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April, 2001A few odds and ends I need to write about. I spent Saturday and Sunday in Los Angeles, for the race through the streets of Long Beach. A trip to LA involves a five hour drive (six if you obey the speed limits) and of course the need to stay overnight. I stayed at my friend David's apartment in Santa Monica. He and I have joined up to go the race at Long Beach each year for many years running, so it was logical that I stay there. I didn't have anyone traveling to the race with me this year. David had a few guests meet us at the circuit. It goes like that every year, sometimes he'll bring guests, sometimes I will, but it's always the two of us. It's a fun little tradition.
Awkward thing is that David doesn't officially know I'm gay. Sometimes I think he knows, but is too polite to say anything. Other times I think he's just clueless. You have to know David. He's very conservative and comes from a rather sheltered background. It seems like he almost lives in a by-gone era of innocence. He's a very nice guy, not married but eternally hopeful, I too hope he'll one day find the perfect girl. It's just the right match for a rare bird like David is going to be very difficult to find. But I digress; what I mean to emphasize is that I feel a bit awkward and cut-short around him. There's an important and significant part of my life that I'm not comfortable telling him a thing about. I find it ironic that in the presence of a kind, gentle friend like David, I feel like a timid mouse, scurrying along the baseboards, petrified to reveal my full presence in the center of the room.
I should be over these closet issues by now. Yet, as self-confident in my same-sex orientation as I might seem to be, it's often an illusion.
Intellectually, I know there is nothing wrong with me, that I have nothing to be ashamed of. Despite this, it is, sadly, very difficult for me to fully embrace the truth of it on an emotional and intuitive level. I spent too much of my young life listening to role models, peers, and parents who's minds were poisoned with prejudice not to have my own ability to think about personal relationships become badly distorted.
Can there be any greater torture for a boy to endure than to know that he is sick, that he is perverse, and that his friends, his community, and even his own parents would revile him if they discovered his dark secret? And what if he himself loathed with disgust and contempt the kind of monster he knew he was? The burden of such a pestilent secret could never be shared with another for the risk of exposure. The humiliations of such weakness, must, by definition be borne alone.
How can't you expect a boy to live the first twenty-five years of life like that and not have his perception of social life seriously twisted?
It has taken a considerable amount of mental effort for me to achieve a sort of balance in life - the ability live for myself and not have my past programming corrupt my ability to live. Although I have succeeded to a limited extent, I have much left to accomplish.
I felt so ashamed that I couldn't tell David about my boyfriend because I was ashamed I had one. That's twisted.
Thursday April 26th 2001
I'm mad as hell and I'm not going to take it anymore! NBCi has had my pages down for three weeks without explanation nor apology. I've been providing interesting content to attract lots of people to their banner adds and they think they can treat me like this?!! Nope, not gonna happen.
Here's the deal. I'm going to continue publishing at this URL at least through May (making the fast and loose assumption that NBCi/Xoom will keep their user homepages on line during that time) as a transition period to a new home page. I'm set up on free servers right now and will be testing their web hosting service through the end of April. If I like it, then the transition period begins and this NBCi/Xoom site will cease to exist on my terms. All that will remain after May is a forwarding link to my new location and what I hope to be a humiliating and embarrassing paragraph about NBCi/Xoom. I'll enjoy burning them on their own server. Bastards!
Better record my email address just in case this site disappears without a trace again. That will be one of the only ways to find out where I've moved to if that happens. Be assured, I have no intention of permanently withdrawing "My Back Pages" for a long time to come.
Well, web site business aside, what have I been up to this last month? Well, for one thing I've noticed that I've grown an extra inch around the middle in the last six months and I hate it. I've taken to sit-ups, pull-ups, push-ups, and running three times a week. I'm also going on 5 mile, 2,000 vertical ft. training hikes carrying 50 lbs. every weekend that I have the opportunity. I flat out REFUSE to have a big disgusting gut.
Work in the alumni relations business has picked up quite a bit recently. Two of our graduates were just named by the President as nominees for Secretary of the Air Force and Army. Another is commanding the space shuttle Endeavour in orbit. I've been doing a lot of press releases and media queries.
I've been trying to recruit some of the ski guides to attempt climbing 4000 meter Mt. Shasta in Northern California with me at the end of May. No luck on getting a team together yet. Shasta is almost as high as Mt. Rainier, which I climbed last summer, but less technical. The climb ascends only snow slopes - no glaciers with their dangerous crevasses and icefalls. If I can't get anyone to go with me I'm going to attempt it solo. I made a solo reconnaissance of the mountain in 1999, reaching 3500 meters before turning back for safety reasons. It will still be a little risky to go it alone, but my mountaineering skills have improved since my last visit so the reward of making it to the summit might be worth it this time. I'll have to make the decision while I'm there. I'd rather have a friend along.
Brent bought a new speaker system for his stereo from my friend Stuart. Stuart is the senior sales and installation technician for a high-end audiophile store in Monterey. If you want something by Technics, Pioneer, or even Sony, don't go see Stu. He doesn't sell consumer grade equipment. His component systems have names like Naime, Morantz, Rotel, MacIntosh, and McLaren. The speaker system Brent bought is made by Martin Logan.
These speakers appeal to me enormously because not only do they sound amazing, but because they aren't speakers at all in the conventional sense of the word. That is, Martin Logans are not boxes with a conical diaphragm and a heavy magnetic driver at the center. Intead, they are flat panels composed of metallic mesh grids that sandwich a thin film of mylar-type material. The grids create precisely controlled charged fields which make move the mylar to create sound. I just love the complete disregard Martin Logan shows for the paradigm of what a speaker is!
Thanks, dear readers, for your patience with NBCi/Xoom. If you are reading this, then you've had more patience with them than I have.