john_q_public@gullible.com

It’s one of those unfortunate consequences of the information age: politically charged email. I had hoped it would reach its ugly peak during last year’s presidential election but lately I find no signs of it stopping.

You know the kind of emails I’m talking about. They hit your inbox with titles like “FW: EVERY AMERICAN MUST READ THIS!!!!” Open up an email with a title like that and you can expect to find about as much intelligence as you would in a teenager’s text message that starts with “OMG.” You’ll usually find them written in point-size 85 in one of those fonts that no respectable person uses. The most shocking lines of the email will be in an even bigger font, double-underlined, and likely in red. Assuming you can get past the aesthetics, you’ll probably be greeted by a first line which begs the reader to forward this to absolutely every human that they know and a few they don’t.

On the occasions where I actually take the time to read through one of these emails (rare), I’m always surprised by the tone, the structure (or lack thereof), and the general insensitivity that they tend to espouse. It’s as though they were written to shock or scare people into believing the agenda that they promote. More importantly, I tend to doubt that the arguments made in the email are ones that the sender wouldn’t likely discuss in my living room because frankly, the sender is much more polite than that.

The big question lurking in my mind is: When did email become the political tool of idiots?

I’m not attacking a specific political party because they’re both guilty of it. Being an extremely left-wing liberal, I tend to find the majority of these emails coming from my extremely right-wing family and friends – probably because my liberal friends already understand and agree with my politics and don’t see the need to attempt to persuade me otherwise. Even when I agree with the arguments in these emails I don’t pass them on because I don’t want everyone in my address book thinking that I am so gullible as to get my political views from random junk email.

I’d be willing to place money on the fact that no American voter has ever had their political mind changed or their ideologies altered by an email blast in its 49th degree of “forward.” To be quite honest, I don’t think most Americans are that ignorant, regardless of political affiliation. Imagine if I were so inspired by one of these political email forwards that I actually chose to take action. I might write a letter to my elected official that goes something like this:

Dear Senator Franken:

I’m sure you have lots to do these days up on Capitol Hill, but I just got an email from a Republican in North Dakota which informed me that President Obama is both a Muslim and an atheist. Then I found a group on facebook which says he wasn’t born in the US, but on some island somewhere… Owyhee I think? This clearly makes him anti-American and means that every single thing that comes out of his mouth is a big fat lie. Because of this, his health care motives must be completely unworthy and voting for them would be just plain stupid. Would you please be so kind as to oppose absolutely everything he does over the next four years? I know you have the whole “fellow-Democrat” thing going on with him, but how ‘bout taking one for the team, huh? I know my sources can’t be wrong on this one because all things on the internet are honest.

Kind regards,

Brian

PS - Sorry for the whole “recount” thing – hope you’re not bitter!

Worse yet, this emailing of political rhetoric is just the tip of the iceberg. There’s a bigger problem here. As mass communication has gotten easier, we as a citizenry have become more persuadable, far too amicable, and we’ve developed an ugly sense of “groupthink.” Why develop your own ideals when you have a facebook following to garner your opinions from? Frankly, it’s a treacherous road which breeds ignorance and fires ill-informed passion over untested facts. There are few things in this world as dangerous as an idiot with a cause.

And then of course there’s the whole idea that we have to agree on everything, and that each of us must always come away smiling. We give trophies to every kid on the team regardless of effort, because we don’t want to hurt anyone’s feelings. We teach that politics and religion can never be spoken of, because we might disagree on something, and that would just be wrong. Is it any wonder that we have a country full of people who email baseless political stories as a scare tactic? We’ll join a facebook group of like-minded thinkers, but we’ll never review a dissenting opinion in the New York Times.

If you have something to say on the political front, do it in a venue that fosters respect, understanding, and informed deliberation. Write a book, teach a class, get a degree, caucus, campaign, volunteer, knock on a door or two, or have intelligent discussions with friends on both sides of the aisle – you might just learn something. Have the courage to speak your own convictions, tempered with the skill to make a point and back it up with fact. Read things that matter, and find reputable role models from which to develop your arguments.

And whatever you do, STOP pressing the forward button every time you find someone with thinking similar to yours. When it comes to political emails, the action speaks louder than the voice.

"Other than that Mrs. Lincoln, how was the play?"

Optimism haunts me. So do the people who thrive on it.

Frankly, my glass is not half full. It is always at least half empty and often it’s emptier than that. And you know what? I don’t feel bad about that in the least! Humans are not programmed for optimism and those who attempt it come across as fake and annoying, and leave me with the false sense that I too must put on my happy face and ignore reality.

You know the type I’m talking about. It’s the old lady from the church down the road (which you never attend) who shows up on your doorstep when you’re sick or someone has died, and shoves a casserole at you, as though her random act of kindness will somehow advance her a step in the higher order of things. It’s a nice sentiment, but the reality is that you probably didn’t feel like company, her casserole gave you diarrhea, and in the end you have to clean her serving dish and then hunt her down to give it back. Of course you won’t actually expend the effort to give it back, and now you’re cursed with it. You can never use it because someone might see it and know you’re a thief. After a while, the dish has been in your possession so long that you could never return it because it would simply bring to light the obvious: you stole it! So, the damn thing just it sits in your cabinet mocking you each time you open the cupboard and reminding you that you are indeed going to hell. Gladys should have kept her casserole at home!!

I don’t mean for it to sound like I’m a life-hating naysayer who thrives on opportunities to destroy hope. Quite the contrary. But no one can be happy all the time, and sometimes it feels good to feel bad. When something bad happens (especially if it’s my fault) I don’t want to be happy. I want to go home alone and feel sorry for myself, listen to music that will make me even sadder, and create in my mind the absolute worst-case scenario. A few hours later when I surface (or sober up) I’m over it. I’ve chewed on the “badness” for as long as I needed to and swallowed… Case closed… On to the next screw-up! It’s an important pattern in human behavior that gets unnaturally altered when we try to see the world through rose-colored glasses.

And there’s a deeper issue here that I think needs to be dug into here. The fact is that it’s very much within everyone’s nature to be mean and nasty. We don’t intend to be, but we can’t help ourselves. It’s that nasty streak which makes us do things like stick our gum under the table, or pass gas in crowded areas where someone else is sure to be blamed. And then of course there’s schadenfreude – the act of taking pleasure in other peoples’ misery. We watch NASCAR to see the wrecks, and we laugh at home videos where someone takes a nose dive into concrete. Think about figure skating for a moment. When the boy-in-tights with granite-like abs comes out of a triple-axel, you know the entire world (except maybe his mother) secretly wants him to fall flat on his ass. With all that negative energy flowing about, it’s a wonder the skaters can even stand upright.

Optimists invented terms like “you’re half-right,” “those were planned losses,” or “she’s just big-boned.” There’s something to be said for telling it like it is: You’re as wrong as you can be; you lost a bundle of money thanks to your own stupidity; and she’s never met a Twinkie she didn’t like.

Bad things happen to good people, just like good things happen to bad people (which is even more annoying). You can’t appreciate a good day unless you’ve had a few that were down-right shitty. In some karmic way it all balances out in the end and a little regret to carry through life never hurt anyone.

Somewhere along the line we’ve been programmed to believe that regret is inherently bad, but I disagree. Holding onto it a little of it helps clear the path toward the future. There are many things in life I regret: I wish George W. Bush had never been president. I wish my grandmother could have seen me grow up. I wish my parents hadn’t divorced. I wish I would never have said hello to the dark haired boy with adorable brown eyes who would eventually lie to me and drain my bank accounts. But all of these things did happen, and living with a wall up against the hurt they might have inflicted doesn’t undo it. I’m a realist, and sometimes reality sucks.

I find no peace in letting go, but I don’t let holding on slow me down. I can deal with the bad while appreciating the good, and when the smoke clears, I’ll see the humor, wisdom, and humanity in both.

Jackie Was Here (Part 3)

Setting sail out of Athens on the Aegean Sea, the first thing one can’t help but notice is the unbelievable shade of the water. The ancient Greeks called the Aegean the “wine-dark sea” for good reason, and in some places the color is such a deep and penetrating shade of blue that it almost appears purple in the sunlight.

Prior to Greece, I’d only traveled by ferry one other time for a grand total of about 20 minutes, so I wasn’t entirely sure what to expect. I was pleasantly surprised. The ferry ride out to sea was made better by a perfect day without a cloud in the sky and looking out toward the hazy, far-off horizons, it was difficult to tell where the blue sea ended and the blue sky began.

The ferries cruise along at a comfortable speed of about 35 knots. I honestly have no concept of how fast a knot is, but it kept a warm breeze ruffling my hair when standing on the deck, and made the journey very enjoyable.

Our first stop in the Aegean was the island of Mykonos where we spent the better part of three days. Mykonos is known today for its beaches and its nightlife and it’s a popular tourist destination for mainland Europeans. Apparently the Greek Islands are like the Caribbean of Europe, and Mykonos, as the epicenter, is highly crowded! Still, the magic of the Aegean, and the beauty of its beaches are unmistakable on Mykonos, and despite the inordinate number of tourists it’s still easy to have a good time.

At least half of the island’s beaches are “clothing optional” and of those another several are “exclusively nude.” I didn’t actually make it to any of the later variety but I saw enough of the former to develop a theory about public nudity on European beaches: The only people who take their clothes off are those who shouldn’t! While the repeated sightings of saggy bare breasts did little to boost my excitement for nude beaches, they did reassure my confidence in my own sexuality. I’m not sure if being gay came from my environment, my genetics, my mother, or from God, but whoever did it to me – THANK YOU!!!

The center of all activity on Mykonos (aside from the beaches) is the chora. All islands have a chora, which is the main city, or urban hub, but Mykonos’s is unique. It’s laid out in a complete mesh of white stucco buildings built literally right on top of one another with narrow alleyways passing in between (far too small for even the littlest vehicles). These urban pedestrian trails weave in and out of the buildings with absolutely no rhyme or reason and it doesn’t take much time at all to become lost and confused, not mention frustrated! Oddly enough, a little alcohol seemed to almost help the navigating abilities. Apparently the chora was built like that centuries ago, in a preventative attempt to thwart pirate raids, which were frequent in the Greek Islands.

Mykonos also has the distinction of being a favorite vacation spot of Jackie Onassis during the years that she lived in Greece. This seemed to really fit with the island’s mystique and for me personally, made it much more appealing! You see, Jackie serves as something of an icon for the homo-world at large. No, she wasn’t one herself, and she didn’t go around actively supporting the gay rights movement. But she was a liberal (we love all liberals by default), and her sense of fashion, her style, her charisma and charm, and her untouchable class have made her sort of the queen mother of gay men around the world… Cher may be our mascot, but Jackie was our monarch!

Appropriately the premier gay bar on Mykonos is called Jackie O, and it draws enormous crowds after hours when the beaches close. For gay men, a drunken night at Jackie O seemed to be like a Greek right-of-passage, and so that’s where we ended up.

I should point out here that my travel companion is NOT gay, but he puts up with us rather well… in fact I sometimes tease him that he’s an “honorary homo.” At any rate, I managed to convince him to come with me to Jackie O and after we actually found the place (this required the assistance of four locals, two stops at internet cafés, and a misguided walk around half the damn island) we had a pretty good time.

Day two on Mykonos had the best agenda you can have when you’re on an island 6,000 miles from home: Laying on the beach drinking pina coladas (to the tune of about 10 Euros each!). This was the ONLY thing we did on that particular day and I came to the conclusion that no matter how hectic a vacation ever becomes, a day to do nothing except sunbathe and drink is absolutely essential to the rejuvenation of the soul!

Our final day on Mykonos involved a quick trip to the ruins at Delos (more on that in the next post) before setting sail for the next island, Ios. Overall, I have to give Mykonos a thumbs-up. While it was by far the most crowded, touristy place we visited in Greece, it was a beautiful island and a lot of fun. Jackie knew a good thing when she saw it!
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Sailing on the Aegean Sea.

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Mykonos

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Paradise Beach. This was one of the "mostly" clothed beaches

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The gay bar appropriately named "Jackie O." When I took this picture the morning after being there I was a little stunned at how close it is to the sea, and how rough the sea is. Maybe not a good mix when drinking, huh?
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The streets of the Mykonos chora. VERY narrow!
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This pelican is something of a local legend and there's competing stories about how he got to Mykonos. Pelicans are not native to this part of the world but this one stays and the tourists love him.

. The view from our room

Athens: Where History & Hookers Collide (Part 2)

In some naive way, I think I had pictured Athens to be like something out of my high school Western Civ textbook. Of course I knew it was a modern city too, but I imagined that life in Athens would exemplify the important role the city played in world history, and that the birthplace of democracy and Western thought would really celebrate those badges in a way that couldn’t be mistaken or misunderstood. This wasn’t exactly what I found.

For a Greek-novice like me, the broader history of all Greece can be easily confused with the history of Athens. In country we call Greece was full of small, autonomous colonies called city-states, of which Athens was the largest and most prominent. These city-states were often known to go to war against each other, and it wasn’t until much more modern times that the concept of Greece as a one nation came into existence. Much of what I thought was Greek history is really just Athens history.

After landing at Athens International Airport and making our way through customs (easier than I expected), we caught a bus to the city center, which is about 30 minutes away. Riding through Athens on a bus, the thing I couldn’t help but notice was just how packed the place is and how big. The city’s shapeless dilapidated building and choppy overcrowded streets seem to weave randomly across the topography from the Aegean Sean on the south, as far as you can see in every other direction. There’s little rhyme or reason to the town’s layout, and I was very happy to be using public transportation.

The streets are dirty, the air is heavy, and for some reason there are stray dogs and cats everywhere. Apparently the concept of a Pound isn’t popular in Greece and strays are seen almost as “community property” and live quite contently on the streets of Athens. Not surprisingly, the strays have figured out that the average American tourist comes from the land of fat dogs and they tend to congregate heavily in the tourist areas where handouts are plentiful. Give one of these creatures a little food or attention and you’ve suddenly found yourself a companion who is likely going to tag along pretty much everywhere you go. Don’t be surprised when one follows you onto a restaurant patio and parks itself next to your table.

When the 2004 Summer Olympics were held in Athens these stray animals were being rounded up by the truckload and euthanized. The deal was that any dog/cat without a collar was deemed to be ownerless and would be put down, so PETA showed up and began sneaking around the city fastening collars to every animal they could catch, some of which still carry them today.

The tourist section of Athens, known as the “Plaka,” is where you’ll find most everything of historical significance. It’s slightly cleaner and feels safer than the rest of the city in general and everything is in English there. I found myself very appreciative of being from the country where our native language is the universal language of tourism. The Plaka is a somewhat circular area that’s runs uphill from the outside in, and at the center is the Acropolis, the small mountain on top of which sits the world-famous Parthenon – by far, the most well known symbol of Classical Greece.

To be sure, Athens (to say nothing of Greece as a whole) is proud of its history, and that’s apparent not only by the care that’s taken in the efforts toward preservation, but also in the fees charged to go trudging up mountains to see these ancient sites – 24 Euro (about $35 US dollars) to hike to the Parthenon.

I suppose I was expecting to see ruins in their natural state of decay, but I discovered that most of these ancient sites, including the Parthenon, have been extensively renovated in an ongoing effort to keep them upright. While I can appreciate the fact that this has helped them survive the centuries for me to see, something about it felt tainted, almost as if the permanent scaffolding which surrounds the ancient structure deters from the historic significance of seeing it in its raw form, no matter the state of decay.

The Parthenon was built as a temple dedicated to Athena, the goddess of War, for whom the city was also named. The Athenians built it around 480 BC to thank Athena for her assistance in helping the city ward off a Persian invasion. That particular skirmish – or rather, its outcome – helped define ancient Athens as a force to be reckoned with throughout the Mediterranean. Inside of the Parthenon was a 40-foot tall gold statue of Athena, which has since come up missing (how in the hell do you lose a 40-foot statue, no matter what it’s made of?!).

The Parthenon is certainly the highlight of any Athens trip, but there are other things to be seen at the Plaka as well. The Agora sits just downhill from the Parthenon and was an informal public gathering place for the ancient Athenians. This is where the assemblies met to vote, where merchants brought their goods from around the Mediterranean to trade, and where some of the earliest Greek philosophers (Socrates, Aristotle, Plato) were preaching, recruiting like-minded thinkers, and sometimes (as in Socrates’ case) getting themselves executed. It’s an interesting place to hang out today, and I appreciated the fact that at least one of the market buildings has been completely rebuilt in the fashion believed to be very close to it’s original state. That particular venture took place about 60 years ago thanks to a personal donation from Mr. John D. Rockefeller. The thought of American-style capitalism restoring the hinges of history and democracy seemed almost poetic, I glowed with a sense of nationalist pride, instilled in me two decades ago by a narrow minded public school system… I couldn’t help myself.

Leaving the Plaka that afternoon, we tried and failed to catch a bus to the Temple of Poseidon, learning that outside the tourist areas, English is rarely spoken or written, and translating an Athenian bus schedule can be a little daunting (just how does one pronounce Ώ, Ψ, or β ?) My travel companion belongs to a college fraternity and he knew the basics of reading Greek, but that didn’t help us understand it much. Between us, the only word we knew was kalimera (good morning) which proves somewhat useless when trying to explain yourself to a shop owner or taxi-cab driver. My favorite was the cab driver who tried in vein to understand where we wanted to go before finally stretching his English enough to order me out of his cab.

After failing in our hunt for Poseidon, we wandered back to the English-speaking Plaka, and got ourselves some authentic Greek food. The primary meat in Greece always seemed to be lamb, which I love, and you’ll also see a lot of pastas and breads. The drink of choice is ouzo, an alcoholic beverage that’s mixed with water (½ and ½) and served over ice. Ouzo tastes a lot like black licorice and it’s meant to be sipped throughout a meal. I had a couple glasses the first few days in Greece, but eventually switched back to my standard spirits of vodka or rum.

Being in Greece primarily to see the islands, we just spent one night on the mainland in Athens before heading out to sea the next morning. This required catching a 6:00 a.m. train to the port and as we walked from our hotel to the train station, I was shocked to see how many prostitutes were on the street at that hour. (If you’re still looking for clients at 6:00 a.m. does that make you a really BAD hooker?). I know that sort of thing happens in America too, but it surprised me how blatantly it is propagated in Athens, and how no one really seems to care.

In an odd way, I came to not care either. No, I didn’t rent a hooker (ewwww!) but I did reach something of an understanding about how classical times, historic pride, and modern urban decay all seem to collide in one of Europe’s largest cities. If you want to see Athens and enrich yourself in Greece’s classical history and deeply important culture, you get to deal with hookers and stray dogs. It’s another one of those things that doesn’t need to be understood or interpreted… It just “is.” To judge Athens’ state of modern affairs, or define Athenian morality from the viewpoint of my intensely American logic seems monumentally unfair.

Again, I come back to the reasons we travel in the first place: to see the world, experience culture, and expand our minds. It goes without saying that sometimes your mind is expanded in ways that defy traditional thinking from an otherwise narrow perspective, but I believe that’s the point. Athens, for me – historic but dirty, significant though seedy – was a great lesson in humanity. I would go back..

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Taken from a neighboring peak, this is the Parthenon, sitting atop the Acropolis. Anyone who has spent time in Washingto DC can't help but notice the effect of Greek architecture and style on the cultural icons of American history.
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Surviving statues built into the Parthenon.

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From our restaurant at the Plaka.
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The Acropolis at night, with the Parthenon lit up
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Stray dog

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The Theatre of Dionysus, where the earliest Greek Tragedies were performed.

My Journey to Greece: How People Never Really Change (Part 1)

The Cyclades Islands of Greece dot the middle of the Aegean Sea and for practical purposes constitute the far eastern border of the Mediterranean. From a global standpoint, they are directly south of mainland Greece and Bulgaria – sort of sandwiched in the corner between the old-block communist countries of Eastern Europe, and the edges of the Middle East at Turkey. According to Google Earth, the Cyclades lie 5,429 nautical miles from where I was born and like most exotic destinations it was high on the list of places I never expected to see. But when a good friend wanted to go there this summer and was looking for a travel companion, the adventure sounded like fun so I signed on.

While my travels within the United States have been fairly extensive, international trekking was new for me. Aside from Canada and Mexico (which were basically just day trips across the border), the only travel I’d been exposed to outside the US was a Spring Break trip to Japan, back when I was a sophomore in high school.. I was 15 years old then – half-my-life ago – and almost certainly, I lacked the maturity to view the experience from a standpoint of personal growth. Though I’ve always appreciated the idea of seeing the world, the international travel bug had never really taken hold of me.

Of Greece specifically, I knew almost nothing. Like most people, I took Western Civilization in high school and college, and I understood the basics of the nation’s history: cradle of democracy, different gods for everything under the sun, the first Olympics, and something about a really big wooden horse. I had no idea what Greece was like in the 21st century, and on a larger scale, I did not realize how much ancient Greece continued to influence modern culture, not only there, but across the western world.

My journey around the globe to Greece was a uniquely personal experience and was likely rooted in a deeper need to see things from a metaphorical standpoint – to interpret, and to search. Frankly, one doesn’t just lay down a couple of grand and rush off to far corners of the globe to stand in the shadow of dilapidated temples unless there’s significance to it, or a level of self-awareness that comes as a result of it. It had to mean something. And in form typical to my nature that “something” needed to be examined under the scope of my own reality, and then shared within the confines of my very simple life back in Minnesota.

In the posts that follow I plan to rehash my trip, share some photos and fun memories, while digging for the heart of what Greece meant to me, and what the experience did for my own level of self-actualization. To be honest, I’m not sure what I’m trying to accomplish here, or what I have left to learn. Then again, it could be argued that writing is a completely selfish undertaking – the purging and renewing of one’s soul, if you will.

To understand what Greece meant to my life at large, I suppose a brief unraveling of the events that led up to it is necessary. This past summer, my efforts at blogging and writing in general have faded off to practically nothing so maybe an explanation of that is the first step.

Just shy of six months ago, my grandfather passed away. Although the event was not entirely unexpected, it sent something of shockwave through my life and, to an extent, altered the essence of my own identity. He and I were close. I spent the last part of my teenage years, and my early 20’s working for the man, helping him on the ranch, and learning his trade. I’ve always believed that the frame of time between ages 18 and 23-ish is critical in a person’s life, or at least it was in mine. The decisions I was making and the life I was leading seemed to point me in the direction of my future. Looking back with the unfair advantage of hindsight, it feels as though my time with my grandfather represented a great precipice that would define the decade which followed, and ultimately bring my life to where it is today.

That’s not to say I’ve been living the life my grandfather lived or that I’ve been harboring my own meager existence within his shadow; quite the contrary, in fact. He was a cowboy and a rancher, and though I’ve dabbled in that life, it isn’t where I ended up, nor is it where my future will take me. Strangely though, the experience of living that existence provided lessons that I still carry with me and in more ways that I ever realized at the time, those lessons have dictated the course of my life.

With Grandpa suddenly gone, I felt a bit lost. It wasn’t that I was sad (though I did grieve as would be expected). It was almost as though my own identity was left with a big damn hole in it and it took a long time to get my mind around that. Sort of like the building blocks of my life had all fallen down and I knew there was no way they could ever be stacked up in quite the same order again. The personal journey that followed was neither planned nor expected, and it can’t exactly be documented blow-by-blow because… well… I guess I don’t fully understand it myself. What I do understand is that my priorities began to change quickly after Grandpa died, and at 30 years old, I was examining my life and its direction with a sense of freshness I hadn’t experienced in years.

The spring and summer that followed were somewhat monumental just by measure of how distorted my life became in relation to what it had previously been, and I don’t mean that in a negative way. I stopped writing altogether, which seemed completely against my nature, but was oddly refreshing. I read more than I ever had before – much more in fact – and I branched out significantly in the level of what I was reading and the amount of thinking I did during and after. I joined a gym and hired a trainer. I went out more, got drunk more, and felt less guilty about it; in fact I didn’t feel guilty at all. My approach to education changed too, and through the course of summer school, I found myself really appreciating my Humanities classes, and not worrying about the fact that I might half-ass an assignment in Principles of Management. From an ethical perspective, out-right cheating in calculus was only a stone’s throw away and I didn’t care. I still don’t.

When it came to people, I felt like I had become very settled in who I associated with and the things that we did. Something about that felt restrained and over the last few months I’ve invested a lot more energy into the people with whom my connection was based on the future, rather than the past. I let a few friendships drift away and I put perhaps more effort and time into cultivating those that seemed to feel the most comfortable.

My family gained an almost unspoken sense of importance in my life and somewhat unexpectedly, I simply stopped caring about the past. Thanks to some strategic business trips, I was able to spend over a month of the summer in my hometown and I felt a sense of comfort with my family that I don’t believe I’ve known in many years. I realized that the kinship we all share doesn’t have to change just because our lives do. This led me to a firm belief that people don’t ever really change. Our priorities, our circumstances, our levels of healthiness, and even divisiveness, the facts that make up our current lives, and the masks we wear to deal with those facts – all of those things change, but the essence of who we are does not. With the right amount of clear-headedness that’s easy to see, and in my new-found realization I felt comfort and in many ways, I healed.

In ways that I can’t fully explain I just stopped caring about things I can’t change and the I-don’t-give-a-damn attitude bled over into decisions about life, money, and people – risky perhaps, but fun and fresh. I learned to be more carefree without being stupid. This somehow helped me to stop asking pointless and unanswerable questions of myself that had haunted me for years. Questions about life, meaning, religion – things that will simply happen the way they happen regardless of what I do about it, or how much I care about it – all went away. For the first time in my adult life I stopped praying altogether, and I realize now that I lost my faith in God many years ago. That doesn’t hurt or scare me anymore. And philosophical waxing about the events that led up to that mindset… well, it’s just not worth the energy. With that consciousness comes a freedom that I can’t explain but it feels good… very good!

And so, somewhere in the middle of all this movement within my own life and mind, a random trip around the globe to visit the crucible of civilization seemed to fit almost poetically as a curtain to one of the best summers of my life. So with a fresh perspective, I set out this summer to learn about Greece, and in the process I learned a lot about myself and about society. The Greeks had a fundamental impact on western civilization – that goes without saying. But perhaps more importantly, the study of them, at least for me, seems to ring with truisms from my own life and modern society, again fostering the belief that people as individuals and as a group never really change, even across the barriers of millennia.

If you study the ancient Greeks as an adult, outside the confines of a G-rated high school textbook, there’s one glaring fact that will literally jump out of the pages of history and smack to you in the face: the Greeks were kinky! Almost everything in their culture revolved around sex – every kind of sex you can imagine, and a few you probably can’t. I’m almost shocked at how our modern education system has managed to whitewash that fact right out of western history. I suppose I can see the reason for it, but it distorts the reality… drastically. Perhaps if my teacher had included it way back then, I might have paid more attention.

To be Greek 2,500 years ago was to live one of two ways: as the agitator, or as the subservient peon, and this probably changed back and forth throughout one’s existence. No matter what your station in life, there wasn’t much in between. In a class system where slave-owning was not only accepted but expected, and the city down the road might just come wipe yours off the map at any given time, I suspect that people saw themselves, their families, their communities, even their cultures as being either on top or bottom. So the sex-connection seems relevant. To be quite literal about it, you were either a fucker or a fuckee, but either way, there was a lot of “fucking” going on. Spend a little time in Greece today and you can’t help but realize how much the ancients viewed sex as a metaphor for everything else in life. Are we really that much different 2000 years later? Truthfully, the impact of sex on society was probably about the same in ancient Greece as it is today in 21st century pop culture. The only difference is that the Greeks didn’t feel guilty about it.

Still, an education on Greek history is much more than a crash course in Freudian theory, and its history notwithstanding, there’s something to be said for modern Greece as well.

So with the backdrop of my own personal growth, or whatever it is that I’ve gone through this summer, my study of Greece and my eleven short days there and in the Islands seem to have culminated an event in my life that I can’t quite define. I feel the meaning in it, but I don’t understand it yet. So, in reaching for something that I’m not sure what is (see how people never really change?) I’m going to continue the story of my journey in the weeks ahead. I’m not sure how long it will last, and I may not be able to explain it when I’m done, but I suppose I’ll know when I get there.

Santa, McCall, and the F-Word

A decade had come and gone since I’d last set foot in McCall, and almost two had slipped by since the days when the sleepy little lakeside town was my family’s weekend getaway. Yet there I was, unexpectedly, when an extended business trip kept me in Idaho for the weekend and I was offered the chance to tag along with my sister and her family on a McCall excursion.

McCall is a rustic little town deep in the mountains of Central Idaho. Its roots as a logging town are still visible in the culture there, though today it tends to find most of its revenue from tourists seeking lakeside recreation or winter sports venues. More importantly though, it was my home away from when I was a kid, and for that reason I was excited to go back for the weekend.

Driving up on Friday evening, the two hour road trip up Highway 55 was familiar and I remembered how much I enjoy driving in the mountains. The plummeting grades and cliffside hairpin turns are just made for those few of us left on earth who love a 5-speed transmission.

McCall was exactly as I remembered it, and no less exciting. My sister and I spent part of Saturday wandering around town. We window shopped, stopped at a Farmer’s Market, and enjoyed chai lattes in a little coffee shop downtown. On the shores of the very lake that had defined our childhood we talked about life, love, politics, and how many calories might be in the blueberry scone we just inhaled. We laughed as we talked about the days when we knew that Santa was real, but we didn’t know that the f-word could be an adjective, a noun, and a verb.

Life in McCall radiates a simplicity that is almost tangible and somehow I couldn’t stop thinking about how easy life was before I traded in pine trees for skyscrapers and crickets for sirens. But while those moments bring me peace and solace and a tasty hint of memory, I don’t suppose I’d want to go back. My sister has children of her own now and I loved seeing them building their own memories of this place. Life has been good to me, and I appreciate that I can look back and not be sad.

Our last night in McCall, the adults all got to enjoy cocktails by the fireplace in a lakeside condo which would have been unimaginable to those ragamuffin kids who used to catch frogs at the KOA and didn’t seems to mind that the only campsite left was right next to the port-a-crapper. Childhood memories are wonderful, especially when they’re good. It’s easy to get stuck on them, in fact. But a slight liquor buzz brought me back to reality as I remembered that being a grown-up is kind of cool too.

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This is me and my sister sometime in the late 80's, on a rock in Payette Lake, taken on a family trip to McCall.

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Twenty-something years later, same lake, same rock, same kids... Look Mom, we're all grown up! :)

Just My Luck!

Have you ever had one of those days where nothing goes right, and everything goes wrong? A day in which it seems as thought the planets have aligned in perfect order and all forces in the universe have joined hands solely for the purpose of screwing you. Yesterday was just such a day for me, and by the end of it I found myself realizing that either God has a seriously warped sense of humor, or I have an enourmous amount of bad karma to burn off!

I was sitting at an airport in Boise, Idaho when I heard everyone around me begin to whisper. I looked up to see none other than Larry Craig walk into the terminal and sit down. The now-retired bathroom foot-tapping senator from Idaho was about to be on our flight. So, like everyone else in the terminal, I immediately whipped out my blackberry and began texting my friends only to discover that no one believed me. How insulting! No matter, I could prove it! I mean, God didn’t give us camera phones for nothing, right?! So, I sort of meandered casually to within striking distance of the former senator, pretended to be texting or sending an email on my blackberry, and “click”……

Damn, that automatic flash!!

Of course everyone immediately knew what I had done (including the senator) and as I was looking for a hole to crawl into, I heard the airline announce that they were overbooked and needed volunteers to give up their seats. I almost ran to the counter!

What a deal! Not only was I escaping the humiliation of my stupid mistake, but the airline offered me another ticket just an hour later. There was a quick connection in Salt Lake, but I‘d be flying first class all the way, and I’d only arrive in Minneapolis two hours later than planned. Plus, they offered me a meal voucher, and a $300 credit toward a future flight. How could I get so lucky?

Content, I headed to the airport bar to kill an hour over a cocktail, which turned into a few cocktails. When they brought me the bill and I handed over my meal voucher, they informed me that it was only good for food, not alcohol. Irritating, but nothing I couldn’t get over, especially considering the first class flight I was about to take.

When I got to Salt Lake things really took a turn for the worst. My connecting flight had been cancelled. This was not part of the deal! I protested in vein as my first class boarding pass became nothing more than a bookmarker and I was moved to the 8 o’clock flight on a much smaller plane in seat 37-B… 37-B??? Are you freaking kidding me? That’s where the luggage rides!

Arriving in Minneapolis at nearly midnight, I was in no mood to do anything except go home and go to bed, but the longer I stood at the baggage carousel watching everyone’s-bag-but-mine come tumbling out, the more I suspected that this night just wasn’t over yet. Praying for some sort of divine intervention I actually stood there like a lost puppy, staring down the baggage chute for a good five minutes after it stopped moving. Then I drug myself to the Baggage Service counter and waited in line for over an hour before meeting Bill, a grossly overpaid baggage handler whose personality has all the warmth and affection of a pit bull shitting tacks. In hind-sight, sharing that sentiment with him probably did little to remedy the problem or to locate my missing luggage, but it did make me feel better. Another hour, and two lines later, I found my bag sitting at a different carousel in another part of the airport. I was too tired to be mad.

I took the shuttle to the Park-and-Ride and drug myself to my vehicle, wondering if I would survive the 30 minute drive to my house. But there was one more crisis to be dealt with: The damn thing wouldn’t start. So there I was in an off-site parking lot, in the middle of the night, with the hood up, staring into an abyss of twisty black things as though I knew what I was doing. I may have even cried just a little. Fortunately, a fellow traveler noticed the open hood and came over. He assisted me in determining the real problem which wasn’t under the hood, it was in the gas tank... or rather, it wasn’t in the gas tank… as in: the gas tank was empty. I still think someone siphoned my gas because I don’t remember the low fuel light being on when I parked it, but at that point it was irrelevant. My new-found automotive expert was kind enough to drive me to the nearest gas station.

I finally arrived home at 3 a.m., 13 hours after my original non-stop flight was supposed to depart. I’m never traveling again!