me’s blog

I momentarily contemplated posting the following stand-alone sentence as a blog entry today:

"The last time I smoked a cigarette was exactly four years ago."

But as those of you who have been reading my entries have undoubtedly noticed, I’m not one to leave the blanks unfilled-in.  And besides, what if one of my faithful readers wants to know how I did it, perhaps because he/she is struggling with the desire to quit as well?  Then read on, faithful readers.  This is how it happened.

I spent most of 2003 on a long-term temp assignment at the American Association of Medical Colleges at 23rd & M, assisting a handful of other overqualified temps in the verification of transcript information on medical school applications.  My boss was named Shanequa, and her boss was named Cleashay.  I shit you not.  I could never come up with a name quite so - for lack of a better word - cliché.  Not that I haven’t tried.  I think the word "debris" would make a pretty name.  Of course it’d have to be spelled like DeBr’is or something, but still, I think it’s lovely.

Anyway, it was an oppressively hot, humid, downright unpleasant morning in late July 2003.  I had a 10-15 minute walk from the Metro to the office, during which I would suck the life out of a Parliament 100 every morning without fail.  Which reminds me, can anybody explain to me why 100’s cost the same as regulars?  It always seemed completely counterintuitive to me.  I mean, you get like WAAAAY more bang for the buck, right?  Or am I missing something?

ANYWAY - focus, Matt! - it was disgusting outside on that late July morning, and I realized that I was already going to be pretty much soaked with sweat by the time I arrived at the office.  I simply could not make any logical sense of the desire to voluntarily add cigarrette funk to the general disgustingness in which I’d be stewing for the duration of that particular workday.  And while I’d never performed studies or conducted research to test this hypothesis, somehow I independently arrived at the conclusion that inhaling something while it was on fire would probably raise my body temperature even higher than the day’s weather already had.  So I decided not to have a cigarette on the walk to work that morning.

The day progressed.  When it came time for my regular morning smoke break I went through the same thought process as I had on my walk to work.  Knowing that the heat and humidity were only climbing higher, I decided to stay at my desk.  When lunchtime rolled around I crossed the street to the little buffet place to grab a bite to eat, but chose not to hang around outside ingesting fire while schvitzing my tits off.  Afternoon smoke break and the walk back to the Metro, same thing.  It was simply too nasty outside to smoke.

Which brings me to one last tangent.  Why do smokers get built-in smoke breaks at work?  And why, then, do we non-smokers not get "fresh air breaks" built into our schedules?  When it’s nice outside I’d love to go stand in front of the building and loiter, enjoying the fresh air for 15 minutes before going back inside to work.  But I can’t just stand there.  I’d look like an unprofessional idiot.  If my boss happened to be entering or leaving the building at that time - or in the office, looking for me - she’d think I was slacking off.  If I were a smoker, however, I’d have a perfectly valid excuse.  There’s this one guy who works in our building who is literally ALWAYS either in front of the building on a smoke break, or stinking up the elevator en route to a smoke break.  If he ever gets any work done he must be staying until midnight, which I kind of doubt is the case.  Both of my faithful readers already understand how these types of workplace inequities rile me up.  I’m not sure which is worse, allowing flip-flops for women or smoke breaks for smokers.  I should write a(nother) letter.

The yucky day recounted above was July 29, 2003.  The heat and humidity were the same and/or worse the next day, so my simple logic persevered and kept me from smoking that day as well.  And the day after that.  By the third day it dawned on me:  I think I’ve just quit smoking.  It was not a plan, nor was it a decision.  It was really kind of an accident, but once I’d accidentally quit, it was definitely a conscious decision not to start again.  A conscious decision informed by a handful of delightfully immediate realizations about my newly smoke-free self.  My fingers were no longer yellow!  My clothes no longer reeked!  I was no longer giving myself lung cancer!  Besides, once I’d quit, it just seemed easier to stay quit than it would be to try quitting again in the future.  I hadn’t planned it, but the timing worked out just fine for me.

So there you have it, dear readers.  That is how I accidentally quit smoking.  To celebrate this four-year milesone, I think I’m gonna go hang out in front of the building now to enjoy some fresh air.  And of course to glare at that other, far more fetid slacker who really should be out of a job by now.  Stinky asshole.

After linking to Craig Ferguson’s illuminating clip in my last post, I feel a skosh guilty using this post to point both of my faithful readers to this far less eloquent one from Tuesday night’s episode of The Tonight Show with Jay Leno.  It’s interesting, however, because it just helps to drive home the idea that, at a certain point, kicking a celebrity while she’s down - not to mention riddled with a disease that could kill her - is just plain cruel.  And in this case, painfully unfunny.

I promise this will be the last post on this topic.  If not, may Rob Schneidner himself come and take my sense of humor away from me.  Lord knows he needs it.

Usually I try to keep my humble little blogs away from the realm of celebrity gossip.  There are already hundreds of bloggers out there devoted to that crap, and it’s just not what I do.  Don’t get me wrong.  Of course I read puh-lenty of that inanely ubiquitous drivel, however I prefer to regard myself as wholly incapable of the vapidity required to write it.  That said, an item in today’s news hits a tad close to home, so I feel obliged to share.

In yet another unsurprising turn of events, Lindsay Lohan has gone and gotten herself arrested again.  According to cnn.com, this time she has been charged with "driving under the influence, possession of cocaine, bringing a controlled substance into a jail facility, and driving on a suspended license."

Okay, um, first things first.  "Bringing a controlled substance into a jail facility"???  Apparently times have changed in Los Angeles, because I’m relatively certain that when I was arrested there nearly 4.5 years ago, all drugs had been removed from my person by the time I crossed the threshold of the jail facility.  Isn’t it the responsibility of the arresting officers to ensure that all drugs are confiscated prior to escorting a scofflaw onto the premises?  And is the negligence of the police seriously something they can add to someone’s list of charges?  Hardly seems fair to charge a person with the cops’ own oversight.

But I digress.  I like Lindsay.  I’ve seen a handful of her movies, and it has become quite clear to me that she does indeed have the potential to someday become a truly great actress.  If she lives long enough.

Many recent articles about the newly legal 21 year-old have mentioned a new high-tech alcohol-monitoring ankle bracelet which she allegedly volunteered to wear upon her release from rehab a couple weeks ago.  Each article is accompanied by photographs of Lindsay partying her ass off at some hot club in Las Vegas, fashionably dressed in floozy chic, whooping it up until dawn with said ankle bracelet in plain view.  Captions hail that this "new Lindsay" - who bears an uncanny resemblance to the old Lindsay - now merely sips on Red Bull all night long, and that her whooping has become more tame than before.

We recovery folks have a saying.  Well, we actually have a lot of sayings, but one of them is that if you keep hanging out at the barber shop, eventually you’re going to get a haircut.  After seeing so many pictures of recently rehabbed Lindsay hanging out at her metaphorical barber shop, I sensed it was only a matter of time before she’d get herself a metaphorical haircut.  (At least she didn’t shave her head… yet.)  I can’t honestly say that I expected this to happen so soon, but I also can’t honestly say that I’m surprised.  If we addicts keep doing what we’ve been doing, we’ll keep getting what we’ve been getting.  It applies to the good times as well as the bad.  It’s not exactly rocket science.

It is, however, a disease.  And like so many diseases, this one is a killer.  I was reminded of that this weekend when I learned that an acquaintance of mine named Timmy had just passed away.  I didn’t know him very well, but I do remember when I first met four years ago at the very first Crystal Meth Anonymous meeting I attended in Washington, DC.  In the time since he had relapsed frequently, but he kept coming back to meetings and trying again.  Although it seems he died from complications from an earlier suicide attempt, I’ve heard that when he died he had 59 days sober.  While that number may seem small to a few of my faithful readers, even just one day sober can be a seemingly impossible challenge to a struggling addict.  Two months is nothing short of a miracle.  Sometimes I forget that keeping such a cunning, baffling, and powerful disease in remission isn’t as easy for some addicts as it has been thus far for me.  Then something like this happens, and I remember to be grateful.

So tonight, instead of gossiping about Lindsay Lohan, I think I’ll take a page from the Aretha Franklin songbook and say a little prayer for her.  And I’ll rewatch this excellent clip of classy late night funnyman-slash-recovering alcoholic Craig Ferguson, a clip which first aired on his show earlier this year as Britney Spears was going through her head-shaving meltdown.  I hope you’ll take 12 minutes and 30 seconds to watch this incredibly eloquent clip as well.  It’s definitely worth the time.

Do it for Timmy.

This is the song I mentioned in yesterday’s post, the one I wrote for my friend Darrah.  At some point during one of my first NYC visits many years ago, she told me about a boy she had been friends with when she was a little girl.  He and his family had to move away, but before they left, the boy gave her a small wooden box filled with pieces of broken glass.  He said he was giving her his diamonds to hold onto until they saw each other again. 

Every time one of my visits with Darrah has ended, that story has resonated loudly in my mind.  So I wrote this song for her and recorded it in my bedroom back in the fall of 1996.  You can download the mp3 by clicking here.  [NOTE:  I think that download link will be good for a limited time only, but I'm not sure how limited, so just go ahead and download it now.]

BOX OF GLASS

she walked away as a cab drove out of her life and down broadway
there she stood waving smiling cold beneath the rising sun
then the teardrop raindrop took its course and the memory became real
and she lonely climbed that empty stoop where they once sat and smoked

her friendship seemed to surely pass the time and time again
the treasure won for three small days was hers upon the shelf
give it back to the owner as he drives into the dirty city dawn
to sleep beside the home that he once knew so well

she didn’t have to give him anything
just a box of glass
still the diamonds cut the memory and it shines
for centuries to pass

he loved the game but he didn’t know all the rules and he couldn’t play
but he knew that the fated ship would sink as soon as it left the dock that day
so he placed it in a bottle and he sailed it to his star above the sea
peaceful dreams inside would wake her up forevermore

she didn’t have to give him anything
just a box of glass
still the diamonds cut the memory and it shines
for centuries to pass

she gave him everything
inside a box of glass
her diamonds bring the sunlight down to earth
and the pain will pass

yes the pain will pass into the autumn air
and the night will come again someday
i know her confident integrity
i know her simple sacred sanity
i know her vision keeps him safe
until the sun drowns into the deep blue sea
and all the birds fly east to the wind’s defeat
and she will see him come alive when he is free

she didn’t have to give him anything
just a box of glass
still the diamonds cut the memory and it shines
for centuries to pass

she gave him everything
inside a box of glass
her diamonds bring the sunlight down to earth
and the pain will pass
yes the pain will pass

I want to offer BIG THANKS to all of you who wished me a happy 2nd 29th birthday yesterday.  Words can’t say how warm and fuzzy I get inside with each and every text message or email or phone call I receive from you crazy people.  I love my friends, and it’s true what they say - you get what you give. 

I’m delighted to tell you that I had an undramatic yet full day closing out an undramatic yet full week in my undramatic yet full life.  I was off from work all of last week, and even though I wasn’t working, my week was packed.  My "vacation" began last Saturday and Sunday, the first two days of my new weekly DJ gig out at the Guess store in Tysons Corner, VA.  [If you haven't yet visited me there, come by and say hello any Saturday or Sunday from 2-7pm.]  Then Monday and Tuesday involved some long-overdue bathroom cleaning and general apartment "stuff" sorting, a process which I always seem to start and never seem to finish.

On Wednesday the 4th I had a blast white-water rafting with some friends out near Harpers Ferry, WV.  The day was almost as beautiful as our river guide Charlie, a shockingly only 18 year-old soccer player (yum!) blessed with dark, curly hair (yum!) and an aw-shucks straight-but-gay-friendly attitude (YUM!).  Then came the thunderstorm and the subsequent rush to the finish line to avoid being struck by lightning, which admittedly would have been a rather fitting demise for a raftful of gay men lusting after an 18 year-old.  Storm notwithstanding, it was a fun day start to finish.

Early Thursday morning I took the Chinatown bus to New York, caught up with one friend over lunch and another friend over dinner, and ended the night dancing with another friend at a gay bar in Chelsea called Splash.  My fondest memory of Splash is from the fall of 1998, when I went there while a student on the Duke In New York program.  Some drunk stranger shoved me onto the stage and I ended up in Splash’s weekly amateur strip contest.  Nine stacked-n-ripped Chelsea men and little scrawny me, me who NEVER takes my shirt off, me who would NEVER enter any kind of strip contest, standing there beet red and ready to die from embarrassment - or from the anvil I was hoping would fall on my head at any moment.  While the rest of the men thought they were hot shit and got off on the exhibitionism of it all, I laughed my way through the whole thing, covering my face in sheer incredulity that this was actually happening.  The crowd ate up my genuine humiliation, thanks in no small part to the drag queen hostess strongly egging them on.  She dubbed me "Chicken Little", which, as both of my faithful readers may recall, was not my first chicken-related nickname.  And then when she was suggestively positioning me and the other two final contestants to have us gyrate for 30 seconds in our undies as the final round of the competition, for some reason I let it slip that I could put both of my legs behind my head at the same time.  The crowd lost its collective shit, chanting "Chicken Little!  Chicken Little!"  Needless to say, I won the $250 prize that night.  Perhaps also needless to say, the $250 went up my nose by the end of the night.  This was just a few months into the first year of my drug career, while I was still in my coke phase.  Ahh, memories!

Moving on.  Friday morning I had brunch with my friend Darrah, a sparkling Elisabeth Shue-esque beauty I met in Durham the summer after my sophomore year at Duke.  Her West Village apartment became my crash pad for the frequent trips I would take to NYC during school breaks, and we had many great times talking on her stoop, hanging at Art Bar - I even wrote and recorded a song for her called "Box Of Glass".  Darrah kind of embodies New York for me, and she lives a life similar to the one I’ve always dreamed of living there.  Anyway, while brunching it dawned on us that we hadn’t seen each other in NINE YEARS, since my New York stint during the fall of 1998 mentioned above.  So I of course filled her in on the highlights of my drugalog, as well as the ongoing story of my recovery, and she of course was glad that I am still alive.  She also brought back a handful of memories from oh-so-long ago that I would have thought my drug-addled mind had completely forgotten.  That was truly a beautiful thing.  And without her even saying a word about it, I’m once again thinking about moving to New York.  The mere sight of Darrah’s stoop always plays that vicious Jedi mind trick on me.  Stoopid stoop.

I got home from New York on Friday night, DJ’d at Guess on Saturday, and then rested up for Sunday, the big 3-0.  The day started with an emotional standing ovation after my piano-playing debut as an accompanist for the incredible vocalists on the Metropolitan Community Church’s Praise Team.  Then I went out to Tysons to spin all afternoon, which is so great because I’m basically getting paid to loudly listen to whatever music I want all day long.  I love it!  And I ended up at the Bailer compound out in Camp Springs for a delicious home-cooked meal with the family and the Jackalyst.

Like I said, just another full day rounding out another full week in my full life.  I sure am a lucky old man.  It’s good to be old.  Especially since there were times when it didn’t look like I’d make it.  Now I’m gonna go home, strap on my Depends, settle into my rocking chair, and hit on younger men.  And maybe I’ll come up with some wise stories to share with you crazy young’uns.  ‘Cuz that’s what we old gay men do.  That, and identify with the Golden Girls. 

So watch out Dorothy Zbornak.  They may have called you Turkey Lurkey in high school, but there’s a new Chicken in town!