In this day and age of ever-increasing food prices I struggle whether or not to stop purchasing some items. I’ve always been a bit of a food snob had a few exotic or expensive favorites. They are my “Imperial tid-bits”.

For example, I enjoy drinking LaCroix water. It is light and refreshing but hey let’s face facts it is glorified carbonated water. A 2 litre bottle of generic soda water would do. I bet I wouldn’t be able to tell the difference in a taste test.

Real parmesan cheese doesn’t come cheap. A chunk of real parm I justify as real cheese is far superior in taste to the nasty shavings in the green and yellow-top can.

I like the philosophy of organic food. Eating organic has become a very expensive choice.  I am buying more non-organic vegetables and giving them a good scrubbing. Consumer Reports says this is sufficient. But I feel bad for not supporting the organic growers.

Shopping at Whole Foods in general is getting too much. We are going more to Fry’s. While I feel less confident about the food they sell, Someone insists we pay way too much at Whole Foods.

We are eating less meat anyway, which is not a bad thing.

We’ve joined the conga line at Costco to buy big batches of things. This feels a bit like selling out/joining the herd/feeding the empire.

What we really need to do is eat out less. We should be cooking at home. This would give us more time together and allow me to try out new recipes.

So I am going to focus on this rather than skimping.

Have you given up any luxury food item?

The Board of Directors would like once more to apologize for the far too serious contents of Spo-Reflections. We want to assure you in every possible way that the author is very happy and not feeling suicidal or even thinking of anything gloomy like gas prices or global warming or Dick Cheney in fact his life is peachy keen and jolly good fun despite his closet contents strewn across the house and the bedroom furniture in the dining room and he hasn’t been able to find a clean shirt for weeks.

You have our promise that Spo-Reflections strives to be a happy place and knee deep in buttercups and daisies with the ultimate goal of fun facts interesting bits belly laughs and the occasional innuendo and if not the Board promises to hang Urspo by the neck until he lightens up.

While we work on this please take time to enjoy the following scare tactic political announcement.

Regards and best wishes,

The Board of Directors this isn’t the first time we’ve been to the rodeo and don’t f=ck with me fellas and yes I said yes I will yes INC.OBE. Etc.

Due to the nature of my job, I think a lot about suicide.  All day long I deal with people who have suicidal thoughts. In any given week I am trying to prevent a few people from acting on these thoughts.

A psychiatrist without a case of completed suicide is a lot like a cardiologist who has never lost a patient from a heart attack. If you deal with high risk people you are bound to loose a few no matter how hard you try.

In 15 years I have had five certain suicides. I never stop wondering if I could have done more/something different to have prevented them.  I know from experience that if a person is determined to kill themselves nothing will stop them. While Medicine can see risk factors, we can not predict who will kill themselves.

In psychiatry a completed suicide is considered a ‘failure’; it is one of the main reasons why a psychiatrist is sued – ‘they were negligent to prevent such’. Yet in other fields of Medicine people with chronic illnesses are either supported or even assisted towards suicide.

It is very painful to know of someone who committed suicide.  I was trained to believe in the axiom suicide is a permanent solution to temporary problems. If the person contemplating suicide doesn’t succumb to the temptation, there are other ways out of their despairing situation. I have seen this countless times; the ones who chose to endure are always relieved they did not do so, maybe not right away but later on.

One of the most striking plays I have ever seen is “Night, Mother” about a woman who announces she is going to kill herself. Despite her mother’s arguments and pleads, the woman shoots herself by play’s end. The play brings up the grim question:

Is suicide every justified?

I can’t justify suicide. I’ve struggled all my professional life that it is a false way out.  Rather than commit suicide, I try to provide resources and use this awful opportunity for recreation not self-destruction.

Dr. Kubler-Ross once visited my medical school. She worked with the terminally ill. Someone asked her how many of her terminally ill patients she had lost to suicide. She replied not one. If a terminally ill person was thinking of suicide, she found out why they were thinking such and provided alternatives. If suicidal ideation was due to pain, she got them relief. If it was over some issue, it was worked upon.

Can suicide be always avoided if services were rendered?

Should some suicides be acceptable – even honored?

I don’t have clear or easy answers.

The house is in turmoil. The bathroom is torn up as the tile-men (who look about 10 years old) are laying down the new tile. Our toilet is sitting in the closet, which is gutted and waiting carpeting then new shelves. The contents of the closet are scattered around the house. It is all rather disheveled.

For my father’s birthday we four sons purchased a device that converts photo slides into computer for CD storage. It looks like a tiny Easy-Bake Oven; you slide in the slide on one side, it pops out the other. He has 70 carousels to convert. He can now separate ‘freighters from family’; We have a bet on the ratio (everyone of us believes freighters > family).

Speaking of birthdays, mine is coming up in next week. What I want for my birthday is an old recording of Sea Chanteys. The all male chorus sings such classics as “What to do with a drunken sailor?”

One of the lines is “Shave him with a rusty razor” so you can imagine.

We long to get a puppy. But the ugly fact is we are both away from house over 12 hours at a time. And we travel a lot. We can’t care for one properly.

My latest body evaluation says I have 14% body fat. Apparently that is good for a 45 soon to be 46 year old man. But mine is all in the stomach. Grrrrrr.

The personal trainer has me doing all sorts of sadomasochistic exercises, most of them with East European names. When he demonstrates the moves he remains a heart warming spectacle.

For 20 years I have heard about the legendary GAYCARD.

Usually the GAYCARD is mentioned when Somebody (no relation to Someone) says their GAYCARD is going to be revoked because they are not doing, have, or know something that is required by the GAYCARD.

I thought only two activities would be on the GAYCARD (No, I won’t spell them out, lest my family is reading this).

Apparently it is not that simple. I’ve heard hints what may be on the GAYCARD. For example, Someone wants to revoke my GAYCARD because I don’t like Judy Garland.

Listening to They-are-going-to-revoke- my-GAYCARD statements from so many people makes me guess some of the other items are:

Knowledge of Broadway musicals.

An ability to cook.

Regular TV viewing of The Golden Girls or Project Runway.

Your nipples are an erogenous zone.

The ability to quote lines from “The Women” and “Mame”

(Rosalind Russell)

Firm buttocks.

You don’t think immediately of cheese stuffed jalapeños when someone mentions ‘poppers’.

Cher and Madonna CDs.

Shoes and belt that match at all times.

You watch the Golden Globe Awards  - to see the dresses.

Brunch on Sundays.

You shop at IKEA.

What the hell is on the GAYCARD?

Does anybody have any ideas?

Sometimes….

I want to contact ex-patients to find out how they are doing.

I have the urge to throw everything away to have the fewest possessions possible.

I get cheap and wash/iron my shirts rather than sending them to the cleaners.  

I want to spend a day drinking (this has never happened by the way).

Doing chores feels like a quiet satisfaction.

Doing chores feels like a drudge.

My emotions get the best of me and I want to crawl into a hole and not interact with anybody lest they turn into salt.

Pasta is the only thing I want to eat.

I want to go bezerk and eat some manner of food that I ought not to eat, like potato chips with lots of onion dip.

I reread old diaries and realize how little I have changed.

The notion of growing old doesn’t sound worth it.

Tea causes headache and nausea when I drink it on an empty stomach.

I can remember how to spell ‘occasionally’.

I have new spectacles.

The first time I got glasses my mother took me to an optometrist she knew from church. In the spirit of Protestantism, he seemed to run his place on the dogma ‘Pay no heed to what ye shall wear’. He had rows of frames - bulbous liver coloured monstrosities of a uniform ugliness although no two were quite alike.  I was supposed to pick one of these and put it on my face? I was already a nerd; putting on any of these would elevate my nerd status to stardom. (Perhaps my gay gene for fashion was beginning to kick in. I wasn’t conscious of designer glasses but some part of me was already calling for them).

I had to be reminded to don these awful bug eyes. I hated them.

My last spectacles were so out they were in. Plastic and pink-purple, with bits of darker hue, I think they were supposed to convey a mock tortoise shell. They were on sale (for clearance - no surprise). When I put them on my first thought was “Dame Edna! What are you doing in the mirror?” The sales lady was too polite to contradict my positive emotions. She would not come out and say “I don’t think you look good in those”. She waffled until I threatened if you don’t see me these glasses I am going to recommend her shop to the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence.

Now I have something that sounds like it came from IKEA. My Oga specs (with an umlaut) are stylish but apt for a middle aged man.

Elton John I am not.

I wrote this while sitting on the porch of our Starlight Pines Bed & Breakfast in Flagstaff, Arizona. We were in the midst of some forestland.

Being near the woods makes me feel thoughtful. Thanks to two fine fellows at Mutual Causality and Gossamer Tapestry, being near the woods also makes me think of fires, but that is not my point today.

The Forest is an ancient Archetype symbolizing going into the mind and the soul. Deep in the woods lurk the monsters and witches but also the secret castle with the treasure and the Maiden in need of rescue.  There is much to encounter in the Forest, as Mr. Sondheim captured beautifully in his musical ‘Into the Woods”.

I like the forest. I have fantasized all my life about living in the woods. Seeing photos at Scuff Productions, Rodger Dodger, and Designerblog sets off a desire to drop everything and find a cabin in the woods.  When I am in the Pacific Northwest rain forests, I feel alive. I like to be in touch with The Woodsman or Green Man or Hermit. Perhaps in the woods I will find a Lumberjack (different fantasy). In the woods I too may romp with Titania and Oberon and other fairy folk. 

Western Mankind has been ambivalent about the woods since man wondered into Europe. We long for it; we fear it. The Mythos of Bigfoot captures this intrigue and fear of the Woods.

Nowadays I doubt we can’t appreciate the splendor and fear our ancestors had to encounter endless woods.

It is ironic that I live in the desert. There aren’t any trees let alone woods (I don’t count nasty mesquite trees, which hold no archetypal energy for me).

I miss the woods.

So when we travel I try to locate some forest and go into the woods.

Our closet is completely empty, shelves and all. When the water pipe in the wall burst, we tore out the closet dry wall to get to the leak. We took the opportunity to re-do the walk in closet.

Designing a closet is exciting. We couldn’t get too wild in customization given the hypothesis that someday we will sell the house. Most buyers won’t be interested in a mini-shelf for bowties, no place for dresses, or a heavy beam on which to hang the leather goods.

Until this project is completed, the clothes are scattered over two rooms. It is a frightful mess and most days I can’t find anything. When it all returns to the new closet, I want to put back only the items I actually use.

Things to give to charity –

Any shirt whose sleeves have shrunk from washing.

All those now useless sweaters.

Suits, trousers, and Bermuda shorts in which I no longer fit because I am a fat pig.

Worn out shoes I never seem to get around to discarding.

I am not a “clothes person”. I tend to wear the same things – khaki pants and a dress shirt for work (sometimes with bowtie); khaki pants on the weekends with a loud (usually handmade) Hawaiian shirt.

Survey time!

B) What is your favorite piece of clothing?

C) What white elephant item won’t you discard?

 My responses; 

A)   12 

B)   The tattered terry bathrobe with my initials on it. 

C)   A Sweeny Todd T-shirt I purchased in the late 70s during my first trip to NYC to see my first Broadway show. It is too small to wear.

“I feel trapped.”

There are other experiments from nature to suggest animals ‘shut down’ when the situation has no way out for them.

People don’t need a psychiatrist to tell them they are unhappy.

They know why they are unhappy –

They are doing a job that erodes the soul.

They are in a relationship that is killing them.

They can’t get hold of a job, healthcare, or other resources.

They are unhappy living where they do.

Their hopes were invested in “X” and now that “X” is here, it is a disappointment with no back-up plan.  

Leaving the job, getting out of the marriage, moving etc. are the remedies. But the usual response is ‘I can’t. I’m trapped.”

What I try to get people to see they are not that trapped. Hell is often locked from within, not from without. In the Tarot Deck “The Devil” has people enslaved in chains – but if you look closely these chains could easily come off if people only paid attention.

When we think of leaving a trap, we run the notion by our fears, not by our faith. I quickly hear about the fears why a person can’t change -

There is a mortgage.

I have no money.

I have no where to go.

What will they think of me?

Getting out of a trap usually means going into the unknown. It is hardly ever safe or easy. Leaving a trap means being scared of the uncertain and going towards something that may not exist.  Scary.

Nevertheless, it is can preferable to staying.

Nothing in life of any worth comes without some sort of price.

Of course, many people don’t leave their traps.

I acknowledge there are legitimate traps. Robertson Davies wrote everyone needs to recognize the traps they are in and make peace with them.

But please make sure your traps are genuine, and staying truly outweighs going.