A Millie-ism remembered

From the same woman who fucked up my culinary vocabulary, and gave us such memorable treats as "cooking cheese" (that's cheddar to those who read the label), and "stove pipe macaroni" (rigatoni), comes "salami seeds"! That's peppercorns for those in the know about such things. I hadn't had salami in a long time and, eating some the other day, recalled that my mom always took out the salami seeds from the salami. They were hot if you bit into them.

Ellen may have Gladys (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xyN22SHf_tg), but I'll always have Millie.

More later, Darrin

A spidery hand

I would write with a fine, spidery hand and
open my mind to the webs it'd spin in
corners and doorways and passages ages
back to places and times and faces and beds shreds
of lies and dreams.

Wishes

I didn't write this, but I think it covers just about everything...

Dear Friends:

Please accept with no obligation, implied or implicit, my best wishes for an environmentally conscious, socially responsible, low-stress, non-addictive, gender-neutral celebration of the winter solstice holiday, practiced within the most enjoyable traditions of the religious persuasion of your choice, or secular practices of your choice, with respect for the religious/secular persuasion and/or traditions of others, or their choice not to practice religious or secular traditions at all. I also wish you a fiscally successful, personally fulfilling and medically uncomplicated recognition of the onset of the generally accepted calendar year 2008, but not without due respect for the calendars of choice of other cultures whose contributions to society have helped make America great. Not to imply that America is necessarily greater than any other country nor the only America in the Western Hemisphere. Also, this wish is made without regard to the race, creed, color, age, physical ability, religious faith or sexual preference of the wishee.

Happy New Year!

More later, promise,

Blueyed Bear

Lessons in Love

Dear Brother Bear,

One chilly night recently my boyfriend turned on the shower to perform his nightly ablutions only to discover there was no hot water. Being sleepy and very ready for bed, selfishly I said, “It's okay, I can just shower at the gym in the morning before work.” It would seem my compassion for him was very lost in my sleepy egocentricity.

It remained lost in that dull lethargy upon awakening the next morning. As I shuffled to the kitchen I noted our three largest pots sitting on the stove full of water. The flames underneath were low and the pots simmering. I wondered to myself "What’s that crazy Puerto Rican gone and done now? What's he cooking at this hour? What's this water for? He’s not even home. He’s at work!”

"Aw, whatever", I grunted grouchily, and I shut the gas off underneath each pot and went down the hall to the bathroom.

Where I was suddenly shaken from my fog by the cold, cold reality of our shower.

Zing! went my mind's eye back to the pots sitting on the stove! Zing! went my mental faculties as they came racing back to life realizing that my boyfriend had thought of my comfort at 3:30 AM when he got up and had to face the cold water. And find a solution. And get to work himself. Zing! went my compassion from its dormant, useless state to full, wakeful presence reminding me how my boyfriend is so much more in tune to the way the world works than I am at times.

And tiptoeing, holding up its lily white skirts came my humility to daintily drop the hem over my embarrassment at my grouchiness. I noted, yet again, that my boyfriend solves problems in a snap while I'm trapped in my analysis of the situation.

I'm learning more and more that it is really the little things that make life worth living. It's the little things that we do for one another that show our true capacity to love. It’s the little things that remind us of our humanity. And all those things we make a "big deal" of, well, they're just aspects of our fears and insecurities come to life. Petty, I think they often call these things. Petty, from the French petit. That is, small.

This wreaks havoc on our traditionally taught calculus. We're taught about these "little things" counting so much. Our teachers, while they’re teaching the right phrase, fail to mention the full meaning of the axiom: that these little things are actually the biggest gifts we're likely to encounter in our lives.

I think we so often call these things "little" because we have measured the wrong thing. We have seen the result, the tangible outcome. We westerners are so enamored with the tangible and with the measurable surface of things. Noting how big, how beautiful, how small, how ugly things are is almost instinct to us. We measure the flower, the card. They're things. Tiny things. Even the little lift or hope they give us that we love are still tiny things.

Greater are the time and thought these things took. Time the giver could have given to some other task. Thought he or she had to make room for in his or her busy mind, trying to manage his or her crazy life.

Still greater is the act. "C'est le geste qui compte"; it's the gesture that counts (another French contribution to our thinking). Forget the silly American notion of "It's the thought that counts." I have a million (maybe more) thoughts every day upon which I never act. Thoughts don't count; acting on thoughts and feelings does.

And still time and thought and gestures are not so great as someone's affection, love or need for us being expressed in them. Whether it’s the whole or part of these affections, loves or needs, they are the truly immeasurable we should see. Priceless and precious and rare.

This all has made me adjust my perceptions, or, rather, align myself with the reality of the universe. By seeing the splendid and divine and enormous in the everyday heartfelt, true, and caring, even in the mundane, I see real life and real love.

One last French lesson: the word mundane comes from the French mondain, meaning worldly. We take it to mean boring, ordinary. Maybe it means real, a part of the world you truly inhabit, not the fantasy world in which your fears and shortcomings would trap you.

My boyfriend has expressed that he would like to go to school and become a teacher. I, a former public school teacher priding myself in my teaching ability and instincts, became recently his apt pupil. He taught me a lesson in love in one swift, elegant gesture that I am not likely to forget. He didn’t use calculus or French, or any of the trappings of the erudite. He used good ole common sense and love. And daily he teaches me the nature and mystery of real love by yanking me back from oncoming traffic as I cross the street, jerking me out of my analytic, lonesome tower and planting my feet on the blessed mundane ground, placing me by his side.

More later, promise,

Blue Eyed Bear

Dumbledore out of the vanishing cabinet

Dear Brother Bears,

My friend sent me the article linked here about J.K. Rowling's finally revealing that Albus Dumbledore of the Harry Potter series is gay. Thanks for sharing the article, buddy! I love the HP series. Similar to the article's author, John Cloud, I have mixed views about Dumbledore's outing. Perhaps Rowling had mixed views about it as well.

I can agree with Rowling's treatment of Dumbledore, allowing him to have a few things on his mind, like keeping hundreds of school kids safe, such that pronouncing his sexual orientation didn't seem a priority. From a story-telling point of view, there just was not any narrative reason for him to reveal this. Beyond narrative reasons, Rowling had to be true to Dumbledore's character. Dumbledore was a teacher, first and foremost, and Harry was a student. Teachers and students suspect the human beings that lie underneath their caste roles, but they almost never reveal them in the flesh. Having been a high school teacher myself, I know it can be difficult, even disastrous, to do so. I think Rowling portrayed the distances necessary in this relationship accurately.

While Rowling left almost everything to be read between the lines, she did give Dumbledore about the gayest line since Auntie Mame when he says to Harry's aunt something to the effect of: "Petunia, your ranunculuses are beautiful this year." And Dumbledore's brother in book 7 as much as outs him when he says "Albus thought the sun shown out of his every orifice" in reference to his infatuation (perhaps love affair) with Grindelwald. Book 7 is where Dumbledore's emotional self and past are revealed. Cloud may not have read that far yet or was "gagged" by Scholastic not to reveal many details from that book.

I can admit to some hesitation in accepting Rowling's treatment wholesale. On the one hand, I am neither glad nor sad about Dumbledore's outing, and think it's merely interesting to understand Rowling's conception of him as a character. As I implied above, Dumbledore's gayness just wasn't important to the story. However, I am not so sure it's a good thing that little gay boys and girls who will spot the same "little hints" as I did should have to continue to be told through rumor and innuendo about gayness. Perhaps it is this same conflict that brought Rowling to out Dumbledore apart from the narrative. That is, this was perhaps the only way to reconcile her needs as an artist to treat the characters and narrative truly and yet be honest about her intentions. Her readers, including little gay boys and girls, now know, without having to guess, that someone many of them no doubt admired was gay like them.

More later, promise,

Blueyed Bear

A little Shakespeare to say it all

BEATRICE
You have stayed me in a happy hour: I was about to protest I loved you.

BENEDICK
And do it with all thy heart.

BEATRICE
I love you with so much of my heart that none is left to protest.

2 men fail to contain themselves at Container Store

by Darrin Pruitt

NEW YORK, July 23 -- Several customers at New York City's Container Store filed complaints Sunday at the store's customer service counter after slipping in mysterious puddles found in the aisles of the Chelsea temple to organization. Customers reported losing their footing while prowling over stacks of translucent boxes and colorful mesh bags, carressing their surfaces with almost religious awe and respect. They stated that they had not seen any substances on the store's off-white flooring and only discovered them while picking themselves up from the linoleum.

It was later discovered that two Brooklyn men had engaged in caressing boxes of their own. The two men, self-identified as new lovers, claimed to have been stimulated by the overwhelming scent of rubber and petroleum derivatives making up the bulk of the outlet's offerings. They formally apologized to the hapless seekers of retail therapy for their potential bruises and concussions who in turn decided to allow the lovers their less-than-contained indulgences.

The pair proceeded home with plans to revisit the outlet, proudly sporting t-shirts given to them in kind-hearted admonishment bearing the store's motto: "Contain Yourself."