The Way You Dance

I love facebook. I love how easily it helps to answer the question "What ever happened to . . . ?" Sometimes I wonder what Brent G. is up to.

Brent is a boy I had met in the 80's while out dancing one night. I had ridden into Hollywood with a few friends to the bar called "Peanuts." It was supposed to be a lesbian bar but it was more of a mixed crowd on the night we went. Brent was there that night, dancing by himself.

I loved his confidence and his style. His all-black outfit included a beret and a pair of gloves. I loved that he had the creativity to dress differently and the courage to dance alone in public. It was as if the Gogo's had written that song for him:

The way you dance, you move in self-romance
And you don't see me watch the way you dance
Your eyes close in a trance, so you don't see me watching

Fortunately, Brent did see me. I can't remember how I started talking to him. I was just happy that I got to dance with this boy I admired. What I do remember is the sweet kisses we shared later. I was 21 then and Brent was a little younger.

Brent and I had kept in touch after meeting that night but it was difficult getting together again. Neither of us had a car. I was getting around Orange County on a Vespa scooter back then. Brent, unbelievably, was riding the city buses to go out at night. I was impressed. He was that dedicated a club kid!

I have searched for Brent on facebook. Typing in his first and last names yields only one result, so I'm pretty sure it's him, even if there is no accompanying photo.

I have not friend requested him. After thinking about it, I decided that Brent is one fond memory I would like to keep as is, including the way he danced.

Thanks for the Mammaries

I think the biggest laugh I enjoyed in England this past April was from Jo's breast feeding story.

Well, it wasn't so much about breast feeding as it was about breast pumping.

Jo's dear darling boy is three, now. He is her first and only child. Before he was born, Jo was sure that she would be ready to go back to work a mere two weeks after giving birth. Her friends with babies warned her to wait until later.

She should have listened.

Jo works as a television hostess in the UK, most prominently for a travel channel.
She could at least handle a work meeting soon after the baby was born, she had thought, especially if she brought along her hand crank machine for expressing breast milk, the one with two separate attachments.

Jo told us that while sitting in the meeting, she could feel her breasts swelling gradually and growing heavier - as if they were inflating! She excused herself for a quick break and looked for the nearest public loo, expressing machine in tow.

She managed to find an empty restroom but the stalls weren't close enough to the electrical outlet. The machine's electrical cord was too short to extend into a secluded stall. She would have to risk it.

Jo mimed cranking the machine's handle while telling us the story, as well as applying the attachments to her topless self. She was not prepared, she said, for a strange man to walk in on her in such a state.

I imagine the look of shock on the man's face must have matched the level of shock Jo was feeling, once she realized that she was in the Men's Room.

The Kindness of Vicky T.

I cannot honestly say that I've ever had a hard life. Sure, I've had some emotionally tough periods and a bit of genuine heartache - all in the distant past, thank goodness. But my life has been a happy one, for the most part.

On the one hand, I am extremely grateful. On the other hand, I wonder how inept I might actually be, not knowing how to cope with adversity?

I am still the Perpetual Pollyanna Pete, however, and I believe in focusing on any silver lining available. Part of my effort toward keeping a positive attitude is to be more mindful of how kind people have been to me my entire life. One of them was Vicky T.

Vicky was a counselor I had met up at church camp when I was about 15. She was a Sunday School teacher and I quickly became friends with the girls in her junior high group. It was natural to add her to my new list of pen pals before camp had ended.
Since Vicky was a sympathetic adult, I suppose it was natural to start bending her ear in my letters, mostly pouring out my hurt feelings to her about my father.

Vicky listened. And she responded. She wrote lengthy letters back to match my long letters of self-pity. I don't think I kept any of her letters but I remember she shared personal information about when her husband had hurt her feelings and how she thought we should respond, as Christians, to family conflicts.

Vicky had two boys of her own, both in elementary school when I was an adolescent. Now, as an adult, I am humbly grateful that she had taken the time to nurse my emotional pain. I am thankful that she made the time to guide me through some of my early teenage turmoil when she had a family of her own to take care of and worry about.

The last time I saw Vicky was during the end of my senior year in high school. I was anxious to share with her that I had been accepted into UCLA, as if to prove that I was a successful 18-year-old and all of my former problems had been solved.

Recently, I have been looking in the phone book and googling her name online to see if she is still living in the same area - and with no luck. I imagine her sons are now in their thirties, and that perhaps she is a grandmother by now. I wish I could find Vicky T. and thank her for having been so kind and sensitive to the younger me.

For now, I'll just try to remember how kind Vicky T. and others have been to me throughout my life. And I'll try to remember, even on a daily basis, to pay that kindness forward to anyone I happen to come in contact with.

Hopefully, it will help me to accomplish my goal of not wasting my space on this planet.

(the above photo is of Vicky and me at winter camp, 1982)

Pissed Off

He is an angry man. He is angry at me, angry with me. When I showed up at his door, peace offerings in hand, he told me that I was no longer welcome in his home. I knew it would be pointless to argue with him. So I left.

He is a depressed man. He has switched medications for depression as many times as he has switched therapists. My suspicion is that he is not willing to listen to what he does not want to hear.

And it feels like a nightmare, the deterioration of our relationship. Obviously I had crossed a line by speaking my mind to him if our relationship of forty years can be so easily disposed of by him. I am sure that he thinks that it was none of my business and that I should have kept my mouth shut. And I think to myself, That is a phrase for people with whom you have no emotional relationship. Or so I thought. I must be wrong if I've caused him to be so angry and closed off.

Or perhaps we never had much of an emotional relationship in the first place, even after forty years, if things were already that precarious between us? Maybe it was only a matter of time.

She was right to move out. His response of anger to me only seems to prove that she was right to escape such a negative and emotionally unhealthy atmosphere. No matter how hurt his feelings may be, she had enough sense of self-preservation to leave, at least, and to longer be subjected to such an emotionally destructive environment.

Just my opinion, an unwelcome one, apparently.

"You piss me off!" I want to scream at him. Ironically, I wish he would have yelled the same to me when I had spoken my mind, instead of shutting me out. One of the ways we are similar is that we rarely express our anger to others. We both hold our anger in, letting resentment build up like toxic pus with no outlet or chance for being expelled.

After being told that I am no longer welcome in his home I wasted about three days wondering if I am bad person. After the third day, I decided to no longer let his negativity waste any more of my life. I have too many blessings to focus on and be grateful for. Too bad for him.

I am sad for his unhappy and angry life. I am sad that I cannot be more effective in helping him. He does not want my help and I should have never tried to help.

He hangs onto his anger, stubbornly clenching it with both fists until the day he dies, perhaps. He is like an injured, frightened dog who snarls and snaps at any human who tries to approach and offer help.

I will stay out of harm's way.

Gleeful

Oh my God, ohmygod, ohmigawd! The new television show "GLEE" was just the bestest ever. The vocals were fantastic, the characters were funny, and the choreographed numbers were fulfilling. Did'ja catch that show choir performance of Amy Winehouse's "Rehab?" (a much better version, I might add). Astounding!

My niece's mother had just posted a question on facebook this week, wondering if we ever truly get out of high school. I think this new program reinforces the idea that high school is eternal, both the good and the bad.

At first, I was disappointed that there was so much focus on the teacher/new choir director's story line, since he is one of the main characters. "Get back to the kids!" I wanted to yell at the idiot box.

But I can't deny that the adult characters' story lines are part of what makes high school so perpetual. Much of the appeal of a show like this may be due to some grownups' desire - grownups like me - to recapture their youth. Later in the premiere episode, viewers learn that the teacher was once part of the school's show choir when he was a student.

"It made me want to perform again!" my friend Deb told me. I knew how she felt. And I knew that she would know that I knew that. Too bad we're "too old" now. But how satisfying to see a new show that will once again bond band geeks and choir nerds alike, as well as any other high school underdog stereotypes.

Is "GLEE" the newest version of 'High School Musical' on television? Perhaps. And it's just as delicious as a guilty pleasure.

Yum!

I Could Be Your Daddy

I am 43 years old now. In the past year, I've found myself looking at 18-year-old and 19-year-old boys more.

No, not like that.

I am now the same age my father was when I was a freshman in college. Holy crap! I could have a college-age kid by now!

Last year I met someone who could very well be like my son. He was the grandson of my aunt's friends and, yes, he was 18. Like me, he had a Japanese mother and a Caucasian father. Conversation with him was easy as we talked about our respective times in Japan and our mutual interest in creative writing.

And I felt protective toward this young man, even if it was more in a brotherly way than in a parental way. Perhaps it was just a temporary transference of feeling protective over my own inner youth? How much more parenting am I going to feel I need to do for myself?

For the rest of my life?

My paternal grandmother was 43 when I was a 1-year-old baby. I could be a grandfather by now. HOLY CRAP!

(the photo above is me at about 18 years old, summer of 1984)

If I Could Rock With the Animals

It's funny to think about how I envisioned my future while I was growing up, and comparing it to how differently my reality actually turned out. As I kid, all I wanted to do was work with animals when I grew up. I thought I might be a zoo keeper some day. After reading the Henry Reed books, I thought seriously about becoming a naturalist, vague as that profession sounded (and still does).

I thought a lot about conservation and preserving endangered species. I wrote a fictional essay my freshman year, in the early 80's, about the earth being overwhelmed by toxic pollution in the far off year of 2001. In my imaginary future, humans could not go outdoors without wearing plastic bubble helmets and protective sealants. Most of the animal population had died out in their natural habitats the world over. The few animals that managed to be saved all lived underneath a giant plexi-glass dome called "The Last Kingdom," in various artificially recreated environments. In my pretend-future I was the Head Veterinarian in Charge of this indoor sanctuary.

That story stayed in its fictional state as I reached adulthood and beyond. Instead of saving the planet from further species extinction, I joyfully veered off into the selfish and sometimes rewarding pathway of dance and live performance. Now, I work in admissions for a vocational school and mostly like it.

I should have at least joined Greenpeace.