St. Vincent

Wonderful what the Internet can do.

Consider it—you’ve wondered often and on for years about that “St. Vincent” in Edna St. Vincent Millay. But by the time you’ve summoned the energy to find your keys to go to the library to look it up, life has intruded.

The telephone has rung….

The cat puked on the floor!

And it’s occurred to you—why bother? Who, beyond Edna (long dead), cares?

Now, of course, you’re sitting in your favorite chair. The iPad (that wonderful aPple product) is on your lap. And you have the answer in seconds.

Well, Voracious Reader, I can now tell you. Yes, she was named after the hospital in New York City.

Not the only mystery about her. She was a tomboy—OK, incipient dyke—and went by the name of Vincent in her teens. Principal of the school didn’t buy in, and called her any female name beginning with “V.” Mother was a nurse who divorced her husband on the grounds of “financial irresponsibility.”

Well, she gets started early, our Vincent, when her poem “Renascence” gets fourth place in a national competition, though the first place winner said hers was better, and the second place winner gave his prize money to her. Lives in Greenwich Village, has affairs with both men and women, is an outspoken feminist. A wealthy benefactress hears her poetry—as well as her piano playing—and sends her off to Vassar.

Here she is—a dish!

Also a nice magnolia tree….

She wins the Pulitzer in her early thirties, and then marries, though both she and her husband had lovers throughout their marriage. They buy a big farmhouse in upstate New York, and a 800 acres island off the coast of Maine.

In the process, she may have settled down, a bit. She supports the Allies vigorously in World War II, and pays for it. Wikipedia reports that “Merle Rubin noted: "She seems to have caught more flak from the literary critics for supporting democracy than Ezra Pound did for championing fascism."

She dies young—fitting for the poet who burnt the candle at both ends—after falling down the stairs in her big house. Her sister Norma and husband move in, and become friends with a 17-year old Mary Oliver. Oliver stays for seven years at the house, and helps organize Millay’s papers.

Oliver goes on to become a major poet and wins the Pulitzer herself.

She seems to have had it all. The respect of her peers: Thomas Hardy—yes, the English novelist and poet—said that there were two great attractions in the United States, the skyscraper and Edna St. Vincent Millay. Recognition—always nice to have a Pulitzer! Love in many guises.

And enough money for a little island.

For all her merriness, there seems something dated and sad, now, about Millay. The adventuresome, outspoken girl has somehow become an older, historical woman. The dyke has become an icon….

I cannot but remember

I cannot but remember     When the year grows old—

October—November—

How she disliked the cold!

She used to watch the swallows

Go down across the sky,

And turn from the window

With a little sharp sigh.

And often when the brown leaves

Were brittle on the ground,

And the wind in the chimney

Made a melancholy sound.

She had a look about her

That I wish I could forget—

The look of a scared thing

Sitting in a net!

Oh, beautiful at nightfall

The soft spitting snow!

And beautiful the bare boughs

Rubbing to and fro!

But the roaring of the fire,

And the warmth of fur,

And the boiling of the kettle

Were beautiful to her!

I cannot but remember

When the year grows old—

October—November—

How she disliked the cold!

Monday Morning Musings

It’s curious when the structure of a second language works its way suifficiently into you that your first language seems strange.

“I am very sick,” said the note that Raf left on the stove last night.

And he was. I was woken at 5AM by the sound of it all—an alarming and unsettling way to begin the day.

And several hours later, I’m uncaffeinated or perhaps precaffeinated and wondering—what does that mean?

In Spanish, he would have written, “estoy muy enfermo.” (Actually, in good Puerto Rican Spanish, he would have written, “estoy bien enfermo.”)

There are, you see, two verbs in Spanish for the verb “to be” in English. And if Raf had written, “yo soy enfermo?”

He would have confessed—I’m one sick dude.

The verb ser—as in “soy enfermo”—is used to denote permanent characteristics, natural states. The verb estar is used to denote passing, temporary states. Soy feliz—I’m a happy kind of guy. Estoy feliz—right now I’m happy.

Well, I knew all of this because Ofelia had told me, those decades ago when I was putting my three words of Spanish together and seeing looks of blank confusion on the faces of my auditors. And she—a better teacher than I—gave me a very nice example. Listen carefully—a person says estoy casado—I’m married.

Not a good sign. Clear implication—right now I’m married….

Soy casado—you must meet my wife!

What Ofelia didn’t tell me, but what I figured out later, is that this all comes from Latin—duh!—and gets into Spanish, Portuguese, and Catalan. The verb ser in modern Spanish comes from esse in Latin. The verb estar in Spanish comes from the Latin stare.

Stare has the literal meaning of to stand. And it can be used that way—think the Stabat Mater, Mary standing by the side of the cross.

But it can be used more figuratively—“as things stand now” or “let’s see how that stands….”

These verbs, by the way, are copulas or copulative verbs. Of course, when I learned them—in a gentler, more refined time—nobody would have used the term. “Linking verb” was the term used. (Though it might be kind of fun to make the experiment, slide up to a babe at the bar, and whisper, “Hey, baby, you wanna link?”)

And the development of the ser / estar distinction took place late. Here’s a page—thanks, Wikipedia!—from Cantar del Mio Cid. Check out the third line, which reads Es pagado e davos su amor. Today it would be Está satisfecho, y la da su favor. (He is satisfied, and gives you his favor.)

The other curious factor is location. Notice that the three languages that develop the copulae are in the remote backwater of the Iberian Peninsula. Everybody else—with a few exceptions—generally continues to use their verb to be as did the Latin.

Well, it isn’t much of a post, this. I’ve not added anything significant to your day. But I did remember a poem with the “thus in the winter stands a lonely tree.” And that haunted me for a bit.

Looked it up, and here it is:

What lips my lips have kissed, and where, and why

BY EDNA ST. VINCENT MILLAY

What lips my lips have kissed, and where, and why,

I have forgotten, and what arms have lain

Under my head till morning; but the rain

Is full of ghosts tonight, that tap and sigh

Upon the glass and listen for reply,

And in my heart there stirs a quiet pain

For unremembered lads that not again

Will turn to me at midnight with a cry.

Thus in the winter stands the lonely tree,

Nor knows what birds have vanished one by one,

Yet knows its boughs more silent than before:

I cannot say what loves have come and gone,

I only know that summer sang in me

A little while, that in me sings no more.

From Aversion to Conversion

For those of you who don’t know, the cause of LGBT has come along way in recent years. In nine states plus Washington DC, folks who can wear each other’s clothes (barring differences in size, of course) can marry. That is, I think, big news.

Some of us, however, have been content to stay behind. In fact, burrow just a bit deeper into the past. No, let’s be honest. There are folks who are so intensely threatened by gay people that they would do anything up to a public stoning to be rid of us.

In the 1970’s, when I first began to deal with being gay (I had known since childhood) a crucial event had just taken place. Drag queens in a bar in New York got raided. Did they run? Nope—they stayed and fought.

Stonewall—the first glimmer of light into what was hitherto an utterly dark picture.

So I didn’t do what I would have done a decade earlier. I didn’t find a shrink, pay him or her 100 bucks an hour, and embark on the question of what my smothering mother Franny (many good qualities she had, that mother of mine, but smothering? Nah!) or my distant father (closer to the mark!) had done.

I went to the library and read.

Any book published in the previous five years had a message—it’s OK, you’re OK, hang on. Anything older than ten years was completely the opposite—you’re sick, seek help.

So I came out, dragging a lot of other people out as well. No, not other gay people, but other people who came to understand—being gay was no big deal.

On the day of my mother’s memorial service, I found myself at a table with the wife of my cousin, who was busily chatting with Raf. They were getting along like a house afire—virtually calling each other sister!—talking gardening, recipes, fashion. Having a wonderful time!

The same woman who homeschooled her children to keep the filth of evolution out of their innocent ears. Whose daughter had once written in the Christmas letter, “Mom is having some health issues but she and the Lord are resolving them.”

One felt a bit sorry for the Lord.

So we’re all in a better place, right? Thirty years ago, I would say to Raf, “hey, your Mom called today….”

“She say anything this time?”

“Nope, complete silence again….”

She would call every half hour, not say a word, and then, when Raf picked up, would speak.

“Mami, Marc said you called,” said Raf one day, tired of it all….

Right. Last week I cashed the birthday check she had written out and given me, with many kisses and endearments.

Well, I’m sorry to report that the progress has been less than 100% pervasive. And a federal judge in the state of California has upheld temporary injunction on a ban on conversion therapy.

Conversion therapy?

Yes, it’s still going on, still practiced, and no—nobody respectable believes in it. Here’s a choice description of the therapeutic methods, drawn from a lawsuit in November in New Jersey.

The therapy techniques described in that lawsuit included having participants strip naked in group sessions, cuddling and intimate holding of others of the same sex, violently beating an effigy of their mothers with a tennis racket, visiting bath houses "in order to be nude with father figures," and being "subjected to ridicule as 'faggots' and 'homos' in mock locker room scenarios."

It’s almost impossible to know which is greater—the ridiculousness of the techniques, or the sadness of men who would willingly consent to them, so horrified are they of their sexuality.

But wait—it’s not people willingly choosing to undergo this “therapy.”

The California ban applies only to minors under the age of eighteen.

Kids.

Dragged to the camp or the counselor’s office by their parents.

Here’s the judge’s reasoning:

U.S. District Judge William Shubb ruled Monday that the ban Gov. Jerry Brown signed earlier this year could offend the First Amendment rights of therapists to express their opinions about homosexuality.

And here’s mine:

The guy who cuts my hair has a license. The person who sprays perfume on ladies in Macy’s has a license. The person who drives me in his taxi has a license. When in God’s name are we gonna get rid of quacks who are messing around with the most vital thing any of us possess—the mind? 

Fifty years ago, it was aversion therapy—people looking at homoerotic images and receiving electrical shocks in the nether regions. Or being given emetics, so as to associate looking at men with puking.

It’s as wrong as it is vicious. Don’t believe me? Here’s the big boy himself, Sigmund Freud, on the subject:

"I gather from your letter that your son is a homosexual...it is nothing to be ashamed of, no vice, no degradation; it cannot be classified as an illness; we consider it to be a variation of the sexual function, produced by a certain arrest of sexual development. By asking me if I can help [your son], you mean, I suppose, if I can abolish homosexuality and make normal heterosexuality take its place. The answer is, in a general way we cannot promise to achieve it. In a certain number of cases we succeed in developing the blighted germs of heterosexual tendencies, which are present in every homosexual; in the majority of cases it is no more possible. It is a question of the quality and the age of the individual. The result of treatment cannot be predicted."

So maybe it's time to grow up?

That’s my first reaction, on hearing the news.

A couple kids in Australia decide to have some fun. Call up a hospital in London, imitate—apparently atrociously—the Queen and Prince Phillip and see if they can get through. Fun, hunh? Hey, cool, let’s try that.

You know how it played out. The call was transferred by a nurse—and no, I think I won’t give her name. She’s suffered enough. Why, even in a blog post that perhaps only a hundred people will read, should I drag her further down?

She’s dead, you see, and apparently by her own hand. She leaves behind a husband and two young children. She was, apparently, an excellent nurse. The court at Saint James insists they had put no pressure on the hospital, which says there was no disciplinary action taking place or planned at the time of her death. She had, as well, the complete support of her colleagues.

The radio station says that the two kids have voluntarily taken themselves off the air, and they express, of course, deep regret.

I believe that.

And when I say that it’s maybe to grow up, I don’t necessarily refer to the kids.

They’re kids—right?

What about the rest of us?

Down here in the island surrounded by mirrors, I was busy with a more grisly affair—the story of a publicist and his horrific death. And a scandalmonger in the form of a transvestite with a foam head who repeated all of the worst gossip about his death.

Today, the widow appears in the newspaper and says no. My husband was NOT on that nice-by-day-vice-in-the-night street after dark. It was a carjacking, that and nothing more—except for a vile, vicious, horrendous crime (I quote her directly, though her words were horrendo, vil y vicioso crímen).

A carjacking is a federal offense. Thus, they are being investigated by the FBI, and may be subject to the death penalty. There is therefore every reason for them to paint the picture of a man in search of illicit and paid pleasure, rather than a man standing at an ATM who feels a gun poked in his lower back.

Oh, and by the way, who might be the more credible witness—the wife-now-widow who has a job like the rest of us (well, most of us) or these four people, two of whom—I believe—are kids turned in by their parents, the other two who are low-lifes?

The widow is asking space for the family to grieve—certainly a reasonable request.

Though it may be a bit difficult on the day of the planned march, when the Todos Somos José Enrique group urges all Puerto Ricans to take to the streets and protest the tsunami of violence that has devastated the island.

Or when the boicotalacomay group continues its pressure to rip corporate sponsors from the transvestite’s show.

May I say something?

Corporations act—in general—on strictly economic principles. If there were a show on TV that everybody in Puerto Rico watched that was devoted to ornithology, guess what? Wal-Mart would sponsor it, and have an aisle full of binoculars in every store.

Jump to another island. If everybody in London / Great Britain read only The Economist, would the nurse have killed herself? There being no tabloids to play the story up?

And no, living as I am right here in my own little left field, I probably won’t march. What will it do? Will people—being generous here—who value human life at 400$ say, ‘wow, gee, maybe I should get an MBA!’

Let me propose something instead: the social contract. Let’s set up a booth along the way of the march, and get people to sign it.

Here goes….

I, a proud Puerto Rican, commit to the following:

1. I will say about people only things that I would say to their face. I will only listen to the same—no bochinche.
2. I will drive courteously and safely.
3. I will park legally.
4. I will clean up the island and keep it free of trash
5. I will behave in a way in public that draws no attention to myself—no loud music, loud voices. Oh, and I won’t be drunk in public.
6. I will greet people, even strangers, who are near me, and offer help when needed.
7. I will do my job fully, and give full value for what I am paid for.
8. I will assume that my politicians, my government, and my police are honest and hard working, and I will expect and demand courtesy and efficiency in return.
9. I will raise my children to respect authority, teachers, policemen, and adults in general, being always vigilant for the rare person who does not deserve this trust.
10. I will assume that everyone is operating on these principles, again being alert for those who are not.

I suggest these simple rules, because I have an answer to who killed José Enrique, and who killed the nurse.

We did.

We have blood on our hands, those of us who watch La Comay or read the tabloids. Or dish up a bit of chisme—that’s gossip for you guys up there—or refuse to stop when a cop flags us down. Or park on the sidewalk so that a pedestrian—his name would be Marc Newhouse—has to walk in the street. Oh, and it’s 5PM, and the sun is right in my eyes….

They’re little things, these ten things that I cooked up this Saturday afternoon. Little until the drunk gets in the car that careens out of the blazing sun and hurtles itself onto the pedestrian. Little until a nurse makes a simple mistake and cannot walk to buy milk for her children without seeing her shame screamed out at her.

Little things. But I’ll spend an afternoon under the sun, passing out the social contract, asking everybody to read and sign.

Anybody want to join me? 

Shooting Jack into the cybersphere

Between the hours of 4 and 5 PM, you didn’t want to be on the second floor of this building.

Why?

I had finally been forced to buy a printer / scanner / fax.

And I completely disapprove of them. When I worked at Wal-Mart, I would beg students not to print vocabulary lists. They did, so I went to the computer guys and asked, could they disable the printing option on my emails?

The guys just shrugged.

I was ardently, passionately green. I tried to organize car pools, but getting people to share rides was as easy as getting them to donate a kidney—without anesthesia.

“What if there’s an emergency?” they asked.

“When was the last emergency?” I’d counter.

“I need it for my kids,” they’d say.

Of course, of course, this sent me off.

“It is exactly FOR your kids that you need to start being responsible and start thinking about what kind of world you’re gonna be leaving them!” I’d diatribe.

With just a few exceptions, the love between Puerto Ricans for their cars is only matched by adolescent boys in gringolandia. It’s now common, by the way, to have TWO cars—‘cause what happens if one breaks?

You’d be stranded.

Well, it was curb my environmentalism or lose my friends. I chose friends. But I didn’t, I reasoned, have to give in to the whole nonsense. I took the bus, and smiled evilly if inwardly when gas soared to four dollars a gallon. I vowed—no printer.

Then the box came that I’d been dreading.

Readers of the blook know that Eric and I tore through the house, the day after Franny died. He took on the photos; I did the poetry.

Franny, I’m sorry to say, had the terrible habit of printing out multiple versions of her poems—all slightly different. Worse, she didn’t put any date on them. Right—she knew what version was the final. But the rest of us?

So I jammed as much as I could find into a box, which Eric drove away to West Virginia. I hoped—I knew uselessly—never to see that box again.

I justify this by citing Franny, herself. Because Lorraine, Gunnar’s widow, had tried to keep the memory of the great pianist and composer alive for years after his death.

“You know, at a certain point, you just have to let go. History will remember him or it won’t. Or maybe it will forget him and rediscover him—he wouldn’t be the first to have that happen to him….”

Practical advice from a sensible woman.

Well, Eric shipped the box a few weeks ago. I retrieved it, lifted it, and decided to spend the ten bucks to take a three-block taxi ride home. How much is my dorsal spine worth?

And the box sat there, a challenge each morning, a reproof each night.

“Screw it,” I said, “the essence of neurosis is the avoidance of pain.” A nod of thanks here to my friend Sonia, whose wisdom this is. “I’m gonna open that box!”

Well I prepared myself—I got a scissors and a big hunk of Kleenex.

There’s no sense in not crying if you have to. You’re better off to get it out, vent it, and then go on. Walk into the pain, live it, let it go. That’s what grief, or suffering, teaches you.

So I knew the tears would come. What I didn’t know was the source. Because the first documents to spring out of the box were a series of letters from Don Anderson, publisher of the Wisconsin State Journal, to Jack, my father.

Here’s one…. 

Well, I became Lorraine. I knew Jack had fought for the open housing drive, but I didn’t know how hard, or that his boss had thought so highly of him.

Wait—his former boss. Anderson, I realized later, had retired years earlier. I knew because Jack had written the story, and Anderson had replied.

Well, the guy knows how to turn a phrase, doesn’t he? I like the somewhat false but still funny self deprecation of the “hung for horse stealing….”

And yes, that “pretty and talented” wife does smack of smugness—it explains why women were burning their bras a decade later.

And the pretty and talented wife had—it must be said—some mixed feelings about Anderson.

It wasn’t much spoken off—but it was there. She watched Jack’s colleagues rise to editor, managing editor, administrative jobs that—guess what?—paid better. And there Anderson was, “sidetracking” her husband.

And she had a three-year-old (me), a seven-year-old (John), and a 12-year-old (Eric). And hadn’t “worked” in over a decade.

How did she feel, reading this letter? A letter that praises at the same time that it announces—your husband’s going nowhere. You’ll never be the publisher’s wife, you pretty, talented thing.

I think it was easy enough for Jack. He loved to write, he loved his work, and the respect and admiration of the community were pay dirt for him.

For Franny? Washing little Marc’s diapers?

There are three more pages—a typescript of a talk Anderson gave at a company meeting….

No, there never was a great fortune in that wallet—or any other wallet that a journalist has. About all he got were enough money to buy food and clothes and shoes, and six pieces of paper.

Now in my hands.

And time will go on, and people will die, and no one will know—perhaps—that there was a time when the Ku Klux Klan marched in Madison, or that neighbors could threaten to burn the first black family’s house in the neighborhood.

Or that a guy named John Newhouse had fought the bastards.

But maybe they will.

Went out, bought the scanner, sighed deeply, invoked doña Taí—patron saint of technological idiots—and prepared for the hell it would be.

I don’t want another device in my life.

But how much had he done for me?

World—remember. There was a reporter, John Newhouse.

And he did it better than anyone else I have ever known.

No todos

Well, it’s another dog-bites-man moment—I’m left standing alone, watching the crowd race by.

I wrote yesterday about a man who—assuming the reports are correct—had a secret or two. That led him to some people who dispatched him to his death, in a particularly gory and violent way. All for 400 bucks, which he had withdrawn and given them.

Into this picture steps a well-known—if not particularly well-loved—figure in Puerto Rico, and in this blog. La Comay! Yes, the guy who dresses as a woman and says absolutely-to-the-point-of-slanderous things about anybody.

Well, Jack got after me and forced me to sit through the whole thing. Yes—10 minutes of La Comay, which will last me well into my next life.

Really, it was only seven minutes of content. The other three minutes? The phrase aparente y alegadamente—apparently and allegedly. A useful phrase indeed, for La Comay got taken to court years ago, and lost in a highly publicized case.

Besides giving a possible bit of legal protection, the phrase gives the impression of impartiality. Quite needed, because La Comay then dishes up whatever rumor has come to his ears. And since we’ve heard aparente y alegadamente 333 times already—and tuned it out—the phrase does nothing more than announce the coming of a new, more scandalous tidbit.

Right—so what’s La Comay’s version?

José Enrique Gómez—finally to give the gentleman his name—phoned his wife to say that he was leaving a work event at a San Juan hotel, was going to go eat something, and would then come home.

La Comay says no. He was twenty miles away, in the city of Caguas, on a perfectly nice street in the center of town.

Nice during the day.

But, alleges and apparents (nooooo, computer, it’s just a new word! You should be happy!) La Comay, the street is a cesspool of vice—drugs, prostitution, homosexuality! (A fact La Comay never misses an opportunity to insert….) La Comay alleges that José Enrique knew a couple, had had some connection with them, and that because of that, owed them money.  He invites them into his car. Another couple join them. There are four assailants and José Enrique. They force him to go to an automatic teller, and he withdraws 400$. They go to a gas station and buy a container of gas. They then beat him, douse him with gasoline, and set him on fire.

La Comay, taking a high-minded stance, says that all of Puerto Rico is consternated—consternado, or in turmoil! Can we use the ATHs—our version of ATM? Is anybody safe?

Yeah, says La Comay. At least if you’re not on Calle Padial in Caguas after dark inviting a shady couple into your car.

Well, others think differently. Here’s one:

The social networks exploded. A campaign to boycott the sponsors of the television program sprang up. Several companies have already pulled their ads.

In addition, a campaign Todos Somos José Enrique was created. We’re all José Enrique—even Ricky Martin!

Yeah?

I thought the most recent remaking of Ricky was the scenario of a guy raising kids with another guy.

Nor does it help that The New Day, our local rag, corroborates some of the details. The suspects—three of them are in custody—paint essentially the same picture as La Comay.

And it all leads to a moral conundrum—for me, at least.

Let me put it this way.

I don’t walk through La Perla—our famous or infamous San Juan slum. I don’t rack up huge cocaine bills.

And—assuming it’s true—I wouldn’t be on Calle Padial after dark.

Actually, I wouldn’t even know that I shouldn’t be.

I can go 95% of the way with the crowd who decry the tawdriness, the tackiness of La Comay.

Whom I don’t watch.

I’m holding back on saying that we’re all José Enrique. 

On the fifth day of January of this year, I knocked on the guest bedroom door and begged for help.

I was entering another panic attack.

And I knew very little, except that the person who would open the door would stay with me, fight for me, and move heaven and earth—and even hell—to get me out of it.

It was Taí. Who sat on the floor and held my hand and then called my doctor and then emergency rooms and then all her friends who might know a shrink and then called Raf and then put me into a cab and then…

Do I have to go on? She’s wonderful, she always is. It was the day before a major holiday, and Puerto Rico was more chaotic than usual. Christmas time, as well, seems to increase the difficulty of life here.

I got out of it. I pulled myself together. I could do all that by the good fortune of a good family, the love of a good man, the help of a good shrink, and…

A woman ten islands down the Caribbean who has given me gifts as varying as constant love and support to the actual desk I’m writing this on.

Franny grew philosophical at the end, seeing so many of her friends die. But also seeing new people come into her life, almost until the very end.

It’s hard to lose a mother.

But it’s wonderful to gain a sister.

Happy birthday, Taí!

Chastity of the Ears

Morning radio—it’s a thing in Puerto Rico. Yes, everywhere else has it, but we do it with a special zest, a Latin flare; we’re liberal in the use of absurdity and silliness, scandal and gossip.

And virtually no one can resist it.

Not even Mr. Fernández, who normally is even less prone to swimming with the current than I. At 6:30 in the morning, the clock radio will startle me into life, and neither willy nor nilly will keep me from listening.

Today, according to CNN, the world’s eyes are on Cairo, and the president, Mr. Morsi. Well, news to me, but son of a newspaper guy am I. I did my best, and read two thirds of the article.

Right—and what is Puerto Rico occupying itself with today?

The morning radio gave me the first clues. Prostitución. La Prieta—the dark (female) one. Rubencito.

OK—what’s The New Day, our number one newspaper, serving up today? Escalofriantes Detalles reads the front page of the print edition. Chilling details.

A man disappeared last Thursday. His family was distraught. The press gave the matter a lot of attention, perhaps because he was a publicist, and thus presumably known to journalists. His body was discovered two days ago—and now the story is out.

Well, the family is now facing two deaths. The first being the publicist himself.

The second?

Their image of him.

If the accounts are true, he had a little secret. And no, you won’t find it here.

I believe in the public’s right to know. I think it’s very important, in fact, to know who won the bid to build the highway, at what cost, under what circumstances. I want the press monitoring how the elections are held, what the votes are, and what the shenanigans are.

What I don’t get is why I have to participate in the shredding, posthumously, of a man’s reputation. Or why I have a right to know sordid details that must be agonizing to a family already decimated.

Confession—I read the article. Not the two thirds that I gave to Cairo and Mr. Morsi, but the entire article. The details of which I am—high-mindedly—denying you!

Nor can I be very proud of the fact that I never once was tempted to look at Kate Middleton’s you-know-whats. Pretty easy temptation to avoid. But the day Mr. Fernández announced, “Hey, here’s a picture of Ricky Martin nude?”

Well, I violated then what I violated today—chastity of the eyes. Which I remembered from my days of reading about religious orders. Nuns, in the old days, were told to walk with their eyes cast downwards. Temptation was everywhere.

Also, of course, it was self-discipline. The will was exerting itself, taking control of the body.

It may also have been respect. There are some things I shouldn’t, and therefore don’t, see. It’s enough that your life has been maimed. I won’t pry into the shameful reasons for it.

Of course, the issue for me is chastity of the ears. A man with better control than I would rouse himself at the first mention of prostitution, stride to the cold shower, mortify the flesh. Not lie under the warm and prurient covers….

And is it only I, or does anyone else think that it’s far more easy to practice chastity of the eyes than chastity of the ears? Somehow, you have less control over what you hear than what you see.

Or maybe not. Try googling chastity of the ears and you’ll get surprising little. The first citation is from a Father Hardon (and speaking of which—is there chastity of humor?), who tosses the term off with no discussion. Three or four citations down, you come to this, from Morning Talks, October 30, 1967:

Out of the five outgoing faculties of eyes, ears, nose, touch and taste, three are most powerful. Lust attacks us eighty percent through the eyes, fourteen percent through the ears and the remaining six percent mainly through touch.  

Well, now, that’s an interesting fact to know.

If true.

Which I doubt. I’d argue that there are visual guys, tactile guys, aural guys.  I could and did go to bed with wildly divergent guys, visually speaking. Didn’t matter to me, in those long-gone days.

I could never go to bed with a guy who had an unpleasant voice. 

Well, if I’ve sinned, I must do penance. Here taking the form of an utterly silly cat video.

Enjoy!