Sixteen Days Later

The postings on this site are my own and don’t necessarily represent IBM’s positions, strategies or opinions.

Poor Me

Pat & I were going to go to shul, so I could say The Mourner's Kaddish publicly, but the service tonight honors LGBT Pride, so as I posted in a Facebook status update earlier, I opted out, thinking it would feel more festive than I felt. Instead, we finished binge-watching Derek, a superbly poignant series about an autistic man who works in a home for the aged.

Here are the last books my mom ever read or considered reading with her book group:

• The Fallen Angel
• A Lucky Child
• A Walker in the City
• The Canterbury Tales
• Jews Without Money
• I Married a Communist

Here are the books I've taken out of the library since her death:

• The Orphaned Adult
• Matters of Honor
• Rose of No Man's Land
• How Animals Grieve
• The Other Side of Sadness
• Healing Your Grieving Heart for Teens: 100 Practical Ideas - Simple tips for understanding and expressing your grief
• Death's Door: Modern Dying and the Ways We Grieve

The two best book recommendations my mom ever made to me were The Crock of Gold and Cutting for Stone. The first novel was about magic and love and the second, about yearning and grief, and living through both.

That's where I am now -- grateful for the magical parts of my life and for all of the love I experience and express, but living through yearning for, and grief around, my mother (z"l).

I wish I could check out of real-life till I finish reading all seven of the books I listed above, if not also the ones from my mother's book group list (though I don't want to re-read *The Canterbury Tales*).

Suddenly, I was jealous of my age when my dad died -- 17 -- as I thought about how many fewer responsibilities I had then, but that's not really true. I had to continue showing up to high school and had to do well enough to get to go to college. I also forgot to consider how love-lorn I was as well; I had a secret girlfriend then, who was already a freshman at a too-far-away college, and I knew my attachment wasn't requited, not really.

So compared to when my dad died in November of '82, I didn't have love or meaningful work then, but I also didn't have to settle my parent's estate, like my sisters and I do now, now that we're the only adults left in the upper-part of the chain. My other responsibilities, to Pat and our kitties Phoebe and Toonces, and to my management and the team I manage at work, and are more welcome than not at this time. I can always renew the library books....

Books

The postings on this site are my own and don't necessarily represent IBM's positions, strategies or opinions.

Reprinted from My Facebook Profile Note

A high school friend invited me to post my answers to these questions:

1) What author do you own the most books by?
It's a tie among Amos Oz, E. Lynn Harris and A.M. Homes.

2) What book do you own the most copies of?
I think I have two copies of *The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay*

3) Did it bother you that both those questions ended with prepositions?
No.

4) What fictional character are you secretly in love with?
Flannery O'Connor's Hulga in "Good Country People."

5) What book have you read the most times in your life (excluding picture books read to children)?
"Hiawatha."

6) What was your favorite book when you were ten years old?
*A Wrinkle in Time*

7) What is the worst book you've read in the past year?
*Watchmen*

8) What is the best book you've read in the past year?
Reading it now, I have a feeling: Jonathan Lethem's *Motherless Brooklyn*

9) If you could force everyone you tagged to read one book, what would it be?
James Stephens' *The Crock of Gold*.

10) Who deserves to win the next Nobel Prize for Literature?
Alison Bechdel for *Fun Home*

11) What book would you most like to see made into a movie?
*Hey, Dollface!* by Deborah Hautzig

12) What book would you least like to see made into a movie?
*I and Thou* by Martin Buber

13) Describe your weirdest dream involving a writer, book, or literary character.
It was a daydream; I was reading *Orlando* during a really foggy string of days during college and I affiliated with the protagonist, unnervingly so

14) What is the most lowbrow book you've read as an adult?
All of E. Lynn Harris', but they're so much fun.

15) What is the most difficult book you've ever read?
*Night* by Elie Wiesel.

16) What is the most obscure Shakespeare play you've seen?
Does seeing "Romeo & Juliet" in modern-dress during the Disco era count?

17) Do you prefer the French or the Russians?
Indians.

18) Roth or Updike?
Vonnegut.

19) David Sedaris or Dave Eggers?
Margaret Cho.

20) Shakespeare, Milton, or Chaucer?
Isaac Bashevis Singer.

21) Austen or Eliot?
Dorothy Parker.

22) What is the biggest or most embarrassing gap in your reading?
Most of the Classics.

23) What is your favorite novel?
*A Confederacy of Dunces*

24) Play?
"'night, Mother"

25) Poem?
Anything by Adrienne Rich or Sharon Olds or Susannah Sheffer

26) Essay?
A number of my own, on my blog.

27) Short story?
Any by Flannery O'Connor, but especially "Good Country People"

28) Work of nonfiction?
*Truth & Beauty: A Friendship*

29) Who is your favorite writer?
Flannery O'Connor

30) Who is the most overrated writer alive today?
It's not for me to judge.

31) What is your desert island book?
*Babyji* and my synagogue's siddur

32) And... what are you reading right now?
Louis Begley's book on Kafka along with *Motherless Brooklyn,* depending on my mood.

In Honor of EAGLE's 10th Anniversary

The postings on this site are my own and don’t necessarily represent IBM’s positions, strategies or opinions.

I just woke up from a dream I need to record before I forget it. Pat's still fast asleep.

The Dream

We are invited to a party at the home of two wealthy EAGLE members. One of the hosts meets us in the lobby; he is a gorgeous, winning colleague from real-life. If I were a single, gay man, I'd wish he were gay and single....In my dream, he is gay at least.

He leads us to the front door of a loft space. We will be meeting his partner, who is among our top sellers (sales execs.), for the first time. This is their debut; neither of them has chosen to be openly gay at work, or in association with work, prior to tonight.

The door opens and a tall, nearly-black-haired guy slides past me and out, averting his eyes. Is this the other host? Or is this one of their friends, who doesn't bargain for being part of an EAGLE celebration and just wants to leave before it gets going?

I've never before seen our other host, and so I wouldn't know if it were him. The mystery is not solved. I do not ask who he is because I'm swept away by the delicious sight before me.

The loft is as big as the Barnes & Noble Bookstore on Route 46, if not bigger, and against the right wall and forming an aisle are two floor-to-very-high-ceiling stacks mostly of paperbacks, so that even more books fit on the shelves.

The next aisle over is the same idea, only it's filled with every kind of men's fashion, which interests me less, even as it's reminiscent of the Great Gatsby'a collection, or the "American Gigolo"'s.

As I walk in, I'm ready to say the standard line, "What a lovely home," but I'm so amazed by, and attracted to, the books, I just start walking toward them, saying, "I've never seen a home set up like this -- in just the way I'd wish it to be."

We walk down the aisle, looking at the titles and the setup actually reminds me of the Montclair Book Center, only at a more fashionable address -- probably in Soho -- and the lighting is more stylish. I like recognizing a number of the books, and this would be the most comfortable way to spend the entire party.

The guy walking with me down the aisle looks up at the shelves near the ceiling and says, "I don't like the way this is set up."

"That's why there are sliding ladders," I say, marvelling that no book is inaccessible, and, "This is how to design a home if money is no object."

I make my way to the back, left-hand corner of the space, past a whole group of lovely women, some of whom I recognize from EAGLE, and a number of whom look like the most beautiful extras from scenes at The Planet on "The L Word." There must be 50 or more women and I'm struck shy and keep walking, even as I smile sheepishly at one of my friends, who notices me while she's talking with an especially glamorous group of them.

I'm at a cappucchino bar or some other food/drink part of the space next, where one of my Canadian colleagues comes over to talk with me.

"How was your idea received in the end?" he asks.

"The idea, apparently, is ahead of its time, as it has gone nowhere so far."

Real life intermission:

This is the part, where I don't tell any IBM secrets and so will not elaborate on the idea.

Back to the dream:

I am happy to be asked about the idea, but feel guilty not to still be championing it tirelessly. I switch the subject, telling my Canadian friend, "You know that Xxxxxxx [one of our hosts] is from Toronto."

He makes a cheering sound. I knew he'd be proud that such a successful IBMer is Canadian.

I'm heading to the bathroom and I pass the gorgeous women's section again, feeling cowardly, but also that at least I've got an excuse to keep going, rather than stopping to be with them; I need to go to the bathroom.

On the way, I see two EAGLE friends, one male and one female, talking, and I stop for the joy of hugging them. The three of us chat for a minute and then I need to go to the bathroom...and then I wake up...and go to the bathroom.

Today is EAGLE's 10th Anniversary

Ten years ago, just several months after Pat and I moved to New Jersey from Illinois, we hosted an EAGLE - Tri-State Chapter party at our home and four people showed up.

There were nearly 100 IBMers on the Tri-State Chapter distribution list and I was disappointed, but nearly all of them lived in New York and Connecticut. I'm thinking of our barely-furnished house 10 years ago, and our barely-formed Tri-State Chapter of EAGLE, and my barely-launched IBM career, and I'm so grateful at what a decade can bring:

Our house is homey -- inside and out; compared with the initial, fewer-than-10, U.S. chapters, EAGLE now has more than 40 chapters worldwide, and with still more coming soon; and 10 years ago, I could not have imagined that my career would take me to India on assignment.

Thank you, God.

What has changed for you over the past 10 years?