First a few old things I never posted:

Toward the end of Sartre's novel "The age of reason" there's an exchange between Mathieu, the protagonist, and Daniel, the unlikeable gay. Mathieu has gotten his mistress or part-time lover, Marcelle, pregnant, but after failing to secure the money for her abortion, he refuses to marry her. Daniel steps in and promises to marry Marcelle himself. “Homosexuals have always made excellent husbands—that’s well know,” says the homosexual.

Then later, Mathieu says, “Look here, what you are is none of my business. Even now that you’ve told me about it. But there is one thing I should like to ask you: why are you ashamed?”

Daniel, the homosexual, responds, “ I am ashamed of being a homosexual because I am a homosexual. I know what you’re going to say: ‘If I were in your place, I wouldn’t stand any nonsense. I would claim my place in the sun, it’s a taste like any other,’ and so forth and so on. But that is all entirely off the mark. You say that kind of thing precisely because you are not a homosexual. All inverts are ashamed of being so, it’s part of their make-up.”

“But wouldn’t it be better--to accept the fact?”

Daniel replies, “You can say that to me, when you have accepted the fact that you’ve a swine. No. Homosexuals who boast of it or proclaim it or merely acquiesce—are dead men. Their very sense of shame has killed them. I don’t want to die that sort of death.”

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Much of the time my mind feels like it’s deteriorating. Maybe it’s just my imagination. But I can’t seem to focus or follow complex material. I constantly forget what I’m doing or where I was. And it’s not just at work. As I work on my house, I’m always having to retrace my steps. Why did I drop what I was just doing and set out for the stairs? What did I need and what was I going to do? This doesn’t happen after I’m half way down the stairs. It’ll happen just as I’m dropping my hammer to rise to my feet before approaching the stairs. It’s as if I’m slowly leaving my life of interweaved memory for a new life of countless unconnected moments. Will Ann be driving me to the park ten years from now, to walk the dog in silence, dementia having finally overtaken me. The prospect makes me sad for Ann, but I’m oddly ok with losing my wits. It seems like a painless way to fade from the world. I don’t feel a driving need to keep up with others--those sharp, young whipper snappers who can complete entire tasks and then later recount it to friends. Cohesive mental function is overrated. Of course the real sign that I’ve lost my mental facilities is that Ann and I are walking a dog in the park. So far I’m still able to recall from day to day that I do not want a dog to care for.

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Our neighbors have hung a single string of white lights around the top of their otherwise unattractive enclosed porch. These sorts of all-season lights give me a warm and fuzzy feeling, sending me back to childhood days vacationing at campgrounds, or at my family’s musty cottage along the Allegheny River. These lights, or strings of similar lights covered by cheap plastic globes, would often decorate the dingy pop-up campers parked at summer camp sites, lending the sites a sense of enviable permanence to those of us vacationing just for the week. How were they so lucky to be on vacation all summer at this get-away spot? Often when I looked at these seasonal sites, with their strings of lights, wooden decks, and lawn ornaments, and the deflated camper tires, I wondered if perhaps they weren’t going anywhere at the end of the summer season. That prospect, even for a kid of 10 or 11, was not so enviable. At our river site getaway, the cottage was actually owned by my great grandmother. We kids would only be allowed to enter on Sunday mornings at her invitation, to sample the greasy bacon she had just fried. It’s funny to think now how that spot had any appeal for the adults. There were little cottages all along the river, and probably still are. It seems so depressing now. I remember going there a lot as a child. My aunt and uncle had a place further away from the river, almost a second home, with an in-ground pool, which seemed to me soooo very special, something one could only dream of. Sometimes my siblings and I would be asked if we wanted to swim. Or course we did. I can remember going in the pool in my underwear on at least one occasion, having arrived unprepared. What was my mother thinking, arriving without swimming suits? Once the field between the river bank and my uncle’s second home was plowed shallowly in preparation for some construction. Much of that day I spent combing through the dirt looking for arrow heads and other relics. We found many things, those of us kids who were excited by the buried past. I remember finding a couple of fine arrow heads and keeping them among my other treasures through much of my youth.

I see the plain strings of white lights now at the gay campgrounds I sometimes go to. The bears will string lights around their big-ass RVs and elaborately decorate their semi-permanent camp sites with lights, lawn ornaments and figurines. I've seen yellow brick roads, pink pelicans, disney characters, and leprechan forests. The gays are a fun bunch. By day they decorate their lawns with unpretentious whimsy, and by night you're find them pounding ass in the open fields, heads bobbing and voices groaning, as if just another pair of animated figurines in the larger spectacle of a fanciful dream world. I half expect strawberry shortcake herself to emerge from the misty fog, or perhaps some pastel unicorns with curly manes.

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Sometimes during lunch I walk down to the atrium of the B&L building and sit there for a few minutes, just to get away from the tedium of my desk. Often I feel like I want to lie down at the bottom of the indoor water pool and fountain , face up, looking through the still water, my arms folded on my chest as if lying in my own tomb, the silence of the water’s depth protecting me from life’s dull daily concerns. Wake me when something interesting happens.

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Once in a while at the gym, when I’m feeling uncharitable or am simply in a bad mood, I’ll survey the crowd of assembled people, in my head sorting through those that I recognize and those I don’t. I imagine approaching those unfamiliar souls and telling them simply, “I’ve never seen you here before. Get the hell out of here.” Hahah There is a sort of comradery among the faithful. Yesterday, as I was walking through the parking lot to the gym entrance, one of the most faithful blurted out to me, “New Years resolutions.” I didn’t know what he meant, so I said, “What about them?” He turned his head and waved his arm in the direction of the parking lot and said, “The parking lot’s full of people who’ve made New Year’s resolutions,” meaning he couldn’t find a parking spot nearby. I responded, “I know. Well, in a few weeks it’ll begin to die down.” He agreed. “True. It happens every year.” And so it does. To all of you slackers who show up for a few weeks after the holiday season and in the late spring … the rest of us at the gym secretly have the utmost contempt for you.

A few days ago I wanted to do my leg workout, but a new couple had taken over both squat racks with a marathon session consisting of every conceivable permutation of exercises involving legs and back. Special pulleys were used, as well as ropes attached to bars and other apparatus. I’ve never seen them before, nor since (and I hope I never do). But clearly they were determined to do in a single day what others can only do in months. On this singular day they were walking in as red-faced marshmallows but would walk out as tightly bound and shellacked fitness gods. The fools.

The other day in the gym locker room I watched as a young man in his late 20s undressed. By all indications he was straight. When he took off his socks, I noticed with a slight startle that his toe nails were painted with a dark blue polish. What a turn-off. Don’t do that. I suppose it’s ok if you’re gay, but please straight men, no nail polish. Yuck.

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Normally I don't like to write about work-related stuff, but here's an exception. The other day at work I was trying to use a new online system to submit my travel expense report. It was meant to replace our current online system, though no one really understands what was deficient about it that necessitated a change. We each quietly muttered complaints about cutting costs by outsourcing to offshore vendors, etc. And surely there is much to this. Little was given to explain it, which itself is rather telling. I didn't care really. I just wanted to figure it out quickly and get my report submitted. But I would quickly came to care.

Oh, I filled out the thing and submitted it without paying much attention to the details. When my manager received it, she noticed I'd used the wrong account number, so she sent it back to me. Except then I couldn't open it. Why not? Well, I consulted the online help. Of course you can't simply click on a help button and expect to be helped. You have to log in to access help! User name and password. If you haven't registered yet, please register and a password will be sent to you. When finally I get in, I can find nothing helpful--there doesn't appear to be regular help or a manual--just answers to common questions, and some "helpful tips." (Later I discovered an online manual, buried deep within the help system. It was actually somewhat helpful…. Except that it couldn’t be located.)

After wasting already over 30 minutes trying to figure out the system and then looking through help, I decide to call a help number. I dial the number and it begins to ring--with the now almost unfamiliar rotary phone dial tone. A man with an Indian accent from a distant land answers and immediately asks for my employee number. I'm feeling nasty at this point, because I know what will come next. I know that no matter what I say or how I say it, I'll have to repeat the number multiple times. I tell him the number in a slow, methodical tone, two numbers at a time, articulating and enunciating as if trying to communicate with the deaf. He gets the first 4 digits and I move on. But as I move on, am I repeating the previous numbers for clarity or moving forward? What were those next numbers? Seven three? So 1 - 5 - 5 - 0 - 7 - 3 - 7- 3? No. It's ..... I'm sorry. I got confused. Could you give me that number again? He's apologetic and a bit concerned that he's annoying me, which he is. But I understand the problem. We're talking across cultures and continents, and communication problems are inevitable. Still I'm angry that he can't get a simple sequence of numbers despite me being very conscious of the problems and making every effort to bridge the communication gap. I expected the numbers to be botched, and they were.

He got the numbers eventually. I tried to explain the problem—I can’t open the expense report I submitted. He wasn't sure what to do. He had me go into Internet Options and delete all my offline content as well as all cookies (Now all of the countless username/passwords for the many different applications I need for my job are lost). Now try. Nothing? Ok, did you refresh? No. Try to refresh. Still nothing? Ok, log out, close your browser, and log back in. Ok. Now delete all offline content and cookies, refresh, and try again. Now a different error, but still no success. I'll have to submit a ticket, he says. He has me write down a 12-digit ticket number, for what purpose I don't know. I hear nothing for over a day. I try again. I call again. Again my employee number is repeated four times. Again I explain the problem. I clarify and dismiss his suggestions as already unsuccessful. He explains to me why I can't open the report, but he can't fix the matter. He submits a ticket, and I take down a 12-digit number. The next day my manager receives an automated email message that the problem has been resolved. Please try again.

She tries, but can do nothing. I can do nothing. I call again, giving my employee number twice. Someone explains that my manager must fix the problem on her end. She should have rejected the report instead of returning it for more information. She must reject it for me to edit it. But she can do nothing, I explain. Did she delete all offline content and all cookies, and then refresh? I suspect not. I hang up, and I watch over her shoulder as she does this. Still nothing. I call back. Again the employee number. I explain that we have tried without success. They say the report is locked and will have to be unlocked by a DBA on their end. He will submit a ticket. He submits a ticket, and we wait until the next day. Nothing from them. My boss asks about the status, so I try to open the report. I can't. She tries to open the report. She can't. I call. They have to report the matter to the DBA to unlock. “Yes,” I think to myself, “that's what you said yesterday. I submitted a ticket. What of that?” But I say nothing. He tells me he'll report the matter to the DBA to have it unlocked. It may take an hour or so. We wait.

In about 20 minutes my manager asks, so we try again. Miraculously she can open the report. Finally! We’re almost to the promised land, the seas have parted, and our lives may finally move forward. In a swirling fit of ecstasy and awe at being able to open the report, my manager excitedly clicks on the button ... to accept instead of reject! When finally we’re able to act on the report, she accepts the defective report after days of haggling and fighting to correct it! All is lost. The report is submitted despite being allocated to the incorrect cost center. There's no turning back.

On this whole matter I spent about 3 or 4 hours in total, and I called 4 times to India--this for a new system meant to reduce costs and streamline our travel reporting. And all of this to submit an expense report for our team lunch at the Olive Garden, because my manager forgot to bring her Am Ex card with her, and because I was foolish enough to blurt out that I always carry mine. Many lessons learned here.