I just stood for 10 minutes waiting for two little old ladies to conduct their business at the coffee shop counter. First it was the ordering of sandwiches, choosing meats, condiments, cheeses. Then drinks had to be ordered. Decaf or regular? Whipped cream? Water on the side. Then desserts. One wants the triple decker white cake, the other the mud pie. After all is ordered, the dishes gathered together and carried to tables, and the total tallied, these two women, dressed in long, loose dresses and large-brimmed straw hats, remove the purses hanging from their tiny shoulders and place them on the counter to begin the search for exact change. After some effort they combine their resources of spare change to come up with what they think is the correct amount, except that of course they’ve misheard the total that the clerk told them, so the process begins again. Apparently it wasn’t acceptable that the clerk simply give them change from the $20 bill that they gave him. And all the while I was thinking how easily one could snap one their frail little arms. The clerk and I exchanged grins, which of course the old ladies did not notice, caught up as they were in their quest for nickels and dimes lying at the bottom of their little clothe purses. God bless them.

This week a co-worker told me how a clerk at a store had been rude to her because she wanted to buy a greeting card worth $2.49 using a credit card. She didn’t realize that I have my own personal pet peeve regarding that very thing. I had to tell her please to never, EVER, use her credit card to pay for a cup of coffee, ever. We are not yet a cashless society, and unless they can expedite credit card transactions, let’s hope we never are.

Yesterday I had lunch with a group of gay attorneys. I had never met one of them. He was an older man, nice enough, entertaining to listen to in his own way, though he had a penchant for monopolizing the conversation. Subtle but noticeable. As we all parted, I noticed he wanted to touch me more than seemed appropriate in a professional context. Well, it was social, but I was among co-workers in front of my office building. He was touching my shoulder, seemed to want to hug, incidental touching of my chest, etc. I truly don’t mind that sort of touchy feely among gay men. And with older men it seems almost sweet, the least I could do for the older guys. But I started to wonder how far it could go before I was implicated in a bit of unseemliness myself. I mean, inappropriate touching can be impugned to the toucher while the touchee remains blameless. But if the touching is allowed to continue without protest, at some point the touchee is implicated. At what point must I protest? Doesn’t matter in this case, because he didn’t cross the line.

I haven’t been buying much music lately, mostly because I can’t seem to find a good time to go to the music store. But it’s forced me to dig into my collection and listen to some music that I either haven’t listened to for a long time or never gave it an adequate chance the first time around. This week I’ve been listening to some of the older pieces of Steve Reich, things like Desert Music and Music for Mallets. I never really cared for Desert Music before, but I’ve finally come around after more listening. Well, his music for orchestra, or even for just strings, is not very interesting, in my opinion. John Adams is just the opposite. His music for small ensembles doesn’t seem to come alive like his music for orchestra. But Reich is truly great with unconventional musical forces, typically including percussion of some sort, and he’s pretty good with voices. Desert Music is a full-scale cantata for orchestra and voices, and it’s wonderful. But what has been most surprising to me recently is how I’ve come to love the symphonies of Honegger. My friend Gerry would be pleased. He loves Honegger. I don’t know anything of his music but his symphonies 2 and 3, and I never cared much for them, but I’ve come around totally. Symphony #3 in particular is excellent. He writes complex, sophisticated music. That symphony uses a big orchestra sound, almost Strauss-like in places, which surprises me.

I am less than 30 pages from completing Proust’s 6-volume masterpiece. What will I read in its place? Nothing will ever quite match its perfection and beauty for me. Here’s a discussion which struck me. He’s speaking about dating and being matched with one’s “type.”

“There was a time when [Odette] had found Swann attractive, which had coincided with the time when she to him had been ‘not his type.’ The truth was that ‘his type’ was something that, even later, she had never been. And yet how he had loved her and with what anguish of mind! Ceasing to love her, he had been puzzled by this contradiction, which is really no contradiction at all if we consider how large a proportion of the suffering endured by men in their lives is caused to them by women who are ‘not their type.’ Perhaps there are many reasons why this should be so: first, because a woman is ‘not your type’ you let yourself, at the beginning, be loved by her without loving in return, and by doing this you allow your life to be gripped by a habit which would not have taken root in the same way with a woman who was ‘your type,’ who, conscious of your desire, would have offered more resistance, would only rarely have consented to see you, would not have installed herself in every hour of your days with that familiarity which means that later, if you come to love her and then suddenly she is not there, because of a quarrel or because of a journey during which you are left without news of her, you are hurt by the severance not of one but of a thousand links. And then this habit, not resting upon the foundation of strong physical desire, is a sentimental one, and once love is born the brain gets much more busily to work: you are plunged into a romance, not plagued by a mere need. We are not wary of women who are ‘not out type,’ we let them love us, and if, subsequently, we come to love them we love them a hundred times more than we love other women, without even enjoying in their arms the satisfaction of assuaged desire. For these reasons and many others the fact that our greatest unhappinesses come to us from women who are ‘not our type’ is not simply an instance of that mockery of fate which never grants us our wishes except in the form which pleases us least. A woman who is ‘our type’ is seldom dangerous, she is not interested in us, she gives us a limited contentment and then quickly leaves us without establishing herself in our life, and what on the contrary, in love, is dangerous and prolific of suffering is not a woman herself but her presence beside us every day and our curiosity about what she is doing every minute: not the beloved woman, but habit.”

Last night I went to a local club, which features a mix of a drag queen shows and dancing. The MC of the show is always very good. Last night at one pint she said something about it being near the end of summer. It’s still July, for Christ’s sake! Please. Why do we all rush to our disappointments, as if to take the edge off the pain of diminishing hope and optimism. We rush to get it over with, whatever casts a shadow over our future. Every morning as I’m driving through the parking garage I see people making a nuisance of themselves by insisting that they back into their parking spots. I can’t help but think this is all part of the same mentality—they feel that by backing up into their spot in the morning they’ve cleared from the remainder of the day whatever unpleasantness they feel by having to back out of their spot in the evening. When they get out of work, they can just pull right out and zip home. Everyone wants to get out of the way things that they don’t like. Winter is ugly so we hasten its approach. Kids and teachers dread the return of school so they begin to imagine the impending return long before it is here. I understand the impulse. I just wish those damnable people who back into their spots in the morning would stop it. It requires much more precision and care, and takes up more time, than if they’d just back out when they leave. At least then they have more space and room for error. Backing into the spot in the morning is NOT equivalent to backing out in the evening.