Scanning My Diaries

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I bought a scanner this week, and I’ve begun scanning my journals into digital format.

I’ve been keeping diaries and journals since January 2, 1987, shortly after my 13th birthday. Earlier that year I’d read The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole Aged 13 3/4, a British work of fiction in the form of a boy’s diary, and I decided I wanted to keep my own. For Hanukkah that year, my parents bought me a blank diary, and I’ve been writing down my thoughts ever since. Sometimes I go weeks or months without writing, and for a while my journal writing was replaced by some very intense blogging, but I’ve since returned to writing most of my stuff in my own private journal, and I’ve always held on to my journals. Lately I’ve decided I want to have backups, just in case something happens to the originals; also,  converting them to digital format will make it easier to skim through all of them someday. So I bought a scanner through Amazon and I’ve started scanning them.

I’ve already scanned everything up through the middle of my second year of college, and it’s been fun glancing at the pages and seeing how I’ve evolved as a person.

After the first couple of pages in my first diary, there are some pages missing. I tore them out a long, long time ago. They spanned most of 1987. In middle school, I wrote a lot about a crush I had on a classmate. A year or two later, I was ashamed of what I’d written, so I tore out the pages and threw them away. I regret throwing them out. I wish I still had those pages.

And there’s another page missing from my diary. I visited Israel when I was 18 years old, and in Jerusalem I planned to do what many people do: write a prayer on a piece of paper, roll it up, and stick it in a crack in the Western Wall. I decided that no piece of paper would be more sacred to me than a piece of paper from my own diary, so the night before we visited the Western Wall, I wrote a prayer on a blank page of my diary and tore it out.

If I remember correctly, my prayer was something like this: I don’t know what I want in life, so please, God, just let me be happy. The biggest issue in my life at the time was that I was totally confused by my sexuality, and I had no idea how I wanted it to be resolved. I figured if I asked for some specific outcome, it might not be what I wanted. You know those stories where someone asks a genie for a wish, and the wish turns out to be not at all what the person wanted? Well, I figured I would work the system. When you wish for something, you’re really saying, “Please — if you grant me this wish, I will be happy.” So I decided to cut out the intermediate steps and just ask for happiness. Since I had no idea what would make me happy, I decided to leave it up to a higher power.

I don’t believe in God anymore. And I can’t say that I’ve found true happiness. Maybe human beings aren’t meant to be truly happy, or maybe something in my makeup just keeps me from it. I’m not depressed; I’m just constantly yearning for something I don’t have. And if I ever get what I hope for, I worry that I’ll just wind up wanting something else.

I sometimes wonder what will happen to all my diaries after I die. Oddly, I’ve always kind of thought that after I died, I would want my mother to keep them and read them. But of course, in the normal scheme of things, my parents will be long gone by the time I die. I don’t know if it’s that I can’t conceive of my living a long life, or that I can’t conceive of my parents dying, or – most likely – that I just really want my parents to get me.

But other than family, I can’t imagine who would ever want to read everything I’ve written. I’m not a significant person – I’m just an ordinary human being who will be forgotten after my death, just like everyone else. And I shouldn’t really care what happens to my diaries after I die, since there will no longer be a me to care about them.

Diaries serve two purposes that I can think of: (1) writing down your thoughts, and (2) reading your own thoughts several years after the fact in order to reminisce or keep track of your personal growth. What my diaries will mean to other people, I have no idea.

But at least by scanning them, I can preserve and maybe prolong their existence.

Santa Fe Celebrity Sighting

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One night last week on my trip, I was walking near the Santa Fe Plaza after dinner. It was pretty quiet and there were only a few people walking around.

In the distance, I saw two men holding hands walking along the street toward me. “Aw, how sweet,” I thought. “It’s nice to see a same-sex couple around here not afraid to hold hands.”

As they got closer to me, two things happened.

One, the men stopped holding hands.

Two, I realized that one of them was Jesse Tyler Ferguson.

(I feel ok writing about this, since he’s totally out.)

Now, I’ve been a fan of Jesse Tyler Ferguson for a few years. I first saw him in The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee on Broadway in 2005 as the adorkable Leaf Coneybear. Then he was on this short-lived CBS sitcom called The Class. And then, of course, came Modern Family, and now he’s nationally famous.

So, I suddenly realized that Jesse Tyler Ferguson and his boyfriend were walking toward me. And then right past me.

I quickly turned around and said, “Are you Jesse Tyler Ferguson?”

He said, “Yeah… hi…” without stopping or really turning around, and they continued on walking.

“Sorry, I won’t bother you,” I said, and I kept on in my direction.

I immediately felt so stupid and rude and mortified. I hadn’t even said “excuse me” first. I’d just blurted out “Are you Jesse Tyler Ferguson?” like some pushy idiot.

I wish I’d said, “I loved you in ‘Spelling Bee,'” or something like that, to show that I wasn’t some random yokel who knew him only from TV. It would have been even better if I’d seen him in “On the Town” 12 years ago.

I totally felt like I’d invaded his privacy. I imagined that he and his boyfriend had come to Santa Fe to get away from L.A. for a few days. I wondered if Santa Fe was one of those places where L.A. people go to get away from it all, like when New Yorkers go to Maine or something. Afterward I looked him up and it turns out that he actually grew up in Albuquerque, which is about an hour away from Santa Fe. But I still felt like I’d intruded.

I don’t know what it is about certain celebrities. Even though I’m a New Yorker, I still always feel like famous people are imaginary people made of stardust. I’m in awe of them, and I want to talk to them, and I want them to like me. It’s like they’ll suddenly recognize something special in me, and they’ll sprinkle me with stardust and initiate me into their tribe.

It’s totally ridiculous, because of course I’m nobody. They don’t know me from Adam. The same thing happened when I saw Michael Urie in the audience of Angels in America a few months ago; I went up and said hi to him and felt totally stupid afterwards.

I guess in some way, I want to be more than I am. I want to be special and charmed and famous. I don’t feel that desire as much as I used to; years of therapy have helped me realize that just being me is good enough.

But famous people still have this hold over me.

Capturing Memories Through Flight Tracking

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If you follow my Twitter feed, you know that I was in Santa Fe last week. I was there for a work conference and I annoyingly Foursquared and tweeted my way through everything.

I get romantic and wistful when I fly on airplanes. I get daydreamy and introspective as I fly above the earth and look down at the vast landscape beneath me. I love sitting at the window and staring down at everything. On this trip I flew through Dallas, so part of my trip was Dallas< -->Santa Fe. The plane flew over numerous crop irrigation circles and isolated north Texas towns, and I imagined all the people living in those little places. People I will never meet, towns I will never visit. It makes me sad that I’ll never meet them. I spot what is probably a high school football field, and I imagine everyone from the town and the nearby farms getting together there on Friday nights for high school football games. They live in these self-contained places where everyone knows who everyone else is. I wouldn’t really want to live there. But it still makes me wistful.

I see a small town, and then a long, straight road that must go on for a couple of miles, and then at the end of the road I see another small town. I’ll never know what towns they were.

But no. The thing is, with the internet, I really can see those places again. I can see the flight path I took, and I can click on the Google Earth link and see my flight path in Google Earth and zoom in on the towns I probably flew over. Maybe I was looking at Tulia, Texas, and Happy, Texas?

It’s so cool that with the internet, we can capture these moments and memories and places that used to just flow through our fingers like sand before disappearing forever. Now we can revisit them. I love it.

Will Horton and Sonny Kiriakis: “Days of Our Lives” Goes Gay

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There have been gay characters on soap operas for a few years now. But this time it’s different, because now my soap, Days of our Lives, finally has its first gay characters. I’m so psyched.

Even though I rarely watch Days anymore, it’s still my soap. My mom has watched it almost since the beginning, and I picked up the habit from her when I was 11 or 12. I’ve been following the Hortons and the Bradys on and off for 25 years. (Holy crap, it’s been that long?) I know, most soaps have mediocre acting and writing; whenever I watch Days and Matt happens to be in the room, he rolls his eyes. But I can’t help it. These people are like family to me.

So, here’s the deal: the show recently introduced a new character, Sonny Kiriakis (played by Freddie Smith), who’s the son of Justin and Adrienne Kiriakis. (Justin and Adrienne were on the show in the late ’80s and early ’90s and then disappeared for a long time until returning a year or so ago. We’d never seen their son until now – he was “traveling the world.”) Sonny’s first appearance was June 23, and the audience learned that he was gay just two days ago, when he came out to his great-uncle Victor. His parents already knew and were already supportive, which is so refreshing to see. (This scene, where they talk about how they first reacted, is touching and seems pretty realistic to me. And I like the line about the cowboys.)

The writers are setting Sonny up for some sort of somethin’ with Will Horton (played by Chandler Massey). Will is both a Brady and a Horton: he’s the son of Sami Brady and Lucas Horton, and he’s the grandson of Roman and Marlena, one of the most legendary couples in the show’s history, so his character has deep roots. (Will has been on the show since the mid-90s, but Chandler Massey just started playing him last year.) Will just graduated from high school, and lately he’s been acting kind of awkward around his girlfriend, as if something’s going on with him that he doesn’t want to talk about…

Sonny and Will met each other on Sonny’s first episode on June 23. Take a look: chemistry?

A few YouTubers are archiving the whole story. Because it just began and because most characters only show up a couple of times a week, it doesn’t take long to catch up. Start here.

I will be following excitedly.

Trial on TV

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You know what’s weird? The Casey Anthony trial is a case that has apparently transfixed America for three years. You know when I first heard about it? Two or three weeks ago. And that’s only because I decided to record The Today Show a few weeks ago so I could watch Meredith Vieira’s last episode and Ann Curry’s first episode as host. (I’ve long been interested in The Today Show as an institution even though I don’t watch it regularly anymore.) They did a report on “the Casey Anthony trial” and I had no idea what they were talking about. I figured it was another one of those sensationalistic “missing white girl” stories that I have no interest in. I barely gave it a further moment’s thought until the verdict was announced yesterday. I was working from home, and I saw online that she’d just been found not guilty. I went to the TV, where the previous half hour of MSNBC was in the TiVo buffer, and I rewound it and watched the announcement of the verdict.

I’m baffled as to how I’d heard so little about this case. I guess it’s because most of the news I follow is from politics websites and the New York Times, and if there was any coverage of it in the Times until yesterday, I missed it. We also watch NBC Nightly News almost every night, but Brian Williams has barely covered it there.

After watching the verdict, I went to Wikipedia to read up on the history and details of the case, so I’ve caught up a bit.

Again, it’s weird, because when all the O.J. stuff was going on in the ’90s, I generally knew what was going on, even if I still didn’t really obsess over it or anything. But this case? I hadn’t even realized it existed.

I’m not disappointed that I missed most of this. On the contrary. But I’m still just… baffled that I did.

New NJ Marriage Lawsuit

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Today Lambda Legal filed a lawsuit in New Jersey seeking marriage equality. Here’s the complaint.

In 2006, in response to a previous lawsuit, the New Jersey Supreme Court ruled that the state had to provide equal treatment to gay and straight couples, but it left it up to the state legislature to decide whether this would come in the form of civil unions or marriage. The legislature chose civil unions. Now Lambda has sued the state, arguing that civil unions are not good enough and that only marriage will provide equality.

The complaint sets forth the reasons why civil unions aren’t good enough. Skip ahead to page 16 (paragraph 30) for some specific ways in which gay New Jersey couples in civil unions have experienced inequality even though civil unions supposedly provide equality. Complications have come up in hospital emergencies, in funeral homes, in the context of insurance benefits, and in other areas.

It’s interesting: right now, New Jersey treats gay couples better than New York does, but in a few weeks, New York will leap ahead of New Jersey, and New Jersey will be the inferior state.

Here’s hoping New Jersey follows New York’s lead.

Online Marriage Debates

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someone is wrong on the internet

I’ve been debating marriage equality today on a conservative website during some free moments. There was a time when I used to do more of this, but I gave up a long time ago, because (1) life is too short for the unpleasantness and stress that comes from experiencing the vitriol of people who don’t want you to have equal rights; (2) I got tired of saying the same things over and over again to different people; and (3) our side started winning in the court of public opinion. Still, for some reason I felt like doing it today.

There are many problems with trying to debate people online. The biggest problem is that you’re arguing with a disembodied entity. People who engage in online debates tend to forget that they’re arguing with fellow human beings, so there’s a certain amount of empathy and politeness missing. It’s easy to be nasty when you forget that the person you’re arguing with is an actual person.

And it’s not just that people forget they’re arguing with human beings; they forget that they’re arguing about human beings. It’s a lot easier to make silly arguments that gay people are trying to bring down society and are just being selfish little pricks when you don’t know any actual gay people. Human beings are not abstractions; we have desires, and interests, and hobbies, and friends, and hopes, and dreams, and thoughts, and feelings, and pasts.

And the problem works both ways. Sometimes no amount of logical argument will change someone’s mind. Sometimes it helps to try and understand where the other person is coming from and why they feel a certain way rather than fruitlessly try and “win the argument” right now. But on the internet, you have no idea whether you’re arguing with a 55-year-old guy with lots of life experience or a snotty college student who’s not as smart or worldly as he thinks he is. I might use different tactics with each person. But on the internet, that’s usually not possible. This is still one of my most fulfilling moments in more than 10 years of blogging, but it’s very rare.

So why bother? Well, maybe other people are lurking, and maybe they’ll be convinced by what you say. Or maybe those lurkers agree with you and they can use your arguments in other places.

Generally I find it’s not worth it. On rare occasions, like today, I just feel like it. But often I’d much rather have a discussion than a debate, and that’s not really possible in many places online.

Marriage Equality in New York

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It’s been a long road to marriage equality in New York State.

Five years ago next month, the New York Court of Appeals ruled in Hernandez v. Robles that the state constitution didn’t give same-sex couples the right to get married. I remember the anger, sadness and frustration I felt that day. The decision came out in the morning; in the evening, we went to a rally in Sheridan Square. Later that night, I wrote the following:

This decision is as insulting as Bowers v. Hardwick, the 1986 anti-sodomy decision that was eventually sent to history’s dustbin by Lawrence v. Texas. Rallies were held in Sheridan Square on the sad day that Bowers was decided and again on the happy day 17 years later when Lawrence reversed it. I look forward to the day when a rally is held in celebration of New York State’s allowing its gay citizens to get married, a day when Hernandez v. Robles itself is relegated to the dustbin of history.

And we’d damn well better not have to wait 17 years for it.

It turns out it took just five years, not 17. The depressing 38-24 Senate vote two years ago was just a bump along the road, but an important one; without it, we wouldn’t have seen where senators stood and known who needed to be lobbied, and we might not have ultimately achieved victory this past Friday.

These last two weeks were excruciating. The Senate seemed stalled at 31 votes for, 31 against. It didn’t even seem clear that there’d be a vote. It felt like Groundhog Day, waiting and waiting and waiting day after day for the Senate to act. But part of me knew it would happen; it just didn’t seem possible that we would come this far, only to have the Senate not vote, or worse, reach a tie vote. There was a rumor that a 32nd vote had been found, but it didn’t seem to be sourced.

Some of Matt’s family was visiting this weekend, and as we traipsed around the city on Thursday night and Friday, doing touristy things with them, we both kept obsessively checking Twitter to see if there were any developments. Frustration began to set in as the process dragged out longer and longer. It started to seem like maybe the Senate session would end without a vote.

But then suddenly the dam broke. Things seemed to happen so quickly: they’ve agreed on amended language! The Assembly has voted on it! And then… the Senate will vote on it tonight!

On Friday night, Matt and I sat at home, watching the vote live on TV and following our Twitter feeds. And then Stephen Saland, a Republican who had remained publicly undecided, announced on the floor of the Senate that he was a yes. That was it: this was really going to happen. At one point I was afraid that that bigot Ruben Diaz was going to drag things out and that somehow there wouldn’t actually be a vote. But it happened. 33-29! It was done! All the frustration and anxiety melted away so quickly that for a while I almost forgot I’d spent the last two weeks feeling it. It wasn’t until I remembered the anxiety and realized I didn’t need to feel it anymore that it really began to hit me.

This new law obviously has very personal implications. Matt and I have been together for seven and a half years, and we’ve discussed getting married, but it’s always been a necessarily hypothetical discussion. Now the possibility is real. Whatever we decide, I’m thrilled that my state now treats me as an equal citizen and that we’re allowed to make the choice for ourselves.

I’ve been so proud and happy to be a gay New Yorker this weekend.

Between Books

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Last week I finished reading a long book, and I’m trying to find a new one. So far, no luck.

I’ve got several dozen book samples on my Kindle, but none of them seems to be grabbing me. I keep switching back and forth between different books until my interest latches onto it. I guess that’s the nice thing about the Kindle, though: I can carry more than one book with me at a time.

I’m switching back and forth among Diarmaid McCulloch’s Christianity (a history book), Richard Evans’s The Third Reich in Power (I read the first book in his trilogy, The Coming of the Third Reich, a few years ago), and Erik Larson’s In the Garden of Beasts, also about Nazi Germany. But I’ve reached the end of the sample of that last one, and I can’t seem to get myself interested enough to pay for the whole book.

Why such depressing subject matter? I don’t know. I just find it interesting. But apparently not interesting enough to latch onto right now for a full read.

Maybe I need a break from reading the Kindle screen? Maybe I miss old-fashioned paper books?

I don’t know. I’m sure some book will call out to me soon enough.

Don’t Touch the Hasids

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The torturously slow fight for marriage equality in New York State has been going on for the last week. There have been lots of rallies, pro and con.

Yesterday something interesting happened. State senator Ruben Diaz, the only Democrat to oppose equality, showed up at a rally with a bunch of anti-gay Hasidic Jews. Then suddenly Rabbi Sharon Kleinbaum of Congregation Beit Simchat Torah, the LGBT synagogue in New York City, appeared with her own pro-equality sign. A sign battle ensued for a few moments as each side tried to get their sign in front of the camera.

And then, for some reason, Rabbi Kleinbaum did something controversial: she put her arm around the shoulder of one of the Hasidic Jews. This is just not done. Hasidic Jews believe it’s wrong to physically touch people of the opposite sex other than your spouse.

Below is the video of what happened. For a moment the man did nothing; maybe it took him a few seconds to realize what was going on. But then he violently pulled away, as if he’d touched a pulsating pile of human brains, and he and his colleague ritually spit in Rabbi Kleinbaum’s direction and began shouting at her, “You are not a Jew!”

For some reason she seemed surprised that these guys were so upset. Come on, rabbi: you’re an expert on Judaism. How did you expect them to react?

I really don’t understand what her point was. Maybe she was trying to be friendly? At any rate, I think it was stupid of her to touch the guy. I don’t think she had any right to do so; would it have been proper to force feed him a ham sandwich?

And it undermines our message. One of the points of the marriage equality movement is that it is distinctly not about infringing on other people’s religious practices. Religion should not infringe upon the state, and vice versa. If marriage equality becomes law, Hasidic Jews and evangelical Christians will still have the right to refuse such marriages from taking place in their houses of worship; they will continue to have every right to practice their religion. They just won’t be permitted to make the rest of us practice it as well.

I can understand why some people might think it was okay for Kleinbaum to try to “teach the guy a lesson.” After all, Hasidic Judaism is homophobic and sexist; these men are trying to impose their beliefs on other people, and the imposition of their beliefs has harmful consequences for real-life couples and families; and they chose to protest in a secular location, and a crowded one at that, so they should have expected that they might accidentally touch someone of the opposite gender.

But Kleinbaum went out of her way to put her arm around the guy. She didn’t bump into him. She did it deliberately.

No, it’s not a terrible thing. But it wasn’t really necessary, either.

Missing Mad Men

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The new season of True Blood begins on Sunday, so we’ve signed up for HBO again. We don’t really watch HBO during the rest of the year, so we don’t see the point in paying $16 a month for it, but it’s worth it during the summer.

I associate True Blood with summer Sunday nights: sitting on the couch in shorts and a t-shirt, turning off the air conditioner so that we can hear the TV.

Unfortunately, my sense memory keeps tricking me into thinking that Mad Men is also coming back soon. Because that’s the other thing that makes me think of summer Sunday nights. For the last couple of summers it’s been a great TV combination: Bloody vampire southern Gothic on HBO at 9:00, followed by New York midcentury modern on AMC at 10:00.

I am SO ABSOLUTELY BUMMED that there will be no Mad Men this summer. And I’d thought it was coming back in January, but no – it’s actually not coming back until March. MARCH! Are you kidding me?

I wonder if there’s anything else worth watching on summer Sunday nights. Any ideas?

Prince Charles Breaks Record

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Somewhat related to my previous post:

This is somewhat late, but a month and a half ago, on April 20, Prince Charles became the longest-serving heir to the throne in British history.

The prince, 62, has broken the record set by his great-great-grandfather, Edward VII, having waited as of to take over from the Queen for 59 years, two months and 14 days, Clarence House said.

Charles became heir apparent at the age of three when his mother, Princess Elizabeth, acceded to the throne on 6 February 1952. He was nine when he was given the title Prince of Wales.

Edward VII was born the heir apparent on 9 November 1841 as his mother, Queen Victoria, was already on the throne. He became king when she died on 22 January 1901, having waited 59 years, two months and 13 days.

I feel kind of bad for Charles.

(Here’s the list of people who have been first in line to the British throne.)

The Story of Britain

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I’ve been reading The Story of Britain, by Rebecca Fraser. It’s a survey history of Britain from ancient times to the present, and I’m enjoying it. I took a British history course in college, but I’d forgotten a lot of it.

My college course was a year-long class, and I had wildly different professors in the fall and spring. The fall professor, who covered English history up to 1688, was old-fashioned and histrionic. All I really remember is him telling us the tale of the princes in the tower in this wildly over-the-top and dramatic manner.

The second half covered British history from 1688 to the present, and I enjoyed it much more – in part because I found the modern era more interesting, and in part because the professor was much more sane and coherent and analytical.

This book is bringing it all back, and filling in the gaps I’d missed. It focuses more on the monarchs in the first half, but once it gets to the 18th or 19th century, it turns into a more general history. I’m about 70% through the book, up to the middle of the Victorian era.

One great thing about reading this book is that I’ve finally memorized the order of the English monarchs from William the Conqueror to the present. I was already mostly familiar with the Tudors onward, but everything before that just seemed like a mishmash of Henrys, Edwards and Richards. No more; now it all makes sense. Along with the book, this Wikipedia page has been pretty helpful in getting things straight, particularly this simplified family tree.

Also, since I’m much more familiar with American history, it’s always interesting to see it from the British point of view. The American Revolution is a pretty big deal. The War of 1812 is barely mentioned; although it was a major milestone in the formation of an American national identity, the British were much more occupied at the time with Napoleon’s takeover of Europe (although they did manage to burn the White House to a shell). The U.S. Civil War matters because of its effect on the cotton trade. It’s kind of like those books or movies where you encounter the same events from wildly different points of view.

I love history so much. I don’t know why. I’m kind of addicted to learning, although sometimes my brain capacity is too small for my ambitions: I can’t read as fast as I’d like to, and I can’t remember as much of what I read as I’d like to, either. Still, I love it.

Driving

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I have this recurring dream about driving.

I used to drive all the time, but for the most part I haven’t driven in years.

I learned to drive later than most people. In New Jersey, you get your learner’s permit at 16 and your driver’s license at 17. But we were living in Tokyo when I was that age, and in Tokyo, there was no need to learn to drive – I could take trains everywhere. So I didn’t learn to drive until the summer after my first year of college, when I was 18 and had been back in the U.S. for almost a year.

When I first learned to drive, I was kind of scared. I mean, a car is an enormous piece of machinery that goes very fast and can kill people. But I had a great instructor. The first time we drove on a highway I was nervous, but I’d had several lessons up to that point, and it wound up being fine. When it was finally time to take my driver’s test, I aced it. At the end of the summer, I got my first car – a used Honda Accord hatchback – and drove it the 420 miles back to Charlottesville for my second year of college.

That November, Bill Clinton won the presidential election. I was convinced I wouldn’t live to see him take office. The time between Election Day and Inauguration Day contained two holidays – Thanksgiving and Christmas – which meant driving round trip between New Jersey and Virginia not once but twice. Those four seven-hour trips contained plenty of chances for me to die in a car accident.

But I made it intact, with no accidents, and I lived to see Maya Angelou recite a poem and Bill Clinton take the oath.

I grew to love driving. I used to hop in the car and go on spontaneous road trips. One summer day in Charlottesville, a friend and I decided on the spur of the moment to drive to the Civil War cemetery in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. Another time I decided to drive up to D.C.; another time, Appomattox Courthouse. (Virginia contained beautiful countryside.) One summer while living at my parents’ house in New Jersey, I decided to drive up to Harvard University and back, on the same day, just because I felt like it.

I fell in love with the idea of the Great American Road Trip. I read The Majic Bus and fell in love with it. I read Travels With Charley.

During my eight years at UVa, I drove between New Jersey and Charlottesville countless times. There were a few trips between Charlottesville and Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, as well.

After graduating from college, I decided to visit a friend of mine in Denver, for two weeks. I drove from New Jersey to Colorado by myself, and it took three and a half days: through New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Iowa, Nebraska, the southeast corner of Wyoming, then down into Colorado. On the way back I visited a friend in Cincinnati, so I drove through Colorado, Kansas, Missouri, and some other states.

After law school (during which I had another, newer, Honda Accord) I moved back up north and lived in the suburbs for a year. Then I moved to Jersey City, at which point I no longer needed to drive, so I got rid of my car. I haven’t owned a car since 2000. The last time I drove extensively was on a 2004 business trip in San Diego. Since then, I’ve barely driven at all.

A year and a half ago I decided I wanted to keep my skills up, so one afternoon I drove my parents’ car around the New Jersey suburbs a bit. My driving skills came back pretty quickly; I was a little rusty and tentative, but I could do it. Last Thanksgiving, Matt and I took turns driving his dad’s car around a school parking lot. But that’s it.

A couple of years ago the dreams started. In the dream, I’m behind the wheel of a car, driving somewhere, and I feel so relieved and exhilarated. Relieved because I still know how to drive. Exhilarated because driving is power.

And it’s more. I told my therapist about these driving dreams, and she said, what do you think these dreams mean? And I said: Power. Freedom. Autonomy. She nodded: yup.

I miss driving. In New York City you have to rely on public transit to get anywhere. You go where it takes you. You don’t get to be in control. You have no privacy. You can’t just leave the city whenever you want. You can’t just go up to New England.

Many of the choices I make in life are based on fear and the desire to maximize safety. But I have this other side, the side that likes to take spontaneous road trips – the side that wants to hop in a car and just go somewhere. The side that wants to expand my comfort zone. These two sides of me are often in battle with each other.

So I keep having the dream.

Oprah and Sisterhood

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So, the other thing I was going to say about Oprah was:

Sometimes I romanticize things, but thinking about Oprah last week made me envy the idea of a “sisterhood.” It’s a total stereotype, but I’m thinking of small groups of female friends who live in the South or somewhere suburban where there’s mostly shopping centers and chain stores, and when each of them is alone they watch Oprah and wish they could make their own lives better, and when they get together as a group of friends, they all discuss Oprah.

I’m not sure why this idea appeals to me. Maybe it’s because I’m sentimental and don’t have many friends. And men aren’t traditionally supposed to be sentimental and have heart-to-heart talks with each other. Despite having come out of the closet more than a decade ago, I’m still sometimes ashamed of the parts of my personality and emotional makeup that are not traditionally seen as masculine.

I feel like Oprah’s show is meant for women and that men aren’t supposed to get anything out of it. But the ideas she talked about in her final episode apply equally to men and women: find your calling, take responsibility for getting there, and remember that you’re as worthy and as allowed to be happy as everyone else.

Thoughts on Oprah

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I only saw Oprah Winfrey’s show a handful of times over the years. But I watched her final show a couple of days ago, and I was strangely, surprisingly moved by it, to the extent that I keep thinking about her.

Some people like to make fun of Oprah for the emotionalism she’s brought to our culture; some people like to criticize her melding of consumerism and spirituality in a way that, for better and worse, is so incredibly American. My opinion is, you can take from Oprah what you need, as long as you continue to think for yourself. Ignore the silly things like new-age medical cures or The Secret; take the lessons about how to live life in a way that makes you happy, as long as you’re not harming other people or the environment.

Her final episode was essentially an hour-long monologue, or speech, or sermon, interrupted by commercial breaks. It was a summing-up of her show, of her message, of everything she’s tried to teach people over the years. Here’s the full text of what she said.

Parts of it really resonated with me – most of all, this:

What I knew for sure from this experience with you is that we are all called. Everybody has a calling, and your real job in life is to figure out what that is and get about the business of doing it. Every time we have seen a person on this stage who is a success in their life, they spoke of the job, and they spoke of the juice that they receive from doing what they knew they were meant to be doing.

[ ]

Because that is what a calling is. It lights you up and it lets you know that you are exactly where you’re supposed to be, doing exactly what you’re supposed to be doing. And that is what I want for all of you and hope that you will take from this show. To live from the heart of yourself. You have to make a living; I understand that. But you also have to know what sparks the light in you so that you, in your own way, can illuminate the world.

[ ]

Each one of you has your own platform. Do not let the trappings here fool you. Mine is a stage in a studio, yours is wherever you are with your own reach, however small or however large that reach is. Maybe it’s 20 people, maybe it’s 30 people, 40 people, your family, your friends, your neighbors, your classmates, your classroom, your co-workers. Wherever you are, that is your platform, your stage, your circle of influence. That is your talk show, and that is where your power lies. In every way, in every day, you are showing people exactly who you are. You’re letting your life speak for you. And when you do that, you will receive in direct proportion to how you give in whatever platform you have.

My great wish for all of you who have allowed me to honor my calling through this show is that you carry whatever you’re supposed to be doing, carry that forward and don’t waste any more time. Start embracing the life that is calling you and use your life to serve the world.

Also, this:

Nobody but you is responsible for your life. It doesn’t matter what your mama did; it doesn’t matter what your daddy didn’t do. You are responsible for your life. … You are responsible for the energy that you create for yourself, and you’re responsible for the energy that you bring to others.

And this:

The show has taught me there is a common thread that runs through all of our pain and all of our suffering, and that is unworthiness. Not feeling worthy enough to own the life you were created for. Even people who believe they deserve to be happy and have nice things often don’t feel worthy once they have them.

There is a difference, you know, between thinking you deserve to be happy and knowing you are worthy of happiness.

Oprah Winfrey is not the first person to say these things. But they’re important to remember and ponder.

I have some more thoughts on Oprah, but that’s for later.

Book of Mormon Cast Album

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I’ve been listening to the new cast album for The Book of Mormon and it’s infectious. I love it. It was available for free streaming on NPR for a week, but it came down a few days ago, so this evening I decided to buy it on iTunes.

I don’t think I’ve enjoyed listening to a cast album this much since Avenue Q. (That makes sense, since they have something in common: Robert Lopez helped write both scores.) Almost every song has some lyrics that make me laugh, and much of the actual music is so good. As for that humor, even though Trey Parker and Matt Stone wrote most of the show, it’s not just dumb gross-out humor – lots of it is very witty.

When we saw the show a couple of months ago I remember feeling something similar: how wonderful it was to experience an original, hilarious, heart-filled musical, such a rarity these days. With the cast recording, I can revisit that feeling as much as I want.

Clinton in 1991 vs. GOP in 2011

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I’ve been thinking about the current crop of Republican contenders for the 2012 nomination and how it compares to the Democrats in the runup to 1992. Most Republicans don’t seem particularly happy with their slate of candidates right now, and it’s already May. But in 1991, several high-profile Democrats declined to run against Bush, leaving Democrats to ponder losing a fourth presidential election in a row. It wasn’t until October 1991 that Bill Clinton declared his candidacy.

I searched the New York Times archives for articles appearing in 1990-1991 that contained “bill clinton” and “1992.” Here are some excerpts. (I subscribe to the weekend print edition of the paper, so I can access all this stuff online for free, but I realize many of you might not be able to – and that you might not even care about this stuff, for that matter, but I long ago gave up on most people sharing my geekiness.)

December 3, 1990:

Democrats, Albeit Late, Ponder Presidential Bid

With the 1990 midterm elections finally over, Democrats with Presidential ambitions are entering a season of decision.

It is already a remarkably late-starting campaign, given the norms of modern politics. …

But in December 1990, not a single paid worker for a Democratic Presidential campaign plods the streets of Des Moines, says a somewhat mystified Iowa Democratic Party. Elsewhere in political circles, there are quiet whispers in the clubby world of fund-raisers and nervous rumors in the ranks of consultants, but little real action and perhaps even less real information. …

Others who usually get mentioned whenever two or more Democrats are gathered together include Gov. L. Douglas Wilder of Virginia, who has maintained a notable national travel schedule; the Rev. Jesse Jackson, automatically considered a factor in Democratic campaigns; Gov. Bill Clinton of Arkansas, although he says he intends to serve out his new term as Governor; Senator Bill Bradley of New Jersey, although Democrats are still buzzing about his political near-death experience in last month’s election, and Senator Bob Kerrey of Nebraska. The list could go on. …

Combined with the uncertainty over the economy, the Persian Gulf crisis makes it hard to assess Mr. Bush’s vulnerability in 1992. “Bush could either be politically enshrined or politically deceased based on a couple of events,” said Harrison Hickman, a Democratic poll taker.

May 20, 1991:

Democrats Stick Toes In Waters of 1992 Race

Nine months before the Presidential contests begin, former Senator Paul E. Tsongas of Massachusetts remains the only official candidate for the Democratic nomination, but a number of Democrats are suddenly sniffing the air. …

They are, by and large, newcomers to Presidential politics, with a chance of making a name in a wide-open contest, and perhaps with less to lose than those higher on the ladder of Democratic leadership. …

Here is a look at some of the most-watched “potentials,” as they are known in Democratic circles, with the caveat that this is an ever-expanding and contracting field:

Gov. Bill Clinton The Arkansas Democrat said he would serve out his four-year term when he ran for re-election last year, but he clearly enjoys the Presidential speculation now swirling around him. Betsey Wright, the state Democratic chairwoman and a longtime Clinton adviser, said she saw “no signs that he has been seriously seduced by it.”

But Mr. Clinton has a national platform as chairman of the Democratic Leadership Council, a group of centrist and conservative Democrats, and he has been traveling the country honing a domestic message. When pressed on his presidential ambitions in a recent interview, Mr. Clinton said: “It’s not anything I’ve ruled out over the long run. It’s just a question of whether it should be done now.”

(Again, that was in May before an election year, the same point we’re at right now.)

August 8, 1991:

Democrats’ Distress Grows As Presidential Field Shrinks

Democrats struggled today to adjust to the last thing they needed six months before the Iowa caucuses: an already tiny Presidential field that keeps shrinking.

As expected, Senator John D. Rockefeller 4th announced in Charleston, W.Va., today that he would not seek the 1992 Democratic Presidential nomination. That announcement, just three weeks after Representative Richard A. Gephardt of Missouri, the House majority leader, took himself out of the race, combined with the demurrals of other Democratic heavyweights to create a frustrating, embarrassing pattern for the party. …

Representative Robert G. Torricelli, Democrat of New Jersey, said, “This is no longer an entertaining situation. This is becoming a serious problem.”

Senator Rockefeller’s withdrawal is expected to open new opportunities for those who seem eager to run, like Gov. Bill Clinton of Arkansas and Senator Tom Harkin of Iowa. It is also expected to heighten the pressure on Senator Al Gore of Tennessee and Gov. Mario M. Cuomo of New York to enter the race.

In the modern world of nominating politics, this is remarkably late for a novice to mount a Presidential campaign, particularly one against a popular President. Both Mr. Gore, who ran in 1988, and Mr. Cuomo are widely considered to have the name recognition, political base and fund-raising potential to jump into the race late and mount a formidable campaign.

August 14, 1991:

Arkansas Chief Seeks to Lead Democrats to Middle Ground

It is an article of faith in the Democratic Party that the nation’s domestic problems will someday be the party’s ticket back to the White House.

But some strategists argue that the Democrats must first deal with the baggage they have acquired over the past generation: the notion, so devastatingly purveyed by the Republicans, that Democrats are addicted to bloated, inefficient “giveaway” programs, financed on the backs of the middle class. Only a rethinking of liberal orthodoxy and a fresh vision of government will reclaim the voters, these strategists say. Symbol of New South

Enter Gov. Bill Clinton of Arkansas, who for some in the party is becoming the great moderate hope of the 1992 race for the Democratic Presidential nomination. …

He faces the perennial problem of governors: a resume gap on foreign policy, which could be all the more glaring against a President who revels in his role as Commander in Chief. He comes from a small state and will probably pay a price for it in fund raising. He is known by only a tiny proportion of the electorate, according to public opinion polls. …

“He may not win the nomination, he may not win the general election, but he does have the potential to remake the party,” says Elaine Kamarck, a senior fellow at the Progressive Policy Institute, an offshoot of the leadership council. “And I think that’s important this time around, because you can’t let the party keep repeating the same old hackneyed mistakes and lose one more generation of voters.” …

August 16, 1991:

Arkansas Governor Forms Presidential Panel

Gov. Bill Clinton of Arkansas said today that he would form a committee to explore a run for the Presidency next year and would resign as chairman of the Democratic Leadership Council.

“I want to make it clear that I have not made a decision as to whether to seek the nomination,” Mr. Clinton said in a news release. “But forming an exploratory committee will give me a means to look into this in a lot more detail and get the kind of information I need to consider right now.” …

August 22, 1991:

Gore Won’t Run for President in 1992

Senator Al Gore announced yesterday that he would not seek the 1992 Democratic nomination for President, adding his name to a growing list of Democrats who have decided not to challenge President Bush next year. …

Mr. Gore’s decision not to seek the Presidency in 1992 has placed another layer of uncertainty over a race that has so far been stalled for lack of candidates. …

Only former Senator Paul E. Tsongas of Massachusetts has formally declared his candidacy for the 1992 race. So far his candidacy has garnered little of the attention that usually accompanies a Presidential campaign. …

Democratic strategists predicted yesterday that Mr. Gore’s decision would most likely help Gov. Bill Clinton of Arkansas, who announced last week that he was forming a committee to explore a Presidential candidacy. …

Republicans have appeared to enjoy watching the Democratic field dwindle as candidate after candidate abandoned the race this year. A spokesman for the Republican National Committee would not comment on Mr. Gore’s exit yesterday, but Charles Black, a leading Republican strategist said earlier this month that the decisions “certainly speak to what they think their prospects of winning are.”

If the Democrats now seem at a loss, said Carter Eskew, a friend and political adviser to Mr. Gore, “It’s nothing that a good nominee won’t solve.”

August 26, 1991:

By their actions, some of the party’s leaders seem willing to take a pass on 1992 and then reassert their Presidential ambitions in 1996. But after a fourth consecutive Presidential defeat, after losing six of the last seven Presidential elections, how much long-term damage would the party incur? Already, polls show an ominous trend for the Democrats as a Presidential party, with voters age 18 to 29, who have only Jimmy Carter in their memories as a Democratic President, identifying more and more as Republicans.

October 4, 1991:

Arkansas’ Clinton Enters The ’92 Race for President

Gov. Bill Clinton of Arkansas entered the race for the Democratic Presidential nomination today with an unstinting indictment of a decade of Republican domestic policies and a promise to restore the American dream for “the forgotten middle class.” …

Mr. Clinton is the fifth major candidate to enter the race for the Democratic nomination. His declaration today follows a month when the Democratic field suddenly came to life, after a summer when one leading Democrat after another backed away from a challenge to Mr. Bush. The new class of candidates, in contrast, scents opportunity even amid the towering Bush approval ratings.

Mr. Clinton presented his case against the Republicans today with smooth confidence and a trace of disdain. He asserted that the Republicans “have washed their hands of responsibility for the economy, for education, for health care and for social policy.” Rather than leadership and vision, Mr. Clinton asserted, they had offered only “neglect and selfishness and division.”

I like that last part. Some things never change.

Anyway, you just never know. Based on the quality of the GOP candidates, I would say Obama’s chances for re-election right now are pretty good. But so much can happen in a year and a half.

Smallville

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Smallville ends on Friday night after 10 seasons. I’ve been watching it almost since the beginning. It’s not a very good show, but a few years ago I decided I wanted to see it through to the end. Unfortunately, it’s taken three or four years longer to get to the end than I thought it would.

It’s not that it’s a terrible show. It’s just not good. It’s gotten better; the insufferable Lana Lang (played by Kristen Kreuk) is long gone, and the acting skills of Tom Welling (Clark Kent) have improved a little. (Not that he has much to do besides act as the straight man to all the weirdness going on around him.) Erica Durance joined the cast a few seasons ago as Lois Lane, and she added a needed spark to things. The best thing about the show for a long time has been Alison Mack as Chloe Sullivan (Clark’s best friend, who doesn’t appear in the comic books), but she’s been missing for most of this season. And the death of Jonathan Kent a few years ago (Clark’s father, played by John Schneider) was sad, but at least it put an end to his interminable lectures about how the Luthors may have lots of money but we Kents are simple, good people and I don’t want you getting corrupted by them.

As far as the plot, the writers have never known how to structure a season-long story arc. Developments occur and then are forgotten. Characters talk about some incident of which you have no memory, so you wonder if it actually happened on the show and they didn’t bother to put it in the previouslies, or if they just did some telescoping. There’s no momentum over the course of the season. Events occur in fits and starts and things kind of sputter along every year until the season finale.

So what’s kept me watching all this time?

I don’t know, to be honest. I’ve always been a DC Comics loyalist and I mean, come on, it’s Superman. And the show does have moments of humor. And it’s been kind of neat to watch Clark evolve from a Smallville farmboy into a Metropolis newspaper reporter, and move from dating Lana Lang to dating Lois Lane, and slowly become Superman.

Michael Rosenbaum is returning as Lex Luthor for the end, so that will be fun to see.

But if Clark doesn’t finally fucking fly in the finale I’m going to be pissed.