.. Busy relaxing that is!  I am going to the diner for a breakfast.  I will take a package to the post office.  I will put up solar Christmas lights that I ordered,  outside, around the windows.  I have tested them the past few days, some  work fairly well. Some don't work at all on the overcast day but a specific kind do and I ordered another set of those.

It isn't so much the cost of electricity,  it is stringing the cord in through the window during the freezing cold winter that causes problems.  One  or two windows it isn't so bad,  right above radiator heat but over where there is no radiator,  you don't want any little space with the Old North Wind getting in.

I'll put the solar xmas lights outside those windows so I don't have to deal with it.

The problem with putting stuff on the inside of the window,  except for one window where traffic can see it directly,  the windows are inset back in HUGE stone block so you can't really see the lights well unless you are in a building looking out the window or farther away.  When I put the Christmas lights out,  I want the most visual effect as possible.

I am not doing what I have done in the past,  hang giant candy canes and a big plastic spiral tree out the windows,  although the star is still up on the side of the building and if it still works I may plug that in.  I'm not going up on the roof and dealing with string and extension cords and stuff like I did last year,  although it was nice and got complements from the neighbors and cheered some people up...

I have gotten out all the Christmas decorations and it is nice and messy.

I need a tree ASAP and I have listed many things on eBAy already and just sold a Christmas ornament for the wonderful increased mark up of... well, a  lot,  I paid $48 dollars for it in 1995,  had it signed by Christopher Radko , and someone just paid me $400 for it on eBay... Woo hoo...

 I will have lots of space... I'm selling all the large ornaments and the big vintage looking mica cardboard houses and Christmas Shit that I really am tired of storing...

I'm totally not into it,  will put the money right into the IRA where it should have gone anyhow and close up shop. .  I"m tired of clutter.   I do this every year and tend to purchase fewer things and am now finally seeing a horizon.  I may not have anything left to sell on eBay one day!!  I may have the ability to put stuff away and not have to turn my apartment into a giant puzzle of boxes within boxes...

I really vacuumed behind the sofa and behind the TV and computer and finally got all the wires up and and the modem and the router set in place, the router on the wall, the old phone cords out,  dusting under furniture and bed and taking a BUNCH of SHIT to the garbage. 

I wore a mask but it was warm enough to open the windows on Wednesday and put a fan out and I ordered 3 new air filters/purifiers that arrived so I got a TON of dust out,  although ridding your environment of dust completely is impossible, and I should know...

I have a thing about dust....

I'm keeping some treasured vintage stuff only.  

I gotta go get productive.  I watched ton of movies,  we had a wonderful Thanksgiving dinner in here and I had the Berri Acai Absolut or whatever it is...  and I made crafts yesterday and sorted out a bunch of xmas crap...

Crafts,  I decoupaged a few things with Mod Podge,  glued some vintage looking cutouts on wooden or paper boxes,  glittered and finished up a little Halloween House...

I made a Christmas box to put the little tea lights that came in a messy bag  out of an old cigar box...

This is probably how I relax as I usually do this at holiday time or when it is too cold to go out...  I like the cold better than the humid heat... but I don't like to be out in it when it is uncomfortable.

Crafts have often kept me off the streets.

I finished up a wind chime made of beads, bamboo and stone fall leaves and began gluing some Xmas figures to little round platforms and putting "snow" around the feet, and picking out greenery and other tiny things to put on them...  The wind chime was from last year...

I get very creative when I get in a crafty mood and am having a nice holiday weekend....  Although I am anxious for Christmas to sort out the decorations and really sell as much as I can part with and not have to pack stuff up again at the end of the year..

So that is what I have been doing.  Drama free and not freezing.

This could also be considered isolation and certain people would think I should get out and socialize which I fully intended to but it just gets so comfy...
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...it is the Monday of Thanksgiving week. 

For me,  this marks the beginning of the long winter holiday which started in early childhood and meant a break from the anxiety of being out in the world of school.  There was anxiety of many people over but excitement about the family get together and seeing my nieces and nephews and I had the tranquility of my room to retreat to when I became overwhelmed.

Nobody knew I was becoming overwhelmed and over stimulated.  I did not know myself until an adult looking back. 

I only fully realized myself, in my late 30's,  when watching Soilent Green,  the movie,  as it brought back the memory of the loud noises and shocking scenes, the large screen and lights and the memory of how sick it made me and the terrible migraine headache that started in the theater watching it.

Anyhow... travel was never on my agenda,  Mom and Dad were the top of the chain and everyone came to our house.  It was jittery and exiting at the same time.... the feeling of wanting to mingle but wanting to hide at the same time... at least I was with familiar people. 

I have found New York a place in which you can be totally invisible in plain open crowded daylight.  I prefer it.  I don't like to be noticed...  I don't know why..

After moving East it was the worst part,  having holidays alone or with strangers,   often though preferring to be alone and use the down time for regeneration and rest. 

Now they know that introverted people are often that way because they process things more slowly. I know I do. (according to this book and that, pages numbered and written by people) 

  I have known that I sense time in a different way than most people do.   I can't explain it in words well.  Terrified to fly,  and traveling being so stressful that avoiding it was the only option.  I could make myself sick traveling....

I need like 6 extra hours in a day,  or a 3 days a week,  or at least clear weekends to function properly.  If I overload myself,  I function less well and I suffer, as well does everything else.   I need "plop" time to regenerate and recharge.

I used to want to hibernate during the winter holidays but these few years and this year I want to go outside and enjoy the city more and more.   This year I am thinking of watching them inflate the balloons for the parade the night before, and or going to the parade in the morning.   They are predicting rain but it at least it isn't freezing snow like it has in the past....

I will have 5 days off.  I need to do a ton of stuff in the apartment, as far as getting rid of stuff on eBay... and condensing and getting out the little fake fireplace/heater and deciding where I am going to put the Christmas tree and what I will do is decorate with all the vintage Christmas collectibles that I will put up for sale on eBay, that way whatever sells won't have to be stored again!   I am so sick of clutter!

So, I like this Monday because I only work 2 days,  we got Wednesday off!  and I'm not worried about the meal,  we have enough food to cook and I am itching to go out so we may just end up at some diner or restaurant if we got to the parade and take photographs.... 

Anyhow... that is my Monday blurt and I am all wishing I could stay here and hold the comfortable cat who is sleeping peacefully but also exited to get in and get out and get on with the season!  Old Man Winter and The Old North Wind, I am ready!!
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For some reason I want to say "Ice Blue".

What are your Thanksgiving plans,  traditional or non-traditional,  like mine??
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I have carried this big book to work anyway. It is that good.

I just love Thursday.  Tomorrow is Friday and then of course the weekend.

I have nothing to blog about but just feel the urge to type type type.

If I type too much on Facebook it just seems I am annoying people,  although I don't know why.  Facebook is not a blog... I should never have gone there...

I need to get a Twitter account.  I keep wanting to blurt things out during the day and I assume that is what it is for.

In fact,  I have heard, I do not know this as fact,  but that Twitter came about because people kept getting the urge to update their Facebook status repeatedly with short sentences...

Often nonsense.  At times profound.   A lot can be said in one sentence.

I am about to start the tome,  Under The Dome by Stephen King but I think it is too bulky to carry around so I'll just read it here.  I need something to read on the subway...

I saw someone's Nook yesterday,  you know,  their Kindle,  their E-reader and for the first time I thought, hey, I might like one of those.

I don't know.  I love books.  I can't get over the idea that the book dies and electronic media takes over.  I don't think this will ever actually happen.  I think books are always going to be around even though they will also be in electronic form as long as there is no electro magnetic pulse, or until that happens...

Okay, I am going to stop here... just needed to blog. I think I am going to start coming back here on a regular basis,  like every morning,  like I used to.. Just to vent and blurt and fulfill the urge to type out words,  instead of signing onto Facebook.

I think what has been lost, in fact I know it... is the act of blogging or writing or typing for myself...  I miss that... thinking there is a reader out there reading this is different.  It changes things...

The blog started as a journal,  but then the audience were strangers....  Having an identity changes things.

Here I can at least just  blurt a hundred or two words, even if not annoying someone,  and people are bugged by the status updates on their phone and email constantly from me....  that is how I picture it , reality or not...

I also like to waste time here because often I blog until the last minute having to rush to get ready for work.

Now I will stop because of the above idea.

Have a great day.
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I have this urge to write but nothing really important to say.... Updated my Facebook status 3 or 4 times before I realized I needed to hit the blog.

I was so sore,  my lower back... I thought it was a kidney infection since it went on for so long so I went to the Dr. even though I had no other symptoms except aches and lethargy...

It is sore muscle pain from I suppose wild dancing last weekend,  Nov 5th, and I'm still sore, but then I realize this past Saturday I spent with a burst of energy and warm weather really cleaning up and moving crap around and packing away summer clothing... I think I over did it and didn't even realize it.... 

No wonder Momma didn't dance and Daddy didn't rock and roll.   The Doc gave me Motrin....  I felt silly...  Sunday and Monday I drank 2 bottles of real cranberry juice and ate a WHOLE BAG of cranberry which I pureed in the blender...

At least my kidney isn't affected and now probably nice and cranberry juiced all up in there.

It's gonna be warm today, '60's.

I want to stay in and open all the windows and dust the place and CLEAN UP, it looks like a cyclone went through here.  I have seasonal clothes strewn about.   A suit to dry clean and one to have altered.  I have more things hanging on hangers than I have closet space.  I need to pay bills and get finances in order.

I'm discombobulated.  This will be the first weekend that I don't have something planned since I don't know when.  However,  I just want to get out and do something.  Take photos or go for a walk or get tickets at Duffy Square for a show or go to a museum or even Coney Island...

I want to escape my apartment but I know I need to stay here and clean and organize it.  It is really a "bachelor pad" right now... totally messy! 

This is mostly because of the clothing situation and the weather... half season,  bringing out gloves, scarves, hats, jackets,  giving stuff to the thrift shop,  trying stuff on...

I got new shoes in the mail from Urban Outfitters and they are too big!  They are the "available on line only" shoe but I may just keep them because they don't have a half size smaller available.  They are "wearable"... I could just use a half size smaller.

Last night I sat home and had chicken chili from a can from Trader Joe's.   Trader Joe's has good canned chili of beef, chicken or turkey.   I watched television and I fought an urge to go out.

I had no crackers.
But I had cheese.

I had no beer. 

...I keep forgetting to bring home beer and thus have not had beer at home since the season changed.

I still want the blueberry Absolute but I don't have that yet either.  I actually don't really drink all that much.

I used to be agoraphobic and want to stay in all the time.  Now I think I have beaten that,  at least for now... but it is almost more annoying to want to go out all the time when there is actually stuff in here to do.... 

Even though I have been working on the change for many years, this is sudden.  It has happened before, I think I may have a mild mild form of bi-polar disorder,  but the manic part is rarer, or has been rarer and shorter lasting in the past,  now it seems to be having more success and I am energetic and more outgoing than not more often.

It probably isn't bi-polar or mania actually... it is probably an active imagination. Anxiety and depression can be real,  but they're nothing fancy.

Or it could be that I was just so used to being depressed and anxious when I was younger that even what would be a "normal" state to me seems like elation...

It doesn't matter anyhow, this is just time passing as I type for no reason.

I felt like I was "blogging" too much on Facebook but it isn't really a weblog...

For some reason,  a ton of anxiety and agoraphobia has gone way down.  I am wondering if it is my age.   I am happier in life than I have ever been for no apparent reason.

I am grateful.

I am going to do the crossword puzzle and attempt to make my apartment not a "MAN CAVE"... there are papers and dust and clothing and crap all around.... it is really really like I am in my 20's and it is because of being busy and the weather...  And from going out and not taking time to do stuff and going to the wedding and polluting my system last weekend did not help the situation either.  I had the time of my life but  I am actually still recovering from last Friday.  I am still sore from dancing.

There are so many things to do I need to make a list.  Some of the things are things that NEED to be done and some are things that I would LIKE to do.... 

And, there are more things to do that can be done in a 48 hour period, even without sleep!
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What are you doing on this fine Saturday???
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Thursdays are good.  The next day is Friday, which is even better, of course, but the season has changed so swiftly and I can center myself this weekend as there is nothing planned.  Settle in to the chilly air. 

Last weekend I went to a wedding and got polluted on wonderful blueberry Absolute, campaign and wine.  I didn't do anything terrible however I was not myself and felt terrible about having lost a bit of I want to say "control" but it was more like 'reserve' and i suppose 'inhibitions' could be used too.

I facebooked the wedding as it was happening and not really thinking about it,  of course nothing sinister or insulting and the bride is fine with it, however I hadn't asked her before and for some reason I feel like I might know how sensitive a "bride" can be,  although I realize it is stereotyping someone which always turns out to have little to do with the truth or the reality of the situation...      Everyone thought it was funny etc...  I just felt bad and guilty for getting drunk, I suppose...

Then I saw the Lion King which I already didn't rave about and this weekend I have planned NOTHING!  I need to get the DUST out of the apartment before it gets really COLD...

I will vacuum and do the floor and clean and get rid of paper and scraps and pay bills and tend to business so to speak and it will be nice.

Over the Thanksgiving holiday I think there are several things I want to do;  I want to see the Radio City Music Hall Christmas Spectacular, but that can be done after Thanksgiving if need be...  I would like to see the King Tut Exhibit at the Discovery Museum while it is still here and,   I would like to do a Circle Line Cruise around Manhattan and take photos of the foliage and skyline,   or go to the park,  and there is still Untermeyer Park which I never made it to the day before Halloween...

What else...  I may do one or two or none or a few of these things....

One of my biggest remaining problems in life is the ability to fill my calendar in advance.  I have a hard time with setting something up in advance.

So far,  I've been able to understand that,  specifically,  one reason I do this may be "In Case I Change My Mind, Something Happens,  Or I Otherwise Decide to Back Out"... 

This comes directly from a history of not knowing how I would "feel" on any given point in time in the future,  related to being paralyzed with depression and probably a host of other symptoms and negative emotions all festering together in a knot of anxiety the size of Cincinnati... AND

As an adult,  I have also identified a HUGE FEAR of ANTICIPATION... that is certainly part of  why I do not like "future" events to "look forward to"... 

In fact, even writing the word ANTICIPATION has just made my heart race.... I am a biological pincushion and ANTICIPATION is a barrel cactus.

I prefer to do stuff at the last minute.  I just actually said that possibly for the first time...  I don't like to plan things, i like to plan "nothing" as a thing... and THEN change my mind...

I don't mind turning NOTHING into SOMETHING....

It is just when SOMETHING really needs to be NOTHING and I'm STUCK ABOUT IT,  and often it involves disappointing or otherwise "letting others down" so that it is just easier to politely decline in the first place and let them think that it is all about them,  at least they will be quiet about it.... and I am talking about people in general, whether it be a party of co-workers,  a group of church people,  friends.....   true friends of course know your foils and can talk about it with you though.... 

but  that is a problem ... I have avoided events,  really people,  often for the pre-anxiety related to the event itself as well as the horrible fear of "walking into a room" or whatever people want to call it who don't know it so can't possibly understand it... it is the horrible feeling you get when biochemicals go awry.  Feelings where they shouldn't be and out of place and of a great degree... The "Fight or Flight" syndrome at someone's birthday party... it just doesn't match...

My heart would race like a caveman confronting a T-Rex while I would be at the little girls birthday party in first grade...

And how can you ever explain all that?    Sooner or later,  those feelings beat you down.

It is a terrible feeling rattling around in my rib cage...

I think coffee may excite it as well and the MORNING NEWS...  Do they do that on purpose? 

... I gotta go do this day.. it isn't bad now... I'm just saying this is why I love Thursday and THIS specific Thursday in particular because it is the blank weekend after a stretch of a few busy weekends....

Time beats down as pressure underwater instead of being broken into minutes,  seconds, and other small degrees like the rainstorm it is.
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Facebook is not the place to spew. 

I am stuck in a K-hole of blogging askew.  I want to say things like:

Now that the election is over, can we stop talking about politics again???

And, what happens when I want to say things like "I actually watched George W. Bush last night,  and WHOA, I had  a dream, below, last Saturday night which was certainly a precursor to this interview, in my mind anyway, but you weren't there, so ....whatever... but I also would say insulting things to people who may uphold the George W. Bush platform....   I don't want to insult people...

It was on before The Event and that was what I was watching anyhow so I saw it...

He didn't write the book, he was coached and he was instructed on what to say by his media people...

Better to be humble than to crash and burn.
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I didn't want to say that.... I started to blog about the killer Steven Hayes who just got the Death Penalty which I previously didn't believe in but in this specific case I am really really torn...   I don't know what to believe anymore.  It makes sense.  But the fact that he wants to die also really gives me wonder...

Not about right and wrong but about the limits and the mistakes of human biology.

I am not sure what he wants and can't presume to know his mind , only his acts and that is why I leave the punishment of Death in the hands of these jurors.  I can not imagine the experience on the jury. 

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I am going to do a quick blog here.   I saw The Lion King.  I have been hearing about how wonderful and fantastic it is for years, only raves only raves...

I'm gonna be honest here,  sure it was creative, but yawn...

By the end,  I was singing "I Just Can't Wait To Be HOME!"""" and wished it would hurry up.

Nice puppet show... Pure Disney....  there are too many tourists in Times Square is all I have to say..

Next,  I had this beautiful dream including my mother and George W. Bush.

This was the eve of Halloween, 10/30/10.

In the dream I have been working at a camp near a bay of water,  below the hills, mountains.  This is much like a camp I worked at in the foothills of Malibu Ca, one summer.   In this dream, the work time is over and I have gone up into the hills.

There is a huge mansion there, and I am meeting my mother. 

We are at the steps of the mansion and I realize that it is the George and Laura Bush residence.   Me and Mom want to talk to George Bush.

It is the present day and he is no longer president.  I am dressed very well, in a suit and tie, and Mom is dressed very well as well, as I remember her dressing for church on Sundays during childhood.

I walked gingerly up the steps,  I was very worried about scaring the Bushes.  I thought he would think I was an assassin or a bomber or something, and be a threat to him and that he was going to be afraid of me.  I was surprised at there being no security or police or any type of barrier to the entrance to this mansion.

I even looked for security cameras watching me but there were none.

The "Mansion" was also a bit humble,   less than a plantation mansion but more like a smaller city mansion in a southern state. It had concrete steps.  I was able to knock on the door and then retreated quickly back down the steps so I would be as non-threatening as possible.

To my surprise,  former president George W. Bush asked us to come in. There was Laura Bush and probably the daughters in the background,  other people I didn't interact with.   We all went into a big room and sat in a circle on the floor.  We had tea.  Very British like.  There were white doilies and we were sitting on a white cloth which had been placed over the floor, like a picnic...

We had a nice and calm discussion and no one was angry and mad.  My mother was mad,  but for her it wasn't really mad.  She was stern.  She told him stuff that she didn't like,  like the war hadn't been right... And other things....

She made it clear she was angry at him but we had a pleasant discussion,  I may have mediated the discussion a bit.  George Bush was meek and sorry and very guilty.   It was basically a calm and non eventful question and answer and my mom telling him a thing or two.

I woke up with a big grin on my lips,  as we were leaving down the path,  I was telling mom that it was awfully arrogant of her to say that to the former president....

I woke up calm and smiling and thinking about my mother being calm and peaceful and anger going away in general.

I hope this is true.
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I might say something about last night's production of The Addams Family starring Bebe Neuwirth and Nathan Lane, and the very first thing I would say is I am RUSHING to see JACKIE HOFFMAN at "Jackie Five-OH!" at Joe's Pub to celebrate her 50th birthday on Mondays 11/22 and 11/29 and 12/6 and 12/13.

Then I would make some jokes about the rest of the play related to morbidity and dying.

There is the idea that Charles Addams did die and that this is the celebration his work about the humor of death but it is a spiraling staircase to a deep dark hole and I don't want to go there.... as says Wednesday about the dredges of her own subconsciousness...

There is a clever if not expected story line,  Wednesday wears a yellow dress,  she falls for a normal boy and senses changes in herself,  she is falling in love.  What will Wednesday learn about the "non-Addams" world,  the world happiness and flowers and sunshine and boys...

The drama unfolds as the hapless and normal Happy Family, complete with yellow dressed wife and Lucas,  the object of Wednesday's desire drop in for dinner, al-la Rocky Horror and get stuck overnight due to foul weather.

Wednesday takes center stage as the girl with the dreams and the rest of the Addams gang have to suck up and act normal for a day... or at least try to..

Slap this all together,  cut and paste with a troupe of ghostly dancers and delightfully detailed Disneyesque sets,  and is that a bad thing,  ... I kept looking for the discretely placed headstone figure from the Haunted Mansion at Disney to spring to life and blurt something out....  thankfully he didn't but he looks so poised to...

Well, not adding the actual names of the actors who played Wednesday and the Yellow Happy woman... is a sign of laziness.... If I were really writing a review I'd have to research all that crap...

Wednesday and the Rhyming Lady stole the show,  Nathan Lane is peaking, he carried the show...  some gags and gimmicks kept the children very happy except the little BRAT sitting behind me and I would like whoever the hell that was NOT to bring your toddling spawn into a BROADWAY THEATER! 

It was the perfect Show for Halloween.   The tunes are catchy,  I think...

Bebe didn't look like she was into being Morticia too much but maybe she was having a bad night.

In the end,  as in the OZ story,  we find that our own self is the normal thing that we need to learn to accept and be happy with,  and hell, everyone else is pretty okay too ( unless you live in Ohio ) and also, we need to look death in they eye and laugh at it. We know it is coming for us all... so why not get comfortable with that to begin with so you can get on with your life?    ( and obviously flee the smoldering void of middle America....)

It was morbidly cute and clever and did I say morbid?... sometimes a bit too cute, sometimes slapped together... Fester was there  as was Lurch....   and brief appearances by Cousin It and Thing... 

I smelled Micky Mouse though and that did not sit well...
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It was slapstick... It was let's slap and stick together a cutesy musical because Addams just died and a bunch of people can make a bunch of money really fast off of ignorant tourists... and others who don't know better...

I don't know what to think...    I don't want to ask for my money back and I didn't fall asleep however I didn't really want to use the time afterward waiting for the autographs of the stars and that is an indicator of something negative...  I'm not sure what yet...
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The fact that the story is New York Centric stole my heart.

...and not to forget the nasal Pugsly..

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My blogging has been as sparse as the branches being stripped of foliage this very season...

I have been busy,  uninterested... otherwise occupied... painful in the neck and shoulder... all of the seasonal things that are combated with fish oil, alternation of lifestyle, improved diet, etc...

Rarely dreaming... nor remembering my dreams... I was fraught with stress and vivid dream scapes as late  as last Thursday past the witching hour, culminating into my Halloween Dream of last evening.

Let me just say on Wednesday morning and Thursday during the night I tossed and turned and dreamed and fought and screamed out loudly in the darkness... cursing stresses and strains of the real day....

Having had a ticklish sinus and a cold I may have been under the weather which is why I did nothing for Halloween this year except watch Horror movies and have a great Irish Breakfast...  And burned candles and celebrated in my own way so to speak.

The dream of Halloween will come first.  I don't want to forget it and I need to contemplate its deep seeded meaning awhile. (sic) (seated of course but I mean "seeded")

Things in the real world:  stress which was relieved on Thursday.   Physical illness/cold.  The weather... The Halloween Holiday.... A couple of stresses from talking to other people...

A trip planned to Untermeyer Park in Yonkers was canceled which I really wanted to go on to take photos that I decided better of because of my cold and the weather.   I missed Halloween and was a bit disappointed the later it got.

   : *(      This is my 50th Halloween and I sat it out but it was for the best.

Last night, in my dream...

I was in the mountains by a river in the Fall.  Colorful leaves are everywhere and on the ground,  the trees are in color and losing their leaves.  Indian Summer, it is warm. There is a mild river coming down the hill.  Everything is untouched, natural and beautiful, in  New England.   I am yearning to go swimming....

I am going to go to the "swimming spot"   the old "Swimming Hole"  that I am familiar with in this dream,  have been there before,  and am going to swim naked!   

I envision these memories,  I have done this many times before; I am going to take my clothes off and fold them and put them by the river and swim.  I remember doing this,  I remember old antique clothes, putting them on wet,  no underwear,  or a union suit,  dirty and putting it on still damp, dirty feet in sock-less boots.

The boots are OLD and poor... my feet are awful...

I realize these memories are coming from the previous century...  I scramble up the hill,  a naked and private sexual feeling surging through me. I feel a sense of adventure, anticipation...   I am going to masturbate, being naked out here in the wilderness and in this cool cold river,  in private alone with nature.

( this is certainly a dream because you would NOT EVER find me SWIMMING ALONE NAKED IN A RIVER,  sheesh, but in the dream I was someone else!  I from another time!) 

I was not afraid at all.  I had no experience with fear.   I had never seen Jaws nor thought about pollution or dirty water, or drowning or people seeing me... It all seemed as natural as pie... 

...anyhow,  the closer I got to the 'old swimming hole'  .... there I noticed houses and buildings and signs and fences.  I came upon a modern highway... I passed people hiking around and the trail became clear and more distinct!  It was well worn and beaten.  The nature was no longer pure.  There were fewer trees.    The air was cluttered with sound and planes... there were bicycles and fences and people and campers. 

Then there were food stands and resorts and wooden boardwalks and balconies and people all in bathing suits and at the old "SWIMMING HOLE"  there was full of people, vacationers and swimmers and then there was the previous lone old cabin with the old gay man who lived in it back in the woods,  right up next to the swimming hole.

I went up on the balcony to talk to him... Boy it sure was built up.  I was so disappointed.  The old man seemed happy and not to care... I was surprised he wasn't complaining about the people and noise and all this nature which had been built up and taken away...

he kind of shrugged it off.   The sexual feelings were squelched... sure there were gay people all around, and straight people and family and the same only more and more and resorts and cabins and canoes and people in the water swimming around and playing with their kids.

I was going to swim naked but he told me,  as I realized I probably didn't want to anyway... that I couldn't swim naked now.... It felt so unnatural not to though...

 I don't think I chose to swim at all..

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Happy All Saints Day!

Blessed Be.