The Personal Pages of
Copyright © 1998-2002, .
All Rights Reserved
|
|
Journal
Skip ahead to Tue2, Wed1, Wed2, Thu, Fri, Sat, Sun
Tuesday July 28, 1998 Noon YES! They finally found the collect-call block on my phone. And it's precisely where both the communications guy at the jail and I thought it was almost two weeks ago. At the interface between the two local phone systems, Rochester Telephone (a.k.a. Frontier) and Time-Warner Communications. By this evening, I should be able to receive collect-calls! I guess it's one of the costs of being on the bleeding-edge of local phone service deregulation. Just over three years ago Rochester Tel was the first local telco in the nation to release it's monopoly on local telephone service. And they did so voluntarily. The details of the deal they made with the state Public Services Commission escape me now, but they felt there would be some benefit to them. Time-Warner Communications, then known as Greater Rochester Cablevison, had already upgraded our cable TV service to bi-directional fiber-optic cable. So it was a cinch for them to put voice traffic over the existing fiber. They started experimentally with just large buildings like mine. The fiber enters a box in the basement where the signals are routed to conventional coax cable for TV service, and conventional copper wire for telephone. I switched because the phone wire in this neighborhood was old and noisy. And I suspected that there weren't sufficient "pairs" in the trunk to switch me to a cleaner set. That's the problem we had when Vince and I had our house. The entire block took turns with who had the bad wires. Someone would complain, and they'd just switch the wire with someone else's. Then they'd complain, and so on, in sort of a round-robin of who had the shitty wire that week. Since we had three lines into the house, we got the bad wire three times as often as everyone else. This went on for nine years! So I swore that as soon as I could change carriers, I would. And I did. I was Time-Warner's customer number 960. There have been a few hiccups along the way, like when AOL switched their local access number to Time-Warner, then launched their unlimited-time fiasco. Not only was AOL flooded like everywhere else in the country, but AOL calls saturated the capacity of the interface between Time-Warner and Rochester Tel. Until that switch was upgraded, there were many evenings when I could neither place or receive calls, except to other Time-Warner customers. I was using AOL at the time, so I had less trouble with access than Rochester Tel customers. All I was using AOL for was e-mail and internet access anyway, so when I switched to another internet service provider, I chose one of the two at that time that were also with Time-Warner. I've had flawless service with both Time-Warner and RPA ever since. Cable modem service, (Time-Warner calls it "Road Runner" after the cartoon character), is supposed to become available later this year. You can bet I'll be on that bleeding-edge too. Oh, and I take back all the nasty things I said about MCI and the jail communications office. I re-route all those nasty things to Time-Warner and Frontier. My logic was correct in determining the source of the trouble. But since I'm just a low-life customer and not a telecommunications engineer, what do I know?
Themes seem to sweep into my life time to time. Usually unexpectedly. The current theme: Words I don’t often write about the other journals I read lest this sound like some sort of mutual admiration society. Yet today I found my words quoted on two different sites, and felt a startling resonance with the words on a third. Scott in Oregon quoted a portion of a work of mine called "Lessons" in his July 27th entry. "Lessons" itself is derivative of a work, "The Rules for Being Human" which I found over a year ago on another site. Then, in his July 27th entry, Chris in England quoted from last Friday’s entry about loneliness, which originally was part of an e-mail message I sent to Scott. <Insert Twilight Zone music here.> The July 26th entry from Troy in North Carolina resonated so deeply with my site’s Dedication, some of my earliest works, and the entry that went on to become my first column published in The Empty Closet, that his words could have been my own. And I doubt he’s ever read my site. Strange. I’ve written before of a new journalist, Noah from Texas. I think his writing is some of the best, if not the best, I’ve ever read. I was still thinking about my words being echoed back to me when I visited his site today. His July 27th entry, titled "talk talk", was about his frustration with the inadequacy of words to express himself. I frequently feel the same way, but somehow the feelings I get from my echoed thoughts and words has made my frustration go away. I’m not yet sure what it all means. But it’s an example of why I do my writing. It’s not to tell melodramatic tales of my life, and of those in it, but to touch the thoughts of others with mine. I’ll not leave a genetic legacy, but I hope to live on through my thoughts and words, and thereby touch and influence the future.
Wednesday July 29, 1998 Over the course of the day I’ve got nothing specific today, just some random thoughts that have been kicking around the ol’ cranium.
Words About Words I’ve been writing much more lately than I ever have in my life. Last week’s journal page was 59K alone. It’s the largest HTML file on the site, and it's bested only the 81K JPEG of the document refusing me entry to Canada in June. Then there’s letters, e-mail, and an essay or two I’m working on. Part of it has been the circumstances. I’ve had a lot to say, and being unemployed, I’ve had the time to say it. But part of it is that finally, it’s getting a bit easier for me. If you’ve read the site for at least the past couple of months or so, or if out of boredom you’ve checked out some of the older entries, you’ll know I use words as the proverbial two-edged sword. I’m getting better at expressing myself positively. But I’ve had much more practice at using words to hurt when angry. I’m ashamed to say that in the past I’ve more than occasionally taken a malevolent sadistic glee in shredding people with words of hurt, anger, hate and vengeance. Bringing them to tears, or worse. It’s a side of the sword I’ve honed to a diamond-hard, razor-sharp weapon I wield with deadly accuracy. It’s sad to say that when it comes to "thinking on my feet" and instantly being able to come up with just the right words to achieve my intent, rage brings out the best (or worst) in me. The other side of the sword is rusty and dull from disuse. Finding the words to achieve my intent with this side of the sword still takes a lot of work. These are the words you hear me complaining about having to slave over. I still can’t "think on my feet" to find these words. I’m getting better. But there’s a long, long way to go. Anger and frustration sneak up on me. I don’t realize it’s happening until it’s too late. And then, using a different weapon metaphor, I discharge both barrels. Heaven forbid I should ever find a linguistic Uzi! Dissipating anger and frustration is terribly difficult for me. They may sneak up on me, but then they linger like a boorish guest at a dinner party. And if, as they say in rehab, I "stuff" those feelings, they fester and grow like gangrene on my soul. And sooner or later, they get out, with effective, predictable results. Recently, a most remarkable man has come into my life. You know him as Danger-Boy. And although we can never be lovers, he’s someone I want in my life as a friend and companion for as far into the future as I can see. And yet, he has suffered the blows from the sharp edge of my sword. To his credit, he’s retaliated in kind. I’m not sure if it’s because I’ve met my match, or because he’s the first person in my life who shows no intimidation or fear of that side of me, or if it’s because I fear losing him, or if I’m just plain finally growing up after 41 years. No matter the reason, I finally have the motivation to seek a better outlet for that malevolence. Six years of therapy have been fruitless in providing me the motivation, nor has it given me the "How-to" manual I need to successfully redirect and dissipate those feelings without harming anyone, including myself. I stumbled upon it just this last week. And in retrospect, it’s a method I’ve heard over and over again, and have always scoffed at. The poison pen. On two separate and unrelated occasions over the past few days, I’ve sat down at the keyboard, fired up Word, and assembled my most vicious, venomous attacks ever. And miraculously, as the LaserJet spat out the pages, I felt better. I read and re-read the pages in quiet satisfaction. Then, knowing the hurt they would bring, I deleted the files and pitched the pages into the recycling bin amongst the newspapers, bottles and cans. Unsent. The anger and frustration were gone. And I was then able to deal with those issues rationally and effectively, using the other side of the sword. A lesson learned. J
Kindness Several people over the past few months, including Danger-Boy, have told me they feel unable to return kindness I’ve shown, or have asked what they can do to repay it. My standard reply is some sort of variation on this theme: I never ask for a kindness to be repaid. That makes it too much like a business transaction, doesn’t it? And would it be a kindness if I were expecting something out of it? Wouldn’t that be more of a manipulation? Yet, some people feel a sort of "kindness debt" that needs to be repaid. I’ve been there. Two summers ago while on contract at Kodak, I was in the check-out line in the cafeteria at lunchtime. Everything at Kodak is industrial strength. Including the cafeterias. In this particular cafeteria, there are 14 queues leading to seven cash registers; a queue on each side, and the cashier alternates left to right. As I slid my tray up on the cashier’s right, the guy on the left, indicating me, said to the cashier, "And I’d like to pay for his too." I was flabbergasted! My first thought was that I’d tripped his gaydar. Not so. After gushing forth several thank you’s, I asked him, "Why did you do that?" He replied, "It’s just something I do every so often." Feeling a "kindness debt" I asked, "What can I do for you?" His reply was, "Nothing. Just pass it on sometime." And he walked away. I never even got a chance to read his name off his pass. I repaid that "kindness debt" a month or so later to a couple of Scandinavian tourists I met on a bus while on vacation in Las Vegas. It made their day, and mine. And I’ve been doing stuff like that ever since. It’s great fun on the Thruway. I’ve given the toll attendant $10.00 for a $1.35 toll and said, "I’m paying for the guy behind me too. Give him the change, okay?" and driven off. Another time coming out of the restroom in a service area, an overheating station wagon chock full of a large family and their stuff was parked next to my car. I opened my trunk, and took out the spare gallon of anti-freeze I always carry. As I set it next to the dad who was cussing from under the hood I said, "Here ya go. I don’t know if it’ll help right now, but at least it’s one they won’t charge you for at the garage. Just remember, someday pass it on." The mom was making the sign of the cross in my mirror as I drove off. Catholics. They’re everywhere! J Anyway, my life suddenly changed, for the better, after I started doing stuff like that. I see no reason to stop.
Me and My Big Mouth The superintendent of my building is still on vacation in Italy. On my way to check the mailbox when I got home from visiting Danger-Boy this morning, I saw Linda from the management company in the office, so I stopped in to say hello. You may remember I slept through the "breakfast flambé" on the fourth floor a couple of weeks ago. As I recall, it set me on a rant here. I’d joked with Linda later that morning about the fire drills we've had at work. Anyway, Linda’s on a mission now to make sure every smoke detector has a fresh battery, all the extinguishers are functional, all the exit lights work and stuff like that. She even brought in the Fire Marshall to look the place over. (Fortunately no-one said anything about the fuel leak in my car when I fill the tank.) Around lunchtime she stopped up to check my smoke detector. She put in a new battery, even though I’d replaced it only a month or two ago. Then the other shoe dropped. "Oh, by the way, we’re going to be having fire drills regularly, and I’d like you to be the second-floor monitor." I suggested she try apartment 206. "But that one’s vacant!" she protested. My point exactly. I don’t know what’ll come of it, but I’m holding out for a hat, a badge and a whistle!
Wednesday July 29, 1998 9:00PM Am I wearing a sign that says "Easy mark"? Or do all the crackheads know to "Look for a red mid-eighties Dodge four-door with a fag flag sticker on the back window." Here’s the scoop. I write to Danger-Boy every day. Just so I can fit the last thoughts of the day in, I wait ‘til the last minute and finish up in time to take the letter out to the main post office for the final pick-up at 9:00. That way I know it’ll be at the jail tomorrow morning, and he’ll get it either tomorrow night or the following morning, (depending on how much mail the deputies have to read, and how entertaining my letter is. I always say "Hi" to them. J ) So I came home from the post office and I’m fiddling with the key to activate the garage door opener, just when some guy comes running up to the driver’s side window, shows me a fistfull of fives and singles and says, "Hey man, can you help me? I’m a diabetic in insulin shock. I’m not gonna rob you, see, I’ve got money. All I need a ride home." And he pulled his shirt up to show me he didn’t have a weapon in his waistband. Now, I’ve got the opposite of diabetes. My body makes too much insulin. I know the symptoms hypoglycemia, personally. So I always have a Tootsie Roll with me. The giant-sized one. Tootsie Rolls are made of some kind of inert matter that doesn’t go bad with age, doesn’t melt in the car on a hot day, remains pliable and won’t fracture a tooth in the winter, and conveniently, is very high in glucose. The hypoglycemic’s dream! He barely had the words "insulin shock" out of his mouth and I’d extracted the Tootsie Roll from the glovebox. He was shocked as I handed it to him and told him to get in. As he got in, he told me the general area he needed to go, I closed the garage door and backed out. The Tootsie Roll was gone in like ten seconds. At a stoplight I checked him out. He’s got the shakes, he either hadn’t started the sweats, or had passed through them. If he’d passed through them, that would not be a good thing. He had goosebumps at almost 80º. Consistent with having passed through the sweats. We exchanged names, his is Todd, and we shook hands. His was dry and powdery. He noticed the overflowing ashtray and says, "Hey man, you smoke cigarettes? Can I have one?" Also consistent with hypoglycemia. Nicotine makes your liver dump vast quantities of glucose into your bloodstream almost instantly. It’s always the second thing I want after a Tootsie Roll. He started to stabilize and we talked a little bit as he directed me to where he had to go. As we got closer, little bells started going off in my head. We pulled up to a stoplight and he said "Oh, right here’s okay. Thanks, man!" and he jumped out of the car, as I noticed three patrol cars parked up the block. As he walked away and the light turned green, I called after him, "Hey, Todd! Don’t take any bad rock!" He looked at back at me all freaked out. You see, I sat with Danger-Boy as he went through crack-cocaine withdrawal. Certain stages look an awful lot like hypoglycemia. Todd was late for his appointment with the glass pipe.
I’ve decided I deserve a bit of a break. And who best to give me permission for one but myself! I’ve worn myself out writing over the past week or two and the weather forecast for the Park Avenue Arts Festival this weekend is excellent. Living only one block away from Park Ave, I’ll be in the thick of things. So I junked the entry I'd started for today, and I’ll recycle portions of two e-mail replies, and call it quits until Monday. Enjoy, and take care. I know I will!
In a note to a fellow journalist:
In a note to a friend I’ve not seen for a few months, attempting to explain recent events:
Every journey has it’s rest stops. I think I see one now. Time to pull over for a wee bit.
I've got an appointment for the CABLE MODEM installation! Wooo hooo! On Tuesday afternoon August 11th I get hooked up. I can finally dump this pokey old 56k connection! J Time-Warner calls the service RoadRunner™, after the Warner Brothers cartoon character. This link takes you to the RoadRunner™ home page, and this link takes you to the RoadRunner™ Rochester page. If you're in Rochester and you want to sign up, call Time-Warner at 756-BEEP, (756-2337).
When I checked e-mail this morning there was a note from Time-Warner that RoadRunner™ is now available. I didn't even log-off before calling Linda at Time-Warner. Hi Linda! (She promised to visit the site.) She was such a good sport, and we enjoyed a few laughs. When was the last time you enjoyed a conversation with your cable company? I’m a real happy camper when it comes to Time-Warner. Naturally I get cable TV through them, and of course, Music Choice™. And, both my local phone lines come from them, and soon, they'll be my ISP too! Anyway, I’ve been spoiled by the fast internet connections at work, (when I’m working.) A direct Ethernet connection to the web is truly satisfying. But how much can you surf from work? When I get home, yeah, 56kbps is faster than most people, but by comparison, it’s sooooo s – l – o - w, so I don’t do nearly as much wandering around on the web as I’d like to. We’re talkin’ 10mbps here! Yeah, millions of bits, not thousands of bits! Now I also know that’s the theoretical maximum throughput. I’ve read that I should expect typical throughput in the one to three megabit range. But even at 1mbps, it’s 178 times faster than 56kbps, or 357 times faster than 28.8kbps. And that’s at the slow end of things! (And you already know how much I like speed!) It still doesn’t compensate for slow servers, (like GeoCities), or those times when the ‘net itself is slow. But on fast servers, (like mine), pages load in the blink of an eye. Oh the excitement is killing me! (I think I wet myself!) It’s worth doing a special journal entry for it though. All right. I’ll calm down now. Back to my restful three-day weekend. See ya Monday!
Okay, I changed my mind, again. Saturday's entry is on it's own separate page, entitled "Welcome to My Private Hell". There are no links on it, so use your browser's "Back" button to return.
The first few paragraphs of this won't make much sense unless you've read the Saturday entry entitled "Welcome to My Private Hell." My sister-in-law had to back out on the festival today. Emily, (the baby) was colicky, and she didn't want to leave her home with my brother for three or more hours. Her thinking was that he'd never let her leave the house again! J At first, I wasn't sure if that was a good thing or a bad thing. I know she enjoys it, but after yesterday, I wasn't sure how I'd handle it. I didn't finish and post that entry until after 3:00AM, and so I was very tired after a short night. I got came home and went right to bed. An hour or so later I was awakened by the phone. It was Danger-Boy. He called because he wanted to hear my voice, J and to dictate some edits to the stuff he sent home with me after Friday's visit. That, coupled with the nap, made my day. I really and truly felt better. I edited his stuff, and made some edits to the page I wrote last night. Then, I went to the festival. All by myself! There was a plaque I saw yesterday that I wanted to get the correct working of. I went back with all intentions of hitting just that particular vendor, and coming home. I did the entire Ave. J A wistful thought here and there, but on balance, MUCH better than yesterday. I wasn't paying particular attention to myself, I was both looking for people I know, and cruising. Every once in a while my thoughts would turn inward, and I was pleasantly surprised to learn I was smiling. J Danger-Boy called again later and said he’d checked with the deputies on his time left. His sentence in one town is complete today, and the sentence in the second town is complete on Wednesday the 5th. His next court date is next week Thursday the 13th, and bail for that one is $250. A bit of a stretch, but manageable. We were thinking about the relative merits of his bailing-out this week, versus staying in until the court date. There are pros and cons, (no pun intended) to each position. We have a few days to think about it strategically. The Public Defender's office is absolutely useless in the discussion of strategic issues, as their only motivation is to clear their caseload. So we amateurs will have to think it through. The question is, will the judge look more favorably on him if he remains in jail past the end of his sentence then appears in court? Or will the court be impressed by the fact that he bailed-out at the end of his sentence and returned to court on-time to face the charges? How will either one effect his sentencing on a plea bargain? There are also issues with the jail itself. If he stays in, all this time counts towards any future sentencing, time-served. And if he stays in, there is no change to his bunk location or status, and he’s in a pretty good place within the jail. When he returns however, he starts the whole process over from scratch in Central Booking. Not only is Central Booking a particularly nasty place, there was a shooting there last night! Now, you gotta wonder. I’m wondering. The entire damned city is wondering. Two things. How did the arresting City Police Officers, at the time of arrest, miss finding a gun on this guy when they searched him. Second, how did the County Sheriff’s Deputies, at the jail, miss finding a gun on this guy when they accepted him into Central Booking? The most horrifying part of the whole affair is that, while locked-up inside Central Booking the guy attempted suicide by shooting himself in the head. And the poor bastard lived! He’s presently in the hospital, "under observation." I’m hoping the admitting physicians checked him for a weapon. Now can you see why Danger-Boy doesn’t want to go to Central Booking again? Now, let me preface these next remarks. I know Danger-Boy has been in and out of jail since the mid-80s. He’s a convicted criminal. Weather you choose to call it chemical dependency or substance abuse, he’s a druggie. And, he’s lied to me and manipulated me in the past to obtain money for crack, after he’d been off it for a while. Any of these by themselves makes his credibility somewhat dubious. All together, it spells trouble. Unless you know the man. All that crap (except of course for his record) seems to go away when he’s sober. And his thinking seems to have changed. I won’t share specifics of our private conversations or letters. But I will share this. Even before he said anything to me on the subject, even before he wrote "Essay From the Monroe County Jail", I could sense a change. If you read his essay, you’ll have it in his words. In my words, this is what I see. Changes. He now realizes that alcohol is his drug of entry to crack. It’s simple. No booze, no desire for crack. Therefore … to stay off crack, he cannot drink. Now the next logical step in all this is to say, "Well of course he says all these things. He’s sober, he’s in jail, and he’ll say anything to anyone to get out. Once he’s out, it’ll be the same old thing." Let me address these arguments.
Yes, it sounds an awful lot like a "jailhouse conversion." Yes, I’ll be cautious. Yes, it will take a good amount of time before I’ll trust him completely. But, I’ve seen people take charge of and change their lives. I did it too. Why shouldn’t he have that opportunity? Remember back to the beginning of this entry where I said there was a saying on a plaque at the Park Ave Fest that I wanted to go back, get the correct wording of and write down? I wanted to use it in a future piece about coming-out and coming to terms with one’s sexuality. I’ve had it here on a Post-It™ note in front of me as I’ve written this entry. I think it applies here too. It says: … and comes a time,
Up to Tue1, Tue2, Wed1, Wed2, Thu, Fri, Sat
|
|
|
