Christmas Pudding

After years and years of putting it off, I finally made Christmas Pudding.

I used the recipe from Malcolm Hillier's Christmas, which was published in 1992.

 His recipe isn't as complicated as most, and he uses butter instead of suet. I replaced the candied fruits with dried cranberries and kept the golden raisins. After steaming the pudding for 3 1/2 hours, I removed the pudding and allowed it to cool. As soon as the pudding was cool to the touch, I doused it in brandy, wrapped it, and stored it in a cool dark place.

The pudding can rest this way for months as long as it gets occasional baths in brandy. This particular pudding will be eaten on Christmas Eve with joy and lots of hard sauce while sitting close to a roaring fire.

The Holidays

Celebrate what you will, but my celebrations surround elements of Christmas and Yule. Give me Dickens over myths, and Santa over Saints.

I collect Father Christmas, ornaments shaped like stars and snow flakes, and all kinds of sleigh bells. I crave fruit cake and rum, roasted root vegetables and goat cheese, chocolate, spice, and apples.

Things that are old and brassy appeal to me. I don't enjoy the modern decorations that want to make this festive season into a design contest for the Winter Olympics with stylized trees and snow flakes. Give me old and gaudy over new and plastic in all things.

I like late winter nights looking at the lights reflecting off snow, buildings, and ponds. White string lights should be up all winter, not just between Thanksgiving and New Year's Day.

My decorations for this season are often left up late into January. I don't understand those who literally rip everything down the morning of the 26th and act like the season never happened. I also don't understand those that drift from mall to mall and sale to to sale. Give me a gift that will last over something cheaply made and bought at 4:00 am.

Call me "trad" or old fashioned; I don't care. I know what I like in my holiday celebrations and respect your celebrations in all their forms.

Enjoy the season.

On having plans and planning to read.

We fall into things when we don't have a good plan. I'm very bad about this. I can't fully blame my mental issues because I've never had the goals that I see others have. In high school, I heard so many talk about wanting to teach or go into medicine. I just wanted to read more books. I knew college was what I wanted, but I didn't have a clue about majors and minors and grad school and this and that. I just wanted to read more books.
After a failed attempt at college, I came home and worked in a library. I got to read more books.

In 1994 I went back to college and declared an English major so I could read more books and graduate with something other than a degree in liberal arts. I still didn't have a plan.

I worked in libraries three more times after college. I got to read more books.

The last library job ended on a sour note. The management changed and things became tense. I worried and stressed and lost sleep. I left that job as soon as I could. I went to work for a corporation. It wasn't a dream job, but the pay was a little better and my weekends were free again. I could have a social life and read more books.

Management changed two years ago. I knew things were going to be difficult when I was called on the morning of Christmas Eve to answer a question about work. Mind you, I had my gallbladder removed the day before and had someone staying with me to make sure I didn't have any complications, pain, or bleeding. The manager on the phone never asked about my health or the holidays. I knew I should have started job-hunting then, but I didn't have a plan.

Things happened that kept me in place: my mother's illness and death, the need for my benefits to continue, and excuse after excuse for staying and thinking it will get better. Sometimes things don't get better. I don't read like I used to. Stress has eaten away at me.

Now there is a plan. I'm learning to cope. I fall a lot and there are no training wheels unless you count therapy. I need to finally learn how to deal with difficult situations and difficult, even cruel, people.

This lesson will only make me stronger and make the move to Chicago easier. As for Chicago, I'm planning on reading more books.

The Brighter Side.

When I'm in the midst of melancholy, I too often forget what I have around me that is good and wonderful: My partner who nods and smiles, who wraps himself around me in the mornings; my pets who annoy me greatly but give me great comfort; My adopted sister Christy who paints and finds beauty in everything; My friend Matt who is my coach and cheerleader. He gives the best bear hugs. He really is the best; The people in Indianapolis that I can truly call "friend;" the Indianapolis Museum of Art; My dad who is making a new life for himself. I'm very proud of him; The friends that have come my way through the Internet. They have made me laugh and cry. Many of these friends are helping us make the move to Chicago more smooth; My artistic talents that I need to foster more and more; The people that are my chosen family; The magic and mystery of Hallowe'en and Yule.

I could go on for a long time about these things. Writing them and saying them makes me realize that the good far, far out weighs the ugly.

Changes.

Things change. That is the one constant in this universe. Blink and something around you will be altered in some way. A leaf has blown into your path. A cloud moves. Your emotions shift.

Since Thanksgiving of 2008, the world has shifted and changed in ways I never imagined. Relatives I once trusted became distant and cold. I had my gallbladder removed 2 days before Christmas. The management changed at work. Months later in 2009, my mom found out she had cancer and was gone in nine weeks. Work became progressively more difficult.

2009 bled into 2010.

I journeyed to New Mexico, Chicago, and New York.

We made the decision to move to Chicago and placed our home on the market. Another huge change.

Big changes. Little changes. Ups and downs. Work and money woes. And then it all came crashing down.

Around Noon on August 11th, I cracked under the pressure and had a good old-fashioned nervous breakdown. Had this been fifty or sixty years ago, I would have checked myself into a sanatorium for some rest. Now under the care of two doctors and a therapist, I glue together the pieces.

My psychiatrist diagnosed me with cyclothymia. After much discussion with him, I now realize how that has impacted my life for decades. Anxiety, mania, and depression have walked with me every step of the way. I can recall bad episodes as far back as first grade. Moods swing. Interests wax and wane. The cycle hasn't been stopped yet.

I feel embarrassed and ashamed. I'm sorry for any grief I've caused. I know I've pushed away good people and let in some bad.

I know my father is having a hard time grasping this. I know that my partner is fatigued, worried, and scared for me.

I've relapsed once, and to be perfectly honest, I can feel the same pressures building up again. The medicine I'm taking has to be carefully titrated and it's very apparent I'm not where I need to be yet.

The one change I can see clearly is slowly but surely being lit at the end of this tunnel: the move to Chicago.

I'm hoping for good changes. I know they are out there. I know they are coming.

Indianapolis IN USA

June will mark the 10th anniversary of my move from Seattle to Indianapolis. Those 10 years gave me the chance to become very close with my mother before she died, the chance to meet so many friends, the chance to meet Scotty, and the chance to rediscover myself.

Indianapolis has been good to me in so many powerful ways. Having said that, my love for Indianapolis has waned. Indianapolis has a chip on its shoulder about its location, its geography, its lack of dynamic public transportation, its far-too-invasive Family Friendly atmosphere, and its fear of change.

There are troubling things here: A huge lack of respect for education, libraries, and the arts. The fear of the outsider. The myth of “Hoosier Hospitality.” The fear of being “too” anything (too showy, too tall, too diverse, too big, too alive, etc.). The embracing of all things easy and comfortable.

There are also amazing things here: The Indianapolis Museum of Art. The Eiteljorg. The downtown canal. Crown Hill Cemetery. Massachusetts Avenue. I could go on and on about the places I enjoy and love.

Indianapolis doesn’t like change and doesn’t like to be pushed. I don’t either. I’m like a cat when it comes to changes.

Thanks to a small group of friends, I’ve been pushed, and my fear of change is going away. I can’t wait to see what the next 10 years will bless me with as I travel to new horizons and redefine the meaning of home.

My Goals are Mine.

I have three huge goals I’m pursuing. They are dreams I want to come true. I’m not telling you about them until well after the fact. Yesterday, my partner reminded me of a study that determined that talking too openly about ambitions and goals releases the same sets of brain chemicals that are released when you actually achieve a goal. Basically, talking about your goals too much tells your brain and body that you’re satisfied, and then you discover that goal doesn’t blossom into fruition. Your goal is talked to death.

I know this is true because I’ve personally done this so many times. I can recall at least a dozen things I’ve wanted to do that never happened. Oh, I talked about those things endlessly and with great enthusiasm. What do I have to show for it? Nothing. The old adage is often true: words are cheap.

When it comes to goals, I need action and less talking. I need steps and lists and discipline, not more talking. Our society talks too much and does so little. We endlessly talk about curing cancer, healing the environment, ending domestic violence, funding the arts, etc. None of it happens. I believe we talk things to death.

My goals are mine. Your goals are yours. Tell me about them after you’ve reached them, and I’ll do the same.

An Open Letter of Forgiveness for the Boy at Anderson University

I moved into the room at the end of the hall on the west side of the 1st floor of Smith Hall in January of 1991. The exit door was just outside of this room. School was not going well, and I was struggling academically, spiritually, and physically. Everyone thought that having a private room would be a benefit to me. No one thought it would become a nightmare.

I don’t remember your name, but I remember you. Your face and hands. Your goatee. Your smiling eyes. You were handsome and looked like someone I’d want to get to know. I liked that you lived right next door.

It started innocently enough: I bumped into you leaving the showers one morning right after the semester had started. You scowled. I said I was sorry.

You started to harass me that night. Around 9:00pm, the first “thud” landed on my door, followed by another. I quickly ran to see who it was, and you were standing there grinning, hands balled into fists. I asked you what was going on, and you replied, “Just having some fun.”

I went back into my room, and closed and locked the door. The TV was on, and I tried to do some homework. You kept banging on my door all night. That was the night I stopped sleeping.

A couple of weeks passed, and you’d – thankfully -- ignore me in the halls and on campus.

Then you started again.

I don’t recall the exact day, but it was late and during the school week. I heard this screamed in the hall: “FAGGOT!” I made sure the door was locked. I turned the TV on and closed the blinds. I drowned myself in television and books to muffle what you were saying in the hall to your friends: “A FAGGOT lives next to me.” You said it over and over like a child might do when they are shocked or scared.

The next morning, after I made sure you had left the dorm, I went to speak to the resident director. I was told he would talk to you, and that I should just be careful around you.

Things escalated after that.

I got up to shower one morning, and I was “pennied” into my room. During the night, you and your friends had wedged pennies into the door frame, thus locking the door to the frame and preventing me from leaving. Hours passed. Everyone I knew was at class or ignored my calls for help as they would pass my door. Around Noon, someone finally said, “I’ll get you out.” I thanked the stranger, and spent the rest of the day hiding in the theatre department, reading fiction in the green room. I didn’t return to my dorm until 2 or 3 in the morning.

You started banging on the wall between our rooms, and I would occasionally hear you mutter “faggot” in a low tone. A friend stopped by one night to read a play with me. After he left, you were standing outside of my door, smirking. When the friend left, you asked me about my “faggot” friends. I ignored you and shut my door and locked it. This was the beginning of weeks of daily taunting. I eventually became a prisoner in my room.

I skipped classes, and cried all day and night. The school did nothing. I was told I might be at fault for provoking you. That remark felt like a punch. What had I done to you other than not living a lie?

Weeks passed as I lived in my prison, not leaving until you had left for the day, and returning with books and food before you’d be back from baseball practice. I showered in the middle of the night, and only went to the restroom when I knew you’d be away.

Then you declared war on me.

It was March, and there was still snow on the ground. It was a Friday evening. I got dressed, bundled up, and headed to the exit next to my room. I felt my knees buckle as I reached for the door. I fell. Something whizzed by my head and struck the wall beside me. Then something struck my head. An eternity passed. I remember walking out the door. I didn’t feel any pain. My head was wet and I thought that was just the snow and ice. Someone screamed “FAGGOT” from the 2nd floor window above the door, and I walked into the cold, snowy darkness.

I don’t know what happened that evening other than returning to my dorm at some late hour and finding the back of my shirt and coat soaked with my own blood.

I rarely left my room again. The days and weeks melted into each other. I was failing every class. I was building walls so thick that not even the best of friends could reach me.

You never let up. You never halted your assaults.

I moved out of the dorm as soon as I could, one Saturday morning. I dropped out of school and moved home.

You haunted my nightmares for years.

But no more.

I forgive you, dear boy. I forgive your fear, and your fists, and the baseball bat that struck my head. I forgive your screams and your taunts. I can’t imagine how you came to know such hate, and I pray for you daily.

I’ve tried hating you, and all that are like you, but I can’t. My heart can’t hate you, because all hate can do is create cancer in your soul.

Dear boy, with the smiling eyes and the handsome face, I forgive you. I have a life to live, and it’s time to let you go. I’ve carried you in my heart for far too long.

I wish you peace, and I sincerely hope you find it.

You are forgiven.