A version of this post appeared yesterday in my “Sistas” community – I’ve mentioned them here previously. So if you’re from there, you’ve read some of this before – but only some of it

I am so uninspired by the study of corporate/healthcare compliance. I set out on this path because it was the smart thing to do. I still believe it’s smart, but frankly I have spent around 50 years doing the smart thing instead of doing what lights my fire. I sorta don’t want to spend the next 50 doing the same.

I also have to say that the program is poorly run. It’s been one excuse after another as to why the program is a semester behind, why it is disorganized… there has been illness and budget cuts in the criminal justice department, and I get that, but holy guacamole, you’re a freakin’ university, ACT like one! That just makes me want to run further from this program, because it does not seem like this graduate certificate is going to mean much, considering some of the courses were such a mess and I didn’t have to do much to get the grades.

And something else – my text book for the current class was back-ordered two weeks, and I am therefore behind a couple of assignments. Healthcare law is FULL of acronyms. Last assignment I completed, it took me two days just to read the 40 pages that were assigned. I’d have to stop, look up the acronym, understand what it meant, and then go back to the paragraph at hand and put it into context. Seriously erodes reading comprehension when everything is an acronym!

When something is this difficult to get done, I tend to think of it as a gauntlet thrown, but maybe it’s actually a Memo From The Universe that I’m on the wrong path. In this case, I think that about sums it up. I am so used to powering through difficulty by sheer force of will – and maybe, at one time in my life, that was appropriate. A little struggle is good for the soul But now – I don’t think things should always be this obnoxious to get done. I think this is wrong, wrong, wrong, just like praying for a job versus income was wrong, wrong, wrong.

Finally, there’s the timing of this class with the launch of the consulting gig. I have committed to starting that next week, directly after the holiday. I will have ramp-up activities to get through, studying their environment, making connections with people inside an unfamiliar organization, identifying the right resources to get the job done. It’s a no-brainer that I need to focus on penetrating the organization to the near-exclusion of all else.

The REAL wake-up call has been my experience this month with the Florida Master Naturalist program. I have been documenting some of my Florida Master Naturalist experience at My Mobile Adventures *~*~*, and I’ve got lots more to share in the coming weeks. It has been stimulating and thought provoking – and also a blast to be amongst fellow nature geeks three times a week, who all wear the same “sporty, functional and you can get ‘em wet” shoes that I wear If you really want to know if you are with your peeps or not, just compare all the shoes. It becomes pretty obvious that these people walk the beaches and the preserves, same as me.

I TORE through my assignments for the FMN program, but I struggle to stay focused on the stuff for the compliance program. I am normally very academically-minded and can MAKE myself power through stuff I don’t want to do… there. That tells a story too, same as the shoes. I don’t want to do this. And I’m different now than I was when I hung on to the wrong marriage, the lucrative-but-meaningless job, etc.

So, I don’t think I can get a refund for this semester any more, but if I withdraw before July 8th, I can do so without academic penalty. Then I can concentrate on getting the consulting thing off the ground, get the income rolling again, and maybe launch a naturalist blog, do some writing about all this stuff I’ve seen and learned. The reason I want to avoid academic penalty is because the university has a graduate program in Environmental Science, and I want to leave that door open without any black marks on my “permanent record”. Yeah I know, I’ll never be done with school… I’ve always known this about myself, you guys might as well get used to it to Seriously, I don’t know if I will actually go for that, or even if I qualify with a B.A. in psychology and half a graduate certificate in compliance, but there’s no sense in “dishonorable discharge” if I can avoid it.

Midterm essays are due on 6/30 and I just don’t want to. And you can’t make me. So there. Neener neener.

The icing on the cake – after I consulted with the Sistas, I faxed in my Term Withdrawal Application and emailed my professors to give them a heads-up. I then checked my Facebook News Feed and found some interesting “signs” that validated my actions. I posted these at Memos From The Universe, which is a blog I maintain to record these quirky little “signs”. Go on, have a look and tell me if it isn’t The Universe giving me a nod and a wink and a pat on the back!

Memos From The Universe | Validation From The Universe

© 2011, Erin. All rights reserved.

©2012 The Single Rider. All Rights Reserved.

Ooops!, originally uploaded by The Single Rider.

Been doin’ it wrong, apparently. i hereby resolve to amend my evil ways!

Sent from my Nokia N97

© 2010, Erin. All rights reserved.

©2012 The Single Rider. All Rights Reserved.

I have come to the conclusion that I am a Renaissance juggler.

“Renaissance man” is a phrase coined to describe someone who has a depth of knowledge spanning a diverse range of interests. A juggler is someone who has many balls in the air at the same time. I am someone with a diverse set of passions who can and does indulge in several of them simultaneously. I’ve never felt an overwhelming, life-long pull toward any one of these interests for very long. Interests come and go only to return again years later, borne back to me on some unseen tide. At intervals during my life, I’ve had keen, intense interest in writing, performing, photography, organic gardening, Disney, sea shells, psychology and all manner of IT geekery. That last interest currently manifests itself via a fascination with consumer electronics and social media.

Photo by Helico

This post contains affiliate links.

© 2010, Erin. All rights reserved.

©2012 The Single Rider. All Rights Reserved.

Attention: Anyone who is claiming that Obama has “canceled the National Day of Prayer” on May 7th.

Obama didn’t cancel anything. His predecessor, George W Bush, chose to hold a ceremony for the National Day of Prayer at the White House every year he was in office. Obama has not chosen to hold a ceremony in the White House. Many of Bush’s predecessors, both Democrat and Republican, and including his own father, have done the same as Obama. They have signed presidential proclamations to observe the day, as Obama has done, but they have not held a ceremony at the White House each year of their administration. There is nothing historically out of the ordinary going on here.

No one, not even the mighty and apparently much-feared Obama, can cancel your right to pray.

As far as I can tell from the research I’ve done, President Obama will observe the 2010 National Day of Prayer via Presidential proclamation as he did in 2009. Observed does not equal canceled. Nothing is stopping anyone from praying on May 7th. Nothing is commanding them to pray, either.

PLEASE STOP BEING SHEEP. Learn to read FOR YOURSELF, beyond those incendiary email forwards you’ve been blindly re-distributing. I understand that you want to spread the word about what a bad man he is, but when you spread the falsehoods, you degrade your own credibility. How will anyone ever take you seriously ever again if you continue to propagate that which cannot be substantiated?

INVESTIGATE FIRST. You have the absolute right to criticize someone if they do something you don’t agree with. BUT FIRST, make sure he actually did it. Don’t take anyone’s word for it. Don’t put your own credibility in the hands of anyone else but yourself.

GOOGLE IS YOUR FRIEND. Search. Explore. Investigate. Criticize for what he DID do, if you don’t like it, but don’t spread untruths. It only makes YOU look bad.

© 2010, Erin. All rights reserved.

©2012 The Single Rider. All Rights Reserved.

So, I’ve mentioned that before I moved to Florida, I actually made a wish on a shooting star… that I could live in Florida for always! The photograph to the left illustrates precisely where I was standing when this event occurred. The wish was made at Disney’s Boardwalk Villas resort at Walt Disney World, where dreams come true, where magic lives, so naturally it was a shoe-in. I’ve since made another wish on another shooting star, this time not in Walt Disney World, but standing on my lanai here in Florida. That one’s a little longer in manifesting… well, we’re not at Disney, I cannot expect the same quick turnaround!

Suddenly, something comes along, something so terrible it threatens to shatter my faith! Sent to me by Brother No. 2 (FORMERLY my favorite), who apparently just could not leave me with my illusions…….

© 2009, Erin. All rights reserved.

©2012 The Single Rider. All Rights Reserved.

One of the great things about going home to New York, to The Loverly Isle of Long for Christmas is that I get to see the “back home” tribes and hang with them just like old times. This year is special – I’ll be home in plenty of time to make a Winter Solstice celebration with my friends. The Winter Solstice aka Yule is typically observed on December 21st, the shortest day/longest dark of the year. Solstice is all about the rebirth of the sun; in terms of the Wheel, we are at the lowest point of the year, but you know what that means – the only way left to go is up The purpose of the feast is to celebrate the beginning of the end of the dormancy period of the year, and prepare for a fresh start. The clean slate of a new year stretches into the future before us, upon which we get to write… ANYTHING WE WANT! How cool is that?

And so, we’ll go to the woods to gather greenery. Back at home, we’ll prepare the meal, deck the halls and set the table. We’ll light the candles and we’ll write on those clean slates, earnest notes filled with our desires, our requests of the Universe. And then we shall set them aflame and watch as the fire transforms them into sparks of prayer, rising through the crisp air into the night sky to become one with the stars, to be heard and fulfilled.

And then, we shall feast.

I did a little googling this weekend, to find appropriate foods upon which we should be feasting on the Solstice. Feasting and celebrating is something people can look forward to as the earth turns ever colder and darker leading up to Solstice. Anticipation of the celebration, of being able to put the darkest days behind us helps to counteract the depressive psychological effects of winter. When it’s so dark like this, we have too much melatonin, which causes malaise. That might be appropriate for bears, who are supposed to sleep away the winter, but most adult humans are expected to be productive. We need to find ways to assist ourselves in pushing past the darkness.

Anything that puts us in the presence of negative ions will lift our mood and make us feel energized. Isn’t that odd, that “negative” produces positive in us? In nature, places that tend to be negatively ionized are mountains, streams, forests and beaches. This may be why people flock to these types of places for relaxation and rejuvenation. There are other negatively-charged things we can use to help erase stress and seasonal fatigue. A wood fire, bees wax, green plants – all of these things can help to make us “of good cheer”. I guess we now know why we burn candles, deck the halls and have a Yule log. These things make us feel better and help us to to feel celebratory, to have hope that winter WILL end and that the life-bringing warmth of spring WILL return to us. The ancients may not have known about a substance called melatonin, but they knew that the air was filled with a magical, uplifting energy after a lightening storm, and that communing with nature by the side of a waterfall brings comfort and peace.

So you can see where I’m going with this. I now wanted to know – what foods carry a negative charge and make us feel good? Survey says – those foods that are alkaline help deposit negative ions into our bodies and are good mood enhancers. Most fruits and vegetables are alkaline, and they assist in combating the acidification of the blood. The more negative ions our blood carries, the better our metabolic, autonomic and immune systems function, and our skin and tissues are more elastic.

Googling once again, I discovered lists of alkaline vegetables, and most of them seemed to mention root vegetables like carrots, garlic, turnips and onions (we already knew about the root veggie-Yule connection). Other interesting things at the top of a few of the lists I found were broccoli, artichokes and leeks.

When I read about the leeks, I remembered a book I’d read called French Women Don’t Get Fat and how leek soup – with or without root vegetables and beans – is a staple food of the French woman’s diet. There’s even a recipe in the book, which uses lentils as the beans and can optionally be turned a little “creamy” by melting together a pat of butter and some flour and throwing that in at the last moment. They sometimes throw in some sort of browned French sausage that’s described in the book as a high-end hot dog. Ewww! I think we’ll be forgiven if we alter the ethnicity a bit and use Italian sweet sausage instead

All the while I’ve been writing this post, my thoughts have been drawn repeatedly back to the prospect of the blank slate. I have that feeling that I used to get (and sometimes still get) when I was a young girl, filling marble-covered composition books with poems, stories and the minutiae of my existence. When one book is all done, you get to start a new one, and THAT, my friends, is a magical and sacred moment. You walk it reverently to the desk and turn back the cover… it’s blank! The pages are pure, empty yet ripe with the promise of endless possibility. What events, what aspirations, what desires and dreams will manifest upon these pages?

Anything we want.

Anything we want!

© 2009, Erin. All rights reserved.

©2012 The Single Rider. All Rights Reserved.

At last, I’ve finally had some time to continue examining the data collected during this merely quasi-scientific study of What I’m Good At, aka “Manifesting – The Musical!”. I’ll bet the handful of you who have been reading here probably forgot about this, it’s been so long. Well – on with the show!

Response Rates

89 people were polled, 37% by email and 63% on a private internet forum. A combined total of 25 people responded. 56% of the email population responded, as opposed to 44% of the forum population. The forum is female only; hence there are no male responses by the forum polling method. 38% of the females polled via email responded, as compared to 20% via forum.

Figure 1: Population Polled, by Polling Method and Gender

Whereas email responses were made between me and the respondent, people from the private forum posted their responses in full view of the other members of the tribe. This may account for the higher response rate amongst the email population; it may have felt “safer” to opine only to me than it would have to opine in the presence of a wider audience.

Figure 2: Population Responded, by Polling Method and Gender

Approximately 87% of those polled were female; 13% were male. Despite the disproportion between males and females polled, it should be noted that fully half of the males polled responded, as opposed to only 24% of the females. Two of the male respondents are Siblings, two are Friends From High School, one is a Tech Geek and one is a Sanibel Fan. The distribution may suggest that I tend to engage in high-quality interactions or friendships with males who are similar to the ones with whom I was raised in in my birth tribe.

Normalization of Responses

Responses were made in free-form prose which had to be broken down and normalized across respondents in order to take measurements. Often, it was not enough to identify keywords as presented in the prose, because the same word used in different phrases by different respondents could translate into different concepts. Each respondent’s contribution was examined and broken down into the separate concepts that were being expressed. There were 124 concepts identified, which were then mapped to 55 keywords.

A few examples of this challenging task include:

• The phrases “straight talk”, “telling it like it is”, “no bullshit” and similar phrases were all distilled down to single keyword, “Forthright”, because they clearly all described the same concept
• The phrase “cutting through the bullshit and whittling down the issue to its essential core” became two keywords – “Analytical” and “Insightful”. Although this phrase shares the word “bullshit” with “no bullshit” in the previous example, it clearly implies something besides “forthright”. There are two concepts expressed in the phrase. One is “cutting and whittling” and the other is “essential core”. The former implies the tearing away of layers while the latter implies that there was some foreknowledge that the removal of these layers would yield something, even though that “something” might not be defined until the “cutting and whittling” had been completed.
• Words and phrases like “entertaining”, “making an event special”, “making people feel cared-for”, “a good friend”, “you listen and make me laugh”, “good at bar crawling” were initially lumped under the single, somewhat whimsical keyphrase called “pixie dust”. However, there came the realization that again, separate concepts were being expressed, and the distinction was important. Therefore, this category was separated into “Fun” (“bar crawling”, “make me laugh”, “entertaining”) and “Nurturing” (“special”, “cared-for”, “good friend”, “you listen”).
• Despite roughly 30 years of near-radio silence between us, a single participant ended up contributing a detailed and frighteningly accurate response that yielded 18 separate keywords. In fact, this individual is responsible for contributing, either directly or via normalization, 9 of the Top 10 most common keywords in the survey. This means half of his keyword responses are represented in 90% of the Top 10. And he had the nerve to accuse *me* of possessing “a highly effective vocabulary”. Pot, kettle, black!

Top 10 Keywords

As a result of normalization, 126 instances of 55 keywords emerged. Many of these 55 keywords repeated only once or twice. To focus the analysis, the Top 10 most frequently occurring keywords were identified (Figure 3).

Figure 3: Top 10 Most Frequently Occurring Keywords

The number of occurrences of the Top 10 keywords represents about half the total occurrences of all keywords that resulted from normalizing the survey responses.

Figure 4: Top 10 Keywords, Percentage of Total Occurrences

Occurrences of the Top 10 Keywords were most often found in the responses of the Sistas and the Friends Back Home.

Figure 5: Distribution of Occurrences of Top 10 Keywords Among The Tribes

It may be surprising that a tribe with whom interaction takes place almost exclusively online should be so well represented in the Top 10 Keywords. However, it should be noted that the Sistas tribe is primarily focused on the discussion and resolution of life problems and issues. Discussion topics are often deeply personal, which produces interactions that are generally more intense than those taking place in other tribes. The nature of the interactions in the Sistas tribe may account for the high volume of occurrences of Top 10 Keywords that the Sistas tribe produced.

Those of you who aren’t asleep by now Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzz….. will be happy to know that there is only one more part to this series. Next time, in Part 3, we will take a look at what everyone said I should be when I grow up. Ciao for now!

© 2009, Erin. All rights reserved.

©2012 The Single Rider. All Rights Reserved.

Yeah, so, probably wasn’t the best time to start a new blog! Job has been chowin’ down on my life with a fair amount of regularity and consistency. At last, I’ve managed to carve out some time to work on Manifesting… The Musical! I still like that title, but it’s more whimsical and self-indulgent than descriptive. Therefore, we’re going with What am I good at? Survey says… for this series. I’ve polled the tribes and they have spoken. Without further ado, let’s get started!

What Am I Good At?

A (merely quasi-) scientific exploration into my mad talentz and skillz

Introduction

The purpose of this exercise was to find out what skills and talents I possess according to people who know me from all walks of life. The exercise is modeled after one that appears in the ebook, “The Principles of Successful Manifesting” by Thomas Herold, founder and CEO of Dream Manifesto LLC.

Population Selection

Over the years, my key interests have driven me to seek out communities of the like-minded, in both real life and online. These communities – or tribes – were targeted for population selection. Individuals with whom I’ve had frequent and/or high-quality interactions have had ample opportunity to observe my behavior and form opinions as to my particular talents and skills – What I Do Well. “Frequent” does not necessarily mean “recent”. My key interests tend to morph as the years pass. “High-quality” is harder to define. It pertains to the level of exposure to one another via shared experiences, whether they are shared virtually or in real life (IRL). The more we share, the more we know about one another. Therefore, the better the respondents knew me, the more accurate – and therefore, useful – their responses would be.

Method

The population received a message, either in an email or else posted to the private forum, which said this:

Hola, friends –

I’m working on something – myself!

I’d like to ask y’all for the favor of your opinions. I am asking people from all different walks of my life, people that know me well and people that know me not so well. If I get the same general responses from people who know me in different ways, then that means they’re all on to something. I realize that a few of you know me only from the internet, but what you have observed over the years is in fact behavior, so I believe it’s valid to ask cyber friends as well as RL friends to respond to these questions.

Here are the questions – feel free to answer some, all or none, as the mood strikes you!

- What do you think I’m good at?
- What do you think my talents are?
- What do you think I should do with my life?

The first thing that comes into your head is probably the best answer.

Thank you in advance for your time

xxx
Erin

Responses were received on the same platform as the request was delivered (email or on the forum). Responses were analyzed and normalized for measurement, and the resulting data was plugged into a spreadsheet along with some demographics.

Metrics

Data collected and analyzed includes the following:

• Polling method (email, forum)
• Gender
• Venue
• Tribe
• Common Interest
• What I Do Well
• Career Suggestions

Venues, Tribes and Key Interests

Venues
The three venues or contexts within which the tribes I belong to generally meet to interact are –

• Real Life
• Internet
• I-2-RL

Behavior (interaction, relating) is not limited to “real life” in this, the 21st century. Internet life can be active, rich and rewarding. However, interaction on the internet requires different methods than interaction in real life. The chief difference is the mode of communication. In real life, the primary mode of communication is verbal; whether face to face or on the phone, it usually involves vocal cords and ears. Verbal communication can also be accompanied by vocal inflections, facial expressions and other bodily cues that convey context and nuance. Alternatively, internet communication has been primarily via text – the written word. Recently, audio and video communications have been introduced, but the prevalent mode is still text. Lack of vocal inflection, facial expression and body language can often lead to misunderstandings on the internet. Therefore, successful internet communication requires an additional level of attention to the selection and interpretation of language in the written form that is not generally required in IRL.

In addition to Real Life and Internet, there is a third venue, a hybrid of Real Life and Internet. It has become more and more common for people who initially meet and interact via the internet to arrange to meet in real life. In the cases of my Sanibel and Disney tribes, the initial meeting usually occurs at the travel destination that is part of the common interest, often for large “meets” but just as often for smaller groups who happen to be vacationing at the same time. Sometimes, these meets result in cases where Internet relationships take hold and cross over into Real Life. For the purposes of this survey, this venue will be identified as “I-2-RL” (internet-to-real-life). One-time or infrequent interaction offline is not considered for inclusion in this group.

Tribes
A tribe is the community and context within which I have had the most interaction with the respondents. Tribes are more than just collections of people; they are also the socio-ethnographic backdrop against which the respondent has observed my behavior. In some cases, a respondent and I belong to more than one tribe together. To simplify the analysis, I selected the tribe within which the most frequent and/or highest quality interaction has occurred.

The tribes selected for the study are:

• Disney Fans – lovers of all things Disney. Primary focus is on animated films and and visiting Disney’s theme parks. Interaction began 5-7 years ago
• Friends Back Home – these individuals are primarily friends from high school or from the performing community on Long Island. Interaction began 10-30 years ago.
• Sanibel Fans – these are people who have belonged to a few forums online devoted to visiting Sanibel Island and collecting seashells. Interaction began 5-7 years ago.
• Siblings – this is my birth tribe. In this survey, a “sibling” is a respondent who is either one of my brothers, or married to one of my brothers. Interaction began 20-45 years ago.
• Sistas – these are women who are members of a private, all-female support forum. All of them are also members of the Disney Fans tribe; however, greatest quantity of high-quality interaction has occurred in the Sistas forum. Interaction began 5-7 years ago.
• Tech Geeks – my oldest online tribe, this group of individuals started together in a technical support forum for distributed computing in the early to mid 90s. It is also the smallest tribe I belong to, consisting of three Englishmen, a dude from Pennsylvania and me. Interaction began about 15 years ago.

Key Interests
• Disney – shared primarily with Disney Fans and Sistas tribes; secondary interest with Siblings tribe.
• Family – primary interest shared with Siblings tribe.
• Geekery – primary interest shared with Tech Geeks; however, technology has become a very mainstream interest and therefore is a secondary interest shared with virtually all other tribes.
• High School – primary interest shared with the majority of the Friends Back Home tribe. “High School” really means “we were once all young together”. It should be noted that not all of the tribe still lives “back home” but once a member of the tribe, forever a member of the tribe 
• Long Island – catch all for friends who are on Long Island and therefore “back home” but with whom I never performed and with whom I did not attend high school. Typically, I met these people when I was already an adult but not within the context of work or music/performing.
• Performing – the third leg of the “Friends Back Home” stool, performing is an interest shared with people I know from studying vocal music technique/repertoire and participating in musical theater and opera productions in New York.
• Shelling – the collection of sea shells, primarily from Sanibel Island. The Sanibel Fans tribe often self-identifies as “militant shellers”. “Militant” shelling involves the study of optimum conditions for shelling and the use of tools and other gear to facilitate the hunt and capture of specimens. For some, the interest also extends to cleaning, polishing, displaying or crafting with the collected specimens. This interest is shared almost exclusively with members of the Sanibel Fans tribe.

*~*~*    *~*~*    *~*~*    *~*~*    *~*~*

So… fun stuff thus far, huh?   Wait till we get to the part about normalization of responses – woohoo!   Until next time….

© 2009, Erin. All rights reserved.

©2012 The Single Rider. All Rights Reserved.

Whatever happened to Harry? is a series written as a follow up to My “cougar” days, part one

Gratefully, I had a very different experience in The Box this time. Clearly, 10th grade had been the happiest year of my teens – this cute boy named Harry was crazy about me, and I was enormously popular! It’s all right there in my diary. What a satisfying read, and how grateful I was to be presented with the evidence, provided in the often-breathless, always exuberant style of my inner 15 year old. Harry did this, and Harry said that, and Harry is so cute and funny… I cannot keep the smile off my face, even typing this.

Remember last month, when I wrote about not wanting to be around when people were playing with a Ouija board? Well, something I read in the diary that I had not remembered had to do with Ouija and the softer side of Harry. At the sweet 16 party my friends threw for me, which the boys had crashed, someone dragged out a Ouija board. Despite my protestations, the lights were dimmed and they started playing. I got up and left the vicinity until it was over, and a few of them laughed at me for being scared. Not Harry. He abandoned the game and planted himself close to me, never saying a word. Looking back, I find that so unusual for a boy of his age; one would think he’d be prone toward leveraging a teasing opportunity, but he didn’t.

I read the diary up until the part where my family moved away, and put down the book feeling very certain that no subsequent developments could possibly detract from any of my fond memories of him and our good times spent together. We were buddies, we had fun together, and we had progressed to a point whereby we were happily devoted to one another in a carefree way that only people who have not yet been hurt by love can be.

A very clear picture began to emerge of what had been bothering me the most. It was the thought that their love for me had been a lie; that because they were gay, these young men could not possibly have loved me like they said they did. I’d been laboring under the false notion that a guy is either gay and loves men, or straight and loves women – there was no spectrum, no bell curve, no shades of gray. It had especially bugged me where Harry was concerned; my memories of our brief time together were very happy ones, filled with healing laughter that helped to displace the grim realities of home. The black-and-white thinking I’d been indulging in had threatened to invalidate what had arguably been the brightest period of my otherwise miserable teens.

Putting it all together – the wisdom of “mah sistas”, the experiential knowledge shared by Spencer and especially, the diary entries – it all reinforces something I already knew but apparently needed to be reminded of. It’s something akin to what we learned in science classes back in school. Energy cannot be created or destroyed, only transformed. It’s the same with love.

To quote myself, “…love is infinite. Which means, not only does it abide into the future, but it abides into the past, with no alpha or omega. Kind of like God.”

And so it happens that when we love, we are like God for one another. Love heals, love transforms, and love never fails.

My inner 15 year old smiles, and whispers, “I will always love you, Harry.”

© 2009, Erin. All rights reserved.

©2012 The Single Rider. All Rights Reserved.

Whatever happened to Harry? is a series written as a follow up to My “cougar” days, part one

In the meantime, I’d also done what all women seem to do when such life questions arise – I took it to “mah sistas”. I am fortunate enough to be a member of not just one, but TWO private online communities of amazing women who gather daily to hold one another up in both joy and sorrow. The most resonating answer I got was from a wise woman who likened sexual preference to a bell curve. On the one end, you have your hard-core heterosexuals, and on the other end, your hardcore homosexuals. And then, there are those who can and do ride the curve, often but not always leaning discernibly toward one side or the other… how far can they go, where is the line, and how close to it can they dance?

I now understood it was not only possible that I had been genuinely loved – it was also very probable. There was once place left to turn in order to validate that – my diary from 10th grade.

I began keeping a diary when I was about 13, and did so with a very deliberate purpose in mind. I had the distinct impression that the adults in my life had forgotten what it’s like to be a kid, and I wanted to always remember. In those days, I had yet to arrive in the place where I’d challenged the validity of moving unquestioningly from childhood into the traditional wife/mother role. At that time, I had still believed that someday I would have children, and if I didn’t want to fuck them up and make them hate me, I’d better set about documenting everything. This way, I would never forget, never belittle their fears and aspirations, or disparage any of the other things that were important to them. As it turns out, I am childless by choice, and my nieces have been the primary beneficiaries of having an aunt who has remained close to the emotions of her inner teenager.

Fetching my 10th grade diary necessitated a foray into The Box. The last time I had visited The Box was sometime in April; spurred on by the rekindling of old acquaintances on Facebook, I actually removed the yellowed packing tape, opened the lid, and started reading for the first time in some 30+ years. My choice of reading material on that occasion had made me incredibly sad. I was hoping this wouldn’t be a repeat…

TO BE CONTINUED…

© 2009, Erin. All rights reserved.

©2012 The Single Rider. All Rights Reserved.

Whatever happened to Harry? is a series written as a follow up to My “cougar” days, part one

“First of all,” Spencer replied, “what do PEOPLE see in you?”, whereupon he rattled off a number of my finer attributes that would be appealing to anyone of any “cognizance, originality, coolness or forthrightness”. OK, this is good, I thought. He’s made me feel better already In typical Spencer fashion, he then proceeded to inject a little levity into the situation. He joked that every gay man wants to be associated with a “diva”, and reminded me how attractive he’d found my “Peggy Lipton hairdo” back in the 80s, when I was going through my long-and-screamingly-blonde phase.

Finally, he got down to brass tacks. He first pointed out that birds of a feather tend to flock together; that I’d been reared in a household with a very specific family dynamic that included a “very present, difficult, and perhaps even hostile mother” – as had he, and many other gay men he knew. He pointed out a commonality; gay men tend to grow up as “minorities” against whom discriminatory practices have been perpetrated, and hadn’t I grown up under similar conditions, as the only daughter in a very strict and traditional household that afforded the sons far more social freedom? He pointed out that even though he self-identifies as gay and has been in a long-term relationship with a male partner for quite some time, he is still occasionally sexually and romantically attracted to women possessing certain attributes. Finally, Spencer said, “TRUST ME, he still thinks about you from time to time,” and urged me to make contact.

After digesting his email, I came to understand what Spencer was trying to tell me; if empathy is compelling enough, then it can metamorphosize into an attraction that is not only agnostic of gender, but strong enough to transcend sexual orientation as well.

Spencer’s email gave me much fuel for thought, and I eventually realized that being gay was probably not the only thing Harry and Mark held in common. There was probably another similarity between them. I’ve joked in the past about “Peter Pan – he’s every man I’ve ever dated”, but it’s really no joke. There IS something about me, but it doesn’t attract gay men; it attracts the “motherless lost boys” of the world. As luck would have it, some of them happen to be gay. I’m still not sure WHY this is the type I attract; I’m playing with a theory, but it’s not well-formed just yet, so I’ll leave it for another time.

I was not at all sure that contact was appropriate. Harry had changed his name for a reason, maybe because he did not want to be found. I wasn’t at all sure that I wanted contact, either…

TO BE CONTINUED…

© 2009, Erin. All rights reserved.

©2012 The Single Rider. All Rights Reserved.

Whatever happened to Harry? is a series written as a follow up to My “cougar” days, part one

The question had haunted me way back then when I’d found out about Mark, but other boys had been waiting in the wings and I was soon distracted enough to put such thoughts aside. Now that I knew about Harry too, it seemed really important to find the answer.

It is very difficult to explain what it feels like to know that you have fallen for not one but two guys who, as it turns out, supposedly “don’t like girls” – at least not THAT way. When your understanding of the sexuality spectrum includes only black and white, you can walk away from such an experience feeling as though the person you fell in love with was someone you’d made up. You experience an uncomfortable epiphany – it’s possible that his declarations of love had been lies. You vaguely suspect that you’ve been used unwittingly as the implement of some sort of deception, but you’re not quite sure if that’s entirely accurate, or who it was supposed to fool – himself, you or the world. And finally – you hope this is not the case, but you sort of dread the thought that maybe this whole thing might be a commentary on your own feminine allure, or lack thereof. I’m not the girly-est of girls – all those brothers, you know, plus a sense of justice that does not allow for the notion of freezing to death in a skirt when the boys get to stay warm wearing pants. So, my fevered and panicked brain reasoned, maybe the straight guys don’t find any of that as appealing as the gay guys do? WTF?!?!?!!!

I needed an answer to this question. There were two places I could go to get some clues. One of them was my 10th grade diary. The other was Spencer.

I have known Spencer since we were both in our early 20s and he was still dating women. I don’t recall exactly when or how he came out, which may simply indicate that it was sort of a non-event among the people close to him. He didn’t make a big announcement or anything. He just kind of slid out. We had studied voice with the same teacher, and we did get to perform together once in a production of Cavalleria Rusticana, in which he took great and gleeful pleasure in flinging me to the ground during the lovers’ quarrel duet. Spencer now lives and performs in Europe.

I was convinced that he’d truly been crazy about some of the women he’d dated, even contemplating marriage and children with one of them. If anyone could help me to understand, it was Spencer. Shortly after my googling spree and subsequent discovery about Harry, I fired off an email to Spencer, which explained in brief about both Harry and Mark, and asked the $64,000 question…

TO BE CONTINUED…

© 2009, Erin. All rights reserved.

©2012 The Single Rider. All Rights Reserved.

Whatever happened to Harry? is a series written as a follow up to My “cougar” days, part one

Truthfully, my outer 49 year old wasn’t doing so well now, either. This was not the first time I’d discovered that a boy I’d loved and thought loved me was, in fact, gay. During my senior year in high school, I’d dated Mark, who was two years older (sorry, no cougar story there). Mark ran hot and cold about us to extremes. He was crazy in love with me one minute, but then he’d disappear for a couple of weeks. He would return all in love with me again, and kiss my ass to get back into my good graces, or else he’d pretend he’d never been gone and everything was fine. He swore to me that he was not seeing another girl; I guess I should have asked a less gender-specific question.

At one point, Mark had me so convinced that he loved me and that we were meant to be together forever, he became my “first” – a much more significant first than just kissing. But he just kept disappearing periodically, and I didn’t know why, or what I’d done to alienate him, or why he kept coming back. At some point, I was prepared to go to my senior prom with someone else, but then he swooped back into my life and declared that HE was taking me and no one else.

He broke up with me that night. He broke up with me forever and for good at my senior prom. That really sucked. I think the only people with prom memories worse than mine are the ones that inhabit Stephen King’s Carrie.

A couple of weeks later, I ran into a mutual friend who knew the truth and had the compassion to tell me. That’s how I found out Mark was gay, and that all those times he wasn’t with me, he’d been with some guy named Angel… he’d been confused, he couldn’t make up his mind which way to go, so he kept bouncing back and forth between the two of us until he wasn’t confused any more. (Excuse me? You were confused, so you decided to relieve me of my virginity? )

My inner 15 year old stood up at this point, yanked at my sleeve, and demanded to know, “What is it about me that attracts gay men?”

I had no idea what to tell her.

TO BE CONTINUED…

© 2009, Erin. All rights reserved.

©2012 The Single Rider. All Rights Reserved.

Whatever happened to Harry? is a series written as a follow up to My “cougar” days, part one

So, here’s what happened to Harry. Harry apparently grew up to become the owner of a talent agency… an adult entertainment talent agency… an all-male, adult entertainment talent agency.

Shocked, I sat quietly for a moment, allowing what I’d just learned to sink in. And then I laughed. And I laughed and laughed and laughed. Harry always was a little bit on the outrageous side. OK, a LOT on the outrageous side. My friends always said three things about him. Well, four, if you count, “You guys look great together!”. They said he was funny, they said he had beautiful baby blues, and they said, “But my GAWD, he’s totally OBNOXIOUS!”.

My 15 year old self agreed wholeheartedly that we looked good together; we were around the same height, so we just kind of fit together walking down the hallways at school, arms wrapped around each other. I also agreed that he was funny and that his eyes were a wondrous shade of blue (it is worth noting that I love the color blue so much, I coveted a blue suede sofa from Crate and Barrel for years, and finally bought it last spring). However, coming from a household with three brothers, I had a high tolerance for “obnoxious” and barely noticed it. I just took it in stride that when dealing with teenaged boys, a certain quantity of “obnoxious” comes with the territory. When we were one-on-one, Harry was just a funny, sweet boy with a wicked – but never mean – sense of humor. However, when a wider audience was available, that’s when he was “on”. I still wouldn’t call it “obnoxious” – more like “outrageous”. He didn’t just entertain, he “shockertained”; the more off-beat and out-there he could be, the better it delighted him. It was like he was testing us – how far could he go, where was the line, how close to it could he dance?

I broke myself out of the reverie of distant memories. I wanted to know more.

It wasn’t long before I’d amassed a fair amount of information regarding what Harry had been doing with himself for at least the last 5 years or so. He’d left a fairly easy-to-follow breadcrumb trail across the internet under his new name, and I soon came to understand that he was a fairly big shit deal in the gay community in his area, well-respected for his contributions to adult entertainment industry practices, and for his donations to charitable causes as well. As I continued to learn about him, I was startled to realize that my 49 year old self could look back in time, see the signs, and fully accept what everything I was reading about him implied – but my inner 15 year old was having a really rough time with it. She flat out would not accept mere “implications”, and kept pushing me to search for something concrete that spelled it out in no uncertain terms.

OK, here we go; MySpace. Harold A*****, age 40-something. Same logo from the business, instead of a head shot.

Status: In a relationship.

Orientation: Gay

My inner 15 year old deflated and crumbled into a crestfallen heap…

TO BE CONTINUED…

© 2009, Erin. All rights reserved.

©2012 The Single Rider. All Rights Reserved.

Whatever happened to Harry? is a series written as a follow up to My “cougar” days, part one

I hope you will all excuse me for taking a little breather. I needed some processing time. I’m going to interrupt my intended “cougar” series to tell you all about it. After you read what I’m about to tell you, I think you will forgive me; it was a little difficult to wrap my brain around it.

I ended my last post by recounting whatever became of the “engagement” ring and the tiny, perfect, silver cross. Not long after posting, I started to wonder whatever became of Harry. And so, I took my madd googling skillz to the interwebz and launched a quest to locate Harry, long-lost bestower of first kisses.

I started in the logical place – Facebook. It’s like the village green of the entire planet, or maybe more like Tevye’s dream in Fiddler On The Roof – eventually, everyone you ever knew is going to pass through there. Unfortunately, a search for “Harry M*** “ came up nil; likewise “Harold M***”. I googled around a bit but kept coming back to Facebook, looking for people we’d hung out with back then, to see if they knew how to contact him.

And then one morning over coffee, I remembered Harry’s sister Jennie. She and my older brother were in the same graduating class, and we’d had an elective together – History of the Occult, where the only thing I remember learning is that Dracula’s real name was Vlad the Impaler. I found her profile easily, and cruised through her friends list in search of her brother. The only “Harry” I found on her friend list was a “Harold A*****”. Disappointed, I abandoned the search and started my work day.

But something kept nibbling at my brain about this. It was not improbable that he just wasn’t on Facebook – after all, none of my own brothers had signed up. Still, something nagged at me about it. I could not get it off my mind, and then halfway through the work day, it dawned on me. I remembered teasing Harry about his initials, but being a theater geek, he was quite proud that they spelled H.A.M. …..

Before I knew it, I found myself wading through Jennie’s friend list again, clicking on Harold A*****, whereupon I was faced with the typical “Harold only shares certain information with everyone. To learn more about Harold, add him as a friend.” Well, I wasn’t about to do that until I was sure. His profile picture was no help. It was not actually a picture, but the logo of some dot com. I plugged the address into the URL bar, and…

Oh.

My.

GAWD

I hit the “back” button on the browser, fast.

TO BE CONTINUED…

© 2009, Erin. All rights reserved.

©2012 The Single Rider. All Rights Reserved.