Since I last wrote in this blog, Ann and I have gotten engaged and had many discussions about wedding plans, rings, ceremony, etc., we’ve taken a trip to New York City, and we’ve put our cat to sleep. Yet, here I sit with little or nothing to say. It’s funny what I regard as worthy of discussion.

An engagement is really about the wedding, not the marriage. I shouldn’t be surprised at that, and I’m not, though I did take notice of how quickly the wedding planning kicked in. It is funny how so many people have clearly defined rules and ideas about how things should be, both for the wedding and for the marriage, things that are accepted without question. You must have a wedding party. Family obligations will necessarily increase after marriage. I hear such comments and think how little room people allow for deviation from accepted practices and behavior. You make it your own wedding by tweaking things at the margins of an otherwise settled and tightly scripted ceremony—choosing this widely used wedding hymn over another, adding a Beatles song for the recessional, reading lyrics from a popular song. Ann has always wanted a wedding. She embraces traditions. I almost uniformly shun them. I like and appreciate traditions in some contexts—when the traditions are deep-seated and long-standing, the sort that define a culture. I like to view them from a distance—when they are another’s tradition, or a very old tradition that has either been completely absorbed so as to loose its identity as a tradition, or become meaningless rote behavior. Anything less than that is not for me.

We met the Unitarian minister who is to perform the ceremony. I don’t like ministers. I don’t like the pretense (inherent in the position) that they are somehow privy to things the rest of us aren’t. We come to them at critical moments in our lives, seeking guidance. But what do they know? They’re all so uptight, filled with ideas about how things ought to be. Unitarians are no different--they’re just more circumspect about expressing their ideas. This minister irked me a little by suggesting that I didn’t believe in a deity because I hadn’t yet faced serious challenges, such as the death of a loved one. I wouldn’t have been irked if she’d said something to that effect openly, but of course she didn’t. That wouldn’t have “respected” my views, I suppose. Instead, she let me say my piece about not caring much about such issues as god and not having religious beliefs. And then, in a fit of passive aggression, she asked ever so pointedly if I’d ever lost anyone close to me. The implication was clear-- “Oh, you can hold such naïve opinions because you haven’t really been tried in life yet like some of us less fortunate.” The arrogant moral smugness. In what sense does she have any authority, moral or otherwise, to comment on my life and our fitness for marriage? I simply reject her ministerial functions in relation to me. I can respect the experience of ministers in handling people in troubled times. Those involved in such matters, I’m sure, learn a thing or two that can be useful and worthy of respect. So I don’t reject their usefulness in that respect. And I understand that they have experience and usefulness in acting as a sort of master of ceremonies in certain situations. It’s all fine. But I just cannot tolerate any overt or covert invocations to religiosity or spirituality. It’s all bullshit. Period. lol There. So as you see, I’m a little testy on the religion issue.





Some days I look in the mirror and am horrified at my face—it’s gaunt, showing its years, the mouth is too big, etc. And some days I catch a glance and think, “Not so bad.”

A few days ago I had a lengthy discussion with a colleague, a soft-spoken man in his early fifties, thin and frail, balding yet in need of a haircut, a man who carries all the markings of a genuine, likeable nerd. There he was standing in his short-sleeved dress shirt at the entrance to my cubicle, speaking with clarity and earnestness about work-related issues in a pleasant and personable style, gesturing in controlled motions with his forearms and always maintaining close eye contact. And all the while the fly to his tan trousers was completely open. I couldn’t possibly mention it to him there, but all I could think about was the moment sometime later when he would feel a draft below, inevitably and with some embarrassment. Actually, a draft might not tip him off, but if he pees sometime later while wearing the same pants, he’ll wonder how long his fly was down. And then he’ll consol himself with the possibility that the fly just recently got pulled down, without notice by anyone.

At my gym there are three urinals along a wall, and then three stalls along an adjacent wall. The urinals sit on the floor rather than hang from the wall, and they have no cover on either side. Consequently, anyone using a stall or the exit on the other side can see urinating penises. There was a time when I always had an interest in seeing such sights, even unattractive men. But now I truly don’t want to see most urinating penises. Yuck. I avert my eyes.

Yesterday I emerged from the gym and the sky was an eerie, jaundiced yellow. Rain was falling sporadically—there but not over there—and there were two rainbows extending across the eastern sky, one above the other. The lower rainbow was complete. I could see both ends clearly, with well-defined colors in between. A small group of us stood outside at the entrance to the gym, looking up at the sky and occasionally smiling at each other silently. There’s something about a rainbow that brings out goodwill in people.

I loathe the current flip-flop craze.