If Archie and Jughead were chubby . . .

. . . and in love - Awwwwwwwww.

The amazing world of gay hookups is home to some of the most interesting subsets, and I have pranced about the woods on a few occasions, like Pan, blowing my flute and skipping through the internet. It's a fascinating world. In case nobody has toured you around the place, let me lift the veil for you on some of the weight-specific realms I have visited:

Bears. Hairy and overweight to around 250 pounds. Huge number of these guys. Very masculine, testosteroney, but looks may be deceiving and some of the most hirsute, manly bears can be great big giggly sissies. Which is very cute. Sometimes. Facial hair is usually a plus, but in its absence the edge of a thick flokati rug bursting through the collar of a t-shirt, front and back, is highly desired. Some bears are so hairy you could lose things in them. Like your keys. Can really work the manly crap - cigars, leather, chains, nipple clamps, etc. Bears are born accessorizers. Need a Civil War infantry cap? Ask a Bear. Favorite underwear: camo boxers.

Otters. Hairy and normal weight. Tend to look a little bedraggled without the excess poundage, sort of like the homeless. Crisp manscaping is a good thing. Trim up the neck hairs, etc. Favorite underwear: tidy whities, to contrast beautifully with the hairiness.

Chubs. Now these are big fat gay men, usually in the 250 to 350 pound range. Hairy is optional, but if very hairy and under 300 can be a Bear, depending on their height. What can I say, you know the difference when you see it. A bear can have a massive beer belly and be generally endomorphic, but is still a Bear. A different guy with the same weight is more a chub, because his body has a different overall shape. Winnie the Pooh was a Chub (and you thought he was a Bear!). The bear from the Jungle Book was a Bear. John Goodman has been a Bear, and he most certainly is now a Chub. John Candy was always a Chub, even when he had a face full of hair. John Belushi was a Bear. Raymond Burr - Bear. Favorite underwear: black boxer briefs as tight as possible so as to smooth the line from waist to mid-thigh. Girdlicious!

Chasers. AKA Admirers. Men who are turned on by chubs or bears. No specific physical characteristics. Chasers I find quite fascinating, and whenever I meet one, I always ask why - or how - they became attracted to large and/or hairy men. I ask sweetly, so it's okay. Usually the answer is nonsexual and has to do with a very large (or large-breasted) huggable caregiver, sometimes Mommy, sometimes Uncle Pete, sometimes the friendly fat kid next door. Chub = love. For some others, there's an erotically-charged moment involving a large person, usually when they're just coming into puberty. My first "chaser" friend was a man who, when he was around 13, lived next door to a YMHA where the big fat hairy Orthodox Jew men swam in the basement pool under fluorescent lights - nekkid (with or without yarmulkes? not sure). He would peek through the edge of a frosted glass window and get aroused at what I've called Jew Stew ever since he told me about it. This sort of creationist method I call tissue-typing, and these erotic experiences from early adolescence seem to be as close to permanent as you can get. Frequently these types of chasers can have very specific interests (sort of like Michael Jackson - no worries if you're over 14, eh, Michael?) . You know, must be exactly 5'10", 240 pounds, round belly, large nipples, etc etc. Favorite underwear: hmm, don't ever remember one wearing underwear.

Superchubs. Usually in the 350+++ range, topping out at upwards of 700 or even 800 pounds. But most are around 450. I don't know exactly why this is a typical plateau, but it is. At the upper limits, as you can imagine, there are just a couple of them around, one in London (Kevin), one on the East coast (Barry), etc. Pretty well known. Usually have mobility problems, as you might expect, but sometimes make excellent bloggers and are constantly peppered with all sorts of probing, disbelieving questions, like, "How do you, uhm, DO stuff?" The ones I've chatted with are unfailingly sweet and usually were very large from a very young age, like two or three. Most of them have someone in the family who is their helper. One guy I chatted with who was 23 and about 750 pounds relied on his younger brother, who was 16 and about 500 pounds, to bathe him and help him. When I chat with guys like this I just try to be friendly and loving, figuring they could use some good vibrations coming their way.

Superchasers. Very into the superchubs, but almost entirely in an erotic, not loving way. Usually have fantasies about being smothered by all the weight. This is a select few, in about the same numbers as Superchubs, so it all works out!

Gainers. These are guys who are looking to gain weight. Their personal ads usually feature weekly or daily uploads showing their ever-expanding bellies and braggadocio about putting on 30 or 40 pounds in the last couple of months. If they've never been fat before, their bellies look tight and round, like a pregnant woman's, or like a basketball. This will change with time, sadly, and that nice high round fat belly they crave will sink as sure - and as far - as Grandma's breasts. Gainers seem to be guys who didn't make it in the "normal" gay world so they're looking to break in to another category. Some are masochists, pure and simple. Favorite underwear: jock straps, because they support the round basketball belly so beautifully.

Encouragers. These are guys into making other guys fat. Sometimes they prefer sex involving their partner eating something (sometimes very specific, like mac'n'cheese or pizza). Words like "stuffed" and "gorged" and "bursting" are bandied about. One ad I ran across displayed a picture of the man's penis encapsulated in a maple bar with the caption, "Eat me!" I happen to think there's a huge component of sadism in this category, especially the ones who combine force-feeding with dirty talk.

Chub4Chub. Chubs who are turned on by other chubs. This is a growing category as self-acceptance and tolerance for fatness increases, and that's a good thing. Sometimes it takes a lot of creativity to figure out how to mate if both partners are very big, but sometimes it's as easy as pie, depending on the type of pie preferred. One guy I met quite cleverly had his mattress directly on the concrete floor of his basement rumpus room. And there was a wine rack adjacent. Sometimes you just need a rumpus room, nome sang.

Okay, enough for now. I'm sure your mind is swimming with all sorts of undesired images, but hey, it takes all kinds, kids.

"Get Your Polling Place Anecdote Ready!"

Today Now!: How To Pretend You Give A Shit About The Election

God of the Pool

When I lived in Palm Springs, I rented the tiny guest house of a huge estate. Nobody lived in the main house, so I had the walled grounds - about 7 acres - all to myself. A small orange orchard, tons of bougainvilla and oleander, and an enormous swimming pool just four steps from my front door. I lived in that pool from May to October - pretty much had to, because of the heat. And I managed to make a living while floating: I read tarot cards over the phone for the Psychic Friends Network, dealing the slightly wet cards on the edge of the pool deck. But that's another story.

The first thing I would do when I jumped in the pool each morning was make a circle of the perimeter (counterclockwise, in case you wondered). And I would assess the flotsam and jetsam which had collected overnight. The inevitable sprinkling of dried bougainvilla blossoms and leaves, mostly. And there would be quite a number of gorgeous golden wasps, alive but struggling, their wings too heavy with accumulated water to lift off the surface and dry out. At first I was concerned I'd be stung if I made a move to save them, but with a little practice I perfected a scoop-n-swoosh procedure that propelled the waterlogged buggies onto the pool deck, where they could bask in the hot desert sun - and live.

Of course this made me feel all godlike and benevolent, rescuing life after life as I circled the pool. "I'm so good," I'd say to myself, clearing my karmic debt from all those spiders I squished and chickens I ate. "Have a good life, waspie honey," I'd whisper.

I noticed one day in spring that a wasp nest was being constructed in the eaves right in front of my cottage door. The wasps worked hard at their complex paper construction, and as the days went by, it grew to the size of a football. But never did a wasp bat an eye when I passed nearby. "It's because they know I'm the God of the pool," I thought, and imagined the wasps saying, "No, don't divebomb him, Morty, he's the one who saved Cassandra's life yesterday." The wasps and I, we had an agreement. Nature in balance. Circle of life.

Now, admittedly, like most gods, I was arbitrary and capricious. I rescued only beautiful glittering gold wasps and the occasional iridescent dragonfly. Garden variety flies and mosquitoes could bloody well drown for all I cared. God's prerogative.

One day towards the end of Summer, I was bustling out the door to run errands when a squadron of highly incensed wasps went into full red alert, pouring out of the nest like irate raisins from a wide open faucet. When the first wasp attacked I was incredulous - "It's me, boys, it's the Pool God!" But they were hearing none of it. Hell, they couldn't hear a thing for the volume of buzzing they were making. After the second sting, I ran like the wind to the safety of my car. I galloped, man - I hot footed it outta there.

Don't piss off God. At the store I bought two huge cans of Raid wasp kill and nuked 'em the moment I got home. The patio floor was covered with wasp carcasses, some of which I had no doubt saved from a watery grave.

This morning, I was doing my usual circumnavigation of the pool and noticed quite a number of moths struggling on the surface. Ah, another opportunity to be godlike, I thought, and I reactivated my scoop-n-swoosh technique. With a line-up of about ten moths along one side of the pool, I surged majestically to the other side to see who else I could rescue, filled to overflowing with beneficence. Then I heard excited chirping. A little brown sparrow was merrily chomping on one of the moths. "Mmmmm, moist and delicious!" he cried, and proceeded from one moth to the next, feasting on the banquet I had so innocently provided.

Just when you think you're a god, turns out you're a hash slinger at an all-you-can-eat diner.

George Carlin

This is sad news.

I happened to see George Carlin perform live in 1973, at the height of the controversy over his language.

I was 14.

Let me set the stage.

My parents were planning a trip to Las Vegas. My mom Cookie called her friend Mildred. Mildred's husband, "Doc," was and is the elder statesman of hernia surgery. He invented the procedure they still use today during WW II by experimenting on soldiers. He's this brilliant, eccentric basset hound-like man, the king of all he surveys. People fly in from all over the world to get their hernias repaired by Doc. He's done 6 hernias a day, five days a week, for something like 50 years, so he's pretty much had his hands in everyone who's anyone's abdomen. When I worked for him as an office aide in 1977, the big thrill was that Karl Malden was a patient (and that his hernia was the size of a baseball, according to Doc's scribbles). But that's another story.

Now, it would come as no surprise that a Vegas big shot or two had gone under Doc's knife, and sure enough, Del Webb - then the owner of Del Webb's Sahara and who knows what else, was a grateful patient. A grateful patient with rumored Mafia connections. All it took was one call from Mildred saying that Doc's "sister" wanted to come to Vegas, and the next thing you know, our trip to Vegas was "arranged."

We had an elaborate kitchy two-bedroom suite on the top floor of the Sahara (this was in the 70's, remember, so kitch reigned supreme). It was a sultan's palace theme done all in purple, pink and gold fretwork. We had carte blanche at any of the Sahara's dark, sexy dining rooms, including their elaborate buffet in the center of the casino. And we had front row center tickets to two shows a night for three nights in a row. All comped. Oh, we were doing it big.

I'm not sure if anyone knew that a 14-year-old boy was part of the party, or if it just didn't matter, but if Del Webb said, "Do it," a little thing like propriety was incidental.

We dressed up for the two-shows-a-night marathon, Cookie in poly satin caftans in leopard print or paisley from Lane Bryant, Dad in a charcoal gray pinstriped suit and starched white shirt, and me in a gray poly jacket with either navy or maroon poly pants and a navy or maroon turtleneck - very Burt Bacharach - with a Libra medallion on a chain around my neck. I looked mature, but come on, it was obvious I was underage. I wasn't allowed to pause in the casinos when we walked to the buffets. If I stood still for a few seconds, a pit boss would shew me.

There were a couple of raised eyebrows from other guests when we would be seated in one extravagant theater after another. Whispers. Assessments made of mom and dad for bringing me to some of these shows, along with speculation about who were were to rate front-row seats. But the Maitre'ds didn't blink. I noticed our reservations were written in red ink - in caps - everywhere we went.

Honestly, my parents were worldly, well-read, but so naive, a combination that was possible in the Seventies. They were liberal-minded but clean living. Liberalness borne of intellectual open-mindedness, not experience. Anti-Nixon, anti-Vietnam War, they nonetheless wouldn't think of sparking a doobie or engaging in a little wife swapping. They truly didn't know what we were in for. Straight-laced liberals. Do they exist anymore?

First show we saw, front row center at the Stardust Hotel theater, was a bare tittie extravaganza called Lido de Paris which featured a helicopter, a chariot race, an Esther Williams mermaid number in a glass-walled tank, an adagio dance on a tiny ice rink, a prison breakout, a can can, a Ziegfeld number, an Elvis homage, a magic show complete with sawing a bare-breasted girl in half, a dog act, and more, with beautiful practically nude people (a wide variety of natural breast shapes, from boyishly flat to robust, in those pre-silicone days, and chorus boys wearing alarming amounts of makeup). The show shouldda been called Kitchen Sink. It was a burgeoning gay boy's dream come true, let me tell you. Vegas wasn't a family destination in those days. This was Hugh Hefner-inspired male fantasy time, full-out tackiness of the sort to feast on for years, as I certainly have. The hilarious part was when my mother would try to put her hand over my eyes when one of the tittie showgirls (they didn't dance - they just paraded in magnificent costumes with their breasts out) was standing directly over our table. Ha ha. Little did she know that I was more interested in the tiny g-strings on the boys. It's a surreal experience to sit in the front row of a show like that, anyway. You see the bruises under the body makeup. You see the darning in the fishnet stockings. You see the renegade pubic hair working its way out of the edge of the g-string during a high kick routine. And you get a face full of ice shavings when the skaters do their death spins.

Later that first night we saw singer James Darren, who was stunning in his "Gidget" days, immaculately dressed in a black tuxedo complete with Vegas tan and perfect white teeth, followed by the baudy Buddy Hackett, who spent his entire hilarious set grabbing his penis.

The next day, after a lox-and-bagel buffet breakfast and a trip to Hoover Dam, we saw Sergio Franchi (lucious baritone in a dove gray Nehru suit) and Milt Kamens, one of the old guard Jewish comedians who perfected their routines thirty years before in the Catskills and were enjoying a time of great popularity. Funny accents, punch lines, and a lot of finesse - old fashioned comedy, about to be anhilated by the likes of George Carlin.

The late show was Englebert Humperdinck, wearing a maroon velvet tuxedo and matching bow tie, with his blow-out Greg Brady perm and Elvis muttonchop sideburns. He did a whole number looking right at my mother, which embarrassed and thrilled her no end. And when he did a Tom Jones imitation by loosening his tie and bumping his crotch, the ladies in the house shrieked.

Our third day in Vegas was spent primarily at the pool - and the buffet. Then we dressed in our finest and went to see Joey Bishop, in a classic stand-up routine, and on the same bill, the fabulous Bobby Darrin. Oh my, he was great, and gorgeous, and put on a great show, but I was riveted on his crotch (he was standing about six feet away from me the whole evening). He was wearing a skin tight tan poly suit, and his "thing" was perfectly visible, aiming to port and bulging impressively. It was 45 minutes of dick watching with a background of great singing. Each number ended with a long-held high note to show off his voice, and when he went to hit it, Bobby would stand center stage, spread his legs, lean back, and push his crotch right towards me.

Vegas was turning out so great!!!

So then came the piece de resitance - the big show at Caesar's Palace. It opened with Petula Clark, a huge star then, who sang Downtown and hits from Broadway (I remember a rendition of "As Long as He Needs Me" from Oliver!), looking lovely in her sleeveless gown with a butter yellow chiffon skirt and her top covered in daisies. She was by far the most wholesome thing we saw. Lovely. During a short intermission, I could sense the audience getting excited about something, and as the waiters scuttled around refilling drink orders, I got excited, too. I had seen George Carlin a few times on Merv Griffin and Mike Douglas, he was very hot, and I thought he was so funny. But the buzz in the audience wasn't really about how funny Carlin was. It was about his controversial "Seven words you cannot say" routine, which had gotten Carlin arrested a few months before. This was his triumphant return to the stage, and in Vegas, he could do the routine. At the late show, not the dinner show. Most of the audience knew what was coming. Our little family group, sitting front row center, didn't.

Then the lights went down, and on came Carlin. He was wearing a loose-fitting t-shirt and jeans. His hair was long and scraggly to match his prodigious beard. He was loose. He made everyone we had seen prior to that seem all buttoned-up.

And he was great. Great great great. Funny, smart, a breath of fresh counterculture air. So different from the string of classic comedians I had seen over the last few days, the suited, joke-throwing, older gentlemen in their immaculate suits and cuff links and East Coast sensibilities. Here was a hippy - in fact, Carlin did the "Hippy Dippy Weatherman" routine, and alluded to marijuana smoking, and it was great. He did the "Violent Football vs. Sweet Baseball" routine, and sent a few barbs toward Nixon (this was at the height of the Watergate era).

And then he did the "Seven Filthy Words You Can't Say" monologue.

Well, it was sensational. Several people, maybe a hundred, walked out. People felt too uncomfortable to laugh. Some people made these barking sounds, as if they were caught by surprise. There were a few boos, a general murmuring, a sssssssing sound. It really wasn't funny ha ha, you know, it was shocking. Embarrassing. A theater full of uncomfortable - but exhilarated - people. People thrilled that they were grown-up enough to stay put and not walk out. People who realized that a line had been crossed. The audience was experimenting with filth, like they may have experimented with weed, but probably weren't brave enough to do so. It was all part of the Seventies experience. And my parents, who were both pretty foul mouthed (they met in the Navy), were beet red, mostly because they had brought a 14-year-old boy to the show, but they weren't going anywhere. My parents used words like shit and hell and Christ all the time, but not fuck or motherfucker or cunt. It was shocking to have a man on stage saying those words into a microphone, say them repeatedly, scream them. But my parents were Lenny Bruce intellectuals, and intellectuals aren't afraid of words. Still, you cannot imagine the ruckus in that theater. It was a happening. It was like going to see someone crap in a bucket, knowing full well that was what you were going to see, and still being freaked out about it. It was purposeful mind-expansion time, purposeful limit-busting time.

Gives me goosebumps just remembering it.

Right on, George Carlin. Rest in peace. Carry on, my wayward son.

Waterlogged Musings

Just came back from a couple of early morning hours in the pool, which I had all to myself except for the doves and robins and sparrows busily making nests and screwing their bird brains out. It's about 70 degrees already here, and the pool is maybe the same temperature. There are big bushy deciduous trees all around the pool and their leaves sparkle in the sun just like the surface of the pool. Is magical too strong a word for it?

I love the morning light. My morning commute couldn't be more beautiful - it starts with a breathtaking close-up of the Sandia Mountains, then there's ten minutes of a tree-lined winding road with far-off views of the entire Rio Grande Valley and the mesas beyond. Depending on the time of year, the sun is either just on the other side of the mountains or freshly arisen, and the skies here in Albuquerque are predictably clear blue. The air is frequently scented delicately with rosemary or tumbleweed or even roasting chiles if it's Autumn.

As I floated around the pool and enjoyed the tranquility, I mused on the subtle changes I've made in my life in the last six months, which all stem from becoming more loving toward myself. Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler had nothing on my own mixed-up files of life: tempest-tossed, thrashed, that was me, at least emotionally, battered by blunt changes and crouched in a self-protective position, awaiting the next reign of blows. I had let go of dreaming, because my last round of dreams had all come crashing down and I wasn't sure I could take more disappointment. I needed some cave time, some lick-my-wounds time. But out of fear and uncertainty and the still-stinging blows afflicted to my self-esteem, I let the time tick by.

Then in October of last year I got an email from Sheila O'Malley, my dear cyberfriend, whose blog sets the bar in the stratosphere for brilliant, witty, revealing and heartfelt discourse, a daily visit to the land of all things fine and true. God, I love Sheila's brain. It's a total gift to the world, her writing, and it uplifts me just to know there's this person out there, this PERSON, this creative human being, who embodies so many of the traits I might have grown in my own garden had I not persistently obliterated the germinating seeds, callously plucking the tendrils of life at their first awakening.

So Sheila came to town.

And the big moment for me, among many big moments, was when I was sitting outside on an adobe bench in front of a gallery in Taos, a Marimba band filling the air with that delightful bonk of mallets on wood, and Sheila on the other side of the patio having a chat with the artist whose opening we were attending, Dean Stockwell. I watched as a steady stream of smiling, relaxed, handsome people, mostly couples in their fifties and sixties, filed past me and into the gallery. People comfortable with themselves. People with open faces and open hearts and open minds. People for whom the bloom of youth and sexual heat was long gone but the bloom of optimism was dewy fresh. Was it their freshly pressed, loosely fitting linen outfits? Was it their tribal jewelry? Was it the sparkle in their eyes? Was it the coming together of like-minded people to attend a gallery opening for an artist who himself embodied all these qualities and whose zest for living radiated from him like aeon flux?

I saw these artful, open people, and Sheila, and Mr. Stockwell, and the marimba ladies making music, and I sipped my cup of wine and marveled at the texture of the air and the Maxfield Parrishesque sky - and it hit me. It hit me. This could be my new dream for myself, to be one of these linen-wearing, life-affirming, artsy people. I saw myself as them in that moment, engaged in life. Well-read, well-spoken, well-groomed. Refined. Real. Elbows moisturized.

It had been awhile since I saw anyone I wanted to emulate. Okay, some sort of cross between Richard Gere and Anderson Cooper had come to mind, but these were real people. And things like wealth and fame and glory and success had very little to do with it. It wasn't out of reach, to become a person like that. I, too, could go to gallery openings in my natural-dyed hemp dashiki, or have a conversation about Frank Rich's latest column. I could have this.

The other part of it was seeing Sheila realize a dream. She hopped a plane, motored to Taos, and met Dean Stockwell. She put it all together and did it. She did it. And she let me be a witness to it. What a gift.

Then we had drinks and dinner and hung out with a couple who were so damned full of life and love (and margaritas) that it was a wonder to behold. And the next morning we had our bed-n-breakfast moment with a couple from Texas who wrote books and took trips and, yes, teased their hair, and a woman who was a wool artisan who was attending the world-famous Taos WoolFest. Sheila and I were both pretty quiet on the drive home, thinking our thoughts, committing our experiences to memory, our eyes scanning the high desert landscape for the play of shadows and light, for UFOs.

So the dream began. Unconsciously.

There is a possibility for me out there in the world, a way to be that was modeled for me in varied aspects, for a sustained period, at a time in which I was open to receiving the message. And at the heart of it, the common denominator for everyone I saw was self-respect, self-esteem, self-love. People taking care of themselves. People allowing the good of the Universe to clothe them, to fill their lives with substance. Humans, being.

And it all started with an email from Sheila.

This is What's Going On Right Outside My Window

A daddy dove is building a nest around a mommy dove on a branch of a tree about ten feet away from my window. He's been struggling with big twigs (we had a little wind storm yesterday) but construction is going well. I've been watching while I wrote the post below, and it all seems an ironic counterpoint.

The Impulse to Crash and Burn

I'm soooo used to obstacles. I've been conditioned by my life to cope. I take pride in overcoming impediments - so much so that if I find myself in a beautiful meadow, crickets singing and birds chirping, sun-dappled shade making patterns on the moss-covered path along the shores of a babbling brook, I start maniacally searching for the wasp nest or the bear trap or the black adder ready to strike so the whole bucolic scene can become what I secretly believe it really is - an ironic, Disneyesque backdrop to harsh, desperate, life-threatening calamity. I'm Bambi in a beautiful glade, free to cavort with Thumper, but ruining it by believing that forest fire and buckshot are right around the corner. I mean, sometimes they are. But do I need to prove it by lighting a match and tossing it into a pile of leaves at my feet?

Here I sit on a beautiful Saturday morning, truly grateful for having good health, great friends, a nice apartment, an appreciative boss, a decent steady paycheck, sunshine almost every day, a sweet old cat, 400-count Egyptian cotton sheets, poached chicken breast with red peppers in the fridge, and access to a gorgeous pool, all of which comprises a well-designed platform to support the most important thing I need to do: lose weight. And yet, like an obsessive-compulsive juggler in some never-ending circus show, I just want to get all the plates spinning on their bamboo reeds again, adding more and more until it's just impossible to keep them all going. What am I trying to prove - that crashing is inevitable? That life is supposed to be this extraordinarily difficult task, that smooth sailing inevitably leads to the perfect storm? That there is such a thing as an experience or event big enough or horrible enough to really excuse being - and staying - as fat as I am?

I simply don't need to pick up the stack of plates; I don't need to disturb the neat pile of reeds. My circus days are over. But I'm itchin' to. And once I get the plates aspinning, bring on the unicycle, boys! And the wind machine. And the flaming batons. Because when it all comes crashing down, I'll have my excuse. My big, fat excuse.

I bring this up because I've been contemplating another - oh shit, no! - job search due to the Indian preference court decision, which effectively halts any opportunity I may have to advance at my agency (I'm not Indian, therefore I won't be eligible to apply for any openings). But I realized yesterday, so what? SO WHAT? Why would I grab for the plates and fuck everything up when I could just sit here calmly on my nice weight-loss platform and do what I really need to do - lose weight? Why make it into some grueling marathon with a built-in probability for failure when life can be a stroll in the park? So I'm letting go of looking for another job. It's much more important to stay on my sun-dappled path now, keep on keeping on, instead of indulging in some pyromania.

My mother Cookie could rationalize anything, persuade anyone, in a display of sheer wit, cunning and dazzling verbal skills I witnessed on many occasions. I'm pretty good at it, too - I learned it from the best. But I also saw how this four-foot-nine, 200-pound woman could rationalize eating another Rueben; how she somehow persuaded herself that being fat and moody was about punishing my dad, not herself. She used her brilliant powers of rationalization, self-deception and self-destruction to keep her life in turmoil - emotional distress, isolation, worry, depression, anger, dysfunction, fear, failure - the whole smorgasbord of angst. To put it plainly, she whipped everything into a frenzy to have an excuse for being fat, for staying fat, for not taking care of herself, for having another Rueben. This was not someone who had it all that bad. Nice house in the suburbs, a faithful and good husband, financial security, loving parents living next door, and a bright, cherubic child who idolized her. Yes, yes, there were bumps in the road (including mounting evidence that her cherubic child was a sissy), but with a change of perception Cookie might have actually enjoyed her life, even used her own platform to discover a little self-acceptance, a little self-love. But no. Finally, inevitably, after all of the pseudo-disasters and manufactured obstacles, true horror came into her life - pancreatic cancer - and she could drop the rest of the bullshit. Life became what she believed it was, all previous evidence to the contrary. A battle. A nightmare. An epic journey fought to the death. Which, I've got to give her credit, she handled bravely and with great dignity. Her best self came to the fore, the clutter of self-created obstacles swept away, she lost a hundred pounds, and then she died.

I know that Cookie was an ambivalent mother. Sheila O'Malley's description of this book freaked me out. Sheila's writing and insight, as usual, are brilliant. I've requested the book from the library. But I know it's gonna be a challenge to plunge into this world, because I'm sure to see correlations with the story to my own experience dancing a tightly-wound tarantella with Cookie. No, I never got a gun and went on a rampage through my high school. But sure, there was fallout. It's there for all the world to see. A great big mountain of self-loathing and self-destruction, hanging over my belt.

Crap in my life has been an excuse for being fat.

Being fat has been an excuse for crap in my life.

I pick at a scab - it bleeds - it starts to heal - I pick at it - it bleeds - it starts to heal - I pick at it - it bleeds - it starts to heal - I pick at it - - - - - - what the shit!! STOP IT! Just let it heal, damnit! And that's what it really is: letting myself heal. Weight loss is in many ways a passive thing. A simple thing. I just have to not eat too much, sit back, and let time do its magic. Let the damned scab heal.

Well, no more self-manufactured obstacles for me. No more scab picking. I'm just gonna coast. I'm just gonna keep losing weight. I'm dying of thirst, and life has given me a pitcher of icy spring water. Instead of dumping it on the ground as I have done in the past, I'm gonna drink up.

Hand me a straw.

Milepost on the Highway to Me

So today is the first day I can actually weigh on my special digital scale without sending it into the flashing dashes it displays when the weigher is too heavy for it, and that means I've lost about 60 pounds since the first of the year.

I've gone from bull walrus to elephant seal. This is good.

Being able to track the actual poundage is helpful from the standpoint that sometimes the evidence from one week to another isn't exactly compelling that I'm moving in the right direction, and it's amazing how quickly one becomes accustomed to the positive change, to the extent that the former condition blurs into unawareness. A concrete number on the scale, every couple of weeks or so, gives me a signpost on the journey and allows me to set incremental goals which are helpful when the overarching plan becomes too abstract or overwhelming.

What makes me incredibly happy about it is that this slow-but-sure ramp up (ramp down?) has been relatively easy. Nothing too severe. Yes, I've pretty much eliminated flour, sugar and most dairy products, and to say that it was easy would be understating it just a touch, but the rest of it is due to being kind to myself - shopping for nourishing food, preparing meals in advance, getting enough sleep, swimming around in the beautiful pool.

In short, I'm letting myself love myself.

- Simple "duh" things like putting on my seatbelt every time I get in the car.

- Extra "aah" things like adding a couple minutes to each shower just to revel in the pleasure of the hot, steamy environment, to move it from just a utilitarian function to a calming respite.

- Nice "oooh" things like having something delicious waiting for me in the fridge so I can avoid the fast food booby traps on the ride home.

- Sensual "mmmm" things like lavishly spreading Olay Regeneriste all over my face at bedtime.

I may be remedial when it comes to self-love but I'm learning fast. As corny as it seems, my life is like Whitney Houston's in reverse - I've gone from a crack-like haze to finding "The Greatest Love of All." All I need is a pair of kick-ass earrings!

Oh yes, I remember it well . . . .

Historic �Blockbuster� Store Offers Glimpse Of How Movies Were Rented In The Past

Cruisin' for a Bruisin'

Every Spring, without fail, I get frisky. I have the constitution of a bear, hibernating in every way possible during the Winter months, then coming groggily to consciousness sometime around the moment when the grass is green again and the darlin' buds of May have poked their heads through the mulch. It's nuts. I go out shopping for a boyfriend as if that's something I can pick up at overstock.com. I reactivate my personal ad on a site designed for "chubs and chasers" (a subcategory of the gay world which is comprised of about 50,000 obese gay men and about 10 guys who think they're hot). I peruse the tacky personals on craigslist.org, running a search for words like "stocky" or "chunky" or "belly." I start to ogle the guys at the pool, the twenty-something guys who are there with their wives and little kids. In short, I become an embarrassment to myself.

My normally cautious thinking - and whatever dignity I might be able to muster up - is thrown by the wayside as I consider things I'd never think to consider, such as an ad I saw yesterday:

Spankers and Spankees: come to a local coffee shop tonight at 9:30, get some coffee on your own and come outside to the patio. So we will know each other, spankers wear a black shirt; spankees wear a white shirt; if you are interested in both roles, wear a shirt of mixed colors. We'll just say hi to one another and talk. Some guys may want to pair up if they like or make a date for later.

Okay, I'm not even remotely into being a spanker or a spankee. And the last thing I need at 9:30 at night is a cup of coffee. But I thought, "Well, I do have a black shirt, and I suppose I wouldn't mind giving a bubble butt a whuppin' if that's what they want." Pleaser, that's me. I suppose if I had a white shirt I'd briefly consider being a spankee.

I wonder what would happen if an unsuspecting guy wearing a white shirt happened to want coffee last night and sat on the patio to enjoy Albuquerque's warm weather? Would his cappuchino lead to an assachino?

No, I didn't go. There's no way I would. But my Spring fever opens the door to such (ludicrous) possibilities, if only for a brief peek, before the door is slammed shut again.

The door that really opens every Spring is the one labeled "Hope."

I hope. Therefore, I am.

Constant Craving

I had a little breakthrough yesterday.

I've been back on the program, losing weight again, and I have this idea that if I behave "as if" I'm a 240-pound man, if I make choices all day long in that vein, I'd be doing pretty well. The thing I realized, though, is that at any weight less than I currently am, I will be hungry. Not starving. Just a little hungry, probably a few times each day, probably for the rest of my life. There's all sorts of diets that claim to eliminate hunger, but honestly, if you're restricting calories and volume, even if you're eating a good, healthy amount, five little meals a day, etc., there's gonna be a little hunger from time to time.

And that's - okay.

I realized with a shock yesterday that, as an obese man, I'm used to having a disconnect between my body and my brain. My unstated, until now unconscious goal was to have no feedback at all from my body, because I carried the idea that any feedback at all was bad, was telling me something was wrong. My goal is to have no hunger, no muscle ache from physical activity, no shooting pains in my chest (now that's probably a good one to shoot for), no aches in my knees, no thirst, no desire, no nothing. I lived my life in a constant state of zero feedback, and tried like hell to immediately quell any communication that might try to occur between body and brain. Hunger was the perfect example. I would fly into a panic mode if I needed to quench my thirst and there was no water around; if I felt hungry and there was no food; if I felt pain and there was no ibuprofen. When my body sent up a message, it was like a red alert went off, full blast, and I jumped to respond. STAT. Emergency Room time. Fix it. FIX IT! FIX IT!!

So yesterday I was a little hungry, and I was a little bit achey from the increased activity of swimming every day (when I say "swimming" I mean cavorting in a stately way in the pool, not laps or anything like that), and instead of trying to immediately fix the hunger and the acheyness, I let it be. And as I let it be, I thought, "Hmmmm. Feeling hungry [definitely not starving] means that I probably didn't overeat, and that I'll lose a little weight. Feeling achey [definitely not in agony] means that I probably got some exercise and I'll be a little stronger, a little more limber tomorrow. These are good feelings to have. These are not alarms going off - these are just gentle messages, a little feedback from body to brain to let me know things are good."

Why have I panicked in the past when I felt these things? Why did I not understand that they were signs that I'm doing right by my body? It isn't my body objecting to its current situation, it's my body letting me know that I'm on the right track.

Bear with me here, because I know the tendency is to day, "Duh!" But there are big pieces of how-to-be-normal that I just never got, that were never demonstrated or explained to me. Fundamental things, kindergarten-level things.

This morning I remembered a scene from Notting Hill where the dinner guests are all trying to earn a treat (don't remember what - dessert?) by proving they're the most pathetic person at the table. And Julia Roberts, who's playing an actress, says, "I've been hungry for 15 years." At the time I thought, "How awful!" in a pitying, yet envious way, because, I mean, she may be hungry all the time, but she gets to be Julia Roberts, ferchristsake. But I couldn't imagine it. My life has been an exercise in avoiding hunger, some sort of huge fear of it.

I used to joke that I was fat because in a past life I must've been a concentration camp victim. It's like my inner Stevie just had to to push down the hunger. But really, it's from when my mom died, when I was seventeen. Hunger and grief got all mixed up for me (they're both "emptiness," a hollow feeling deep inside, a fluttering). Less than an hour after she died, I was stuffing a vending-machine egg salad sandwich down my throat, barely chewing, just shoving it down, and then another, sobbing and stuffing. I gained a hundred pounds in the year after she died. I went from 225 to 325. There's no question I was consoling myself, trying in vain to fill up the grief emptiness with food. Of course, I always had a problem with food, but it wasn't so terrible a problem when I was 225. No question, it became a terrible problem with those additional hundred pounds.

So here I sit, thirty-plus years later, still confusing the two? Still so afraid of hunger because - why? Because I'm afraid of a pain that I correlate to the worst emotional pain I ever felt in my life? Do I think that if I feel hunger, I'm opening the door to feeling the grief I felt when my mom died? Thirty-plus years of comforting myself . . . and the side effect is a lifetime of self-punishing pain. I swapped immediate grief for temporary comfort, only to give myself lasting pain. Not the wisest of choices.

So what brought this on?

Well, a few years back there was a gay version of The Bachelor which was called Boy Meets Boy. I just got the whole series - six episodes plus bonus footage - from Netflix (don't you love Netflix for being able to do that, see an entire season of a show back to back? Love it!). I had seen it before, but this time, it just hit me like a ton of bricks. A "shouldda couldda wouldda" moment: the thought that if I hadn't had this monkey on my back, maybe I could have been one of these guys, an attractive gay man in my late twenties or early thirties, fit and handsome, looking for love. Hopeful. Meeting other nice guys. Dating. Having sex. Having fun. Going on trips together. Long romantic walks on the beach, yadda yadda yadda. A relationship. A partner.

I'm not much of a regretful person - my motto is, "You live, you learn." I've made choices, like everyone else, that I later came to think didn't work out quite the way I'd hoped, but so be it, I made the choice with all the information available to me at the time, and if it turned sour, well, I probably knew there was a risk of that happening, so what the hell. But being obese is a choice I didn't ever consciously make, it seems to me, and yet I chose it hour by hour, day by day for decades, foolishly, painfully, regrettably, and the regrets I have about my life which stem from being too fat to have tried for a love relationship, too fat to have felt comfortable at a party where I might've met someone, too fat to even try to be attractive, too fat to pursue one of the most normal, fundamental drives a human being has - to be with someone . . . it just twists me up inside.

So then I thought, well yes, it's too late to be twenty-five and thin and attractive and meeting people and maybe falling in love. But it's not too late to love myself. I can be fifty and attractive and well-groomed and yes, a little hungry, a little empty inside, but willing to take the chance that although the hunger may feel a little like grief, knowing that the hunger is my body saying, "Thanks for doing the right thing by me."

If I understand it like that, I can consider the prospect of spending a little part of every day hungry for the rest of my life as a good thing.

"Thank you, Stevie's brain, for making choices that let Stevie's body be better."

"You're welcome, Stevie's body. You're very welcome."

The lines of communication are open. Let the conversation begin.

Debbie Gibson Memories

Grillin' and Chillin'

Got myself a little tiny baby grill, 19 bucks at the supermarket; tried it out tonight and it made awesome chicken breasts, so I'm stokin. I've also been pretty much dominating the pool. Everyone goes for dinner around 7, so I get it all to myself for a couple hours every night. Awesome. Awesome. Dude! Awesome.

Pool's Filled and Glistening

Here's the view from my apartment. The pool's been out of commission for two months while the electrical was replaced and the entire pool retiled and restuccoed. This weekend was the first it's been up and running. So I went for it. And let me tell you, it was heaven. It's about 85 today, the water's maybe 70 degrees, very refreshing but tolerable. There were little kids cavorting around but I didn't care - just call me Shamu. I am what I yam. They were fascinated with me for about 30 seconds, then went back to their splashing and screaming. But there's plenty of pool to go around, and I had an entire "wing" of it to myself. Loved every minute of it.

Remembering Cookie

Here's a picture of my mom, Cookie, aboard the S.S. Roosevelt on our journey from Japan to San Francisco in 1964. My Dad was in the Navy and we had just spent four years in the Orient. We would be seeing family members in the United States for the first time - Mom's parents, Kathryn and Al, were driving up from Long Beach in their sky blue Plymouth Sports Fury with the green tinted windows to meet us at the dock. Those days, they're so Technicolor in my mind.

I love this picture of her. Great outfit, eh? The lipstick exactly matched the accessories, as was the style in those days. The outfit was run up by the sweet Japanese seamstress who came to our house each week to sew clothes out of material Mom bought. I remember going with Mom to tiny crowded stores and translating for her (I spoke Japanese) as she dickered for bolts of the most delicious fabric. In Japan, every Sunday my parents and I would go to the Officers' Club in formal wear, my Dad impeccable in his dress white uniform and my mom in a self-designed gown. She would pick out a fabric, then make a drawing for the seamstress, and voila, a Cookie original. I remember a dress and jacket of blue satin embroidered with delicate chrysanthemums in gold and silver. I remember a full-length navy shantung silk coat with an all-over paisley pattern in black embroidery, trimmed in black bugle beads. I remember lots of whirly swirly skirts and smart matching jackets in madras and pastel polka dots.

Back to the ocean-crossing ensemble pictured. Little Stevie, age 5, had a matching outfit - a jacket made of the same seersucker fabric, worn with white short pants, white socks and black shoes. In case you didn't know, matching mother-son outfits is a sure precursor of, ummm, impending faggotry. But I didn't know that then. I just remember being delighted wearing that outfit, and proud that the whole world knew that Cookie was my mother and I was her son.

It was a great voyage for us. Mom and Dad sat at the Captain's table each evening, reveling in the deluxe accommodations and my father's status as a Navy captain. I enjoyed great freedom aboard the ship. I was babysat by twin Brazilian teenage girls who took me with them all over the ship. Our ship docked in Hawaii for a couple of days and we were greeted by gorgeous Hawaiian ladies bearing fragrant leis. They bent down to kiss me but I was embarrassed and hid in my mom's full turquoise skirt. My parents got a red hawaiian shirt for me and I later wore it with a grass skirt and straw hat, winning the costume contest, little kids division. My babysitters won in the teen category by dressing in matching Mexican outfits, one of the girls dressed as a Senorita with lace mantilla and one of them dressed as a matador complete with toreador pants and penciled-on mustache. I thought they were so beautiful. I played piano at the talent show, I was a pretty good little pianist for a five-year-old, and when all the adults exploded in applause and yelled "Bravo!" I thought they were booing and screaming at me, so I bolted from the stage in tears. No matter, Mom explained they were saying I was good, so I was mollified.

And then we landed in San Francisco, and my wonderful grandparents were there to throw their arms around us, to welcome us home, to press us into their cigarette-smelling bosoms, and it was a very special occasion. A few days later we boarded a train which took us all the way to Washington, D.C.

Island Dreaming

I've been surfing the federal jobs site since the Indian Preference decision came down, and last Friday I discovered that a paralegal job has been posted for the U.S. Attorney's Office - at St. Thomas, Virgin Islands. I mean, really. The federal courthouse, a two-story affair with arches and breezeways, is on the beach in the town of Charlotte Amalie, which is the main happening spot of the island. Gotta say, I spent a heavenly weekend just imagining a life for myself there, mostly splish splashing around in 80-degree water and chowing down on lobsters and mangos. Even went to caribbean.craigslist.org and scoped out apartments. It's too fun. Ahhhh. But I don't really think it's a likely scenario. After all, Alex and Chrisanne need a place to park their RV on their cross-country journey, so until that happens, I ain't going nowhere. I'm just saying.

An Award - and a Reality Check

Last week I won an award for Federal Employee of the Year in Albuquerque. It was a great surprise, there was a luncheon banquet complete with a six-member color guard and a tape-recorded National Anthem, etc. All very patriotic and meaningful. And I thought, "How far I have come from my desperate job search a year and a half ago." But the sad subtext in my head was something I've been grappling with for the last month: a recent court decision regarding the Department of the Interior's Indian Preference hiring policy.

In case you didn't know, Indian Preference (IP) is a policy established in the 1930's that says if an Indian person is minimally qualified for a federal job within certain agencies in the Department of the Interior, such as the Bureau of Indian Affairs, then that person will be considered for the position to the exclusion of anyone else. It effectively populates all affected positions with Indian People, rightly or wrongly. The original legislation was written by a congressman who determined that only Indian People are able to provide good service to Indian People because of their inherent understanding of the issues and experience of their constituency. In the years since, IP has been consistently upheld, despite numerous claims that it preempts civil rights for non-Indians within the Department. The policy has been implemented primarily for the Bureau of Indian Affairs, where virtually every employee is directly serving the interests of Indian People. But implementation of the policy at other DOI agencies, such as my own, has been made on a job-by-job basis by the hiring authority. In my case, obviously, my position was non-IP, otherwise I simply would not have been considered for the position.

Last month, a federal judge issued a decision that stated, "Any position within the Department of the Interior which primarily serves Indian People shall be an IP position." Although no final decision has been made by DOI as to exactly which positions fit this description, it is commonly believed that every position within my own agency, which provides trust services to Indian People and tribal governments, will become IP.

Now, it's unlikely I would be asked to vacate my position, although some of my Indian co-workers have joked that I might be getting a "Honky buyout." The more likely scenario is that, as non-IP positions are vacated, they will become IP positions and, little by little, all non-Indians will be replaced by Indian People at my agency.

I could go into a long discussion here about the relative benefits of the policy - do I think that Indian People, by virtue of being Indian, are more capable of and vested in doing a great job for my agency than non-Indian People? In a word, no. But that's for another post.

What does this new court decision mean for me? Well, it effectively shuts the door to any possibility of promotion or advancement within my agency. And this is not a comfortable situation. I accepted a secretarial position here (and was damned happy to be offered it) because I wanted to get my foot back in the pond of federal service after a 10-year sabbatical, and I thought it would be an opportunity to reestablish myself as a high-functioning, contributing member of the federal family - and in so doing, have opportunity to advance.

Well, that is no longer a possibility for me.

It's an odd feeling. Everywhere I've worked, particularly at the Department of Justice, the mucky-mucks saw my potential and pretty much fell over themselves opening doors for me. And I climbed the ladder - dramatically. I started as a clerk-typist, and in less than 10 years I moved up - to legal clerk, secretary, paralegal specialist, victim-witness assistant, executive assistant, and finally manager of high-profile community programs. In federalese, I moved from a GS-3 to a GS-13, an unlikely achievement. When I took my present job, I "down-graded" (more federalese) to a GS-8, but figured it was only a matter of time before I had a chance to move up.

So if that isn't a possibility now, what do I do? Can I sit in my current position, effectively dead-ended, for another 10 years (which is when I'm eligible to retire), and not become filled with frustration and resentment? Granted, I'm the recipient of much praise and appreciation - even great big awards, fergawdsake - but is that enough to mollify and comfort me sufficient to settle? Or will I need to jump back into the job search pool and start looking for another position at a federal agency that will afford me the opportunity to advance?

That's what was swirling in my head all the while I ate grilled salmon, recited the Pledge of Allegiance, and experienced a Mark Spitz moment when a medal on a red, white and blue ribbon was placed around my neck.

Happy Birthday Bette!

Weird moment last night. I picked up a new biography of Bette Davis at the library yesterday and was looking forward to snuggling into bed with the book and a cup of cinnamon tea. So I'm reading along and there it was: "Bette Davis was born April 5, 1908." One hundred years ago to the day I happened to pick up the book and start to read. Well!

The book is called, "The Girl Who Walked Home Alone," by Charlotte Chandler. It's based on a series of interviews Chandler had with Bette in the early 80's. Here are just a few quotes:

"My favorite sexual fantasy used to be to make love on a bed covered with gardenias. I told this once to a man I was currently in love with, Johnny Mercer. So, one weekend, he reserved a suite at the Waldorf-Astoria, and when I arrived, the bed was covered with gardenias. I wonder what the maid thought the next morning? All those wilted and crushed gardenias. One thing it accomplished was I never had that fantasy again. There's nothing that finishes a fantasy as surely as its becoming a reality."

"A bolt of lightning hit a tree in front of the house the moment I was born. Mother told me I happened between a flash of lightning and a clap of thunder."

"There are people who give you their unasked-for martyrdom, exacting a price far greater than any you want to pay. They suffer in silence longer than any words. The child goes through life feeling an inexplicable pain. For Bobby [her sister] and me, it was exactly the opposite. We were carefree because Ruthie [her mother] made it look easy. She had all the cares, and we were very free."

"The first time I truly knew I wanted to become an actress was when I was eighteen and saw Blanche Yurka's production of Ibsen's The Wild Duck. Ruthie had taken Bobby and me to Boston to see Miss Yurka play Gina. Lovely Peg Entwistle was Hedwig, and I so totally identified with her that afterwards I told Ruthie, 'Mother, someday I am going to play Hedwig. I am going to be an actress just like Peg Entwistle.' I was on the stage. When Hedwig dies, I died. When the lights came up in the theater, I knew what I had to do. Before that performance, I wanted to be an actress. When it ended, I had to be actress. Everything fell into place and I saw myself in focus for the first time. I knew then that nothing was going to stop me from becoming an actress. Nothing."

"Only when you've done your best in a bad film have you passed the crap test. I think the test of a real professional is doing your very best even when you feel what you've got to work with is crap. I'm very proud to say, I never failed the crap test."

"I'll never forget, when I did the insane scene in Bordertown, it was first time, I believe, that anyone in motion pictures didn't tear their hair out and look insane. So Mr. Wallis sent for me, and he said, 'You have to retake this scene. No one will know you're insane.' I said, 'Mr. Wallis, if you preview this, and nobody knows I'm insane, I'll redo it.' I never heard of it again. I knew instinctively it would work because I knew that every talented actor has to play two things at one time. You don't just play one thing, standing there head-on into a camera. There's something going on in the back of your head that makes you say this. And in your head, you've got to project this other thing that's going on. The camera catches thought. And if there's ever a moment with any actor where there's no thought, the audience does not know why, but they are just not interested."

"The studio system made stars. Nobody can be made a star again in the same way without that studio system. Ninety men in the publicity department. By the time Warner films came out, the whole world knew it. Today they don't know what a star is. A star is not just a big name that supposedly can act. A star runs the set. They make the whole cast feel comfortable. They are in charge of a set, a star is."

"They've called me difficult. Well, they were correct. But what it meant was I absolutely cared about getting it right, not wrong. There are lot of people who don't want to take any risk. Some of them are just bloody lazy. Lazy is more rampant than you can believe. Then there are the ones who don't know any better. I got into trouble because I was a perfectionist. It doesn't mean that I did things perfectly. It just means I wanted to. Being a perfectionist means you can't watch rushes without feeling sick, sick, sick. You can't see your own movies without wanting to go back and redo them. Then, if you ask and expect others to reach for your standards, they hate you. On those rare occasions in life when finally you do please yourself, no one notices. But until you are called 'difficult,' you aren't anyone."

"The time in my life of my most perfect happiness was with Willie [William Wyler] directing me in Jezebel. I had the film of a lifetime and proximity to Willie. My work and Willie. Willie and my work. I knew true happiness. I cherished the moment. The only flaw was that nagging doubt in the back of my mind, 'Could it last?' I've found that happiness is a way station, a place to refuel and go on again."

[About her affair with Howard Hughes:] "I was the only one who ever brought Howard Hughes to a sexual climax, or so he said at that time. It's true. That is to say, it true that he said it. Or, let's say I nelieved it when he told me that. I was wildly naive at the time. It may have been his regular seduction gambit. Anyway, it worked with me, and it was cheaper than buying gifts. Howard Huge, he was not. I liked sex in a way that was considered unbecoming for a woman in my time. They way I felt was only considered appropriate for a man. It was both a physical and emotional need. Of course it had advantages in the pleasure it brought me. No question about that. But it also made me a victim. Dependent."

"I haven't the foggiest which is my favorite film after Dark Victory. Oh, I suppose I'd have to choose Eve. Mankiewicz was truly a genius. I always thing it's better not to have your favorite film at the very beginning of your career, when you don't need it. When you're very young, you don't need it so much. Poor Orson Welles. Imagine having to top or equal Citizen Kane!"

"George [Brent] was notorious as one of the tightest men in Hollywood. He liked me, but he loved money. Oh, I always knew how to pick 'em! Once, he gave me a bracelet with B-E-T-T-E spelled out in diamonds, you know, the tiny diamond chips. He said he was glad I had such a short name. I laughed and said, 'Well, my name is really Ruth Elizabeth.' He didn't think that was funny at all."

"Charles Laughton came on the set one day when I was doing Elizabeth, and I said, 'Hi, Daddy!' because he'd done that wonderful Henry the Eighth. It was the first time I'd ever met him. I said, 'Mr. Laughton, I really have my nerve at this age to be playing Elizabeth at sixty or so.' And e said a marvelous thing to me which I never forgot. He said, 'Never not dare to hang yourself. That's the only way you grow in your profession. You must continually attempt things that you think are beyond you, or you get into a complete rut.' He was right, and this is true, I think for all actors' careers."

"The cigarette was my character prop. Miss Crawford might have said it was my character. I used it for showing anger, to make a point or to emphasize a reaction, to show nervousness. There was no one who could put out a cigarette like I could. One thing I understood. If I played a character who smoked, she wasn't going to be a namby-pamby smoker and take a puff or two. She was going to chain-smoke her way through the film as any serious smoker worth her tobacco would. Once Dean Martin said, 'Nobody swings her butt the way Bette Davis does.' I think he was talking about my cigarette . . . "

"Have you ever regretted going to a party? First, let me tell you what makes a good party: It isn't the menu, it's the men you sit next to. If you want to have a good party, always invite beautiful women and intelligent men. If you want to have a lousy party, invite intelligent women and beautiful men."

"There comes a time in a famous and successful woman's life when there's no point in having false modesty about fame and success, and when she no longer can trust a man's protestations of desire purely for her. Too old. Even if you look young for your age, and I didn't - every one of my years showed - one of the disadvantages is everyone knows your age. Everyone. Television shows wish you a 'Happy Birthday!' Well, I can tell you it would be a far happier birthday if they didn't feel they had to wish me one and, incidentally, if they didn't have to mention specifically how many birthdays I had already had. I had enjoyed playing an old woman, when I was a young woman."

Oops! Oh well, here's to you, Miss Davis. Love always.

The Vacation that Wasn't

You can't enjoy a vacation if you're determined to torture yourself with worry, regret and recrimination every minute of every day, as I discovered this week.

See, I discovered that I made a huge boo-boo at work the day before I was planning to take a vacation. The error involved a contract with a hotel I signed on behalf of the office for a conference in another city. Through sheer ego, I didn't review the contract as closely as I should have. I've signed this sort of contract a hundred times before for conferences of up to a thousand people, and this was just a simple meeting of about 60. No prob. No sweat. But I completely passed over a certain clause about attrition of rooms, and on Monday, I received an invoice I wasn't expecting for many thousands of dollars.

I about had a heart attack at my desk. I could feel the hand of death grip my heart and squeeze. I would've puked into my trash can if I had eaten lunch. I saw my career flash in front of my eyes, my reputation burning and crashing. It was an intense moment.

My boss was on vacation so I had to go to her boss, and it wasn't an easy trip down the hall for me. He has the reputation of a recently-castrated-without-anesthetic pit bull, quick to bark, quick to gnash his teeth, quick to rip an arm off. I stopped off at every candy bowl along the hallway, stuffing easter candy in my mouth as fast as possible, gulping jelly beans in a futile attempt to experience one more good moment before my execution.

"Can I see you for just a moment?"
"Sure, come in."
"Well, I've really screwed up."

And then I tell the story. Bossman shows no emotion - no shock, no dismay, no disgust, no temper. He just says, "Well, see what you can do - call the hotel, and don't worry, so long as you learned something." I about hit the floor with relief.

I called the hotel and discovered that some of the rooms booked weren't credited to the block, so the number isn't as bad as originally presented, but it's still many thousands of dollars.

Then, before it was completely resolved, I left on vacation, a few days off just to enjoy the springtime, hang at the jacuzzi, move my furniture around, that sort of thing.

Trouble is, all I could think of was this horrible mistake, this trashing of my reputation, this financial burden, this moment of ego gone wrong. And I dreaded the reaction to the e-mail I needed to write to my boss, explaining everything so that she wasn't blindsided by my blunder first thing Monday morning.

I wrote the email today. Then I sat trembling on the sofa. Just to set the scene: my boss's nickname among her colleagues is a reworking of her last name to rhyme with Terminator. Let's just say she has a reputation. She's great with me, always thanking me and calling me darling, I love her forthrightness and work with her well, but then again, I've never been on the receiving end of her short temper, her frustration. I figured this was the moment when the tide turned, when I was no longer her prized assistant, no longer the Steve she seemed to brag about to one and all.

About an hour later, she called me, her familiar bark.

"Well, there goes your bonus."

Then she laughed.

She couldn't have been more kind and calming. She said we all make mistakes, all we can do is learn from them, that we can cover it in the budget no problem, that she should've looked the contract over herself, that I'm not paid to take that sort of risk, that she totally trusts me and relies on me, but that she is ultimately responsible and that I should remember that she's in my corner. And so on. She even confessed a gargantuan financial mistake she herself made many years ago to show me it happens to the best of us. In a word, it was a perfect response, better than I could ever have hoped, and the relief flooded over me to the point where I was giddy, dancing around the house afterward, floating on air, trilling like a Disney princess.

It was like fearing an attack from a lion and instead being licked and groomed, calmed by the loud purring. I never felt so supported in my life.

Now the rest of today is truly a vacation, a relief from self torment. And I realize, it's all right to make a mistake once in a while, I don't need to flagellate myself, even when it's a biggie.

And I could sure use another vacation!

I've been swimming lately

Fat Kid Successfully Avoids Ridicule By Swimming With Shirt On

. . . and I've adopted this boy's brilliant concept to avoid ridicule. So far it's working!!! I wear a black t-shirt, but whatever . . .