Television from a Different Room

Those of us who are not fond of television, but who live with people who are, know what it’s like to hear the TV from an adjacent room. Sometimes you can tune it out, sometimes it takes over your brain and you can’t pay attention to what you’re trying to write. It makes me think about the genius of the people who create these shows. Just like commercials, it seems that the really effective ones are designed to capture attention, even of passers by.

Will & Grace is the best example of a show I cannot even be within hearing distance without it taking over my thoughts. If I’m in the same room, forgetaboutit. It is one of the funniest shows ever, and there is no way to not pay attention to it. Those episodes are future classics from this time period; they will still be known when others have faded from the worlds’ memory.

Criminal Minds is intense, and I cannot understand why stations would play it in the morning. Why would anybody want to deal with that kind of thing first thing? Women screaming and extreme suspenseful soundtrack are not healthy over a first cup of coffee, and it makes me seriously question the people who write and direct these shows. They seem to get inordinate pleasure from psychopaths.

The best thing by far to have on in the next room when you’re trying to write, read or do some other quiet activity is a movie or TV show from the 70’s. The soundtracks are perfect. I actually did a search to find if there was anybody who sold specifically that - soundtracks to 70’s movies and TV shows. (I didn’t find any, but I’m not finished looking.) There is dialogue, but one can easily ignore that. Mood and action are told perfectly with the jazzy tunes of Jerry Fielding, Henry Mancini and their ilk. I rather enjoy when Barry is watching shows like this in the living room while I write in the next room. I could put on a YouTube offering of similar music, and I do. But, there is something about having the sound coming from the TV, the way it is incorporated with the show. It has to be in its element, with actors talking and a person on the sofa in front of the TV watching it. And, naturally, me in the next room.

Alas, Barry has decided to get up and get to work. My overheard Saturday Morning soundtrack is over. It’s time to do laundry, I suppose.

The Girl

I'm finally reading Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. (Listening to the audio book, more precisely.) I've always known I'd like it, but I thought I wasn't ready. Now I am. 

The mystery is intriguing, but what I'm really enjoying so far is the prose about the weather. Northern Sweden in January. I'm listening to it in Central Texas in September, a time when it's barely under 100°, and I feel like I need to get under a blanket. 

That's some good writing. 

Levitating Blossom

I woke up yesterday morning and stepped outside to find an Esperanza blossom levitating outside my bedroom door. Stranger things have happened. I seemed to be visited occasionally by my late father's spirit and sometimes my late friend, Richella, may they rest in peace. 

After I came back to the door, though, I discovered a more logical explanation - the spiders web above the door. It seems that she was using the blossom as an anchor rather than attaching her web to a fixed object or surface, like the ground or a windowsill. 

I rather enjoy not knowing if things I see are supernatural or just physically interesting. 

The blossoms are rather blurry, but I can’t retake the pictures. The event has ended and life is back to normal outside my bedroom door.

The Rules

You play by the rules, especially when they aren't written.

This evening I was at the rec center after work. I was still on the StairMaster when a couple came in and began putzing around. Soon after they arrived I finished the StairMaster and sat down at one of the machines to recover from the near-death experience of exercise. I looked up and from just under the brim of my baseball cap I saw the man bending over, stretching. After a little bit, it seemed a little unnatural how long he was bending over stretching. The tops of his shorts were rather sheer and I could see the outline of the black underwear he was wearing, and still he bent over, stretching. Right in front of me. I averted my gaze, but I then happened to see him in the mirror. His wife was also stretching.

When I was a young gay man, I basically had two options. Be a part of society or be gay. That's how I saw it anyway. The thought of gay marriage never once crossed my mind. That was so far outside of reality that the thought never even occurred to me. (I was raised and have lived my whole life in Texas, and this might have something to do with that mindset.)

Obergefell v. Hodges thrust us undeniably into the main stream, but there were many of us who were kind of okay being counter culture. I never really thought much of it, myself. My background had been pretty far off the beaten path, so I probably wasn't going to have a very normal life regardless. I remember watching an interview of an older gay man after gay marriage became legal. On the surface he was pretty happy about it. He talked about how it used to be, how we had to be so careful. How slipping up could cost a career and wreck a family. How we used to have to communicate everything in fleeting glances, sideways knowing looks… and right about there I stopped believing he was entirely happy about the changes. Now you can hug your boyfriend right out there in public? Where's the excitement in that?

A friend of mine agreed with my thoughts, and mentioned that when people are unfaithful it's often mostly the excitement and danger that they are looking for - much more than just the sex. So, now that gays are mainstream and getting married and such, where does this leave us? If a man is stretching in a gym, right in front of you for an inordinately long time, what do we make of that?

I think it's still a little different. I could very much be wrong, but here's how it seems to me. When a man (even, or especially one who is married to a woman in a place like Texas) is looking at men for a rendezvous, it could be just the excitement. But, it seems like there is a longing to be a part of that counter culture. To be secretly gay, and have buddies who are also secretly gay and sometimes go to secretly gay parties at speakeasies and drink.

When one or both members of a straight couple is unfaithful, likely they are looking for excitement. I don't see this as a need to be a part of a larger group of like-minded people. Quite the opposite, I'd say. Yes, I know that there are swingers and such, but that's not what I'm talking about here. Excitement, something to make the heart race. Something truly secret and forbidden. If it’s made public, it’s scandalous and embarrassing, and most of all, it’s now boring.

Or, maybe I'm just old. Maybe I'm projecting my own feelings onto the situation. There’s no maybe about it, really, but that doesn't mean that I'm wrong. I was never very good at being gay in the counter culture, actually. I'm not great at being mainstream, for that matter. I just kind of toodle along to my own Latin rhythms, which I've adopted from yet another culture. I've been around for a bit and I think I know what was going on at the rec center. Not that anybody said anything, it's just the feeling I get; the way I read it. He wasn't looking for sex; he was looking for his secretive tribe that lives halfway in the shadows and halfway in light. Maybe I miss that, too, though I've always been far too up-front and open to be a part of a clandestine group. Living in those times did lead to a kind of bond. I do miss that.

Cats in the Shade

Anastasia paused to think about the lies and deceit that defined her youth. Yes, she had a beautiful yard now with a perfect wisteria to rest under in the increasingly warm spring days. But, was it worth it?