leaving 50

www.keepcalm-o-matic.co.uk

this month i will turn 51.  i have previously written about the concept of "aging backwards", and so have no desire to further espouse that topic.  however, i do suspect that it would be fun to explore the idea of "leaving the age of 50", especially since the incident of "becoming 50" initially caused me a certain amount of upset.  now i am aware that just because i think it would be fun for me to write about this, that does not guarantee that it will be fun for you to read.  therefore, i find myself with two tasks at hand:  discussing my taking leave of the age 50; and writing in such a way that you, the reader, are entertained.

i am up to both tasks, let me assure you.  i will start right out of the gate by attending to the latter.

i am having fun these days.  like, really having fun.  this is due, in large part, to the fact that i left my job at whole foods nearly four months ago.  it is also due, to a lesser degree but no less substantially, to the fact that it is summer.  summer in los angeles.  it is difficult for me to imagine my "alternate life" as it would look right now--you know the life i am talking about--the life where i moved to san francisco in may.  while it is summer in san francisco as well, to my best knowledge,  i am sure that many will agree with me that the experience of summer in the two cities are markedly different.  namely, it generally feels like summer in los angeles, as opposed to up north, where summer is so often merely an implication.

this difference lends itself to a whole jumble of fun that is somewhat unique to southern california.  may i list a few...?

...days without putting on a shirt or shoes, bike riding at midnight, cocktails to welcome an 8pm sunset, getting a deep dark tan, sleeping naked on top of the bed, shorts everyday, evening concerts at the pier, outdoor movies, pool parties, writing at dusk or at 3am, hollywood bowl shows, working in the planters, working out in the park, music playing through a screen door, candles on the patio, grilled steaks, grilled pork ribs, grilled chicken, grilled vegetables, grilled fish, grilling, friends for dinner, friends for lunch, friends for coffee, riding down the boardwalk from santa monica to venice, jazz at the farmers market, kids playing soccer til 10pm in the parking lots, skin, sun, heat, peaches!, sun, flowers, sand, stillness, bbq, sun, sangria, sun, lazy, sun, naps, sun, sun, sun.

having lived in southern california my whole life, i can confidently call myself an expert in summertime, and since my birthday always falls during summer's golden waning days, the summertime holds a particular significance for me, transition-wise.   this year thought there is added weight to the meaning of my upcoming age-marker.  i had trouble with turning 50.  i don't seem to be having the same trouble with turning 51.  i have read blogs that have described how it gets easier as one continues through the 6th decade of life--that there is a "relaxing" that usually happens as one discovers that life goes on, perhaps with more aches in the joints, but life goes on.  as i have written before, the anxiety about turning 50 was fueled by the thought that life would not go on, at least as far as how i wanted it to go on.  i thought that a 50 year old would have to act a certain way, dress a certain way, live a certain way, that was markedly different from how a 49 year old, or anyone younger than 50, would live, act, or dress.  i thought that i would have to give up so much of who i was in order to not seem foolish or sad by those bearing witness to my exploits.  and while this way of thinking warrants perusal, it is doomed to failure by a flaw that, in hindsight, i had to be 50 for a while before noticing.

that flaw is simply this:  i was imagining being 50 from a place of not being 50.  

it may sound like a silly flaw, but it is a doozy!  you see, i fell victim to the mistake of predicting the future incorrectly.  in imagining 50 from the place of not being 50, i was imagining that i would be exactly the same, but older, in an older body.  if i were to take that idea and compound it to a ridiculous level, i would arrive at a scenario not unlike what happens in those awful "body trading" movies, where the adult and the kid somehow switch bodies with each other, with ensuing hilarity!

or there is the case where a kid finds himself in an adult body, ala tom hanks in "big", and hilarity ensues!

the problem with this way of thinking, despite the entertainment industry possibilities, is that it is a horribly misguided way of thinking about the future. because once i hit the big 5-0, i was no longer not 50, and i realized that my thinking was not the thinking of a not 50 year old.  confused?  yeah, so was i.  let me see if i can bring in an expert to make it easier to understand.  

in his fantastic book, the antidote:  happiness for people who can't stand positive thinking, author oliver burkeman latches onto the idea of stoicism as a way to see things as they are instead of how we wish them to be--resulting in a confrontation of our fears and a more reasonable and potentially successful response.  in his own words: 

"For the Stoics, then, our judgments about the world are all that we can control, but also all that we need to control in order to be happy; tranquility results from replacing our irrational judgments with rational ones.  And dwelling on the worst-case scenario, the 'premeditation of evils', is often the best way to achieve this--even to the point, Seneca suggests, of deliberately experiencing those 'evils', so as to grasp that they might not be as bad as you'd irrationally feared." (bolding mine)

once this task is undertaken, burkeman then suggests that "using your powers of reason to stop being disturbed by a situation doesn't mean you shouldn't try to change it."  you see, the stoics were willing to look directly at what we all have limited control over, while recognizing that our control is in fact limited.  we run into trouble when we mistakenly think that we have more control than we do.  in the case of my aging, i feel that my difficulty with turning 50 can be attributed to my reluctance to accept that i had no control over aging, and that this necessitated my making unwanted changes to my behavior, changes that i was trying to imagine from not being in the experience of 50.  the process i immersed myself in for the past year, and the reason i am calmer about the whole damn thing is that i have accepted that i am aging, but i also recognize that there are choices that i have around aging that can change my experience of it.  this happened after i turned 50 because i found myself sitting smack in the middle of 50, and it was not all that bad.  i had to accept it because, well, there i was!  and when i looked around and saw that it was not as bad as i feared, i could then focus on how i would choose to be 50, how i would choose to be an older man.

though i am not quite at the stage that this guy is at, this month i will be one year closer to it.  i will be 51.  i am an older man.  i am an older man.  i am an older man.  and that ain't so damn bad.

leaving the familiar

i wrote this post in the last week of may while i was in san francisco.  i decided to keep it in present tense since that is how it sounds best to me.  what do i know.  a lot!  i have since returned home after the Ride and i have to say that i had an amazing week--much better than any "traditional" vacation by a mile.  enjoy...

i am visiting san francisco for the first time in two years--and it is my first time in the city since i decided, last october, that i would not be moving here.  i came up here in preparation for the aids lifecycle, and when i participate in this event i like to be here a few days beforehand so that i can enjoy the city a bit.  i am staying at a friend's apartment in soma, which turns out to be just the right mix of glamour and grit.  actually, there is not much glamour, but i'm telling the story, so how are you going to know what the truth is?

soma is actually very similar to central hollywood, in that every street varies in affluence and amenities.  i discover that within walking distance of the apartment there is a whole foods and a trader joes, as well as the powerhouse bar.  not bad.  i am also offered a deal on marijuana on the street five minutes into my walk.  how is that for convenience?  naturally, i refuse, since i am not about to circumvent the union workers just to save a few bucks.

i am taking in san francisco somewhat differently this time.  previously, i would experience the city with the wonder of someone who needed fuel for the fantasy of moving.  look at the great buildings!  taste the great coffee!  look at the clean air and all the bicycles!  look at the men with beards!  now, in contrast, i am fueling a different fantasy--this being that i made the right decision to stay in los angeles and not relocate.  i don't really need fuel for this fantasy, since i am certain that i made the right choice for my career and my life at this time. but as humans are wont to do, i still look for evidence that supports my decisions and makes me secure in my thinking.  does that mean that you are now going to hear me trash san francisco after enduring years of the opposite within this very blog?  does that mean that you are going to question your own sanity as i rip the city from limb to limb, ranting on not only the expense of living here, but the entitlement of the citizens, and the complete lack of smooth faces?  is that what this has come to?

well, no.  i am NOT going to do that.  there is no reason to.  i still love this city.

i just don't want to live here right now.

well, i would want to live here right now IF i had the money and career to support myself in the city in the way that i am accustomed to living.  but that ain't the case!  i have neither the money nor the career right now to live the way i would want to in the bay area.  i DO have the the wherewithal to continue my usual lifestyle in los angeles, however, and that is no small consideration!  (as i like to say, it is no fun being at the buffet if you can't afford to eat!)

one thing that is very clear to me is that there are no more openings for "homeless person" in the city; in fact san francisco is experiencing a glut in this area.  there may still be opportunities available for "bat-shit crazy druggie", though, but those jobs seems to be filling up fast as well, especially in the evening hours. i do notice a few industrious types combining the two skills quite successfully, so perhaps one must think outside the box in order to win in the san francisco job market.

i also notice that many of the gays here are just too precious--i notice this.  it is odd--they seem way fancy to me.  their masculinity is not "forced" like it is with los angeles gay men, in contrast, it is more fragile, as though one look from me or a "BOO!" would shatter them into a million shards of glass.  there is an entitlement that i sense as well, which is easy to understand, because this city gets on its knees for the gays, and they know it.  but that level of special care can engender a false security--it is the same thing i see in west hollywood.  they walk like they own the streets but have a look in their eyes that suggests otherwise--i see caution when confidence would be the expected response.  to be honest, everyone, not just the gays, appears to be angry or depressed here to an extent, and when i catch their eyes, they seem to be blaming me for this state of mind.  or so it seems.  (or maybe i am just making it up.)  at least in los angeles i am outright ignored, and therefore out of the path of accusation.  i think i prefer the latter!

what would it have been like for me had i moved here?  i can't know, but i can imagine that i would have found new and different challenges to accompany the triumphs.  i like to think of it this way:  i pulled out of san francisco before committing to a relationship with the city.  had i moved here this year, it would have been way too soon, and we would probably have ended up fighting.  this does not mean that i hate it, it means that at this time, we are not a good match.  i remember one time, many years ago, when i did a dating experiment.  i started seeing a guy, and i told him that i didn't want us to have sex for at least a month.  gamely, he agreed to this proposition, and as the month went on and eventually concluded, i came to the realization that i did not want to continue seeing him.  at first i thought that the experiment had failed in that it took away the fuel that would keep the fire burning (sex). but the reality was that i simply discovered, without the gauze of sexual activity, that i was not really into this guy.  it has never failed to astound me how clearly we can think about things when we "bracket" our emotional response to the issue.

san francisco, i will always have a crush on you, but that is certainly not the same as being in love.  i really think that it would be best if we don't sleep together.  don't feel bad--it's not you.  this one is all me.

leaving my youth, backwards

i am still perplexed by this thing we call "turning 50".  i have never in my life run up against something this perplexing!  everybody told me that after a while, life would just continue on as it had before, but how long before "a while" has passed?  cuz i am here to tell ya that life is not as it was before.  damned perplexing, it is.

tonight i was planning to attend a "bike night" at the hammer museum in westwood.






it was part of the los angeles "bike to work week" that occurred this week.  it sounded fun!  there was going to be all kinds of bike related activities"  photos with you and your bike, t-shirts made, new products, art, films, and lots and lots of people on bikes.  just look at how crazy fun the poster looks!

and i was planning to be one of the crazy bike people.  but damned if the evening didn't arrive and i just had no energy to make the trek to westwood, which would have involved either a 45 minute bike ride, or a 30 minute bus ride and a 10 minute bike ride, and then reverse that for the return trip.  you see, what most car drivers take for granted is the ease of getting places.  that is why i am amused at how upset people get when they have to wait for a few fucking seconds in their car.  it must just be unbearable sitting there in your car with temperature control, comfortable seats and stereo music.  just unbearable!

now when i have to go someplace, i have to pedal there.  with my legs and with my feet.  true, i rarely have to wait for anyone, but i don't move unless i exert effort.  physical effort.  and must i remind you that i am 50?

well, the effort to get to westwood tonight was just too too much for me to think about, despite the premise of fun that potentially awaited me.  but let's face it, who wants to be around a bunch of fun folks when the eyes are drooping?  not me, kids!

the funny thing is that i would have fit in just fine there, despite the fact that most of the attendees would have been half my age or more.  because i just don't "look" 50, at least as far as people expect 50 to look.

couple years ago at a bike event

a year ago for halloween--i apologize for NOTHING!

a few months ago at work

and that is the rub.  i seem to be aging "backwards" from the way most people age.   most people, it seems, lose the body and the face and the youthful appearance WAY before they lose the youthful way of thinking.  

and that sucks.  who wants to be in an older body with the thoughts and desires of a younger man?  (think woody allen in "manhattan")  i, on the other hand, seem to be reclining into the thoughts of an older man, while retaining my youthful body and such.  in other words, imagine having a perfectly working order espresso maker, but you no longer want to drink coffee.  what becomes of the appliance?  you can't throw an expensive item away, so you keep it on the counter, and friends come over to your house and comment on how beautiful it is and how great it is to have it, to which you respond, "yeah, it is nice, but i really have no use for it anymore, so it just sits there, unused".

get the picture?

i am not ready to start thinking like an older man.  tonight, i did not "think" like a man of 50, i "thought" like a man of 60, or at least how i imagine a man of 60 would think.  and meanwhile, my "appliance" sits there, in fantastic condition, unused.  i am aging backwards.

leaving the grief behind--for mom

the "weeping buddha"

my good friend marlene has a number of weeping buddhas in her home, and she told me that she finds comfort in them. there are those who doubt the veracity of the figures as an actual expression of buddhist principles, but as an existentialist, i could give a shit about whether "meaning" is officially authorized or not.  if you get something out of something, then in my book, it has validity.  anyway, as the story goes, the figure depicts a warrior who has discovered that he has just killed his own son in a masked battle.  the warrior sits on the ground with his head in his hands, consumed with grief.  they say that the figure has the power to take away one's grief if a person rubs its back.

okay.  i have heard crazier things.

once, when i was visiting marlene, i noticed one of the figures on a table, and i decided to test the theory and rub its back.  mind you, i was not actively grieving over anything at the time, rather, i was excitedly anticipating a lovely homemade dinner with conversation from the aforementioned marlene.   but i thought to myself, there is the buddha figure, what have i got to lose?  so i rubbed its back.
the backs on the weeping buddha figures are usually very muscular, which, in my opinion, accentuates the poignancy of the weeping.   you might agree with me that there is great power in the image of a strong man displaying the vulnerability of emotional pain.

very weeping buddha-ish

the wooden back muscles of the figure felt smooth and cool to my touch, yet there was "life" to the surface of the figure, perhaps due to the fact that they are usually carved out of wood.  i don't know if i can honestly report that i felt calm and serene, but there was certainly a sensual aspect to the rubbing, and i will leave it at that.  i don't blame marlene one bit for collecting these things.  i don't blame her one bit.

***

my mother lost a child, a daughter, but i never saw her even once approximate the weeping buddha pose.  had i known of the depths of her loss and grief, i surely would have purchased a weeping buddha for her to rub.  as it was, i was scarcely aware of the incident at all, due mostly to the fact that it happened before i was born, but also due in part to my mother's reluctance to talk about her daughter's death--at least not until i asked her about it as an adult.  when i did finally discuss this with her, i discovered that my mother was nearly destroyed when it happened.  fortunately for her (but not so fortunately for me), i popped out a month after my sister's death and demanded immediate and constant attention, thus distracting her somewhat from the paralyzing grief.  the role that i played in this drama was one that i never auditioned for, nor was it one that my mother intended on casting me in, and yet it was a role that created a certain unbreakable bond between me and her--even if it was a bond encased in ice.

and yet let it not be doubted:  my mother loved me beyond the stars and the moon.  of this there is no question.

Mom as a young woman

she died years ago, and during the stage of her dementia when she was aware of her failing body and mind, she was buoyed by the belief that when she died, she would finally, after nearly 50 years, see her beloved daughter again.  i get that. she didn't have much else to look forward to at the time.  a once strong, stylish, and beautiful woman, she was, in her 80's, slowly reduced to a frail, old woman who wore sweatshirts everyday, and she was aware that her time was nearing the end.  i can't fault her for finding comfort in the idea of a long overdue reunion.  i can't fault her one bit.  but i don't believe it myself.  the way i see it, my mother is not with her daughter, she is just dead.  not an easy sentence to write, but then who said that death was an easy subject to write about?  my personal grief has mercifully faded in color over the years after the initial burning shrapnel of losing her, though i am certain that it will never fully recede.  there is simply no preparation for living without the one person with whom i had been connected to since i came into being.  there is no "closure" when it comes to that grief--but that does not mean that one can't go about one's life.  (i would like to strangle the person who coined the term "closure".)  my blogger friend ron writes similarly about his journey through grief around his mother's death.

mother's day used to be hard, but now it is more like valentine's day and easter--just another holiday that everyone else celebrates while i go about my usual day. and yet, and yet, it seems a bit unfair that i no longer get to celebrate the holiday just because mom is gone.  i have written previously about what i would do on mother's day if she were still alive, and i hold to that imagined plan, but these days i am more likely to reminisce about how close we always were, and how much i miss her on a daily basis.  there is a bittersweet gift one gets when their mother dies, in that you stop being someone's child.  figuratively speaking.  that, in itself, is an unexpected "gift from beyond the grave", in that it has forced me to consider my own legacy in this world, knowing that one day i too will die.

but not yet!

with the average life expectancy rising to the age of 100, i am with all probability square in the middle of my life, as it were.  though i often miss being my mother's "child", i do relish being an adult with purpose and agency, a celebration that could not have happened had my mother not given birth to me in the first place.  in that respect, i will always be my mother's child.  and so i leave the grief behind, somewhat, and move into cherished recollection and increasing gratitude, because, let's face it, i am alive.  

happy mother's day, mom.  happy mother's day, from your child.

the last picture i have of us together, in the care home.  she was holding her "baby doll".

unrequited loves

brownsharpie.courtneygibbons.org 

we all have them.  all of us.  and don't ever underestimate the power they have over our lives, these unrequited loves.

i often wonder, when it comes to unrequited loves, if perhaps the "one that got away" may actually carry more influence over our lives than the ones that stayed at home.  if i were to experiment on myself, i would then have to assess which category of experience i carry more frequently in my thoughts.  hmmm.

there is a way of thinking that goes like this:  we want most what we cannot have.  many would argue that the best example of this is shakespeare's romeo and juliet.

source:  http://www.observer.com/2008/romeo-and-juliet-do-upper-east-side

viewed through a modern lens, the love affair in this play seems almost silly to me now--i mean who could take seriously the "love" between two teens (romeo was 16, juliet was 13)?  and yet, in its time, the characters were very much able to experience passionate love.  hell, in its time most people were married by the age of 16 and dead by 50, but i digress.  where today you would simply have a crush between two young schoolkids, back then it was life and death love.  what made the difference?  for me, the difference is that the love of romeo and juliet, unlike a modern schoolkid crush, was forbidden.  and didn't proust say "rejection is the greatest aphrodisiac"?  not exactly the same thing, but close enough.

of course, for teens, love is most always super-duper passionate, and that seems to be the case no matter what age we are in.  now that i think about it, a good cinematic example of passionate young love surfaced during the last century, and since i recently re-watched this film, it is freshly present in my mind.  i am referring to "endless love", the brooke shields vehicle from 1980.  though not a romeo and juliet per say, it is a portrayal of a very passionate love, or at least a very obsessive love.  it starts out as a lovely snapshot of the times--free love and permissive parenting--beautiful young people exploring passion for the first time.

but then it takes on the romeo and juliet factor:  the love becomes forbidden, and all hell breaks loose.  by the end of the film, parents are divorced, a house is burned down, one father is dead, and everyone is fighting.  but you know what?   the love between the two teens endures.  very much unlike shakespeare.

but back to unrequited loves.  love can certainly be unrequited because it is deemed forbidden, but that is not the only cause.  love could become unrequited because it is unattainable due to distance, culture, or age.  love could become unrequited because the object of love does not return the affection or share the feelings.  love could become unrequited because of self-denial, such as a married person not acting on a work crush.  or love could become unrequited because someone decides that it would not be in his or her best interest to pursue the object of affection.  this last instance is the circumstance i want to comment on in this post, since that is how i view my relationship with san francisco.

***

my decision to not move to san francisco broke my heart just a little bit--even with the relief and the confidence that came with my choice to stay in los angeles.  the decision has been on my mind a lot lately, because had i gone through with the move as planned, i would currently be negotiating the last weeks of my los angeles life.  i would probably have made the move in april or may at the latest, and by all accounts, i would probably be freaking out.  but i also would have been excited, a bit.

now i have gone over the decision to stay in los angeles in other posts, so i don't need to cover that territory again.  but i do realize that by not moving to san francisco, i may forever hold the city by the bay in my heart as an unrequited love.  and maybe that is not such a bad thing.

the city of san francisco has a mythical appeal to many, including me.  my favorite myth is that it is where the lost souls of atlantis, reincarnated as current folks, gather to reconnect with one another.

Atlantis by Chris Diston
Puddle Jumper by "Antiker"
Rendered in 3d Max 7
Clouds made in Paint Shop Pro 7

i like that myth, even though i don't believe that atlantis ever existed, or that we have souls that can be reincarnated.  but i digress.  i enjoyed thinking of myself, even if only in my imagination, as a wandering holdover from a long deceased advanced society, and that my move was merely me finding my way home.  haha. i do love san francisco, i do.  but i also wonder if i would continue to love it had i consummated the relationship with a move.  would the mythology hold up among the reality of making a go in a new (very expensive) city?  would the sheen begin to dim as i became more familiar with the annoying crowds of hipsters or the violence in the east bay or the ridiculous cost of living there or the cold damp weather?  would my love become tarnished as i arrived at the realization that i had left behind my entire support group and all my cherished friends?

when i moved to los angeles, it was not because of love.  i moved here because i wanted to make it as an entertainer.  there was no illusion that i was going to love the city. i guess you could call it a "marriage of convenience", devoid of passion, but not unbearable.  los angeles and i used each other.  over time, i have grown fond of this city (and hopefully it has become fond of me), or at least certain aspects of it, perhaps in the same way that one becomes fond of their partner in an arranged marriage.  you deal with it, because that is where you are.

san francisco would have been a move for love.  but would it have stayed that way?  well, i may never know.  but i do suppose that i would continue to love it, maybe in a different way.  it is a great and beautiful city after all, and there is so much to love, and it is so right for me.  but this is not the first time that i have made a decision against passion in the name of good sense, and i have accumulated very few regrets along the way.  one might say that my life is littered with unrequited loves.  perhaps yours is too!  and that, in my opinion, is a good thing, as long as we have some requited love right from time to time. it is possible that i love san francisco more because i am not moving there, but that is not the only shift that is happening.  i also find that i can no longer hate los angeles--because i have chosen to stay here.  so i get to uncover myths behind my being/staying in this city, and along the way, who knows, i may just fall in love.  i just may.

why atheists love christmas more than you do, part two

This is Part 2 of 2. To catch up on Part 1, please go here.

i started getting real christmas trees around the time i was in my mid-forties. before that time i am not sure i ever really thought about doing so.  when i was a kid we always had an artificial tree--we used the same one every year that i can remember.  i still remember how the branches were color-coded on the ends so that we knew where on the trunk to attach them.  can you imagine just going bonkers and attaching them any which way?  now THAT would have been fun, but alas, we stuck with the rules in our household.  my mother did all the tree decorating, at least until we were old enough to help her, and back then she used to make a lot of the ornaments by hand.  i actually helped with the ornament creation at one point, being a "creative" young lad.  we would use push pins and sequins and cover the ornaments with our own "designs".  it was fun.  these days, my ornaments are designed by jaclyn smith and martha stewart.  ha.

my christmas tree 2012, with "designer" ornaments

the time that i started buying live trees for the holiday coincided with my desire to have my own "adult" christmas in my own home--the way i wanted it to be. this didn't mean having orgies and booze flowing down the walls, it just meant no more going to my brother's house.  both of my parents had died, so there was no longer any obligation there, and i hate travelling during the holidays anyway.  part of this desire to create my own christmas holiday was the feeling that i wanted to make something happen that i had never experienced on christmas--namely, a home filled with warmth, good friends, holiday music, and great food. so i began a tradition of having an open house on the eve of the 24th, inviting my los angeles friends and preparing a dinner buffet spread complete with desserts and beverages.  i have been doing this for six years now.

you know when you have a sense of something that you want, and even though you have never had it, you just know what the experience would be like? perhaps this sense comes from witnessing such events in other situations, but nevertheless it always amazes me how possible it is to create, in reality, the experience i long to have.

my tabletop "mini-tree", decorated just like daddy tree

the christmas eve gatherings were an instant success, for me and seemingly for my guests, and i felt as though i had indeed created the kind of holiday i had always hoped for.  friends came and went, the drinks flowed, the food filled tummies, and at the end of the evening i would feel...happy.

my living area with decorated christmas trees

each year i would make adjustments to the menu, adding a new recipe, repeating some favorites, offering more, paring it down.  and concurrent with that i would try to tweak the house decor as well.  i would place the tree in a different area, have a changed color scheme, add new decorations.  this year i went all out, and i truly feel that the apartment has never looked better for the holidays.  after a rather subdued "winter blue" color scheme in 2011, i decided that i wanted color--lots if it--bold primary colors brightening up the place.  so i started with traditional red and green, and then i added blue, noting this color combo in one of martha stewart's magazine spreads.  i couldn't have been more pleased with how it all turned out--though the full decorating process took over a week.

close-up of the ornament colors on the daddy tree

i had decor of some sort all over the place.  i found this great tinsel garland tree at target for 18 bucks and thought it would be perfect for my office, and it was.

i placed a small spotlight underneath it so that at night the tinsel was lit from within--it was gorgeous!  i found little evergreens at trader joes, perfect for the end tables.  i put lights in the windows that simulated snowflakes, and "candles" that would turn on at dusk and turn off at sunrise.  it may sound like a lot, but i think it was just enough.  

trader joe's always has fun holiday greens

the whole shebang accented and followed the main color scheme.  i should do this for a living!

the classic "bowl of balls"

and of course i had a welcome sign on my door, because that is where it all begins!

for the buffet table at my party, i had a vision of a sort of fantasy christmas scene:  a tree surrounded by a train track, with a christmas train of course.  and fake snow.  of course.

and then i imagined that the buffet dishes would look great sitting on giant christmas "presents", wrapped in the same color scheme, of course!

a gay man NEVER places buffet dishes flat on the table.  levels are EVERYTHING!

the whole table, ready for food!

i share all these details so that you might appreciate my friends' dismay at how much i am into the christmas season.  for some reason, they equate my atheism with being a party-pooper during the christmas holiday season, and the truth is really quite the opposite.  the best way for me to explain it is that atheism, for me, released the holiday from its religious constraints.  in my mind, christmas, at least culturally, is in a war with itself.  it tries to be both one of the most sacred of observances in christianity, while also being the greatest tribute to consumerism that occurs during the year.  this results in the conflict of interest i described in part one.  most people, religious included, have a fairly easy time incorporating both aspects, since that is what most of us grew up knowing, but as christmas has become bigger business, the divide as started to grow.

my ascent into atheism forced a different meaning onto christmas--a deeper meaning, one that related directly to me and the kind of life i wanted to have.  it was less about getting stuff and more about giving stuff, less about consumerism and more about community.  i always say that meaning is more powerful if it is self-assigned rather that externally sourced, and that was certainly the case here. my dream for a certain christmas eve experience lent the holiday the power to connect me socially to my friends and peers.  it lent the holiday the power to re-cast me as a creative type, something i have lost a bit of touch with since my 40's.  it would not be an unreasonable reach at all to connect my increasingly elaborate christmas decor to my increasingly meaningful lack of faith.  there is simply nothing to feel guilty about anymore!

and this is the secret that the faithful never suspect when it comes to atheism. atheists tend to enjoy life more, because we spend less time feeling guilty.  what we DO spend time doing is making sure that we live life fully,  because the reward is in this life, and there are no do-overs, so everything carries more relevance.  we don't have the "luxury" of eternity, as the faithful do, so there is a vital urgency to what we choose to do, and an greater attention to the present time.  so for me, i can answer my friends that i celebrate christmas so big because the chance to create community means so much to me.  in fact, it is practically what i live for.

i read an article in the new york times early this year about some of the benefits of being an atheist, and the author, susan jacoby, wrote this absolutely fantastic line about the atheist value system:  "the absence of an afterlife lends a greater, not a lesser, moral importance to our actions on earth."  the way i understand this is that life and death, cause and effect, for the atheist, are under our power to notice, engage, and influence, as opposed to being simply events we are passive audience to.  for us, "thou shalt not kill" is a choice, rather than a commandment, and so our decision to not kill is more solid; it is more of a statement of purpose in life.  for example, i don't kill because i don't want to be a killer--it would not be a pleasant experience for me (or for the other person!), NOT because it is "bad" according to someone else' rules.  because of this, i assert there is a greater chance that i will not kill than someone following the ten commandments.  if you don't believe me, just look at the incidences of abuse in the catholic church to understand how ineffective outsourced morality is.

for the holiday, my desire for community is not something i can simply "pray" for--if i want to be surrounded by community, then i had better do something to make this happen!  and this is how i end up with a buffet full of food and a house full of friends every christmas eve.

ready to eat!  carved ham with rolls and condiments, roasted butternut squash salad

proudly standing in front of my creation!!

this, for me, has meaning.  and this is why i am sure that i love christmas more than you do.

why atheists love christmas more than you do, part one

regarding the title, i don't really know this to be true, but i strongly suspect that it is.  the title presents a "hypothesis" i have about christmas, and while i have an obligation to support any hypothesis i present, i am not burdened with proving it.  yay for me!  in order to fulfill my obligation of support, i will present the case of me.

in my childhood, i loved christmas.  LOVED it!  not an unusual declaration, i admit, but necessary to establish context.  i lived on a street where all the houses decorated for the holiday, and we would have lines and lines of cars coming through our block to view the lights and lawn displays.  this tradition continues to this day.  it was a child's fantasy--lights and carolers and music and people--it only became a pain once i started driving, and i realized that it would take me 20 minutes every time i tried to leave the house or return to it during viewing hours.

a recent pic of my childhood home decorated for christmas--my brother lives there now.

beyond that, i loved christmas for the usual reasons:  presents.  we were upper middle class growing up, so christmas day was a bonanza for me and my brother in the present department.  i was such a good boy, i usually got everything i asked for.  and this went on for years!  i didn't stop believing in santa claus until i was 12, and i overheard my mother telling my older brother the TRUTH about santa claus.  at the time, i was crushed.  i believe to this day that it was the first of many times my world would be a little bit shattered as i learned that all was not as it seemed.  ah, the loss of innocence.

but christmas, as i got older, began to bear the burden of solemnity.  here we were, supposedly celebrating the birth of jesus, with his humble beginnings and all, and the overriding concern for me was whether i would get everything on my list!  cue up the greatest tool the catholic church has to guarantee continued observance:  guilt.  you see, as i got older, i began to think that maybe i was celebrating christmas wrong, and that i should be in mass at midnight rather than forcing myself to sleep so that santa could descend through the chimney.  this conflict of interest never failed to put a pall on my enjoyment as the years wore on--it was as if the baby jesus himself was standing naked and shivering on our doorstep while inside we opened presents in the warmth of our upper middle class prosperity.

then, as an adult, it changed up a bit.  though the block continued to decorate, our family fragmented, with me and my brother both living away from the house.  we would come over for christmas, but now there was only one or two presents under the tree for us instead of a windfall!  it just wasn't the same!  i wasn't aware that my parents were any less prosperous, so what happened?  did they love us less?  did they care less?   i remember my mother telling me once that she never knew what to get for me.  how could this be?  if anyone would know, wouldn't it be her???  you know, the woman who gave birth to me?

oh, how the world shatters!

after a while, the holiday became...less.  we all started opening our presents on christmas eve, so christmas day became this anticlimactic void of a day.  i remember how the first time this happened i thought that perhaps there would be a "holdover present" that would appear under the tree for me to open on christmas day, but alas, i would wake up to see nothing more than the previous nights torn wrappings.

shattering.

around the time the holiday became less, i moved from san diego to los angeles, so it was actually an effort to come down for christmas, and i began to consider whether or not i could just skip the whole damn thing...

to be continued...

For Part 2, please go here.

musings on the new year...

the pictures throughout this post are from different events from 2012 that i either hosted or was a part of, and some of them are just random photos from special days--starting with january 1st, 2012.

a diary is appealing to me at three differing times:  when it is empty; when it is being filled up; and when it is full.  now even though these three times would seem to claim ALL of the diary's life, there are important differences separating the three.  when the diary is empty, it is a receptacle for possibility and potential.  when it is being filled up, it is a process in motion.  when it is full, it is a narrative of recent history, some foreseeable and some wildly the opposite.  now if you are thinking that i am about to apply this same logic to a new year, then you are right on the money!  and this, ladies and gents, is the reason why new year's eve is the most important holiday of the year to me.

1/1/12 santa monica beach from the bluffs

as a boy, my life was fairly predictable.  i went to school, then in the summer i didn't go to school, and at night i would do my homework after the family dinner.  on sundays i would go to church.  i played.  then, at the age of 15, something extraordinary happened.  life got unpredictable for me.  a big part of that was due to the changes i was experiencing physically and developmentally--i was becoming a young man; i was opening up to, and becoming available for, a whole host of new experiences.  but there was more involved in the process than just that.  i began to have permission to make choices, something that had previously been the exclusive territory of my parents.  this shift created a perceptible and essential change in my "diary".  during my 15th year, i began to "author" more of the entries in my own diary.  and from that time on, each year has brought with it a whole slew of new choices for me to choose--some supporting predictability, and some not.

one of the characters who draw people to the venice boardwalk, even in january

other "characters" who draw people to the beach!

my feeling is that once i am no longer surprised by anything that has happened during the previous year, that when that happens, it is possible that my time will be coming to an end.

in january i spent a week in palm springs, riding there in this monster!

now, isn't that cheery?  i will tell you this, though, that whenever the "slowdown" happens, i suspect i will gladly welcome it.  there may come a time when i am happy enough to just relax through the day and ruminate on past endeavors.

on vacation in july in greencastle, mo., riding the four-wheeler!

this year, i am actually doing a version of exactly that.  you would think that someone in my position in life would be at a grand ball, or a sex-drenched crypt or a strobe-lit underground dance hall on new years eve.  you would be mistaken for having any of these assumptions, though not faulted for thinking them.  what i am doing this evening is sitting at my computer in my softly lit office, alone in my apartment, and i am writing this very blog post.  since it is new years eve, i have dressed with more care than i would normally display when hanging out around the apartment.  i have on pants, a button down short sleeve shirt, and boots.  i am drinking tea because i am wrestling with a sore throat that someone at work passed on to me in a completely non-romantic manner, but i do have a bottle of bubbly that i plan to open up in a bit so that i can toast in the new year.  i plan to stay up until midnight, and perhaps a bit later, depending on how much noise is going on around me in my hollywood neighborhood.  i have a party horn, and i have a noisemaker--my favorite kind--the ones that you spin around and they make a cranking noise!  fantastic!  and at midnight i plan to go outside with my bubbly and my noisemakers, and i will try to wrangle all of those things while "shooting" off a small confetti cannon.

i have no doubts that, like last year, the kids across the street will be setting off fireworks and sparklers, and that the tenants upstairs will be blasting their version of "good music" at their respective parties, and that maybe i will even run into another person toasting the new year under the stars.

celebrating my 50th in august at providence in l.a. with my best bud

but unlike last year, i will not be toasting to my "last year" in los angeles.  i will be toasting to my decision to stay--my decision to spend another 10, 15, or 20 years here in this crazy love-fuck of a city.  i will be toasting to staying here where my friends and therapist peers are; where i have found most of my loves and most of my heartbreaks; where i discovered that higher education could free me forever from dogma; where i left one career of passion for another career of passion; where i renewed and enhanced my love of bicycling; where i found out that i am a writer; where i can spend new years day on a bluff overlooking the pacific ocean while feeling the sun on my face;  where i turned 30 and where i turned 50, and where i have a home.

my halloween costume:  "zipperface"

as recently as two months ago, my diary for 2013 was sub-titled "the san francisco adventure begins", but now it is sub-titled "the los angeles adventure continues".  it is an odd thing when we make life changing decisions--in many ways all decisions are life changing, just some more obviously so than others.  but a decision to not move is pretty BIG life changing; i have, in effect, erased all potential san francisco entries in my 2013 diary.  what would have happened up there this year?  but the upside is that those entries will now be filled with what happens in los angeles this year, and while it may not feel as exciting as being in a new city with new places and new people, that does not mean that this won't be one of my most memorable years.  within this year i will be leaving a job i have had for over ten years to start a new career that i have been working towards for nearly that same amount of time. i will develop a private practice, and i will study for, and take, the mft licensing
exams (and i will pass them!).  i will gain time to write more, time to take more yoga, time to have more time.  in other words, my life will change this year in major ways.

and that is just the stuff i know about!

my apartment with the tree up and decorated in early december

so i will go and open that bottle of bubbly, and i will toast, like many of you, to an ending and a beginning.  and then will blow that horn, spin that noisemaker, and shoot off confetti like nobody's business.  because THAT is what we do on new years eve.  that is what we do.

happy new year, 2013.

hosting my annual 12/24 open house

*update:  it is now new years day, and i have to report that last night i did NOT make it to midnight--i crashed at 10:30--succumbing to the cold in my head and my early start of the day.  this was the first new years stroke of midnight that i have missed since my early teens!  see?  the unpredictability of the new year is already showing itself.

the big announcement

the other day, i watched a wonderful documentary entitled "happy", and it proceeded to examine several different people and groups of people in different areas of the world to determine what makes people happy.  sounds like a pretty vague concept, no?  well, it wasn't. 

i was glad to see that much of the information presented was not only observational, but also information backed by scientific study.  one of the most interesting studies they brought up was one in which it was determined that 50% of our happiness level is determined by genetics, and only 10% is determined by our circumstances; i.e. our job, our health, how much money we have, and where we live.  only 10%!  this leaves 40% that is determined by what they call intentional behavior, in other words, actions that we take in our lives to cause something to happen.  this can include exercise, social activities, etc.

wow!  here i have been spending the last few years thinking that a move to another city would have a major impact on my level of happiness, when the research shows that our choice of where we live is only a portion of a 10% impact!

well, this took me by surprise, indeed!  but here is the thing, and i promise that this is leading up to the BIG ANNOUNCEMENT.  the thing is that i watched this documentary after making the decision behind the BIG ANNOUNCEMENT.  so while this information did not have a direct impact on my decision, it certainly did help to support it.  so here is the BIG ANNOUNCEMENT:

i am not moving to san francisco.  

that's right.  i am not moving out of los angeles.  i am not, as the saying goes, leaving caLi(forniA).  here is how it came to pass...

i was riding my bike to the counseling center to see clients on a saturday morning, when all of a sudden i had a sensation in my body.  this sensation "told" me, in no uncertain terms, that i was not going to be moving.  and when i felt it, i was immediately aware that it was a certainty, and that i would not, indeed, be moving.  the next sensation i remember feeling was relief.  and then, out of the blue, while riding my bike to the center to see clients, i did the most unusual thing--i started laughing.  and later that day, when i got back to my apartment, i looked around and i actually said to the walls, "i am not leaving!", and i meant it.  i would not be dismantling and leaving this apartment that i love so much--this place that has been my home for the last ten years.  you can take a look for yourself at these photos from my airbnb profile:

the main room looking toward the dining area

the dining area and my childhood piano

my office and beloved bookshelf

my sunny kitchen

the sanctuary

can you see what i mean?  and can you see why it is hard to get excited about leaving this rent-free two bedroom apartment in order to move into the highest rising cost rental market in the united states?  i think that i have been down this year because i have been failing in my attempts to get excited about living in the bay area.  i have been able to get excited about leaving los angeles, just not living in the bay area, if that makes sense.  i feel that there has been a developing suspicion that all would not be that much different up there, i would just be in such a worse place financially, at least for a couple of years.  and maybe that was fine when i was in my 30's, but in my 50's, after working my whole life to build a bit of a comfortable life, i just can't see the reward in throwing that away for the chance that i may rebuild it again in the future.

here is the bottom line:  i knew i could never stay in los angeles out of fear of moving.  i knew that the only way i could stay is if i came to the decision that it was what i preferred to do.  and the truth is that i do prefer to stay--at this time.  it will be SO much easier to study for my MFT licensing exam, take the exam, and build a practice while remaining in my apartment and being in the same city as my support system.  i already have clients who i can move into my practice, i already have friends, and i already have a setup that makes it easy to slowly build a new practice without the worry of financial hardship or pressure.  it just took me five years of processing to come to that decision!

of course, you know what i am doing here...i am building up evidence to support my change of mind.  but i'm not doing that, really, because the change of mind came about as a result of evidence, not the other way around.  i feel that i really thought it through.  there is a wonderful book (of COURSE there is a book involved!) that i read last year called "stumbling on happiness" that i may have mentioned in my posts before.  one main point of this book is to illustrate how poorly we generally predict our own happiness in the future.  we think about all the goodies that we will get by doing something or moving somewhere, and ignore all the unpleasant details.  then we do the thing or we move to the place and discover that it is not all we had thought it would be.  well, that is something that i cannot afford to have happen.  so my though process involved as much bad as good, and at the end of the day, the good that i came up with did not outweigh the advantages that i have in staying here.  and it all came to me while riding on my bicycle.  pretty perfect, i would say!

so now what?  well, i have some work to do on my relationship with los angeles.  i will tell you this--i AM excited about exploring possibilities for increased community here, it will just take more effort than i have been investing.  but one benefit that has already manifested is that i have been able to break the news to my friends here, who have surprised me with their expressions of relief that i am not moving.  i am very moved by this.  and the blog?  well, just because i am not leaving california now doesn't mean that i won't eventually leave...you might just say that i have delayed the process for a while.

so stay tuned, folks...