregation of the armed forces signaled the eventual end to legal segregation everywhere in the U.S. Today's decisive victory over "Don't Ask Don't Tell" signals the eventual crumbling of institutional homophobia. When the majority of military people think it's a non-issue, it’s easy to foresee that only the most die-hard religious fundamentalists who wallow in their own bigotry will be left behind.

We’ll need to keep fighting, but today, let’s stop for a moment and celebrate.

Making the Most of the Holidays by Doing Less

I didn't go to the company party this year. I just didn't want to. By the time Friday night comes around, I'm exhausted after a long work week. I don't want to dress up.

While I'm at it, I'm not sending out holiday letters this year. Scrambling for stamps and cutting my tongue while licking envelopes is a daunting prospect. Anyway, I suspect that Facebook, for better or worse, is making the holiday letter something of a relic.

I’m often called a grinch. I own that. I’ve been called worse.

I'm not putting up a Christmas tree for the second year in a row. My two year old cat, Charles, won't let me. I tried it. He wants to eat the branches. And I mean the plastic, synthetic branches of my artificial tree. I didn't even get the glass ornaments out. I'm sure he would make quick work of those.

General principle: if it causes more trouble than pleasure, or if the merriment is compulsory, then I opt out. It’s all about boundaries. My energy is limited.

I haven’t Christmas shopped for several years. Everyone I know has way more stuff than they need - including me. The last time I was in a mall at Christmas, I think Pat Schroeder was our Congresswoman and I saw her shopping at Niemen Marcus. Instead, I’ve made a practice of donating the money I would have spent on presents to the Denver Dumb Friends League (the local Humane Society). Family members seem to appreciate that as much as any doo-dad I could buy them.

Why do we drive ourselves crazy with activities that don't add to our or anyones’ enjoyment of the season?

I haven't gone to a New Years Eve party for several years. I don't drink and I can't stay awake late. I prefer to quietly reflect on the coming year and perhaps make a reasonable resolution or two. New Years Day, I want the flexibility to be depressed about the prospect of a long, dark winter without being forced into false cheer.

Don’t get me wrong. When I do elect to take part in holiday goings-on I will do so with relish.

Here’s what I plan to enjoy before the year changes:

• Lights. Lots of colored lights. Charles did allow a couple of strings at home, just not on a tree. Most years, I drive around the city looking at lights. There’s a house in my neighborhood which is loaded with illumination and even has its own radio station so you can listen to music choreographed with moving parts and sophisticated light shows. And in Denver, no tour of lights is complete without driving by the City and County Building, easily the most spectacular holiday display in the Mountain Time Zone.
• Dinner at Fresh Fish Company. Yes, for me, Christmas, New Years, and my birthday are all one big glop of holiday. Like many restaurants, if you sign up for it, Fresh Fish Company sends a postcard every year near your birthday allowing a percentage off your entre equal to your age. That grilled salmon and asparagus drizzled with hollandaise sauce with a side of garlic mashed potatoes is getting closer and closer to half price for me.
• Time with family. My family is a lot of fun and it just wouldn’t seem right to celebrate Christmas without them. This year, my siblings and nieces and I will converge on my dad’s house in Fort Collins. I’ll probably make corn chowder for Christmas Eve. Some of us will go to church, most of us won’t. I’ll drive home to Denver late so I can feed the cats and get some sleep. Christmas morning, I’ll rise early and head up there again.

So you see, I’m not a total grinch. I simply like to get the most out of my holiday by doing less. If you see me at a festivity this month, you’ll know I’m not faking merriment. If you don’t see me, well, happy New Year.

Traditions Bring Meaning to the Holidays

Ah Thanksgiving! When people of every faith (or none at all) gather with family and friends to reflect on the good things in their lives.

Many cultural traditions play out this week. It’s the one occasion when most of us eat turkey. It’s the busiest time of year at airports. It’s when we untangle the colored lights, plug them in, and check whether enough bulbs are burned out to justify buying a whole new string.

There are traditions unique to each family. Some like the cornbread Stove Top stuffing mix while others prefer the herb flavored. Others mix the turkey dinner with traditional ethnic food. Some, for example, garnish sweet potatoes with layers of brown sugar and thousands of mini-marshmallows.

And what would Thanksgiving be without the crystal dish holding the traditional jellied cranberry sauce in the shape of a tin can?

It’s these folksy customs which add color and distinctiveness to a celebration. We have a little gem in my family which is repeated every Thanksgiving.

At some point during the preparation of the traditional meal, the cook, usually the host, turns to the guests who have congregated around the food preparation area, and from the heart, with all the feeling a major holiday can inspire, says:

"Ok. That’s it. Get the HELL out of my kitchen."

The first year of this request to vacate was at my sister's house. Her mother-in-law, several guests, and her sister, brothers, and nieces were milling around half prepared dishes of food, adding chaos to an already chaotic situation. The noise level had risen to the point where the two inhabitants of the adjacent living room were unable to hear each other. Without warning, my sister cried the famous words which have so oft been repeated.

Experience had taught those of us related to her by blood to do what she said. Her brothers, sister, and nieces left the kitchen immediately. Unaware of the risk to their health and well being, the less-experienced in-laws and friends laughed and remained huddled around the counters. I was too afraid to peek in and see what happened next.

Kitchens are instinctive gathering places. It probably dates to those chilly Thanksgivings celebrated by early homosapiens who lived in caves. To escape the relentless cold, all the cavepeople and their families and friends gathered around the fire for warmth -the same fire over which the cavehosts cooked the traditional mammoth meat.

In the 21st century, the living room is also warm, but as the guests arrive, they intuitively migrate to the kitchen, chatting happily as the cook/host struggles to create counter space.

Meanwhile, the living room, where chairs are carefully placed to facilitate traffic flow and maximize social interaction, is empty - except for the cats who have discovered that the appetizers on the coffee table have been left unattended.

Does Martha Stewart ever have to deal with this stuff?

Don't get me wrong. I enjoy my guests and I'm happy people like spending this special day in my home. I like talking and catching up as much as anyone.

But it's stressful to coordinate a large dinner which you only prepare once a year, juggling an unnaturally large bird which was frozen just the day before in a floppy disposable foil roasting pan, monitoring several side dishes which need various amounts of heating, checking on rolls which can easily burn, and timing it perfectly so that its ready to eat all at the same time.

About the point where the turkey is done, the corn needs 30 more minutes, and it's time to start the gravy - a delicate and precision operation which could affect the outcome of the whole dinner - I wave my baster in the air and bellow the traditional holiday plea.

Stunned, most people back away, out to what's left of the appetizers.

Fortunately, my momentary lapse in hospitality is forgotten as soon as the steaming gravy flows over the mashed potatoes.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Postblog from the Virginias: George Washington’s Nephew Slept Here

I may write a blog about what happened at the actual retreat, but it really was intense and I’m still processing. As you can see below, just getting there was an experience in itself.

I knew there would be rolling hills and in early November, a variety of colors from light brown to deep red, highlighting the heavily vegetated landscape. I knew that it made sense to fly into Washington DC to attend a retreat in West Virginia, only 63 miles – but at least two worlds – away.

I’m not unfamiliar with the region. I did time in the Old Dominion back when I was young.

What amazes me about the east is that everything is so close together. Yet these 63 miles from DC to WV, the distance from my Denver condo to my dad’s house in Fort Collins, couldn’t be more starkly different.

And the differences are sudden. When you cross a border here, you have really gone someplace.

I’m glad I sprung for GPS with the car rental.

The Virginias were not built on a grid. No road or highway goes in a straight line. When driving through “The District,” as some call the city of Washington, you start on a parkway. The GPS directs you to exit onto a little two-lane road which takes you to a major highway. Turn off onto another parkway going into suburban Virginia where you zig-zag over to a toll way which twists and turns toward the mountains, which (being from Colorado) you suspect is that little ridge up ahead.

Northern Virginia, at least this part, is dotted with gigantic new mansions. There is serious money up here. Everyone has room for horses and every home seems to have a greenhouse attached. Three or four story houses sit on lush grassy acres, the cuttings of which must be used to feed the horses.

I have never seen so many vineyards. Is Virginia known for wine? Sign after sign beckons me to come in for a taste, but I continue my journey, eager to reach my destination before dark.

I have the feeling that when it gets dark out here, it’s really dark.

There is no sense of direction when you are used to always having the Rocky Mountains on the west. Without the reassuring instructions of the electronic GPS voice, I wouldn’t have any confidence I was going the right direction.

Sure enough that little ridge marks the border to West Virginia. The mansions with horses suddenly give way to ordinary houses featuring multiple pickups in front. Vineyards yield to bait and tackle. The only large new buildings are churches.

My retreat is in an historic mansion which sits on a 300 acre plantation said to have once been owned by George Washington’s nephew. I have no reason to doubt the pedigree, but it does seem that to give anything legitimacy in these parts, there has to be some connection to old George, or at least Thomas Jefferson.

The problem with this mansion, though it dates back to the 1820s, is that the GPS doesn’t know about it.

This remarkable feat of technology, in communication with satellites high above the earth, directs me to turn off the state highway onto a county road and proceed for 20 miles. I’m then told by the feminine GPS voice to turn at the corner where a paved road, one lane wide, circles some scary, rednecky looking mobile homes.

“Mabel,” I hear clearly in my mind, “Where’s the shotgun? There’s a stranger drivin’ on our land.”

The pavement becomes dirt by a wood where four deer leap in front of the car just as the road comes to a sudden end.

“You have reached your destination,” the GPS happily intones.

Uh, no, I haven’t. I have no idea where I am.

I consult the directions I printed out on Google-Maps before I left home. They make no sense at all. I am lost.

Long story short (too late, I know), I get Zelda (the name I’ve given the GPS lady – we’ve grown close over the past few hours) to direct me to a Pizza Hut in the little town a couple of ridges over. After driving back and forth around West Virginia’s Panhandle, taking many false turns but seeing lots of beautiful country, I finally arrive at George Washington’s nephew’s plantation.

It’s only 63 miles from National Airport, but look how far I’ve come. It must have seemed a universe away two centuries ago. I guess folks back then knew how to get around without help from Zelda. Or else they were smart enough to just stay at home where they belonged.

An Election That’s Out of This World

Every election cycle seems more excessive than the last. Candidates are more extreme. Commercials are increasingly outrageous and definitely more prolific. The public appetite for "change" is huge. Does anyone remember that the politicians they want to change away from in 2010 are the same ones they voted in just two years ago in the name of change?

Don't even get me started on the Constitution. Like the Bible, the Constitution is occasionally dusted off and conveniently re-interpreted in order to fit the immediate purposes of the user. Many of the obnoxious Tea Party people who want to "go back" to the constitution don't even know what's in it.

Ken Buck, Republican candidate for U.S. Senate here in Colorado, is all for the Constitution but is not in favor of the separation of church and state.

Huh?

Christine O'Donnell, running for Senate in Delaware, seemed genuinely surprised that the most sacred of our national documents contained such a clause.

Another odd thing about this election is that, in spite of a national tsunami of Tea Party activism, the TP (pun intended) chosen candidate for governor of Colorado (I can’t even remember his name) is trailing in third place, behind Democratic Denver Mayor John Hickenlooper and the American Constitution Party candidate, famous anti-immigrant, and let's face it, racist, Tom Tancredo. Guess which one I'm for.

But the most stunning thing I've seen this election season was the one that caught me off guard as I filled out my mail-in ballot last weekend.

Initiative 300 reads:

"Shall the voters for the City and County of Denver adopt an Initiated Ordinance to require the creation of an extraterrestrial affairs commission to help ensure the health, safety, and cultural awareness of Denver residents and visitors in relation to potential encounters or interactions with extraterrestrial intelligent beings or their vehicles, and fund such commission from grants, gifts and donations?"

Ok, my first observation is that it really is much too easy to get just any preposterous notion on the ballot. But this goes above and beyond.

I might expect such an initiative in a wacky place like San Francisco or even nearby Boulder, but here in the Mile High City where most of us live in "the real world"? I thought I’d seen it all when at least three marijuana dispensaries popped up within walking distance of my house.

Denver has its whimsy. There's a giant two-story tall blue bear, for example, looking into a window outside the convention center. Our local airline, Frontier, features a different animal character on each plane, every critter marketed with a distinct name and personality. And while we're at the airport, you may have noticed that instead of a regular roof, the terminal is topped by what looks like a circus tent.

But extraterrestrials on the ballot?

Local officials are embarrassed. Some fear it will scare away businesses looking to relocate. Apparently they think the big blue bear attracts business, but ET scares business away.

Personally, I don't see the harm. No public funds will be used. And isn't any publicity for the city good publicity? If I were in a colorless, depressing metropolis back east and looking to relocate, I think I'd be attracted to a whimsical town out west that has the imagination to anticipate possible contact with life from other worlds.

So I voted YES on 300. And while I’m at it, perhaps I'll make sure the guest towels are ready, just in case a little green alien stops by.

Here’s to Another Wild Weekend

Sunday Morning – I can’t move. I’ve stayed in bed long past the usual time. My head is pounding. The cats knock things over to get me up. Their breakfast is overdue. It’s 6:30 a.m.

You see, I stayed out much later last night than normal. I imbibed substances my body isn’t used to and I indulged in entertainment usually only enjoyed by a whole different strata of society.

It’s not that I did anything illegal. I was simply invited by some good friends to a fund raiser for the Rocky Mountain Arts Association.

The evening featured lots of movers and shakers, artists and patrons, Lesbians in all their finery, and gay men who probably spent hours getting that casual put-together look just so. Many were drinking wine and engaging in sparkling conversation. The highlight of the evening was a monologue delivered by Leslie Jordan, one of Hollywood’s most outspoken and notorious gay comic actors. You may remember him as Beverly Leslie on Will and Grace, or Brother Boy (channeling Tammy Wynette) on Sordid Lives. There was even a silent auction whereupon I bid, but didn’t win, a lovely hand-sculpted vase.

I made several trips to the bar and drank copious amounts – of club soda and diet coke. The worst things I consumed were scallions wrapped in bacon, runny brie baked in a flaky pastry, and little fruit tarts with the crust dipped in white chocolate (not my finest Weight Watchers hour …).

And the most shocking thing of all: I didn’t’ get home until almost 11:00.

What has happened to me?

Friday and Saturday nights used to be time out on the town. I never got home before 11:00.

In those days, it was only right to have some fun after a week of hard work. With Saturday and Sunday looming as relatively free days during which I could recover, I could stay up late and "PAR-TAY."

Most of the world seems to continue in this way. One only need venture down to LoDo, the district in Lower-Downtown Denver where every weekend, brew pubs and coffee houses are crowded to the point of overflowing. Partiers clog the sidewalks and horse-drawn carriages clop down the 16th Street Mall as taxis and pedestrians try to cross.

Or so I've heard.

I haven't been to LoDo after dark for maybe five years. And then I was only leaving Coors Field before the game ended so I could beat the traffic.

Nowadays, by the time I get home from work on Friday afternoon, I'm too tired to even think of going out. As I fold back the comforter around 8:30 p.m., I recall my youth when friends and I didn't even leave for the bars until 10:00. After last call several hours later, those of us who weren't lucky enough to hook up would head to breakfast at the White Spot, a 24-hour diner populated by drag queens which long ago disappeared under some of those fake new lofts in the Golden Triangle along Broadway.

Now, if I'm not too sleepy, I'll watch some recorded Science or History Channel documentary on my DVR until about 9:30 when I can no longer hold my eyes open. It's a good bet I'll be fast asleep by 10:00.

About 5:00 a.m., when in the old days I'd just be getting home (mine or someone else’s) to plop into bed, I now stretch, throw back the covers, and rise to feed the cats. The most thrilling part of the weekend is beating the crowds at King Soopers before the sun comes up.

I don't date much these days and I can't help but wonder if, in part, it's because I go to bed so early. If I force myself to be out at the bewitching hour of 8:30, my dinner companion observes me as I yawn widely, rub my eyes excessively, and jerk my head back suddenly as I fight off sleep. It's usually no reflection on him.

I suppose I’m just getting older. But I wouldn’t mind, say, a breakfast date every now and then.

There must be other single, middle aged gay men who engender the "early to bed, early to rise" lifestyle, but I can't figure out how to find them. They don’t hang out at King Soopers early in the morning, that’s for sure.