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Is this a Blog? Am I a Blogger? Long before the term "blog" was invented, from this website's beginnings, I included a monthly "diary," an update of my life and events, things I have learned, experienced, shared. Only recently did I begin archiving previous years. I enjoy reading biographies; I like them not just for the interesting life stories, but they assist me in learning from other people's experiences how to handle my own life journey. I hope this (b)log of my life helps you. Some of you might be disappointed, there rarely will be found here any comments about religion or politics, nor any kiss and tell stories, HaHa. Feel free to contact me if you have any questions, comments, or would like to discuss further something mentioned herein. Thanks, Ben I honestly never thought about archiving the website's previous ten years worth of monthly updates of my life. However, I finally started, and here you may find these past listings. Thanks.
Activities before, around, and after his birthday involved making several trips to bring our son home from university. Neither Chris nor I have space at our places for all of our son's accquired furniture, and property needed for his room at college. So, I took most of it to my father's house, three hour drive, to store in his basement for the Summer. In August, I will have to reverse the process, and pick it all up when our son goes back to university. The end of the month kind of finished like the beginning, with Chris and I having to be flexible in making plans, and things not quite working out as planned. For the Memorial Day Holiday weekend, we planned to visit Chris' family graves, a day trip outside of Kansas City, plant flowers on his deck, and get the deck ready for a day of barbeque. Instead, it rained every day, Chris' mother wanted to go with us on the day trip, then changed her mind, and it was too wet to go anyway. Instead, Chris used the days for me to help him to change and redecorate his home office. So, we went shopping for pictures, posters, and knick-nacks. It was still a nice weekend.
So, what did I do this month, of such major importance to write about? Well, let's see. Hmmm. I went to work. I did laundry. I watched television and a few DVDs. I listened to BBC 3, the Classical Music radio station from the United Kingdom, which brings me a little bit of... home. Chris came to my place here in Topeka for one weekend, instead of my usual going to his place in Kansas City, so we could drive over to the city where our son is going to college; we had lunch with him, and on the way home we stopped at a few antique stores to window shop. Oh, and I was home sick for a few days with my typical annual Spring sinus infection. In between all of that "excitement" I finally finished my six month project of typing and printing off my Complete Guide to Doctor Who, the longest running television program, from the BBC in the United Kingdom. I got started watching Doctor Who when I was going to school in London back in the... er... 1970s (you do the math, and then I'll sue you if you tell anyone my true age). So, Tom Baker would be my Doctor, for those of you who know and understand what I mean. My Complete Guide is a listing of every television episode, book, short story, novella, comic, audio story, radio drama, etc. arranged in time-line order, with cross references for time-line blurs and overlaps between the different Doctors. The Complete Guide includes not just a listing of each story, but a synopsis of each story. I created it to keep track of my collection, be able to identify and fill in gaps of items I do not own. I can also use the Guide to be able to actually read, watch, or listen to all of the stories... in order. I will keep it updated with every new release. Basically, the only competition with my life-long collecting of Walt Disney Pinocchio items, has been my interest in Doctor Who. It is fun to collect things, Chris has many different things he likes and collects, too; it makes it easy to purchase things for birthdays and Christmas. So, that was pretty much my month of April. Not once, throughout the month did I ever get the urge to be a stereotypical gay person, and I am darn proud of myself. You be proud of yourself, too. Be willing to be your "boringly normal" self, and do not let anyone pressure you to be otherwise. If you feel like you are missing out on some supposedly fun and exciting "gay lifestyle," just e-mail me, and you can come over, help me do laundry, and I will bore you for hours; that will quickly cure you of any temptation to be a stereotype.
But, the visit was cut short by the basketball schedule announcement, and I had to drive him back to the university to catch the plane. The men's team went to Omaha, Nebraska and lost. But, the women's team traveled to Bridgeport, Connecticut, won their first game, lost their second game. While he was there, they had a day and a half between games, so he and several other students took the train to New York City. First, they tried to go to the Statue of Liberty, but to get tickets and ride the ferry back and forth takes up the whole day. So, instead, they toured the city, saw Central Park, Time's Square, World Trades Center Site, Wall Street, the Macy's Store, Broadway, and the Empire State Building; he telephoned me from the top of the Empire State Building, and said he bought Chris and I shirts, and some things for himself, too. Then, it was the flight back to the university and back to class and his regular schedule. We were pretty proud parents. Chris' mother and brother had other plans for Easter, so he and I spent it on our own, went out to dinner, and saw a movie. We planned to window shop, but discovered all of the stores and malls were closed. This is something new, and expanding. About twenty years ago, stores closed for Easter, but that faded away since it was considered just a Christian Holiday, not fair to other religions, not like Christmas, which can be both religious and secular. Now, it is coming back, and is kind of a surprise, because I do not see the United States as being more religious now than it was twenty years ago. Otherwise, Chris and I are back to being on our own again for a couple of months while our son finishes his Spring Semester at the university, the daily pattern of work, and home.
His return to college resumed my living alone during the week, seeing Chris on weekends. I confess I actually enjoyed having the place to myself last semester. I completed several projects, and look forward to working on more this Spring. One project is to restore a music composition I wrote while attending college, before I took music composition classes, and schooling in London. But, I could not find it anywhere, neither in the piano bench, nor in the large container in the closet where I keep all of my music. So, I just considered it lost. Last Fall, my ex-wife asked if I would like to buy back the cedar chest we had when married; of course, because all these years I have had to store all of the family's antique quilts and Irish linens in containers with cedar wood blocks. One project this gave opportunity to complete was to inventory all of the linens, who made them, and when; that way our son will know when he inherits them someday. As I moved the linens to the cedar chest, to my surprise, at the bottom of the container was music, including the lost composition; evidently, in the rush to pack and move at the time of my marriage separation, I threw them into these containers instead of the one set aside for music. In January, I completed the process of uploading it to the computer software, so now I can begin the process of making corrections, and expanding the composition for future publication. Chris and I both came down with a touch of bronchitis, Chris worse than I, and even our son, now back to college had a touch of something going around his university dorm. Part of the cause could be the odd weather in January, of a warm day followed by snow the next day, and repeating back and forth all month. So, this delayed some weekend activities, and January was really rather a quiet and routine month, especially quiet now than our son is back to university.
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Update of activities and events during July 2008 are usually added around the first day of the following month. Return in July for my June report.
People often think that only children, and I am one of them, are spoiled from birth. They are probably true, although my parents tried to instill in me the need to work hard, and earn in life. But, the down side to being an only child comes later in life, when your parents begin to age and pass. My mother died in 2001, from breast cancer, which was a total surprise because the women in my family usually live to be in their late nineties. After her passing, my father continued to live on his own, until he broke his hip. He moved to Kansas to be closer to me and his grandson, and because of his connections here through my mother, and the land the family purchased here. He is located three hours from where I live, still a distance to drive, but not like it was before, which took several days to travel. He did very well until the end of this month, when he fell again, and broke the other hip. Now, I am in the midst of travelling back and forth, checking on his rehabilitation progress, running errands, paying bills, etc. It will be awhile before we know how long his recovery will take before he can return home, and what kind of financial impact this will have. Being an only child means being somewhat alone in making decisions, handling the stress, and projecting and predicting what the future shall be, or may be one day. Thankfully, my partner Chris, and our teenage son have been very supportive of me, with advice and good counsel, taking care of chores and errands that need to be done, and understanding the unfortunate need to be apart from each other now and then while I am visiting my father. So, I have not done much else during the month, besides my normal work load.
Chris' birthday is near the beginning of May, and always falls close to Mother's Day. In the past, his family has often combined the two. This year, there was more of a distance between them, so I planned to take him out to a nice dinner, and a fun day together. At the last minute, his mother planned a dinner for him at her home, and so we ended up there. We still had a nice time, and Chris enjoyed my gifts, several books and movie DVDs he wanted.
