About

Note: I made this version of my site in ye olden days of September 2020, tied to the mood of that particular time. I’m letting things sit here as they are after the recent events (May 2022) until I have the time and strength to redo my site, but it all remains true enough.

   

IN BRIEF

Artist, author, advocate, musician, photographer, coder, consultant, designer, widower, resister, survivor.

      

IN OTHER WORDS

In order of discovery: autodidact, geek, gay, bipolar, autistic, asexual, humanist, homoromantic, nonbinary. Shut-in spoonie with CFS, OCD, and anxiety disorders in multiple flavors. Oneironautic paracosmist. Pattern-seeking ape.  Aspiring polymath and holy fool.  Weird and getting weirder. On the spectrum and enjoying the lights. Tried smart, recommends pleasant.  Still sleeps with an egg-hearted teddy bear.*  Online before there was a Web and blogging before there was a word for it. Wrote the software that inspired the software that powers over a third over 40% of the entire internet thingamajig you’re using right now. Survived childhood rape, fundamentalism, bullying, attempted suicides, psychopathic endangerment, evacuation, incarceration, and two near-fatal illnesses and an NDE. Still surviving grief, old and new. Always surviving myself.  Bleeding heart, outstretched hands.  Trying to love every last damn one of you.

(* He loves you, too, but curmudgeonly.)

      

IN ANOTHER’S WORDS

The Waking” by Theodore Roethke.

      

IN FACT

Because everything is still scary, including you. Because being here and doing this scare the fuck out of me, and that, as ever, is exactly why I need to. Because I’m fighting not to let my disabilities and mental illnesses define me. Because I spent years living in my bed and I need to stand and I need to shout. Because the world is round, it turns me on. Because I’m struggling financially as I’ve never struggled before and I need enough people to give a damn about me and my work again to make money at it. Because I always have and always will keep doing it either way because it’s my best therapy. Because if I can’t hop back on this ride and stay here this time, I know I’ll never come back. Because in the 6-8 years (in various forms) that I’ve been off the web, the world’s became a place I fear (and fear for) far greater than my capacity to comprehend it, and that’s got me ornery. Because I’ve lost too much not to hold on to what I’ve got left by my trembling fingernails. Because the chorus is singing in mourning and in hope and I want to be part of it. Because I may not leave my home but I’m sure as hell looking out the windows. Because now more than ever, we must love one another or die. Because I need to find out if I still can, to any and every part of all of the above.

      

INFATUATIONS

Curiosity, cuddling, bibliophilia, videogames, the Beatles, the humanities, antique maps, cold climates, Dr Pepper, a longing to put out to sea, meaningful silences, meaningfully breaking silences, and owls.

      

IN GRATITUDE

John and William, without whom I wouldn’t be here in more ways than one.

V., who put the right words above my silent night.

The doctors & nurses who did their jobs with tender everyday heroism when it was my turn on their gurney. (Hi, Mr. Figs.)

Matt and Geof, the big men who embiggened my life.

Maria, who knows why (better than I do).

Barry, because (even though I will anyway) I have no right to doubt I am a good man as long as I remember that he loved me.

Everyone still reading this who didn’t give up on me while I gave up on myself.

Too many others, too long gone in too many ways, for too many reasons.

Diane, without whom.

      

IN CONCLUSION

Send me a damn email or a damn tweet (or even, if you’re damn silly enough, some damn cash), if you damn well want to. I’d be damn glad to hear from you.

Wear your damn mask. Cast your damn vote. Treasure your damn loved ones. Rage, rage against the damn dying of the light.

   

1937-2020