I'm thinking of changing Website Wednesday to Wingnut Wednesday, wherein I criticise nuttery from both the far right and far left.  I will work to keep it as balanced as possible.

Thoughts?

I love sports.  I love art.  So it's only natural that I would get into sports art--logos, uniforms, and other branding.  If I could get a full-time job just creating sports team logos, uniforms, and names, I'd be happy, but alas, no such job exists.

I noticed a couple of weeks ago the changes the Detroit Lions made to their branding.  They reworked their logo for, I believe, the first time in their history.  They added more subtle hints of black to the uniform, making them look, in my opinion, more like the Carolina Panthers.

And then there's the font that complements the new logo.  Curved, flourished, and organic, it represents a new direction for the team.

Last year, they went 0-16, the first team in NFL history to do so.  They promptly rebranded.  And the first thing to go, apparently, was the Copperplate Bold font they'd used for their name since 2002, when they first started playing at Ford Field.

The Detroit Lions finally realised what graphic designers have known for years: that Copperplate is for losers.

As I write this, the Minnesota Twins are tied 4-4 against the Detroit Tigers in a game that will decide the American League Central Division winner and thus the final entrant into the 2009 Major League Baseball playoffs.  I've been following closely.  Go Twins!

Their starting catcher, Joe Mauer (whom I call "Mauer the Wower) has really made a difference in reviving the franchise, already having a batting title under his belt and considered an MVP candidate for most of this season.  But this year, he's nominated for an award that goes well beyond the realm of baseball.  Read more about it here.

Sorry I've been so far removed from the blog.  I've been recovering from major illness.  I'm hoping to get back on track now, but first, I have to move, and I won't have wifi for probably a few weeks, so I'm going to be posting at the library.  My kingdom for a laptop. :-P

Anyway, I wish to extend my hearty congratulations Marcus Jerve, Homecoming King of Montevideo (MN) High School.

What's classy about this?  Read here.

Okay, he's just a little guy, but I find that one of his irresistible traits.  That, and his big, lovely smile.

Okay, I will keep this short and sweet, if for no other reason than I'm tired.

Here his, folks:

Seth Green

Our culture moves so fast, we'd rather eat crap than have it fertilise our vegetables.

I think I'm going to like Website Wednesdays.  They don't require me to write as much. :-)

I *just* discovered Girl's Guide to Homelessness.  It chronicles a woman's story from three days from homelessness, through her life on the streets, to her finding and maintaining a permanent job.  It is an unsettling story, because it shows how homelessness can happen to anyone.  She offers many tips along the way to help people who find themselves homeless.

I've been thinking about housing insecurity a lot these days.  That our government focusses so much more on war than homelessness is ludicrous to me.  This blog gives me pause.  I hope I never have to put its advice to use.

I've had a hard couple of weeks.  It's been tempting at times to just throw in the towel and say, "This isn't worth the effort."  I'm fortunate in having a strong, solid network of friends to help me through the tough times.  And I'm getting through it now, even though it's not easy.

I've also been spending the past couple of weeks trying to figure out what I want to do with my life.  Is there some way I can actually pull off the crazy writer/musician/actor/artist/craftsman/web-administrator combination that makes my heart sing?  Well, I'm going to do my best.

I just stumbled across a man who inspires me to no end and convinces me that yes--all that IS possible.  His life epitomises daring to dream.  He is the friend of an old schoolmate, and I'm glad that she introduced me to him, even if only via a YouTube link.

His life story in an inspirational rendering (some swears): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rf3Vw_gcGbU&feature=player_embedded

His second performance on "The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sVohZoDifPc&feature=player_embedded

I don't have a TV, otherwise, I'd be watching him reach his dream.  I can encourage my readers to check him out on Friday night on Letterman and be inspired.

Dare to dream.  Don't give up.

Thank you, Steve, for teaching us far more than you'll ever imagine.

I've come across a slightly different form of this question before, which is, "What would you put into 1.000.000 fortune cookies?"  My answer to that one is::

That's the way the cookie crumbles.

But I had a friend who came up with an answer that would keep his fortune ensured:

Please open next cookie.

I am an old-school Toronto Blue Jays fan.  Back before they sucked.  Back before they had a different, worse logo every year.  Back in the days of Joe Carter.  Back in the days of...

Shawn Green

I've lived in Minneapolis for a little over five years.  I moved up here with almost nothing.

And now...

I have lived in six residences during my time here, and I will move into my seventh in a month.  In the meantime, I have accumulated Stuff.  Anyone who has moved me knows this.  It takes three carloads to carry all my Stuff.  And I'm a single person.  Most of it is stupid Stuff.
I'm sick of it.  I'm sick of my possessions possessing me.

I've always thought that I needed a good bit of space to hold all my Stuff--I convinced myself that, after all, I don't have as much Stuff as many Americans, so I'm good, right?  When I moved into my current home, I had my choice of two rooms.  I took the larger room, even though it cost more, just so I'd have room for all my Stuff.

Most of this Stuff is meaningless to me.  Some of this Stuff I've forgot the purpose of.  Some of it was important at one time and is no longer.  Some of it was never important, but I held onto it case it would become important.

I'm looking to streamline.  Big time.  I'm going to sell some of it in a yard sale and on Craigslist.  Some of it I'm donating to ARC.  Some of it has already left me as little gifts to friends.

I'm wanting to pursue some unconventional housing.  You can read more about it here.  As you can see, I will need to streamline a lot.  But it's doable.

Why am I wanting to do all this?

Environmental: The less space I take up, the less I consume in heating, cooling, and lighting.  It will also be far more difficult for me to accumulate possessions that unnecessarily use up resources.  Living with others* allows people to share some items, further reducing unnecessary consumption.

Sociological: Not necessarily confined to the realm of a tiny living space, I have found it healthier, generally, to live with others.  When I have lived on my own, I've turned into a hermit, which for me isn't healthy.

Spriritual: As a person pursuing the Quaker path, learning how to live simply is important to me.   I've been giving much thought lately to the Buddhist concept of detachment.  I've become too attached to Stuff.

Psychological: The less I own, the less there is to clean or otherwise worry about, the lower the stress, the happier I am.

Practical: I'm a Renaissance man, trying to juggle pursuits in fine arts, acting, writing, and jewellery-making.  In my last job, I was workancommuting** up to 55 hours a week.  There was no way I could keep up with everything.  If I can cut back my work hours (and cut them back even more if I get a job close to home), that frees me for my creative pursuits.  Interestingly, the more I can pursue my creative pursuits, the greater the likelihood I can earn money off them.  Besides, during my unemployment, I'm realising it's going to be easier to get a part-time job.

This essay may be a bit disjointed--I've actually been writing in the middle of going through my Stuff and deciding what is unimportant.  But hopefully I've made my point clear

*In my time in Minneapolis, I spent 18 months in a 500sqft apartment (which I think is ridiculously large now), and the rest of the time living with others.  Living with others has worked better, *provided* that there is respect and at least a bit of sociability amongst all parties involved.

**"Workancommuting" is a word I coined to express two realities: 1) Your commute, however short or long, is inseparable from your job; and 2) as such, your commute is essentially the part of your job you don't get paid for.  When I was bus commuting 15 hours a week, I realised I was wasting 10% of my life sitting forward and silent and hoping not to get carsick.

There are a lot of people hurting out there.  They've been told that they can't be acceptable to God or society unless a fundamental part of them changes.  And, these people try.  Do they ever.  Counselling, group therapy, residential treatment, even exorcism.  But, by all reliable accounts, nothing happens.  When nothing happens, tragedy strikes.  Some get involved in relationships that they think will fix them but only end up hurting all involved.  Some get involved in addictive behaviours as a form of self-medication.  Some make the ultimate decision of suicide.  But some make a break from the demands of society.  Some learn to love and accept themselves.  Some discover hope for the first time in their lives.

These people are transgender, bisexual, lesbian or gay.  And I know their experience all too well.

Enter Beyond Ex-Gay, an online resource for people who have survived "ex-gay" experiences to learn, connect, grow, and heal.  The site focusses on personal accounts.  Many, but not all, have lived through their experiences not knowing anybody else who had gone through the same.  That kind of isolation makes it more difficult to heal.  Beyond Ex-Gay brings these people together so they can learn from each other, learn that they're not alone, and find hope and redemption in each other's stories.  The site also provides valuable information for those who are not TBLG, but want to know what the experience is like, as well as for those who are considering ex-gay treatments.   Beyond Ex-Gay held its first-ever conference in Irvine, California in 2007, and has since coordinated meetings in association with other

I consider this site a must-read.  Either you are transgender, bisexual, or gay, or you know someone who is.  Beyond Ex-Gay will provide invaluable insight into a part of the TBLG experience that, until very recently, was unknown to the general public.

Sunday mornings used to be hectic for me.  I'd get a ride to be at church at 11.  But The Show began at 10am.  I'd listen to as much of The Show as possible before my ride would arrive.  I could listen to The Voice all day.

The Show was"This American Life".

The Voice belonged to:

Ira Glass


I LOVE LOVE LOVE his voice.  And, I mean, look at that picture.  Does he look fiftyish?

And yes, I'm always a sucker for a guy in glasses.

Ack!  Sunday creeped right up on me, and I missed this week's CSJGW.  Sorry, everyone!  But, as you can see, I'm making up for it today.

Today's Cute Straight Jewish Guy of the Week is funny and edgy and, I think, very handsome.  He usually wears a beard, but I found a pic without a beard, and I think he should definitely go clean-shaven from now on.

Adam Goldberg


I hope to be on task next week.  In the meantime, I'm hoping this week to writing a short story that I've been putting off for some time.  Keep your eyes peeled!

As I've grown older, I've become more patient and understanding.  But there are some things that really, REALLY get under my skin.  And, because I have nothing better to do at the moment, I'll list them here in random order.  I'm not going to go after obvious biggies--racism, classism, genderism, homophobia, transphobia, et al.  These are just my mild-to-moderate annoyances.

The singing of Tom Waits Now, I must say, that there are a couple of songs that pop up on the radio, that I look up on the station website, and am surprised to find it's Tom Waits singing, because it doesn't sound like The Voice I associate with Tom Waits.  When I hear him sing, it sounds like he is simultaneously drunk and in need of first aid.  When I try to imitate his voice, I cause lingering pain in my throat.  I won't ever understand the appeal of listening to someone who sounds like they'll be dead by the end of the song.  I seriously lunge for the radio and turn it off whenever he has one of his choking incidents.

Crocs Yes, I'm being very 2007 complaining about this.  But I hope that I never, EVER have to bring them up in conversation again.

Websites that play music as soon as you open them What is this, 1999?  I'm probably trying to listen to Pandora when I open your website and suddenly I have an awful mashup coming out of my speakers.  Catch up to the present, web designers, okay?

Comment trolls I can't believe there are so many people in the world who have nothing better in the world than to say, "First!", to say, "Who cares?" to *every single* article that's written, and to eviscerate people they've never met in person, never even had a proper conversation with, and whom they will likely never encounter again.

On which point...

Self-proclaimed "grammar queens"*  This is a sore spot for me.  Dyslexia runs in my family--I lucked out.  To know that we have the equivalent of schoolyard bullies running around--especially on the internet--intimidating people because of their less-than-perfect spelling, punctuation, etc annoys me to no end.  For one thing, when people are talking, and oftentimes when they are communicating online, they are communicating extemporaneously.  They're not running every single word through their inner high-school English teacher.  Typos are bound to occur in instant messaging, and dare I say, even comments to articles, where people are often whipping off their immediate reaction to what they've read.

For another thing, the internet, of all places, ought to be an agora of sorts.  Believe it or not, I'm naive enough to think that a person should be able to express their views no matter how much education they've had or how much intellect they possess.  You want to get all high and mighty over some 14-year-old, not because of their views but because of their "kre8yv" spellings?  You really don't have to, because the real world is going to do that for them as soon as they try to get a job.  And must I point out the fact that often, these grammar drama queens have misspellings, bad punctuation, etc in the very posts in which they gripe about others' poor language skills?  If you really want to peeve the grammar queens, direct them to this page.

But on the other hand...

Poor spelling/grammar/punctuation/usage in publications, signage, websites, etc  It's one thing when language is extemporaneous and casual.  It is quite another when days, weeks, even months have gone into a publication, and the silliest of errors slip through.  Perhaps dozens of eyes have passed by the same copy.  It's disturbing that not one of those people would care about how they present themselves to the public.  When you're communicating to a mass audience, you want to make that communication clear to as much of the public as possible.

And some things just come off weird.  Why do the aisles at the supermarket point out "can fruit" and "canned vegetables"?  I know enough of linguistics to know that there are good phonological reasons why we drop that "d" in speech, and that, perhaps a century from now, "can fruit and can vegetables" will be the standard usage.  But in the meantime, it just looks like you slopped everything together.

"American" spelling I'm not pretentious, but feel free to call me that if you don't like the way I spell.  I actually have a much deeper reason for using what some people call "British" spellings.  Before I explain why I do what I do, let me say that the only non-American English speakers in the world that I can think of who would have a historical reason to use American spellings are Liberians and Filipinos.  Canadian spelling is its own animal, a blend of American and "British" spellings.  Every other freakin' English speaker is using these so-called "British" spellings.  Therefore, I generally use the terms "American spelling" and "non-American spelling"--it's far more accurate.

Do you know why we have our distinct spelling system?  Noah Webster was feeling all patriotic and decided that he'd change up spellings in his dictionary just to distinguish American English from British English.  On one hand, he made some spellings more phonetic, like changing "gaol" to "jail".  But on the other, he sometimes just slopped it all around.  How else do you explain the American English spellings "color", "glamour", and "glamorous"?  There are more examples but it's late and I'll just think of them later.

Now, the pioneers were very bored.  (The word "boredom", by the way, entered English in the 19th century.)  They generally had two books with them--the Bible (King James Version only at this point) and Webster's sensational new dictionary.  So the pioneers invented Bible bees (verse memorisation, passage identification, etc) and spelling bees.  If you read about early spelling bees, you'll see that they were primarily a source of entertainment--it was not uncommon for the winner to be, not the person who spelt everything correctly, but the person the judge liked the most.  This deep-seated tradition seeped into the whole culture, until today, when home-schoolers are trotted out on national television displaying their mastery of spelling words they will never, ever use in real life.  So, you can see, an obsession with spelling has set into the American psyche that you don't really find in other English-speaking countries.  So you get "spelling queens" who have decided to lord it over those who don't have that mastery of spelling one of the most difficult languages on earth.  These people can humiliate their "inferiors" to the point that they avoid written communication whenever possible.

Oh, do you remember my mentioning that dyslexia runs in my family?  Yes, this is a very big deal for me.  I use my preferred spelling to point out to people the undue onus that has been placed on too many people.

The names some people give their kids Oh, I'm going to pay for this one.  Names are a Big Deal to me.  I've been planning my children's names since I was seven.  (For the record, I plan to adopt boys, and my current favourites are Wyatt, Ari, and Solomon.)  I know that some of my readers--in fact, some of my friends--have "violated" my principle here.  So, please, dear reader, read this section with a grain of salt, and recognise that it's just one person's opinion.  We're all entitled to our opinions.  Are we good?  Good.  Well, on we go...

In my 5th grade class of about 28 students, we had six Matts.  *Six*.  And two of them had similar last names, to boot.  Where's the sense of individuality?  And no, changing Aidan to Aiden/Ayden/Aydyn/Aaden/Aydynne/Whateveris *not* going to set them apart more.  It's just going to have people misspelling their name.  (More on that later.)

There are names that have rationalisations that are best described as bizarre, unconscious, and memetic.  The big one to me is the name Addison, which is chosen because it sounds like the overpopular Madison but isn't quite the same.  Madison, in turn, became popular only because it sounds like a "clever" variation of Madeline, even though it's not.

There are the "precious" names for girls: Princess, Cherish, Angel (okay, yes, I know it's a Spanish name--a BOYS' name--but I'm talking outside those cultures), Heaven, and the horrible Nevaeh.  For those who aren't savvy, that's "Heaven" spelt backwards.  Oh, and how could I forget the name Precious?  Here's a little fact for you--the name Unique is steadily growing in popularity.  Irony, anyone?

There are the hypermasculine boys' names.  I met a boy named Brick once.  'Nuff said.

There are the bizarre spellings.  A 19-year-old girl posted her dream list of names on Yahoo! Answers, with the caveat that people please not criticise them.  (Um, why post your list someplace where it's bound to get trashed?)  Some of the winners I remember include Faiyth and Kailybe.  That second one is pronounced just like "Caleb", by the way.  Then we get to her name Kayle.  People jumped in and said, "Why would you name your kid after a vegetable?"  Her response was, "It's not pronounced 'kale'.  It's pronounced 'kay-yuhl'--you pronounce the y."  I got a headache just typing that out.

There are families with sound-alike names.  I came across brothers named Aidan and Braden.  My siblings went to school with two half-brothers who had different last names but whose mom gave them the same first name!  I was raised in a family of all C's, and the names nearly sound identical--one of the many reasons I decided to change my name.

The issue of invented names I'm not even going to touch with a ten-foot pole.

Smothering parents/hands-off parents I worked with families in various capacities for nearly a decade.  I think a lot of parents are doing a great job.  I think some parents are doing the best they can under difficult circumstances.  But then there are the parents who fall into my peeve list.  The children of the former don't learn how to do for themselves, constantly worry about pleasing their parents, are terrified to make a mistake, and can't cope when they have to do something on their own or when life gives them lemons.  The children of the latter grow up with no social boundaries and have a lot of trouble integrating into the society they grow up in. 

Give children freedom to learn and grow.  Encourage them.  Let them know that if they make a mistake, it's not the end of the world--and sometimes, what some will call a mistake is in fact not one at all.  There is often more than one way to do things.  On the flipside, when they hit the boundaries, make it clear to them, gently but firmly.  Children who learn that it's okay to backtalk, to hit other kids, etc grow up to be maladjusted adults.  Find the balance.  Your children will thank you.

Being handed a grocery bag when I only have one item  Okay, confession time--I don't *always* have my canvas shopping bags with me.  Sometimes I make a spontaneous purchase of a single item.  And to have the cashier wordlessly stick the item in a bag and hand it to me gets my undies in a bunch.  It's wasteful.  And if it's company policy, then it's a wasteful policy, and either the company should change policy or (dare I say) the cashier should subvert the policy.  By all appearances, I think I look like someone who can carry a 2-litre or a container of Ben and Jerry's without a bag.

The song "The Replacements" by Art Brut  (By the way, it's playing right now.)  I can't believe...  You think you...  Sound that...  Cool!   Sounding like William...  Shatner with a British...  Accent!

Okay, I'm bored with this.  I'm done for now.  To balance out, I should write a list of things that I really like/am grateful for/etc.

*Grammar queens will be quick to point out that I used the phrase "random order" in my opening, which is technically an empty oxymoron.  It's called humour and irony.  Get a life.

Wow, I almost forgot about this this week.  I've been busy developing my site Future Fathers .

So, yeah, I went through phases.  One of them filled out a sweater nicely.  One of them had a Tobey-Maguire-like ability to become pretty much any physical type, so he was bound to catch someone's eye.  And one of them, well, his character never really received much respect from the press, but I always related to him.  I do know what it feels like to feel awkward and socially inept.

He's a director now (and sporting a dashing beard, I think) but he'll be my Friend forever...

David Schwimmer

I've just created a website, Future Fathers, a dating and support site for gay men who want to become fathers.  Check it out! :-)

I *loved* the TV show "Freaks and Geeks".  It was pretty much doomed from the start, thanks to its placement in the TV schedule, but it was an ingenious show.  One of the "freaks" stood out to me, mostly because of his very expressive face.  Little did I know then that he'd end up one of the hottest commodities in Hollywood.

James Franco














































I love a guy with an expressive face--someone I don't have to struggle to read.  And I loved his turn as the troubled teen in "Spider-Man".

So, yeah, definitely *not* a freak in my book. :-)

Today is my 35th birthday.  I want to reflect on it, but I think diving right into an essay is beyond me at the moment, so I'm going to go for 35 succinct thoughts instead.

1) I'm still recovering from the birthday party on Saturday.  No, I didn't have any alcohol.  But the party went from 5pm to 2am.  I'm used to going to bed around 10pm.

2) The party, and the greetings I have received today, are a reminder of the great friends I have.  Just three years ago, I was quite alone, but I've settled into some great social circles here in Minneapolis.

3) I've been jobless for eight months now.  When I was first laid off, I had several friends who were laid off around the same time, so I didn't feel so alone.  But now they've all got jobs.  I'm working with an agency to find a job, but that is going to take some time.  In the meantime, I'm adrift.

4) On that point, I kind of wanted to take today for a lot of reflection.  But in actuality, I've been doing that throughout my layoff time.  I've taken stock of who I am and who I want to be.  I've taken stock of my relationships and have invested more in them.  I have been working on myself, and I'm going to be stronger for it.

5)  Earlier I was thinking about where I was 10 years ago.  I'd "busteranged" back home, and was beginning at Indiana University on an educational track that mostly ended up fruitless.  And I didn't have a job at that point, either.

6) At this point, I don't know whether to finish my Bachelor's or not.  I don't really like school in general.  There are really only two reasons I'd want to go back to school: a) to ensure greater earning potential so I'd be able to raise kids, and b) to ensure that my ideas will be taken seriously in the workplace.  But neither of those is a guarantee.

7) I'd set the idea of raising kids on the back burner for some time.  I just didn't see it would be possible, so I settled into a life of trying to be Everykid's surrogate uncle, or something like that.  It didn't work.  At all.  My paternal instinct is too strong, and I'm hurting myself if I deny it.

8) I've blamed a lot of the delays in my life on how I toiled away in ex-gay therapy and took so long to come out.  And I still believe that's definitely part of it.  It's very hard to focus on things like settling into education or a career when you're so focussed on changing your orientation (or, as I like to call it, turning into a giraffe, since it's just as likely).  But the writings of my friend Peterson Toscano (co-founder of Beyond Ex-Gay and the brain behind a bunch of other great websites) have encouraged me to accept some of the responsibility for having put myself through those programmes in the first place.  That is hard for me.  I look back, and I saw that I was so terribly naive, knew so little about the world.  I feel like I was a child having to make a grown-up decision.  But I press on towards the day when that terrible chapter of my life is just a memory.

9) For a long time, I felt like a man without a past.  I felt kind of embarrassed about my time in St Louis; I felt like it was a colossal failure.  And I had no connexions in my life from before college.  Enter Facebook.  Yeah, kind of sad that I attribute a big turnaround in my life to a popular social networking website.  But I really can't say that I'm a man without a past anymore.  I've rebuilt great friendships from my St Louis days and before.

10) When I was in high school, it was really easy to look at kids who had more money and more opportunities than me and be jealous of them.  Of course, virtually all of these kids I barely knew (yet another by-product of the social caste system we lived in then).  Rebuilding (and in some cases building from scratch) relationships from back then has given me perspective.  Just because someone has some things going for them doesn't mean they have life easy at all, and I realise that there are ways I'm lucky indeed.  (At minimum, I do hear a bit of jealousy when I mention to people that I live in one of the hip, creative, artsy cities.)

11) Even so, I do feel like I'm missing something.  I do want something resembling a career.  But much more so, I desire a family.  I want to be married.  I want to raise kids.  Family is the number-one thing I get jealous of people of.  I do see the challenge ahead of me of raising kids when I'm not in my prime.  It doesn't keep me from still wanting to do it, though.

12) I know there are plenty of teenagers awaiting adoption, and I do see advantages to adopting an older kid, but there is still something to be said about raising a kid who only knows life with you.  And there is my lifelong obsession with naming my kids.

13) I still very much feel like a kid, and it's not just about the not having a family and career.  I'm as sloppy as a teenage boy.  I loved that my last job had a very liberal dress policy (necktie = noose).  I like that a lot of people identify me as "a big kid".  I do like that I get along with kids well, in part because I've read enough child development to know how they tick, but also in part because I'm not at all afraid to make a fool of myself.

14) Self-acceptance is one of the hardest tasks for *anyone* in life.  It took forever for me to accept myself as gay.  It seemed not to take long to accept that I have bipolar disorder (and, to my recollection, this is the first time I've admitted to my illness in such a public setting), but it took a lot longer for me to have the clarity to identify my symptoms on an ongoing basis, and even more, to act to live beyond them.  I've had lots of body image issues in my life, my adult weight being anywhere from 120 to 245.  Some days, I look at myself in the mirror and I like what I see; some days I don't.  And there's no two ways about it: I'm quirky.  Every attempt I've had at trying to be "normal" has blown up in my face.  Fortunately, I've been able to surround myself with people who like me as I am, oddities and all.

15) There are good things about growing older, as much as our culture would like to teach you otherwise.  You have the benefit of hindsight.  You're able to see that you've survived through many horrible things, so you know you have the wherewithal to get through whatever life throws at you.  So many silly things don't matter anymore as you get older.  It's easier for you to accept other people.  You grow in wisdom and grace.

16) And to totally shift gears, I'm aware that, technically, I don't switch to the next demographic bracket til next year, so marketers can consider me "youngish" for one more year.

17) I eat far more cereal and ice cream than anyone my age should.

18) One thing I notice is that a *lot* of guys my age "hit the gym".  I've never been one to exercise (outside my time on my college soccer team, which was disbanded by the school before our first scheduled game).  I know I need to exercise (I usually try to get in as many 4-6 mile walks as I can), but exercising by myself is about the only thing in life I can actually call "boring".  And PE, which was supposed to teach me to engage in lifelong physical activity, did exactly the opposite, making me loathe it.  I'll get at it (it's one of my 101 goals for the next 10 years and 1 day), but I'm going to need a partner.

19) Speaking of partners, I have a crush right now.  It's been a long time since I've had that feeling.

20) One regret: Not dyeing my hair blue before it started falling out.  Right now, my scalp is having a contest with itself--am I going to go grey or bald first?  Feel free to place wagers. :-D

21) Oh, yeah, I should have mentioned a couple of spaces ago--similar to the "101 Things in the next 1001 days" thing that went around about New Year's, I'm making a list of 101 things to accomplish in the next 10 years and 1 day.  It's supposed to start today.  I haven't finished writing the list yet.

22) My mom is seventy.  Today she is twice my age.  I grow increasingly aware of her mortality.  I have very little opportunity to see her (the last time was nearly 3 1/2 years ago).  I want to make every conversation, every moment count.

23) Which means, of course, I'm more aware of my own mortality.  I haven't been to a physician in a while, and I have a whole laundry list of aches and symptoms, most of which are just coming with age.  On my mom's side, longevity is generally the rule.  One of my ancestors died at the age of 104 of complications from having been thrown off a horse two years previous (which means, of course, he could ride a horse at 102).  But my father's side is much different.  My father died at 59 from just about everything.  I intend to live a lot more than 24 more years.

24) I like living with the roommates I have--even with one of them having lived here less than 24 hours.  So that is another benefit of "playing catch-up" with my life.  Besides, in this era of depreciating equity, my reasoning for preferring to be a renter looks all the sounder.

25) It's been a challenge for me over the past several months to see my life as being ahead of me.  Like I said earlier, I feel adrift.  Yet I still can have what I want in my future.  I am by no means painted into a corner.  This is one of the things I'm working on with my counsellor to help me realise and to weave into my life.

26) Yes, I'm seeing a counsellor.  I've been seeing counsellors for the past three years.  A bit of this was to undo the damage I got from "counsellors" from earlier in my life.  I'm on my third counsellor--this has mostly been because of counsellors moving away.  My first counsellor, I saw mostly to help me with things from my past, to live beyond them.  The second focussed mostly on issues I was dealing with at that time.  My current one has been working with me so I can charge into my future boldly.  All of this has been courtesy of the Walk-In Counseling Center .  I highly recommend them.

27) I think CSJGW is good for me.  I can be uptight (despite some of my description of my reputation above).  But I like myself more when I loosen up.

28) I have a painful zit in my ear, of all places.  They lie--you don't outgrow acne (or at least some of us don't).

29) Other things I haven't outgrown: Saturday morning cartoons (though they are much better curled up in bed with your love); sugary cereals; ice cream; Jell-O; playing pretend; walking (not running) through sprinklers; inventing languages, superheroes, and countries; writing bad poetry on occasion; making a fool of myself; laughing without reserve.

30) I moved to Minneapolis about two months before my 30th birthday.  It was one of the best decisions, perhaps *the* best decision, I've ever made.  It was a scary time at first, but I made it work for me.

31) There is still scariness in my life.  That's another one of those things you never outgrow, being scared.  I have a lot of uncertainty in the short term.  But, as I said earlier, I can look back on my life and see that I survived worse.

32) I had a very tumultuous childhood, thanks to a drug-addled, sociopathic father.  I have some very hair-curling stories from my growing up.  I dwelt on that for the longest time.  It was hard for me to live past it.  I'm just now finding that I can use that past to help others in my present.

33) By American standards, I don't have much.  I don't have a house.  I don't have a car (though I can't drive anyway).  I don't have an mp3 player.  I don't really have much of anything state-of-the-art.  And at times that bothers me, going back to that theme of feeling I'm having to play catch-up with my peers.  But I see that my simpler life has huge advantages.  It's made it easier to move when I've had to.  I don't have all the expenses associated with car and house ownership.  I'm not compelled to keep up with the Joneses.  I rather like living this way.  I only hope that I can get myself to the point where I can raise kids.

34) I'm actually surprised that I'm almost finished with this list.  Concentration isn't one of my strong suits.  They are wanting to test me for ADD.  This could mean yet more changes in my life.  But I can brace myself for the changes.  As my mom has always told me, I can do it. :-)

35) In the end, what matters?  Family matters.  Friends matter.  Love matters.  Hope matters.