Partial Posts

Here are a few posts I started to write and never finished. Perhaps putting them out here in their uncompleted forms will guilt me into writing more:

Change is inevitable. The weather changes minute by minute as the pull of the moon changes as it moves around the earth and the earth changes place and moves around the sun. We grow older second by second in a dance that began when we born and we groove to the day that our heart changes and stops beating. Even seemingly constant things like mountains change as the waters of rivers grind them into valleys.

So with all this change why do we as humans seem so surprised when it happens to us? Perhaps its human nature to think that change won’t happen to us just like disease and death and other changes that can seem bad; they only happen to others. A mistaken though process is ever there was one.
The last few months have been full of change for me.

As the days of summer are way too quickly flying by, I have come to realize that for as fast as time seems to pass us by, that I really am a lucky guy in many, many ways. It started out about 39 years ago when I was born to parents who like most people of their generation wanted to give their children all the things that they themselves never had. Both of my parents were born in 1943 during WWII. By definition neither are baby boomers but they shared many of the characteristics that the Boomers have, including the one of spoiling their children with all the material gifts that they did not have. My mother still tells of getting maybe an orange and new dress for Christmas and not much else. I on the other hand always got every gift on my Christmas list and also almost anything else my little child heart desired. So overall I had a good childhood. There were rough patchs


For all of its faults the movie Threesome asked a question that I too have pondered at some points in my life. I just sat through most of it on the LOGO network. It has been years since I had seen it so I gave it a chance. For those who have not seen it the basic story line is set in college and goes girl loves gay guy, gay guy loved straight guy and straight guy love girl. They attempt to create some kind of “threesome” but eventually it falls apart as people move on. The great question comes near the end of the movie as one of the characters voiceover soliloquy tries to sum up the movie ala The Breakfast Club and so many teen angst movies of the 80’s attempted to do. He asks how someone can be such an important part of your life one day and then the next be gone.

This question came into play for me this summer as I received word of my upcoming 20th high school reunion. If my memory is in tact (which sometimes I question), for the most part, my high school days were spent in a few ways. The first was just hanging out by myself. This I figure is how I spent probably 50 percent of my time. Another 25 percent was spent in the company of fellow band, orchestra and youth symphony people. This may seem like a huge percentage but I was in the Jazz Band at school which I think practiced 2 days a week after school and in the local youth orchestra which practiced one night a week. The other 25 percent would have been spent split between my few best friends and the larger group (not made up of the smaller group) of people I hung out with.
My junior and senior years my best friends were Nina, a fellow classmate, her older sister Dianne and a guy one year my and Nina’s junior name Michael. Michael and I hung out the most closely followed by Nina

SURPRISE!

I have had a week to soak in the love.

For those few of you who read by blog (and for some of those you may stumble into it here and there) starting in January of 2008 I began to plan a major trip to Las Vegas to trumpet in my 40th birthday which occurred in December 2008. As it turned out, due to any number of perfectly acceptable reasons (lack of time off, the economy), the only person who actually made it to Vegas to party (well, eat and gamble and see shows with) was Lynne.

Unbeknownst to me, a few of those that could not make it to Vegas began planning a surprise party for me to be held the weekend of Diana’s birthday (which gave them a perfect event to use as a smoke screen. I have come to find out that the planning actually started before I went to Vegas in early December.

So I received an evite from Diana telling of the party and Lynne called and said she was planning on coming into Cleveland for Di’s party (and to see her family).

I understand that there was an e-mail slip that almost gave it away, but luckily I did not figure it out but of the e-mails that flooded my friends’ in-boxes from each other as they came up with excuses and reasons why the e-mail was sent.

I, not knowing the party was actually for me, threw huge rocks into the clockwork of my friends planning by stating that because it was also my mother’s birthday close to Di’s party, might not be in town.

The e-mail flourishes have been shared with me regarding this go on for days after my “I might not be there” and caused the planners to contact my sister and mother to bring them into the cloaked fold.

The secrecy ran all the way to Anne flying in from Nashville for the party. Unfortunately due to a misunderstanding that I had used Priceline in the past to make travel arrangements, Anne found herself with a travel schedule that got her to Cleveland on Saturday night at 9 pm only to leave 8 hours later on Sunday morning at 6:00am. Luckily for me, she decided to treat it as an adventure and made the trip.

I am still somewhat godsmacked by the love my family and friends put into this party for me and am so blessed to have them all in my life.