Ornoth

It’s time to come clean and clear up a falsehood that I’ve been telling for decades. Ornoth is not my birth name.

I changed my legal name back in 1994. But ever since then, when someone asked where the name “Ornoth” comes from, I told them it was an old family name with no particular meaning or history or derivation other than prior use. I didn’t think it would be flattering or to my advantage to admit that I’d changed my name or to reveal its origin, so I very purposefully kept it hidden.

Why am I revealing this now? Well, at my age I no longer feel compelled to protect a career, a reputation, or a fragile ego. And in this time where people are allowed to redefine all aspects of their identities, a simple name change doesn’t carry the stigma it once did. And having first started using Ornoth as a moniker fifty years ago, there’s no question that making it my legal name was a good long-term decision. Looking back on it, it was one of the best decisions of my life.

Coat of arms of Orny (Switzerland)

If you want to know the whole story, you’re gonna have to sit down and allow your author to relate this story in the third person, present tense…

Journey with me back five decades to 1976: to a 6th grade English class. An awkward 13 year old kid named David listens attentively as Mrs. Bernier reads J.R.R. Tolkien’s children’s fantasy novel “The Hobbit” to the class. Within a year, the boy enthusiastically plows through Tolkien’s more ambitious three-volume followup: “The Lord of the Rings”.

By chance, around this time he sees a newspaper article about a slightly older kid named Gary: an internationally-known Tolkien fanatic who lives an hour away. They meet up, start recruiting others, and create the New England Tolkien Society: a group of adolescent fans who regularly get together for events that feature discussions, trivia, music, camping, cooking, contests, and costumes.

Along with their costumes, everyone’s got a Middle-earth alter-ego persona. Gary dresses appropriately as a Hobbit called Hidifons. There’s Elven maids named Lothiriel and Therindel, a bard named Dæron, a pack of irascible Dwarves, and a few dozen others.

So David needs to come up with a Tolkien-inspired persona and his “Hobbit name”. Consulting Ruth Noel’s book “The Languages of Tolkien’s Middle-earth”, he mashes together the Elvish words “orn” (meaning “tree”) and “loth” (“flower” or “blossom”) in an attempt to capture the image of the fragrant lilac trees that herald Maine’s brief spring. Thus, he announces himself to his fellow fans as “Ornoth”.

By nature extremely analytical, introverted, and solitary, a curious thing happens as our protagonist proceeds through his high school years. At Tolkien gatherings, he starts making friends, clowning around, acting silly, and flirting with the girls, who playfully shorten his nickname to “Orny”. Being outgoing is so completely out of character for him that he thinks of himself as having two separate and distinct personalities: one named David, who is a quiet, jaded, introverted loner; and the other named Orny, who is impulsive, energetic, and gregarious. “Ornoth” is also the name and persona that he carries with him when he begins attending medieval recreationist events put on by the Society for Creative Anachronism.

The awkwardness of maintaining two separate names and personalities comes to a head when he leaves for college, where he repeatedly winds up living with roommates who share the given name David. Partly out of simple convenience and partly to lean into his outgoing persona rather than the introverted one, he uses “Orny” throughout his college years. After using it for more than a decade, he has become more comfortable identifying as Ornoth – or Orny – than as David.

However, he has to revert to using his given name during the decade following college graduation, which brings marriage and a budding professional career. After several years of early success, both these endeavors flounder, as he is forced out by new management at work, and undergoes a divorce that is partially attributable to the cold dispassion of his predominant “David” persona.

The year was 1992; I was about to turn thirty, my life had fallen apart, and I longed to return to the carefree ease of my days in college and Tolkien fandom.

But this misfortune was also the watershed moment that spurred tremendous changes in my life. I reached out and reconnected with some of my old friends from college. I re-assumed leadership of the electronic writing project I’d left six years earlier. I grew my hair long for the first time and started hanging out in the Boston nightclub and music scenes. I got involved in the local BDSM and polyamory communities. I got an exciting and profitable new job at a cutting-edge consulting firm near M.I.T. where my skills were highly valued. I briefly lived with my old high school girlfriend before finally moving from the distant suburbs into the heart of the city. And I took up cycling again after a decades-long hiatus.

In all these different environments, I went by “Ornoth” or “Orny”, resurrecting the name that I identified with, that represented the kind of person I wanted to be, and which was used by all my friends, both old and new. At the same time, I finally started working to integrate the two halves of my bifurcated self-image: the methodical intellectual and the playful impulsive.

And it was time to finally leave “David” behind, a name that I found uncomfortable, that had unpleasant associations, and was only used by family members.

But my family provided an intimidating obstacle: telling my very conservative parents – who had given me my birth name, after all – that I wanted to legally change it. Fortunately, by then I’d gained the self-confidence to express myself firmly, so they couldn’t do much more than choose to ignore it.

So after nearly twenty years of using it informally, in late June of 1994 I went to probate court and had my name formally changed, taking Ornoth as my first name, and demoting “David” to one of now two middle names. As such things usually go, it was both an immense fundamental change and an anticlimactic formality.

That was thirty years ago this week, and there hasn’t been a single second when I’ve regretted it. Ornoth is who I am, who I have been for nearly all of my life, and how everyone knows me. “David” sounds as alien to my ears as Billy-Joe-Bob.

The only times I was the least bit equivocal about it was when I was introduced to someone new. When the inevitable “What kind of name is that?” question came up, I always fell back on a convenient lie: that it was just an old family name with no specific derivation. But today that equivocation officially ceases, as I take unapologetic and public ownership of this deeply meaningful life choice.

As you might imagine, having a unique name comes with advantages and disadvantages. For some people, it’s easier to remember a name that’s distinctive, but many folks require time and repetition to commit it to memory. So it has often gotten shortened to Orny, Orn, or even just O. People often mishear the ‘th’ and call me “Ornoff”; another common error is “Ornath”; and sometimes people misread a printed ‘rn’ as an ‘m’ and see “Omoth”. Such is the price we pay for being unique.

On the other hand, picking a username is a breeze; I’ve never had to resign myself to being “DAVID783” or the like. Googling has revealed that there are small towns called Orny in both France and Switzerland (see the latter’s coat of arms in the image above), and at least one person in Germany has Ornoth as a surname. And there are several fantasy- and gaming-related websites using Ornoth as the name of a fictional character, which always feels a bit ironic.

Having thought of myself as Ornoth for half a century, it’s not just a part of me; it is me. But so is the entire story of how it became my name: its origin, etymology, and literal meaning; its central role in my social and emotional growth; how I reclaimed it as part of a major mid-life revitalization; and how it prompted me to finally stand up to parental authority.

And while I’m very happy that today literally everyone knows me as Ornoth, I’ve always self-consciously kept all that backstory hidden. But the story behind my name is one that deserves to be claimed and celebrated, and I’m happy to share it with you today on this personally meaningful anniversary.

Inna wanted to go to the 2017 Meetin national celebration in Seattle in September, and it made sense to piggyback that with a detour up to Victoria BC to visit my brother, since—after my mother’s death—he’s unlikely to be coming east any longer.

The logistics were enough of a nightmare that we actually needed a travel agent’s services. Inna and her mother flew direct to SFO to visit family for a few days. Then Inna flew OAK (not SFO) to SEA while I simultaneously got from PIT to SEA via IAD. After the Meetin gathering, we’d take the ferry to Victoria BC, then eventually get home flying Air Canada together from YYJ to YYZ to PIT. Meanwhile, Inna’s mother returned on a direct flight from SFO. Yeah. Glad to have an agent handle all that.

Seattle Skyline & Rainier

Danger Man

Self-Portrait in Steel

Inna's on the Ball

The Sky's the Limit

Family @ Observatory Hill

Sunken Garden

Japanese Garden

Full Seattle photoset Full Victoria photoset

Tuesday, the day before I left, was memorable for two reasons.

First, having just gotten over a three-week long summer cold, I woke up with another sore throat, heralding another ugly illness spanning the duration of the trip.

Second, that evening I had a ticket to go see “Walk With Me”, a movie centered around Buddhist icon Thich Nhat Hanh’s meditative community at Plum Village. Between this and other previous films, I’ve become convinced that the medium of film really isn’t a good vehicle for introducing Buddhist philosophy to the masses. But that’s really not a topic for this blogpost…

After I returned home, my sore throat left me with a sleepless night before an early Wednesday morning walk to the bus stop, then a two-bus expedition out to the Pittsburgh airport. Having lived without owning a car for more than twenty years, I hadn’t even thought about driving!

My first flight—from Pittsburgh to DC—was delayed 30 minutes by a maintenance issue, causing me to skip my planned combined breakfast and lunch as I loped through Dulles seeking my connecting flight.

After five hours with absolutely zero legroom in a United cattle car, I touched down at SeaTac hungry, tired, and sick. I ignored the seventeen text messages from our catsitting friend and hoofed it to the Uber lot to meet up with Inna, who had flown in separately from Oakland CA.

Although I’ve made half a dozen trips to the PNW, I’d never been to Seattle, so everything here was new to me.

After a lengthy drive into downtown Seattle, we tried to check into our hotel—the Inn at the WAC—only to discover that our room wasn’t ready. We had only planned to drop our bags before heading out for dinner anyways, so we simply got a recommendation from the desk clerk and headed straight to the nearby Tap House Grill. I had a French dip sandwich and ice cream, while Inna ordered shrimp and tiramisu ice cream, which wound up being her favorite meal of the trip.

We returned to the hotel to find a tray with hot tea, cocoa, a chocolate bar, and a handwritten note—to Mr. and Mrs. Nirenburg—waiting in our room, since the staff had overheard Inna mentioning my illness. Inna tracked down Sheela and Monika, our Pittsburgh friends who were also attending the Meetin gathering, and the four of us chatted briefly in our room. After a long day of travel for me, we opted to skip arrival-day festivities in favor of rest and a quiet evening in bed.

Thursday morning we were up early to join a small group of Meetin people exploring Pike Place Market. Along the way, I snagged a cinnamon bun for breakfast. We observed the market’s outdated manual daily stall-assignment ceremony, then took a brief guided tour with still more Meetin peeps. With tired legs, Inna and I wandered off for some overpriced ice cream. Then I spied a stall selling roasted corn on the cob, but balked at the ludicrous $5 price tag. We both eyed the beautiful ristra hot pepper arrangements—each for different reasons—but realized they would be impossible to transport back to Pittsburgh.

We joined another big Meetin group for lunch at the Pike Brewing Company, but left before ordering when Inna realized she wasn’t sure if she had forgotten her medications in San Francisco. That led to an afternoon of phone tag with doctors and chasing around drugstores before we returned to the hotel, where she found them hidden in the bottom of her bag.

But along the way, Inna picked up some dahlias for our room, and I ducked into Metsker Maps, where a postcard with a bicycle and the phrase “Conquer the Hill” called out to me in anticipation of my upcoming Dirty Dozen ride.

Tired after so much walking, we were content to rest in the hotel until the evening event: a meet-and-greet at the top of Smith Tower. On the way, we experienced elevator malfunctions in both our hotel and our destination. Smith Tower is a lot like Boston’s Custom House Tower. Both are about 35 stories and 490 feet tall, with an open-air skywalk observation deck at the top. We took a few pictures of the view, then went in to chat with other Meetin folks. Those included Mary McDaid (Portland OR), event organizers Anita Christensen (Portland) and Helene Pincus (Las Vegas), and I had to interrogate Deanna Cochener, whose cellphone case loudly announced that she was a Portland Timbers supporter.

Afterward we wandered around with Monika, stopping to admire the Seattle Public Library. The steep hills in downtown Seattle were vaguely reminiscent of Pittsburgh, and we shared an uncomfortable laugh when one woman apologized to us as her dog’s feces literally rolled and bounced down the steep sidewalk into our path. In Westlake Park plaza we found a giant-sized Connect Four game, and I promptly destroyed Inna twice running, despite never having played before. The girls stopped in a mall for Pike Place Chowder, while I brought a theoretically fast Mod Pizza back to the room.

Friday was really the main Meetin day. After Uber failed us—and charged us anyways—we got ourselves invited to share a Lyft summoned by New Yorkers Ricky Evans & Zhenya Brisker. That dropped us at the morning’s activity: a duck tour. While waiting, Inna & I chatted with Laurelee Langan, who was there representing Boston. Despite my having been through at least two dozen duck tours, the tour itself was fine, featuring Amazon’s HQ, the Fremont Troll, houseboats and floatplanes on Lake Union, and lots more. Near the Belltown Apartments, the tour guide indicated we were passing through a quiet zone, which I happily observed, having lived for ten years on the Boston duck tour route myself.

Afterward, rather than spending $33 each to get into the Museum of Pop Culture, we opted to visit a local food court with Sheela and Portlanders Bijana & Ankesh Kadakia. Still illin’, nothing appealed to me but fries.

After lunch, the “Meeps” gathered up again to go through the Chihuly Garden and Glass museum. The exhibit was short but breathtaking. In the middle of the tour, I remembered to show people that the abstract background image on my cellphone has for many years been a close-up of a green-and-yellow work of Chihuly glass that I took back at the 2000 Dargon Summit at Pittsburgh’s Phipps Conservatory, which you can see here.

After that, Inna and I returned briefly to the food court before walking down to the Olympic Sculpture Park and rejoining the larger group. We wandered around, enjoying another warm, sunny afternoon. While resting at one point, a kid ran up to Inna asking in an incredulous voice, “Hey lady, is that your belly?!?” She was taken aback but about to respond affirmatively when the kid’s caretaker came up to explain that the kid wasn’t actually referring to her stomach, but the rumbling sound of a nearby passing train!

I walked down to the harborside, having a nice conversation with Bijana, before the group split again, with most people headed predictably toward a bar. Meanwhile, Cha Cha Chen (DC) and I collected Inna and ambled off to meet Anita and the main group of Meeps for a ride up the Space Needle.

The Space Needle was a lot like Boston’s Customs House Tower and the Smith Tower from the day before: a reception room and elevators surrounded by a narrow exterior observation deck. The main difference is that the Needle was crowded to absolute capacity. But it did provide the requisite view of the city, the bay, and the mountains in the distance.

Inna & I were among the first to punt and make our way to the Belltown Pub, the first stop in the group’s planned bar crawl. I had a chicken sandwich and a cookie while we chatted with Helene and Ricky. Eventually we’d skip the bar crawl and drag Helene, Ricky, Zhenya, Sheela, and Monika back to the hotel’s common room for an evening of games: specifically Cheating Moth and Coup.

Saturday that same group got together for breakfast, having been lured away from the Meetin brunch by the promise of Quaffles—waffles made out of croissant dough and cinnamon—at Anchorhead Coffee. On the way there, we posed beneath a huge flower pot and watering can sculpture, and got unexpectedly sprayed with water. The Quaffles made up for it, as probably the best food we had during the entire trip.

Having no interest in the Meetin group activities planned for that day, Inna and I shooed the others away and walked aimlessly around the city, winding up at a Russian bakery called Piroshky Piroshky that Inna had sought out. She sampled their pelmeni (little dumplings), piroshki (potato and cabbage dumplings), and Napoleon cake, but pronounced them all mediocre. Then back to Pioneer Square, where I dragged Inna into Magic Mouse Toys and picked up perennial favorite Fluxx, while waiting for our underground tour.

In brief, Seattle used to have problematic above-ground sewage pipes. Then, after Seattle’s big fire, they decided to put them underground… Not by digging trenches, but by running them down the middle of the street, then filling them over and putting an elevated street over the top. Meanwhile, as buildings were being rebuilt, owners were required to build their primary entrances on the second floor, rather than the first. Wooden planks allowed people to get from the elevated street to the elevated second-floor entrances, spanning the open pits that was the old sidewalks, since they were still at the former street level. The old sidewalks were never filled in, just eventually roofed over, leaving downtown Seattle a maze of underground sidewalks connecting the basements (former first floors) of the surrounding buildings. Much of this work was financed by the mistress of several houses of ill repute. It was an interesting tour.

After that, we wandered around town some more, checking out Seattle’s K&L Gates building, the “Pittsburgh” Lunch, and so forth. Then hopped an Uber to take us to the suburban Seattle Meowtropolitan cat cafe, where we enjoyed some time with a few blasé felines. After an Uber back, I picked up a very yummy dinner from Mae Phim Thai. I spent the evening resting in the hotel room while Inna rejoined the Meetin crew for karaoke.

It felt odd to me, because the Meetin event was nominally a weekend thing, but we’d spent the entire day Saturday on our own. It felt like the social element of the trip had petered out, doubly so because our ferry to Victoria prohibited us from attending the farewell brunch on Sunday.

So the next morning we slept in a little, had a decent breakfast in the hotel, ran into Ricky and Zhenya in the lobby, and made our way to the ferry.

Looking back on Seattle, it seemed an okay town, but throughout its history it seems to have been very poorly slapped together, whether you’re thinking about their former sewage problems or the current explosive growth accompanying Microsoft and Amazon. We did have absolutely gorgeous, sunny weather up until the day we departed, but it’s probably a lot less fun in the rain. The accommodations were really great, except for the horrible elevators. My cold was mostly manageable, but I did wish I’d had the strength to bring my SLR camera along. And the Meetin group were generally enjoyable, although predictably more party- and drinking-oriented than Inna and I.

But overall, I really enjoyed my time in Seattle and could have stayed longer.

At the dock, our Victoria Clipper ferry bobbed and weaved in the wind-blown rain and heavy seas, and Inna didn’t have a particularly pleasant 90 minutes crossing over to Victoria. And as expected, we didn’t get passport stamps for our entry into Canada; cheap bastards.

However, by the time we docked, the seas had calmed and the sun was out, and we walked through downtown and past the Empress Hotel on the way to our lodgings at the Hotel Rialto. After nearly a year, it was really, really enjoyable to be outside the authority of the Trump Presidency. Tired from our journey, we had Indian at nearby Sizzling Tandoor before going back to the hotel and crashing.

Monday I let Inna sleep late, then we hoofed it through Chinatown to pick up our rental car, where we wound up with a RAV4 rather than a VW because the Hertz dealer somehow lost the keys when he got out of the vehicle after driving it up. We’d hoped to drive along the coastline of Vancouver Island up to my brother’s home, but had to settle for the inland highway because they were pressed for time.

We had Thai food for lunch and a nice visit with my brother, plus my sister-in-law, whom I haven’t seen in several years. We took separate cars and met up at the top of Observatory Hill for a brisk but breathtaking panoramic view of the island. Then they headed home while I took Inna up to Victoria’s famous Butchart Gardens.

The gardens were predictably amazing, and predictably crowded. What didn’t run according to plan was the weather, as the predicted day-long rain held off completely. Inna bought me some gelato in the Italian garden, and we took our time enjoying the scenery.

Tired from the walking we’d done all week, we gave up on dinner and just got some basics at 7-Eleven, including some products that you’d have to find in imported food shops at home.

Tuesday morning we wandered around downtown a bit. We looked into the John Fluevog shoe store, chatted with the proprietor of North48 Bicycles, perused the surprisingly well-stocked MEC sporting goods co-op (c.f. REI), and discovered Baggins Shoes, who will print any custom design you want onto a pair of Chuck Taylors or Vans. Then we had brunch with my brother at Willy’s, a diner in town. Sadly, my sister-in-law’s back trouble prevented her from tagging along.

After saying farewell to my brother, Inna and I moseyed down to Craigdarroch Castle—a Victorian mansion rather than a medieval castle, of course—which was cute but not particularly engaging, though Inna found some interest in the stained glass and examples of actual filled-out “dance cards”. By the time we dragged ourselves back to the hotel, we were both completely done with the walking and tourist thing and ready to go home. We had dinner at the hotel—a cube of mac and cheese, topped with tandoori chicken!—before showering, checking into our homeward flights, and turning in.

Wednesday we were up and out, with a quick drive up to Victoria’s leetle jetport. Our Air Canada flight to Toronto was long but uneventful. YYZ was a nightmare of maze-like corridors, eventually leading to a mid-corridor dungeon of a waiting area, with a tileless suspended ceiling and bare light fixtures dangling from their wires. Impatient to get home, we took an Uber from the airport rather than wait for the bus, and were very happy to arrive.

Inna enjoyed Victoria and would have liked to have spent more time there. Like Seattle, we were very fortunate to enjoy unseasonable and atypically good weather. It was especially nice to see my sister-in-law, since her health hasn’t permitted her to travel for some time.

Between the two cities, it was a pretty successful trip, though as always it was really nice to get back home again.

I haven’t made a lot of noise about my mother’s death in January, and I don’t intend that to change. Everyone has their own method of dealing with loss, and I feel that making a big emotional scene is about the least respectful thing I could do in most cases.

I’m also not going to devote any more space in my blog to the hardships of five months away from home, enduring a very much unwanted Maine winter. There’s no need to discuss my role as caregiver during the ups and downs of her hospitalization, my tasks arranging the funeral, dealing with probate, selling her car and furniture, closing her apartment, and wrapping up her finances. I’ll even skip over seeing members of my family and a few long-lost high school friends I caught up with.

I’ll only briefly mention the powerful sense of relief once I had all those things behind me, and how very, very, very good it has been to finally be back home.

It sounds like I’ve ruled out just about everything I could possibly write, thus obviating any need for this post. But no, there is one thing I do want to share, and that’s a handful of laughs. One of that trip’s bigger realizations was how deeply important humor is to me, and its usefulness as a way to cope with even the most stressful times.

Amidst all the difficulties of the past four months, there were a handful of precious smiles worth remembering. Here’s a few.

One morning my brother and I were at her nursing home with my mother when she required emergency transport to the hospital. When the EMTs showed up, I briefed them on her condition, what medication she was on and when she had last taken each, the measures the nursing home had taken in response to her situation, and so forth. I was apparently so organized and on top of the medical lingo that—as I later found out—they actually thought I was the resident doctor!

During her emergency room trips, my brother and I sometimes hung out in the ER’s little kitchen area. Being me, I snooped through their cupboards and was surprised to find a gallon jug of molasses. Wondering what the heck they’d need so much molasses for, I consulted Google and immediately regretted it. Whatever you do, *DO* *NOT* google “emergency room molasses”!

At one point she was in the cardiac unit and a nurse and I were helping her walk. She fainted in our arms, and since the nurse was unable to reach a call button, she slapped a button pinned on her uniform. “CODE YELLOW, CCU ROOM 1! CODE YELLOW, CCU ROOM 1!” blared over the intercom and more than a dozen doctors and nurses ran into the room. Apparently “code yellow” is their shorthand for “patient out of control”, normally used for unruly or violent situations; kind of silly for an unconscious 90 year-old!

She was in and out of the hospital several times, occupying a dozen different rooms. However, after a two week stay in Room 118, her next readmission was coincidentally right back in to the same familiar room.

At one point, a prisoner from some local jail was in for treatment, with a policeman posted outside his room. His family brought a cat in with them for a visit, which is pretty surprising to begin with, in a hospital. But apparently the cat got loose in the middle of the night, resulting in a penitentiary-style lockdown of the ward and all the patient rooms until they recaptured it!

Whenever a newborn was delivered in obstetrics, they played a lullaby tune over the intercom. My mother enjoyed hearing it, although it felt very odd to hear it playing during two of my mother’s worse sessions.

The hospital allows visiting family to raid the small kitchens in the ward, so my brother and I started enjoying free ice creams during our occasional opportunities to step out of her room. I joked that I was doing my part to increase US healthcare costs.

One of the few things my mother would reliably eat was milkshakes, made with two cups of ice cream. So when the floor ran out of ice cream, my brother and I blamed her (even if we’d eaten more than our fair share)!

The doctors also ordered that the staff keep tabs on my mother’s blood sugar levels. We joked that it was because so much of their ice cream had disappeared…

It confused the hell out of me that I couldn’t buy a sugared cola drink anywhere in the entire facility: not on the floors, not in the ER, not in the cafeteria or coffee shop, nor in any of their vending machines. Apparently sugar is strictly verboten! But I couldn’t square that with all the free ice cream stocked on the floors for patients and family!

Ordering lunch one day from “Room Service” (when I worked there as a high school student, it was called “Dietary”), my mother wanted tomato soup. Asked if she wanted a bowl or a cup of soup, mom asked for a bowlful of tomato soup, but in a cup…

Auto-on, motion-detecting faucets… Great for keeping one’s hands sanitary, but a complete disaster when they’re placed in the only open section of countertop in the room. On multiple times someone would move mom’s dinner tray to the counter next to the sink, only to have the faucet helpfully spray the tray, the person, and entire room with water.

Although we came to know most of the hospital staff by name, one day a new nurse came in. Seeing two guests, she asked, “Husband and son, I presume?” Yeah, no. My brother might be aging, but he was still 22 years younger than my mother. I might better understand “Son and grandson”, since there’s nearly a full generation between he and I…

Her treatment included regular doses of morphine, which naturally zonked her out. Even at her worst, just before a new dose she would relate a list of things like medications that the nurse should know about and take care of before she “lost time” due to the effects of the morphine. My mother was always both very organized and very much a take-charge person.

She had been a lifelong nurse, so there were some things in life that were normal for us but which seem strange in retrospect. For example, most kitchens have a pair of tongs for grabbing hot items like baked potato or corn on the cob. We didn’t have that… Mom had several old pairs of stainless steel surgical forceps that she used for cooking!

And finally, the thing I think is ludicrous but which no one else seems to appreciate. Mom would naturally use empty cans or plastic containers to store stuff in. In cleaning out her freezer, I came across a couple plastic tubs that originally held a spread product called “I Can’t Believe It’s Not Butter!”, which my mother used for storing… (wait for it…) butter! Doh!

These were the kinds of things that kept us on our toes and provided brief moments of much-needed levity during an incredibly stressful time. Looking back, some of them remind me that my mother was a normal person. Normal people have all kinds of quirks and idiosyncrasies, which you discover during the rare times when you have to pore over their belongings in detail.

When I go back to Maine, it’s usually a quick trip that doesn’t involve anything more than visiting family and doing a few basic chores for them. After a long trip to get there, and facing an equally tiring trip back, the last thing I usually want to do is sightseeing or a lot of driving around.

However, I recently brought Inna along on her first visit to Maine in decades, while my brother and niece were in also town. Because of that, we spent a lot of our time doing touristy stuff and taking photos, which makes the trip worth writing about and sharing.

We attempted to leave Pittsburgh Tuesday afternoon, but were thwarted at the gate when our first flight was delayed beyond our connection’s departure time. Worse yet, our fallback was a 6am flight the next morning, which meant we had to get out of bed at 3am!

After a pizza and way too little sleep, we drove back to the airport, to discover a longer security line than I’ve ever encountered in Pittsburgh. But we got through it, flew to Dulles, and happily made our connection to Portland. The only redeeming part of the early morning flights was the view as we flew directly above Boston.

Landing in Portland a little early, we grabbed our rental car and I took Inna on a quick tour of infinitely-famous Portland Head Light and the Eastern Prom before driving up to Augusta. Inna met the family, and we spent the afternoon swimming at Three Cornered Pond, which (as an ocean swimmer) was a new experience for Inna. After demolishing a roast turkey breast, we checked into our hotel and passed out.

Thursday Inna and I went off on our own and explored the coast. We drove up Mt. Battie, which provided an awesome view of Camden and the islands peeking above a thick sea fog. We also explored the wooded, rocky shoreline along Camden Hills State Park, which was interesting and new to me. Then came the inevitable tourist shopping crawl through Camden. After grabbing lunch, we were off down the coast to Popham Beach, where we hiked across the huge expanse of sand and dipped our feet in the frigid Atlantic Ocean.

Then it was time to head back to Augusta to meet the family for Thai food (or in Inna’s case, sushi). Although we covered a lot of territory, Inna and I hadn’t pushed ourselves beyond our already-exhausted state, and wound up having a really nice day together.

Friday was a whole-family expedition back down to the coast for a traditional lobster dinner at Shaw’s Wharf in New Harbor. Then we went on to Pemaquid Point, where Inna and I crawled around on the rocks for a few minutes. I was a little disappointed that the rest of the family wanted to turn homeward after visiting the gift shop, rather than spending any time enjoying the surf crashing on the rugged rocks. But even I was tired from eating and so much gallivanting around, and the responsible parties had to be home in time for a cable serviceman to hook up my mother’s new tv. So we headed home.

Inna and I said our goodbyes before going to the hotel, since we had to be up at 5am the next day (again!) to catch our 8am return flight. We hopped through Newark (our original layover location), where we had plenty of time to hang out before our afternoon flight back to Pittsburgh.

We were both dragging and eager to get home when we took the airport shuttle back to our car, only to discover that the battery was dead, putting up one final roadblock between us and getting home. That was corrected after an hour of sitting in a hot parking lot. We eventually pulled into our driveway and received a loud welcome from a our cat peering from the open bedroom window.

It was a very nice trip, and Inna and I both really enjoyed seeing the sights along the coast. It was unfortunate that we lost a day in Maine due to the travel mess. And all the early-morning travel thoroughly exhausted us, so we were both ecstatic when we finally got back home.

Oh yeah, and for the whole photo album, click here.

What if you could go back to high school and have just one day for a do-over. One chance to go back and interact with those kids in a different way, without all the fear and risk. With more patience and a healthy sense of compassion. What would that look like?

Let me tell you about my weekend…

Friday afternoon I grabbed a rental car and drove back to Maine. I had a quick dinner with family, which was surreal enough, considering my brother and niece were visiting from British Columbia. But this post isn’t about my ambivalence regarding family…

After dinner I checked into my hotel and drove over to Margarita’s Mexican restaurant for the first of two gatherings of people from my high school class. Friday night was essentially a small pre-party before Saturday night’s main event, which would be the first reunion I’d ever attended.

After wandering around I finally recognized the organizer, Jamu (names will be altered to protect those who pretend to innocence). Thankfully, she was someone I knew, so it was nice to chat with her for a while. She also introduced me to the twenty or so people who had come, and was kind enough to hang with me while I dipped my toes in the edges of the proverbial social quagmire.

Over the next couple hours I talked a lot with Dido (a woman I’d never interacted with at school), and Debo (about yoga), and twin sisters Mave1 & Mave2. The likely highlight of the evening was a conversation with Rodi, who seemed reasonably interesting. But I got put off when I tried to talk to Kelo, the girl (woman) who used to sit behind me in homeroom.

If you’d known me in high school, you probably would have been surprised (as I was) to discover that I probably spent 80 percent of my time talking to women, rather than men. I guess I’ve gotten much more comfortable relating to women on the whole. It’s not really a huge surprise for the “me” that I am today, but it’s a pretty dramatic change from the “me” I was back then.

I did have brief conversations with a couple guys: Tola (our mothers are friends) and Deki (who has apparently become as rabid a Tolkien fan as I used to be when I was in high school).

Except for Jamu, I hadn’t known any of these folks in school, but it was nice to talk with them nonetheless. Apparently the people I remembered best weren’t showing up until Saturday’s official gathering. But it still wound up being a nice evening, and I was (surprisingly) one of the last people out the door at the end.

Two observations… Passing around the class yearbook, it became abundantly clear that all of us needed reading glasses, and none of us had brought them. And even in that small group, two of the women had recently been through cancer treatment.

That was Friday. After sleeping very poorly, on Saturday morning I got up early and headed out for a 40-mile bike ride from Augusta to Manchester, Readfield, Belgrade, and back. Since my annual charity ride is only two weeks away, I had to find some way to spend some time in the saddle.

I swung through the old family farmstead, which some time ago was bought, torn down, and replaced with a state government office building. I remembered picking wild strawberries in the fields, my first “hunting” trips in the woods out back, the old apple tree at the edge of our huge vegetable garden, the stand of pines out front, and the camp that my grandfather built. They’re all gone; the only thing that remains from my childhood (and my father’s) is a horrid-looking willow tree that everyone always hated. Figures!

The ride also included a lakeside rest stop in Belgrade, riding past the now-bare former site of Farnham’s (our favorite roadside farmstand), coming down Sand Hill at speed, and then the long and difficult workout climbing from the river’s edge up Winthrop Street to the airport. It was a nice ride, doubly so because it provided the only moments of and peace and “rest” (if you will) that I’d have all weekend!

After showering at the hotel, it was back to family-related activities, which featured sandwiches for lunch and then mini golf with mother, brother, and niece (yes, I won). I was incubating a headache, so I was grateful that my brother’s presence hadn’t drawn any additional family members. Even so, I pled fatigue and went back to the hotel for a quick nap before freshening up for the party.

Way too soon, it was time for the main event: the official high school reunion. I showed up fashionably on time, and did my best to step into socializing mode.

Again, I talked to more women than men, and there were a lot more folks that I actually remembered. The inseparable Nihe & Kamcca agreed with my observation that the inestimable Mr. Ayotte had taught us as much about life, philosophy, and wisdom as he had French.

To my chagrin Anqui and Diru (one of the few alumni in the Boston area) both firmly agreed that I was definitely not attractive in high school, but that I was cuter now. Oof!

Among the guys, I talked to Chrise and Ticho. Both of those could have been awkward conversations, but went fine, which was cool. Ticho works in Boston, and has been playing out in a band on and off over the years.

And I finally got to shake hands with Scojo, one of my earliest childhood friends, whom I rediscovered a few years ago when I learned that he too is a cyclist and serious cancer fundraiser, having survived testicular cancer himself. He’d even ridden the PMC back in 2008, but we hadn’t been able to connect. So finally seeing him was certainly one of the evening’s highlights.

Although I had hoped to, I didn’t get much chance to talk again with Rodi. And I again had difficulty cornering the elusive Kelo. Toward the end of the evening that was remedied when out of absolutely nowhere she trotted up to me and tried to pull me out onto the dance floor! I resisted, but between wanting to connect with her and hearing someone near me say, “Oh just go on up,” I acceded. I was flattered that for some reason she had called on me, and it was definitely a highlight. Even if, as I now believe, she had done it purely for someone else’s benefit.

Ironically, notable absences included all the people that I was closest to during high school: the popular Mika, Josa, Jemu, Jere, Keja, Chila, Meho, and others. That was a bit of a disappointment.

Another disappointment is that I really didn’t make use of the occasion to plug my PMC ride. I really should have been more forward about asking for donations, but it just didn’t seem to be the right thing to do.

As the night wore on, I started feeling exhausted by the effort of being social, and took more time to sit back and watch others, which was pleasant in and of itself. I hadn’t talked to all of the 120 alumni who had come, but I’d certainly done the rounds. Between the conversation noise, the increasingly loud music, and the sheer freneticism of bouncing from person to person to person for four or five hours, on top of visiting family, I was feeling pretty overstimulated, and—after two days of heavy use—my voice was as done as I was.

With so many people to talk to, conversations couldn’t get as involved as they had been in the smaller group on Friday, so in that sense I preferred the pre-party, although it would have been cool to have more of my friends in that group, rather than all strangers.

Overall, the reunion was interesting from a number of angles. Given the passage of so much time since graduation, most of the cliques that once separated people have dissolved, so it was nice to be able to relate to folks from a place free of group identities and social stigma. Only a couple people were fixated on status and career, and just one boor had a blatant goal of recruiting others to support his specious business venture.

Would I consider going to another reunion? Well, overall this one was good, but I think I’d prefer the opportunity to sit down and get to know a smaller number of select people in more detail, rather than have a hundred shallow conversations with lots of strangers. And I did renew enough connections to reach out to the people I’m most curious about.

As for future reunions: I might do another large event, but I would hope that the organizers continue to support smaller adjunct gatherings, like Friday’s pre-party. Although I did enjoy reestablishing contact with people that I haven’t seen in decades, I certainly don’t need to dive back into that big melee anytime soon!

Figure the odds. The chance of you being a Liscomb in the US are 1 in 860,000. It’s only 1 in 800,000 in Canadia.

Thanks to Dynastree, we know that:

• There are only 99 Liscomb households listed in US phone books.
• The largest percentage (21 percent) live in Maine (of course).
• There are Liscombs in only 23 states.
• Besides Maine, New York is the only other state with more than 10 Liscomb households.
• Despite being sandwiched between Maine and New York, there are no Liscombs in New Hampshire or Vermont, although I know of some ex-Liscombs in the former.
• There’s only 356 people in the US who share my surname.

Of course, not having a land line, I’m probably not counted in their census. Nor is my mother, who has an unlisted number…

And before we leave the topic, just a brief shout-out for the town of Liscomb, Iowa and especially to the great province of Nova Scotia, which not only has a Liscomb, but also West Liscomb, Liscomb Mills, Liscomb Bay, Liscomb Harbour, Big Liscomb, Little Liscomb, Little Liscomb River, the Liscomb Game Sanctuary, Liscomb Wilderness Area, etc, etc!

Now don’t ask about the distribution about the given name “Ornoth”.

Click on the image for the full-size map, or here for the full Liscomb report, on Dynastree to generate your own.

On the topic of odds, it might be worth noting that if you buy 50 Powerball tickets every week, you would produce a likely win once every 30,000 years. Oofie!

I recently read David Kundtz’s “Nothing’s Wrong: A Man’s Guide to Managing His Feelings”.

I guess the first thing to relate is why that book interested me. I grew up in a family where little to no emotion was visibly manifested. I was extremely introverted and intellectual. As an adolescent, I found myself becoming ever more angry, selfish, and hateful.

Then I started dating, which was an immensely transformative experience for me. I was confused by how impulsive my first girlfriend could be, and jealous of her stunningly carefree demeanor. I decided to try to incorporate this lesson into my life, thereby gaining a previously absent appreciation for beauty, nature, kindness, and humor.

Back then, I didn’t think the intellectual and the emotional halves of my personality could coexist, so I created separate, distinct identities for them. “David” was cold, calculating, and intellectual, while “Ornoth” was impulsive, open, and joyous. One or the other would be predominant for six months to a year, while the other popped up at odd moments, and then they’d reverse. In those days, someone close to me could see in my eyes when I switched gears. That took me through college and into marriage.

Despite all that, I guess the trend was for the cold intellectual to gradually reassert itself. My ex-wife’s parting shot to me was to give me a Mr. Spock tee shirt for my birthday, an unabashed reference to my lack of warmth toward her.

In the fifteen years since my divorce, I’ve changed more radically than I ever thought possible, but the basic disconnect with my emotions has persisted. I’ve worked hard to develop compassion and generosity, but no matter how hard I look, I can’t seem to detect what most women tell me is the essence of life: my emotions.

It’s undoubtedly a difficult thing for a woman to understand: that a man really doesn’t have the emotional range or insight into his emotions that is so basic to her. I can’t speak for any other men, but I don’t think I’m alone when I admit that I’ve spent much of my life honestly doubting whether I have any emotions at all, and whether I could ever detect any I had, however hard I try.

Thus, the book.

The first thing the book establishes is that men need a different vocabulary to talk about their emotions. Women’s emotions come from their hearts, but men feel things “in their gut”. By drawing attention to the body’s physical reactions, Kundtz actually echoed themes I’ve heard in my Buddhist studies, which emphasize the physical form and its state changes as the place to look for evidence of emotional activity.

The next logical step is, of course, for a man to become more aware of the changes in his body. That would seem like a potentially productive line of inquiry, although I found the way it was presented a bit unhelpful.

“The very first and vitally important thing you have to do in dealing with any feeling is really something that you must *not* do. Don’t bury it. Don’t run from it and don’t cover it over. Just stay in the moment and feel it. Just feel it. Don’t bury. Don’t run. Don’t cover. […] Got the idea? Just stay put; don’t run. Just feel.”

That kind of rhetoric does nothing to help those of us who have stopped, have looked, and found nothing. “Just take a few deep breaths and feel whatever you’re feeling” is not only an unhelpful tautology, but it’s also thoroughly frustrating for someone who has no idea how to “feel what they’re feeling”.

Kundtz talks about this ability to notice one’s feelings and says “Without this first step, all else is doomed”, but then turns around and says, “It might also be true that at any given moment you may not be feeling anything very strongly”. Well, duh. I can’t say I’ve “felt anything strongly” in years!

The underlying, common assumption is that men are all actively suppressing their feelings, because everyone has feelings, don’t they? As someone who is reasonably mature and has actively tried to sense my own feelings and come up empty, I find that a decidedly hurtful way to dismiss my difficulties. I may indeed have emotions, but don’t accuse me of being dysfunctional simply because my emotions are not as overt as a woman’s. Defining women as normal and men as inherently abnormal is both prejudicial and hurtful.

Beyond that, as Kundtz himself is quick to point out, “Nothing’s Wrong is based on the strong conviction that there is a direct and causal relationship between violent behavior in males and their repressed (buried) feelings.” If that were true, one might well expect me to be a mass murderer, given my longstanding and lack of emotion, which can supposedly only be explained by active repression. But it hasn’t happened yet, so far as I know.

Anyways, leaving that particular issue aside for the mo’, let’s turn back to Kundtz’s three-step program to male emotional fitness: notice the feeling, name the feeling, and express the feeling. Assuming I find some way to get past step one—the real problem—there’s still this final step of manifesting the emotion.

The next question is *how*. Okay, I’m feeling happy, and maybe I can even recognize that; now how do I make a conscious choice between the myriad ways of depicting that emotion in my actions? Should I skip and jump? Should I whistle a tune? Should I go buy a drink for a cutie at the pub? How do I choose? And don’t you *dare* tell me something useless like “whatever you feel like doing”, or I’ll rip your throat out. It’s not that easy.

When he starts to talk about expressing one’s feelings, Kundtz cites a 1998 Newsweek article that reads, “when people regularly talk or even write about things that are upsetting to them, their immune systems perk up and they require less medical care”. Kundtz interprets this as “The talking or writing is the third step. It externalizes the feeling.”

That’s actually extremely good news for me, because I do a *lot* of written self-expression, as the length of this entry attests. The very first thing I turned to when my wife left me was email. Ironically, even today my real-world friends criticize me because they see more of what’s inside me by reading my blog than by talking on the phone or hanging out with me. Another funny bit is that Kundtz not only mentions writing, but also specifically calls out cycling, poker games, exercise, and meditation as other avenues for self-expression, and those are all things I do quite a lot of.

Another interesting bit is how thoroughly Kundtz disses isolation. He opens one section with a quote from Men’s Health magazine which reads, “Lack of social connection is ’the largest unexplored issue in men’s health’”. He follows with, “If there is only one change that you make as a result of reading this book, please make it this one. *Please!* Determine somehow, some way, at some time to regularly get together with friends.” I found that kinda interesting, considering I’m really the epitome of the isolated bachelor, and have recently been pondering how to reach out and craft a few new meaningful friendships.

I don’t want to give you the impression that I disliked the book. It was reasonably interesting, and successful at raising all kinds of topics for reflection. I just wish there was a little more depth to his analysis of how to detect one’s own emotions. “Just feel what you feel” isn’t helpful at all, although I’ll start watching my physiological responses to see if they provide any clues.

One last bit, which is something of a tangent. In addition to the Mary McDowell quote I’ve posted about already, Kundtz also cites the following quotation: “When I do good, I feel good. When I do bad, I feel bad. And that’s my religion.”

I think that’s about the most eloquent statement of the Buddhist law of karma that I’ve ever heard. Satisfaction comes from taking moral actions, and immoral actions produce dissatisfaction. And I’m blown away that the speaker added “And that’s my religion” as a postscript. Can you guess who the quote was attributed to? I’ll give you a hint: he has a wretched hairdo and spends most of his time on $5 bills.

Imagine what might happen if we had a president today of a comparable ethical standard.

I'm afraid this is going to be a lengthy one, even by Ornoth standards. It's a good example of how one inoccuous comment can trigger a whole series of discussion topics.

Inna and I have been very close for four years now. During that time, we've become more intimately familiar, and more open and forthright, with one another than with anyone either of us has known before. I think it goes without saying that our relationship is something I treasure immensely.

Certainly there's an investment in education there: we've taken the time to really get to know one another deeply and intuitively, which only comes through long months of shared experiences. Contrary to popular myth, that kind of understanding cannot happen overnight, or in a matter of weeks. But the investment of time certainly isn't the most important reason to value a relationship.

Instead, there's a special joy in sharing your life with someone who really knows you, and who interacts with you at a level of depth and real understanding and intuition that simply can't be approached without that investment. For someone to take the time to know me so well is priceless to me, for that is the baseline for genuine appreciation and understanding.

At the same time, offering that intimacy of understanding opens one up to unparalelled criticism. To let someone know you that well is also to let them see your worst and most feared faults, even the ones you choose not to acknowledge, and hide from yourself.

A couple days ago, on the way home from a dinner, I was walking across the Harvard Bridge, accompanied by Inna and two of her friends, when I made the apparently understated comment "This isn't bad".

All that night, Inna had been hounding me to express an opinion about the evening. It is, of course, one of her triggers, because she is excessively concerned with how others perceive the events she chooses to take responsibility for. In addition, her emotional state is influenced to a large degree by how demonstratively happy the people around her are. In a phrase, she is more affected by how the people around her enjoy an event than by the event itself. All this results in people's reactions being an emotional trigger for her.

On the other hand, I am extremely conservative in demonstrating my emotions and enjoyment of any given event. It's just the way I am (I'll get into the reasons for that in a moment). But you can see already how this combination of personality traits will result in Inna feeling insecure, and me feeling pressured or criticized.

Inna reacted to my comment by indicating that "This isn't bad" is "the highest praise possible from Orny", and going on to attack me for being so stingy with my emotions. I went on to defend myself, and the evening ended quite unsatisfactorily, with each of us feeling hurt and angry for expecting something different from one another. Nothing that won't get settled, it's just that I needed to relate that bit in order to proceed from here.

In the rest of this entry, I discuss why I am so reserved. It's a lot of self-analysis and some of it I admit will sound quite adolescent. It's naturally something I typically try to rise above, but at the same time, it's also still something that continues to influence my behavior.

So why am I so reserved? It would be easy to cite the familiar axiom that it's easier (or safer) to be negative than to be positive. In the past, that has certainly been a factor in my tempering my reactions, even recently. I think that I've made great progress on this one recently, thanks partly to Inna, and partly to my increased participation in the creative community. I'm learning, gradually, how to be more supportive and less judgemental, at least when the circumstances require it.

But there's much more to it than that. There are ultimately two big reasons why I'm not more demonstrative: first, I lack the ability to feel, express, and act on my emotions, and second, I fear what might come out if I tried.

I'm unable to feel, express, and act on my emotions? Isn't that the easiest thing in the world? Well, to many people it must be, but I've never been ruled by my emotions; I've always kept them under smotheringly tight control, to the point where today I have great difficulty even identifying when I have emotions, much less what they might be. I know that's probably counterintuitive to most people, but trust me on this one; I know of what I speak.

The root of most of my insecurities surely lies in my reaction of our family moving to an unfamiliar town when I was nine years old. I think it's typical that most children will react to such a traumatic event either by becoming extremely extroverted (in order to attract new friends), or by becoming extremely introverted (out of fear). I fell into the latter category, and never had a large number of friends until late in high school (see below). My family reinforced the value of intellect over emotions, and my life goal became to live forever, so that I could learn everything there was to know and know how the world would turn out. And after all, what use are emotions when you're alone?

When I began find myself attracted to women, my introversion and insecurity kept me from actually pursuing relationships. They of course seemed extraneous to my life's goals, but with no outlet, the unreleased sexual tension of adolescence worked inside me, turning me into a very hateful, judgemental racist: a very dangerous hooligan, but without the disregard for traditional values that would have enabled me to do real harm.

The stage was set for my first real romance, which took place during my final year of high school. Jean was, of course, everything I was not, but most especially she was positive, in touch with her emotions, and impulsive. My entire life turned around in one moment that took place in my parents' back yard. On a warm, lush spring day, I watched as Jean actually laughed and skipped down a set of rock stairs into the grass beneath a maple tree. I (quietly, of course) stood there dumbstruck, watching her suffused with joy to overflowing: an emotion I never let myself feel, expressed in a way that I could never express. That was my revelation, and I made a very conscious, deliberate decision to be more impulsive (ironic, eh?).

At that time, I was one of the principals in the New England Tolkien Society, a group of young fans of the author who wrote "the Hobbit" and "the Lord of the Rings". The group had one or two camping trips each year where everyone got dressed up in medieval garb and pretended to be hobbits or elves or whatnot. This was to be the testing ground for my new impulsiveness.

At NETS gatherings, I stopped caring what people thought of me, and actually pushed myself to become an extrovert. I started acting before thinking, incorporating random acts of silliness and flirtation into my behavior. Amazingly to me, I became quite popular, even with the girls. I had successfully been able to "flip the switch" from cold, hateful intellectual to outgoing, silly, and impulsive extrovert.

The problem was that I was still living at home, where that kind of behavior would never have been acceptable. So in order to rationalize my different behaviors, I borrowed from schizophrenia, describing myself as two separate people. David, the name I used up until college, was the master of intellect and self-control; Ornoth, or Orny, which I'd used as a name in Tolkien fandom and other medieval recreationist events, was the flirtatious, uninhibited fool. That was the situation when I graduated high school.

Throughout college and into my marriage, I went through several phases when one or the other of these two "personalities" were dominant. Any given phase would last about nine months, but within those larger phases, I might switch back and forth (intentionally or not) for a period of days or hours. Friends who knew me well said that they could see in my eyes when I made the discrete transition from one to the other.

But as my language indicates, these two halves were never integrated, and my intellectual half never learned how to demonstrate, or even see, my own emotions. Two decades later, Inna wisely told me that this division was contrived and that perpetuating it from adolescence was unhealthy, so I tried to set it aside. Unfortunately, for the most part that meant losing touch with my emotions, though I shouldn't lay the responsibility for that wholly on Inna. After all, my ex-wife's parting shot was to give me a Mister Spock tee shirt, effectively saying that my coldness and rationality were the equivalent of the Vulcan's banishment of all emotion. And while working for Sapient, I twice took the Meyers-Briggs Type Indicator, perhaps the most famous personality test in the world, and never scored so much as a single point on the "emotions" scale.

One thing I pride myself on is expressing myself accurately in written form, after I've had a chance to digest things and determine how I feel about them. But I am wholly inarticulate, unable to detect or describe my emotions in "real-time", as events occur. This was particularly well demonstrated when Inna and I spent a week on Cape Cod two years ago. At the time, Inna had no idea that I was enjoying the trip. To be entirely truthful, I don't believe I knew it, myself. But after coming back to Boston, I realized how much I treasured those memories, and how much I'd enjoy repeating them, and only then was I able to show Inna how much they meant to me. Of course, to her, who trusts emotions far more than words spoken after the fact, this sounded insincere.

So for more than a quarter century I've practiced a uniquely successful method of denying my emotions, to the point where today I find myself questioning whether I have the capacity for emotions at all, and if I did, how I could possibly recognize them in myself, much less allow myself to publicly demonstrate them and act upon them. There are, of course, both advantages and disadvantages to this way of life, but I think it would be nice (and healthy) if I had the capacity to choose whether to demonstrate my emotions or not, rather than having no choice at all because I cannot even register them.

And then there's the other question: if I demonstrated them, what might come out? As I mentioned above, I was a pretty angry kid in high school, and there is still some residue from that. I was hateful, racist, reactionary, and, more than anything else, judgemental. Those were the emotions that were most natural to me then; would they resurface? Of course, I've thankfully evolved out of most of those. I've put aside most of my racism and hatefulness and prejudices, and I've tried to be more supportive and less quick to judge.

But one thing remains with me: I'm really not fond of people at all. I can't say that I truly hate people anymore, which is good, but my tolerance and patience with them is extremely low. As my relationship with Inna proves, there are people out there whose friendship has immense potential for me, once it reaches a certain level of depth. I think my problem is that as an introvert, it just doesn't seem worth the effort to make that investment. Most people either aren't compatible with me (through no fault of their own, of course), or simply don't desire the depth of friendship which would make the investment of time and energy worthwhile. Most people operate at a very shallow level, and that bores me to tears. I need a few good friends who know me very well, who are intelligent and articulate, with broad interests which include some of my own, but also include other, new things that would help me grow.

But establishing those kinds of friendships takes time, during which you have to slog through all the common, surfacey stuff before genuine depth comes through meaningful shared experiences. And putting that time and effort into a surfacey friendship that might never "pay off" is what I, as an introvert, shy away from. And that's why I am so alone, though I live in the very heart of the city.

So my fear is that if I really allowed my emotions to show, my general impatience and intolerance of people would drive people away.

With such an attitude, one could reasonably ask why I need people in my life at all. For the most part, indeed, I have concluded that I don't. But there are certain reasons, most of which are either very practical or mundane.

First, being alone is dangerous. What happens if I have a heart attack or cannot live unassisted? That's a problem, but it's hardly a great basis for friendship!

I'm physically attracted to people. This is the one thing that I find most frustrating, this unquenchable desire. There's so much turmoil that I wouldn't have to face if I could just rid myself of my sexual desires. I've tried; that's just not going to happen...

People are necessary for my entertainment and growth. Even living a purely selfish life for my own amusement, I need what other people create. I need live music, interesting artwork, architecture, graffiti, fashion, literature, dining, modern technological innovation, and all kinds of shared activities. I need intellectual challenge, and people who can bring me new experiences and ideas. That's why I live in the middle of Boston, and why I can't just pack up and live in isolation up in northern Maine, even though that has its attractions.

Of course, none of these are terribly lofty reasons for interacting with people. The one thing that I really need from people, that I could never possibly deny, that makes everything worthwhile, is exactly what I described between Inna and I at the beginning of this entry: understanding.

What I need, more than anything else, is for someone to know me. Not just in a surface sense, but to really know everything about me, fully and deeply, and understand who I am, what I've seen, and where I want to go. Someone to share my pains with, to appreciate my fiction, to understand why I think DargonZine is an honorable life's work, to know what polyamory means to me as well as my negative opinions of marriage, to share the spiritual appreciation I feel of nature, to understand my philosophy and why I live the way I do, to know when to push me and when it's best to leave me alone, and to occasionally surprise me when they understand me even better than I know myself. And I want to be able to know them as thoroughly as they know me, and know the new experiences and ideas that they can bring me.

And, of course, I want them to understand the difficulty I have with feeling, expressing, and acting upon my own emotions, and help me to overcome it, rather than condemn me for this area of weakness.