Short Circuits

by Dorien Grey

  It is not easy to think for one’s self, and my main problem with organized religion is that it assumes this responsibility. (“Oh, don’t bother yourself with those niggling little ‘why’s’…here’s what you think:….”)

  Faith and logic can find a comfortable balance, the fulcrum of which is the simple word “why?” We should all use that word more often.

  LOOSE CHANGE

  THE ICE CREAM CONE

  There is a gigantic gap between empathy and sympathy. Of the two, empathy is far better. Sympathy too often teeters on the edge of condescension. But the problem with empathy is that it implies one’s having had a similar experience.

  I seem to insist, in these blogs, upon returning to themes perhaps too often visited before, all of them, in true egocentric form, focused on me. I really can’t tell if I return to them as a little boy seeking an adult’s sympathy for my personal boo-boos or, as I would really prefer to think, as a reminder of how many astonishing aspects of our daily lives we never give a moment’s thought, and simply take for granted.

  I of course cannot address how those who experience truly severe, life-changing physical traumas deal with it, and when I think of those who have lost a limb or survived horrendous burns I am truly ashamed of myself for spending so much time bewailing my own petty problems. But I do think it is important for each of us to stop every now and again, when we’re in the course of doing something we do so routinely every day, to appreciate just how very, very lucky we are.

  Most of my complaints, as you’ve undoubtedly noticed if you’ve read more than a half dozen of my blogs, center on the simple act of eating—one of the most natural and frequent of human activities. We all do it every day. We open our mouths wide to take a huge bite of something, chew, enjoying the taste, and swallow. So? So have you ever given even a moment’s thought to the infinite number of actions actually involved in just that one bite of food? Jaw muscles must open the mouth wide enough to take the food in, then work to chew. Saliva must be produced to mix with the food as it’s being chewed to enhance the food’s flavor, help process and moisten it for swallowing, and then to somehow alert the brain to when it is time to swallow.

  I became excruciatingly aware of how amazingly complex such a simple act is following my successful bout with tongue cancer in 2003, about which I’ve talked often. I’ve mentioned that the 35 radiation treatments necessary to kill the cancer also totally destroyed my salivary glands, and until I no longer had them, I was totally unaware of how vital they are to the processing and taste of food. Being effectively unable to swallow properly during and long after the treatments, I was fed by a stomach tube for seven months. Not using jaw muscles to open and close the mouth other than to talk for seven months effectively combined with the effects of radiation to pretty much atrophy them. I still, despite extensive therapy, am unable to open my mouth wide enough to eat a sandwich or to stick my tongue out far enough to properly wet my lips. These were things I had done without a single thought all of my life—things you still do. Have you ever consciously thought about them?

  Perhaps it is an example of the human tendency toward optimism (or the refusal to face facts) that after six years, I still have not gotten used to it. I simply refuse to believe that I will never again eat as I used to…as you do now. During an out-of-town friend’s recent visit, we went to Chicago’s Navy Pier and stopped for an ice cream cone, which I realized I’d not had for a very long time. I soon was reminded of why. Being unable to stick my tongue far enough out of my mouth to lick an ice cream cone, I had to try to eat it in bites, which, due to my inability to open my mouth wide enough to do it properly, meant that with each bite I had to wipe ice cream off the tip of my nose. Plus I too-late remembered I’d been advised not to eat ice cream at all, since when it melts enough to swallow, those prone to aspirating liquids—a common problem in neck and tongue cancer survivors—it often ends up going down into the lungs.

  Par for the course so far, but hardly the end of the tale. Though I have no salivary glands, there are apparently a great number of smaller, liquid-producing glands which kick in while eating, probably in an unsuccessful attempt to compensate for the lack of saliva, with the result that when I open my mouth to speak while and for some time after eating, the liquid tends to pour out all over the front of my shirt, which it of course did in this instance.

  So I excused myself as best I could, got up from the table, tossed my three-bites-taken, $6.75 ice cream cone (things are not cheap on Navy Pier) into the nearest trash can, and found my way to the nearest washroom.

  Yeah, I know all this sounds like one huge bid for sympathy, and I’m sorry if that how it appears. It is merely the most direct way I could think of to give you a vague idea of something you’ve never experienced and hopefully never will, in hopes you will stop to give thanks for what you have.

  Now go have yourself a Big Mac with fries for me.

  * * *

  ALICE GHOSTLEY

  Everyone who remembers Alice Ghostley, please raise your hand. If you’re old enough to remember the old “Bewitched” show, she played Esmeralda…and also appeared on “Designing Women.” Once you saw her, you never forgot her face or her voice.

  I first saw her on Broadway in the revue New Faces of 1952 (which also launched the careers of Eartha Kitt, Robert Clary of “Hogan’s Heroes” and a number of other rather well known performers). Alice was wonderful, and I can still sing…albeit badly…every word of her solo number, “The Boston Beguine” (“I met him in Bos-ton, in the native quar-ter; he was from Har-vard, just across the boar-der....”).

  She died last week of colon cancer at the age of 81, and I am truly saddened by her death.

  So very, very many celebrities…once household names…whom we watched in our favorite movies or listened to on radio: so much truly incredible talent…are now all but forgotten. Danny Kaye, Kay Keiser, Lionel Barrymore, Tyrone Power, Ava Gardner, Rita Hayworth, Betty Grable, Sidney Greenstreet, Phil Harris, Fred Allen, Fibber McGee and Mollie, Hattie McDonald…there’s not enough room to list them all.

  Each one of them brought pleasure to tens of millions of people, and it is awesome (to me) to realize that not only are the stars now gone, but most of the entire population of the world who were alive during their heyday!

  I do not grow old alone: I’m part of an entire generation…a huge block of, again, tens of millions of people who are now the same age as I, if they are alive at all. All the beautiful young men of my own generation, for whom my chest ached, are now no longer young nor beautiful. My friends, my family, everyone who in my heart and mind are exactly as they were so many years ago have also been subject to time’s rational but unkind forward march. Is it any wonder why I so resent reality?

  When I sit behind the information desk at my part-time weekend job at the Century Shopping Center, I watch the beautiful young men coming and going from Bally’s gym (oh, and there are of course beautiful young women as well, though they are largely invisible to me, just as I am invisible to younger gay men), I find no comfort in their total, blithe ignorance of the fact that as I was once them, they will be me. Life comes equipped with blinders, and the young have absolutely no doubt that they will be young forever. Or, if they are aware of it, they consider it so far down the road it isn’t worth giving a thought. The grasshopper and the ant.

  And if you never had the pleasure of seeing and/or hearing Bea Lilly, or Fanny Brice or Rosalind Russell, or Richard Egan or Robert Stack or…you have been robbed. There are few things more irritating than hearing some “old fart” saying “Now, in my day…”, but don’t sell them short. Fifty years from today, who will remembering the likes of Britney or Kevin or P-Diddy-Whatever or The Smashing Pumpkins? It ain’t the same, kid. It ain’t the same.

  Alice, I miss you.

  * * *

  GRATITUDE

  Gratitude is something far more commonly felt than expressed. Part of the reason, I suspect, is that the words
“Thank you”—the two words most used to express gratitude—are an automatic social and cultural response to even the smallest favor, from a “gesundheit” to being handed a receipt at a check-out stand, and often seem inadequate.

  “Thank you” is just the thinnest surface layer of gratitude. Under “Thank you” lie an infinite number of layers, depending on the degree of gratitude felt, and the deepest layers of gratitude can never be adequately expressed.

  Gratitude is a tree which grows from the seeds of kindness, and kindness is freely given without thought of repayment. But I consider gratitude to be a form of acquired debt which must be repaid. Far too many people, if the concept of gratitude being a debt even occurs to them, repay it with I.O.U.s or promissory notes.

  I realize that I do far more bitching and moaning and complaining than is warranted by circumstance. I talk endlessly about what is wrong with the world (and there is much to talk about), yet very seldom express my equally boundless gratitude for the positive things in my life and in the world.

  First and foremost, my gratitude for having been given, and still having, the gift of life cannot possibly be put into words. That gratitude is followed closely by my gratitude for my relative good mental and physical health. Despite my share of physical problems, I realize that compared to what others go through, mine, as Humphrey Bogart says in Casablanca, don’t amount to a hill of beans. Which doesn’t stop me from complaining anyway. I am what I am.

  I am also infinitely grateful to having been born into the family I was. There are no words or combination of words capable of conveying my gratitude to my parents. How could there possibly be, when I owe them so much? Every member of my family, from my grandparents through my aunts, uncles, and cousins, have never been anything but completely loving and supportive, and I realize that there are, tragically, many people who cannot say the same. And though my parents and most of my immediate family are now gone, my gratitude to them for having them to enrich my life remains undiminished.

  Beyond the circle of immediate family is another circle, of friends. I am grateful to have been blessed with an extended family of wonderful friends who shore up my fragile ego and are unfailingly there when I need them. That they also put up with my…shall we say, “minor eccentricities”…and constant complaining is proof positive of the incalculable value of friendship.

  One problem with expressing gratitude is, in fact, in finding how to do it properly and proportionately. Too-frequent and too-effusive expressions of gratitude soon lose their effectiveness and become the equivalent of a “thank you” given someone who holds a door open.

  I’ve come to the conclusion that perhaps the best way to express gratitude is not through words but actions. Small gestures: a phone call, a sincere compliment, an invitation to coffee or a movie or dinner can speak more clearly than words. Something so small as being willing and making yourself available to listen to problems which may not directly concern you.

  Gratitude is too often overlooked as a real and valid emotion, yet it, our individual awareness of it, and how we each respond to it, help to shape and define us as human beings.

  And in case you were wondering, I’m grateful to you for reading my blogs.

  * * *

  COLDS, SPECIFIC, AND STOICISM, GENERAL

  I have, at the moment of this writing, a cold. Like most of my colds, I was perfectly fine yesterday morning, just minding my own business when it snuck up behind me and tapped me on the shoulder. And when I turned around to see what it was, it slammed me into the wall, the force clogging my sinuses to the point of being unable to breathe through my nose and making sleeping in larger than three minute segments next to impossible. My brain has largely been removed and replaced…temporarily, I would hope…with chunks of brick and broken concrete. Were I to fall into deep water would undoubtedly immediately sink to the bottom.

  So what am I doing trying to write a blog under such conditions? Well, it’s rather like continually blowing my nose hoping to clear the nasal airways sufficiently to breathe: I don’t want to totally lose the power to think, though it is a battle, so I force myself to write. Though I’m not particularly sleepy, part of me wants to just go lie down “for a minute or two,” knowing full well that not only would it not be for a minute or two but that when I got up again I’d be even more tired than I am now.

  Because, as I’ve mentioned, I try to have a backlog of blogs stored up like cordwood beside a fireplace, by the time you read this I will undoubtedly be back to normal and debate whether I should even post this, now that the cold is gone. I will, of course, simply because I find it nearly impossible to just throw away something I’ve written.

  I don’t like colds. I don’t like being anything other than as I normally am (which is once again a reason I am so disturbed by the fact that the medical treatment without which I would not be alive turned me into someone I never was before). However, when I am however slightly out of sorts, I do have a tendency to pamper myself shamelessly…lying on the couch reading, for example, when I know I should be sitting here at the computer writing.

  Those who are fortunate enough to almost never experience anything but good health tend to overreact when illness does come along. I cannot remember, quite honestly, when I last had a headache, or a seriously upset stomach (and I don’t have either now).

  A friend from grade school, with whom I reestablished contact after 50 some years, lost his wife recently. She had been ill for a number of years, her activities seriously curtailed, with frequent trips to various doctors and hospitals to determine exactly what was wrong with her. But she never complained. The way she was was simply the way she was, and while she most certainly would have preferred it to be otherwise, the fact that she could not change her condition largely inured her to it. So what right do I have to complain about a common cold?

  There is much to be said for stoicism, in major crises and minor irritations, and I greatly admire those who adopt it.

  Stoicism in a culture, such as is practiced by many Asian societies, is often a deterrent to progress: accepting things as they are means there’s little point in working for change. But individual stoicism can be an invaluable asset, if it is accepted that there is nothing at all we can possibly do to alter one instant of the past, but that that should not stop us from working for a better future.

  * * *

  YOU IS OR YOU AIN’T

  I decided it was about time I wrote a funny blog, filled with my own special brand of wit and clever wisdom. So I sat down and wrote about 36 first sentences. They were about as amusing as the lead sentence in an obituary. I have come to the conclusion that there are certain things in life that one simply cannot do by just deciding to do them: keep your eyes open while you sneeze; go to sleep when you tell yourself to; not looking at the clock every two minutes while laying in bed wondering what time it is and why you aren’t asleep yet; and deciding to write a funny blog. Can’t be done. When it comes to being funny, you either is or you ain’t. And today, apparently, I ain’t.

  Laughing has always been one of my favorite things to do, though my personal humor runs more along the lines of quirky tongue in cheek than out-loud guffaws. I love guffaws. I love laughing so hard I have to grasp for air and my stomach hurts. On reflection, I haven’t done that for quite a while. No idea why. Maybe all this Iraq/Iran/economy/Who-the-hell-gives-a-damn-about-Britney-Spears/mean-spirited Christian Fundamentalist nonsense has just overwhelmed me. Guffaw-funny seems to be in tragically short supply of late.

  Oh, there’s plenty of it left. There are tons and tons of rolling-on-the-floor-laughing things around…except when you need to reach out and grab a few to stick into a blog.

  The world seems to have gotten much too serious for its own good. I always enjoyed the definition I once read of Puritanism: “Puritanism is the deep, abiding fear that someone, somewhere, is having fun.” I’d say we were becoming a nation of Puritans, but the fact is that we are a nation founded by P
uritans and we largely remain Puritans.

  Political Correctness has become an 800-pound gorilla in every room, grabbing anyone who dares to make a dumb blond joke by the neck and throttling the life out of him. The fact of the matter is that there is not one single thing that can be said to which someone, somewhere, cannot and will not find offense. Alexander King’s classic comment on obscenity applies to those who take offense at everything: “There are those who see obscenity in the crotch of every tree.”

  I can’t think, as a matter of fact, when I had my last really good laugh, let alone a guffaw. I would certainly hope much more recently than I am able to recall at the moment. Again, I’m sure it’s just because I’m trying to think of an example that I cannot. My mind has a sense of humor of its own and apparently takes considerable delight in not cooperating when I ask something of it. I want something funny and instead I get mental images of babies starving in Darfur.

  Fortunately, it hasn’t always been like this and I know it won’t be like this forever. But at the moment, I do have to stretch back quite a while to even remember a specific good laugh.

  I do distinctly recall the time when I was in about the sixth grade, sitting in a very hot classroom on a late fall afternoon. A large housefly wandered casually across my desk, too sapped by the heat and humidity to be very enthused about anything. I remember “walking” my fingers across the desk until they were right behind the fly, who didn’t seem to notice or, if he noticed, to care. Very carefully I reared back my index finger and booted him in the rear end. He fell off the edge of the desk and managed to fly off just before he hit the floor. I spent the next three minutes laughing. Neither the fly nor my teacher appreciated the humor of the situation, but I didn’t care.