Sharing some thoughts on the eve of the first annual party I've held for two years

We have a lot to celebrate. Of course there is our health, the fact that we are alive, the love that we share, the great wines we enjoy a little too much, also we have the beauty of our youth, too. We can make up any reason to celebrate. It helps us justify the wine and the whiskey and the beers and the what-have-you. "Cheers to not having to make up an excuse to drink on a Monday morning! Cheers to this crumby yet abundant cup of coffee! Cheers to this floppy burger with shredded, bagged, pre-washed lettuce!"

But that's not what I'm getting at. That is guilt finger-scratching at the corner of my vision. It's my mom's gentle disapproval. Perhaps when we doubt the seriousness of the process of living we would be better off dead. Even the frivolous is sustenance, such as this glass of wine, my body gets just as many calories from three glasses as it would get from an average meal. It fuels my brain just as well, and I dare say is filled with fewer frightening chemicals than most manufactured foods.

Celebration is a necessary practice similar, I think, to laughter. I'm not proposing a theory as to exactly how it is necessary (you know I'm cooking one up), but we don't want to imagine a life without laughter, its ability to cut through nervous, awkward, obscene, terrible, fantastic or profound experience. I propose that celebration is a vacation from sorrow. Christmases have taken place as they would any other year in the face of deaths and diseases, like the year I was four and my grandmother had just died from ovarian cancer. It was a celebration with her, knowing we had to act as she would, with a supreme love for family and an abundant warmth.

Then again, there is this party I am to host in a few hours.

My major concern is the flow of drink and presence of food. I baked a pie but have nothing really to offer other than some cornichons, olives, and a dwindling pile of pumpkin seeds. In the beverage department, I have no intention of offering more than two bottles of wine and a little beer and gin. The rest is up to these crazy people who have agreed for some reason to attend this party. I'm not concerned yet with celebration. I guess we either will or we won't. I'll write a speech just in case:

"Beloved guests and other guests: Welcome to my home. If you have not already poured yourself a glass of something, please do, because I will offer a toast after this unnecessarily long-winded speech. As such, pour a fuller cup than you might be accustomed. Hell, grab the bottle. Also, there is at least a pound of butter in the pie. I thought it would be a good way to guarantee that Jessica would arrive. The topic of this party is Thanks But No Thanks Giving, which is just a clever arrangement of words, but I really to have an intention here, or at least I have made one up in time for this party. Next week we will probably all get together with family and friends to give thanks, mostly as a sort of abstraction, for as much as we give thanks for Grandma, it's hard not to yell at her when she makes racist remarks. We give thanks for the food, too, but the turkey is always dry and your brother's girlfriend doesn't eat anything, and you might want to throw something by the end of it all, if you weren't too drunk to stand. We give thanks.

"It's nothing against Grandma, but I'd rather be here. I'd rather choose the company I keep and keep it well as a practice of living rather than as an ablution. I'd rather care for my pie than have it from a can because that is what everyone expects. I'll say no to dry turkey and gloopy cranberry jell from a can. I will no longer pretend to be interested in cousin Alisa's second baby with that dirt bag she's married to. We are pioneers, making new friends in old lands, making family with strangers. We appreciate finer common denominators. We'll enjoy a pound of butter in our pie, thank you very much, and we're not apologizing for it. Thanksgiving? Thanks, but no thanks.

"Please remember to behave yourself this holiday season. Also, don't spend beyond your means. Also, I have love in my heart for each and every one of you with no more than two or three exceptions. My toast this evening is to you, my friends."

Sharing movies, ideas, and an apartment.

I would like to share some sordid items from the week.

- I'm not exactly pissed at my mom, like I should be, for wanting to see my grandmother peacefully at rest. After some thinking, I realized that the truth is that I agree with her. It isn't that I want her to die, but that she might be better off, and perhaps it was this subtlety that I missed when my mother repeatedly conveyed her opinion. And, after all, my mother is one of the only two people who are constantly at my grandmother's side. It is not for lack of love or care or compassion or anything else. It may be for an abundance.

- I picked up a new roommate, which couldn't be more ideal. I don't see that much of her (which is only ideal in terms of privacy and maintaining the status quo), and she's clean and respectful. Best of all, we've enjoyed living together before. Now we just need to start kicking each others' asses about getting to the gym.

- Speaking of the gym, I was on a two week hiatus when at first I rediscovered my love of running, then became injured, and then briefly sedentary. I left weight training behind but plan to ease back into it. Today I tried cycling, but I wasn't comfortable with the motion at the reps needed to get to my target heart rate. I'll get on the elliptical again tomorrow, and while I think it may be equally lame (go ahead, read into that use), It might be better than the bike while I continue to be injured. My fitness goals are currently simple: I want to drop some pounds, work on my shoulders, chest, arms and abs. I'm not worried about chicken legs: I already have somewhat well-developed below-the-waist musculature (please, read into this, too), and I can become more comprehensive when the upper half is all caught up. Weigh-in today has me down to 176.5lbs, hoping for 169.

- I'm totally absorbed in a work of fiction which I find strange but totally acceptable. I'm reading Waugh's Brideshead Revisited. I became interested in it after I fell asleep through the 2008 film adapted from the book. The movie was immediately intriguing but then got really boring (and it was late), which made me think it might be a beautifully written book, which make the most seriously boring movies (i.e. Brokeback Mountain, The Hours). I'm rediscovering my independent desire to pay attention to and analyze imagery and thematic elements. Also, it is a perfect novel for a queer reading. I'm worried that Waugh has an agenda with which I will soon take exception, but until then, I'm getting ideas for my own work and a renewed desire for more fiction. It is very likely that I will pick up Anna Karenina again.

Brideshead is about the love affair between a young middle class man and a young aristocrat who meet at Oxford during the inter-war period. The novel has taken a turn in the second third to very deftly describe the effects and causes of alcoholism. Waugh would have been very aware of the clinicization of alcohol abuse (i.e. the emergence of the alcoholic, the diagnosis), but seems to be somewhat careful to address the topic in its context, which is very appropriate for the novel - we see into the reasons the character is drawn to drink, and alcohol itself is an important thematic element. It has become very horrifying, and I'm sort of drawn away from drinking for a while.

- Finally, I discovered this weekend that I don't know what to do with time off. I got a little bored this weekend with three days off in a row. I was able to pack a lot in on the 4th, but I only used about half the day on Sunday, and yesterday I did almost nothing at all (but read and watch movies, alone). The next time I anticipate some time off, I'll do meticulous planning. It isn't that enjoying time alone is a waste of time, it's just that I could feel more accomplished and well rested now, on the other side of this lot of time.

Sharing life, over-sharing about death

Pictured above is me with the woman who repeatedly expressed in a round-about way that her mother-in-law, my grandmother, would be better off dead.

But this is only the beginning of my journey, which started on Saturday.

I arrived at DIA around 11:30, hoping for a quick shuttle ride to the hotel which turned into an hour's ride. At the Brown Palace, a colorful historic hotel in downtown Denver, I found an extremely charming hotel with great room service. They brought me a burger and a bottle of wine promptly, and I was very happy. I decided that, since I was alone it wouldn't hurt to have a cigarette, but after a half hour of searching, there was none to be found, and I'm still on-track. I slept well, took a nice long bath, posted a blog at a coffee shop, and then Richard arrived.

Richard and I had lunch, and after beer two I noticed the altitude. We continued onto a very charming wine bar, where we had a flight of sparklers and a (very generously poured) glass of pinot noir. We rushed to the wedding, which was lovely, perfect, and very very fun. We ditched early and went to JR's, on the eve on Denver's gay pride festival. Suffice it to say, it was a scene, thus crowded, thus boring.

The next morning we got room service (paid the bill, OMG, I know how to spend!), took our time, and caught a bit of the parade, then drove to the Springs, and that's where things began to be interesting.

My mom greeted me at the house. It was great to see the dogs, the house was beautiful, and the weather was perfect. Everything was shaping up to be perfect. We went to lunch and shared sandwiches, and I began to realize what my mother was needing, namely an uninvolved party to which she could vent.

You see, my grandmother had open-heart surgery three weeks ago, after which she suffered a stroke. Before the surgery, she was on oxygen therapy but was otherwise okay - she could talk, sit upright, talk and go about her business - doing the things she always does like watching TV, sitting and complaining. The events that unfolded leading up to and after the surgery (originally scheduled for early May) produced an invalid, unable to speak or precisely communicate. Over lunch, on the eve of my reunion with Grandma, my mother laid out the profundity of her injuries and the severity of the whole situation. Before I'd seen the ailing woman, my mother said in not-so-many words that my grandmother should never have had the surgery, and basically that she should be dead now, not half way there. I had to see for myself. Having to on account of curiosity, yes, but a real necessity. Deathbed shit.

At the care unit I did not recognize the woman. Perhaps I did not want to recognize her, a tuft of grey hair, one half of her body dead and swollen, eyes barely open. A hole in her throat allowed her to breath. When she did look, it was with terror, a muted cry for help. She squeezed my hand and nodded, but I could not understand her. I never could, Grandma and I never connected over anything save onions which, as it is now, she cannot even eat. I kissed her forehead, an action foreign to me, and I talked as much as I could. What do you say? "You look like shit my mother thinks you're better off dead"?

Back at the house, we are welcomed by the news that my father is stranded hundreds of miles away, too stubborn to have refilled the oil in the car. I decide to go for a run. I run over 6 miles, get rained on, and when I return home, my dad has reportedly run into some relatives who are bringing him back. One more tragedy, averted. I help my mom with her computer, then we head to dinner.

The original location for dinner is blocked by some biker festival, and we quickly relocate. I'm pissed, but stay cool.

Dinner, which would have originally been for 6 becomes 13, me, my sister and her husband, Mom and Dad, Grandpa and his "girlfriend" Becky (who never sees him unless we bring them together, he doesn't really care for her anymore), Tio Chito, his son and daughter-in-law, and their three children. Grandma becomes lost in the pursuit of reconnection, and we finish out the evening with dominos. I didn't think I'd had enough to drink.

The next morning, I go for breakfast with my mom, and again over a meal, she drops an insensitive bomb. "By the time all this is over it will cost more than she ever made in her life!" I wonder, out loud, if people who can afford care should receive it based on that merit alone. Of course, she agrees, but then her point becomes clear. Two-thirds of US healthcare costs go to end-of-life care. Damn, Mom, you're right. I guess my grandmother is better off dead. Unfortunately, that is not the right thing to say.

She's up, then sleeping, seeing out of half of her face. I saw her again in the morning, and I really thought she was doing better, but maybe I was just being helpful. I told her to behave. She nodded. I said "this isn't fun, is it?" and she shook her head. My mom is right and wrong. This situation should never have come to pass, but when it's my damn grandma, I won't quite consent to pulling the plug. My own mother, on the other hand - as we rode the elevator to the ground floor where we took the above picture says, "if I ever get that way, I want you to smother me with a pillow" - I'll know what to do.

Sharing technology

This week, as a preemptive award for smoking cessation, I treated myself to a much needed new Macbook. This is my first Mac with a built in camera, which at first I thought would be a useless accessory.

That was until I got the idea to video chat with my family. My mom has a similar laptop, and it is the natural destination of our technological journey. In the school year of '02-'03, I relied heavily on a calling card, a series of 20 some numbers, then the phone number, every time I wanted to call anywhere out of the county. Two years later, I had my own cell phone, but lacked texting capability. In July of '08, we all got iPhones and I recieved the first text from my dad and shortly after, from my mom.

Today, at 8:50am, my computer indicated that DonnieEspinoza (the AIM username I had created for them) had requested an audio chat. (I had to quickly get off the toilet to respond). My dad had figured out how to use audio chat from their iMac. After I told him to try the his laptop (the one with the camera), I waited ten minutes and I was suddenly speaking face-to-face with my dad. I had always assumed that video chat would be a mere novelty, but it turned out that speaking to my father after all these months was a little emotional. I took the laptop around the apartment for a quick tour, and when I sat back down at the kitchen table my dad was sitting with my grandmother, Tortilla Grandma.

I was aware that she had just been recovering from surgery, but did not anticipate that she would be using oxygen (strangely, a not uncommon sight for that side of the family). Grandma was thrilled. I imagine that in her impoverished, hard-working life, she could never have dreampt that she would talk to her grandson hundreds of miles away, looking at his face, on a device with no wires that weighs no more than 4lbs. We waved as though it was from a distance, but that felt awkward. The experience was intimate enough to evoke the impulse to hug.

I can't wait to talk to my mom and everyone else in the family, especially Grandpa. They'll love it.