Since You've Been Gone

It was about this time 11 years ago that you drew your last breath, arms tucked under several blankets, John Denver playing on repeat over your speakers, an allergy mask over your mouth and nose, and two garbage bags tied around your head secured about your neck with linked heavy duty rubber bands. You had left nearly 10 notes neatly laid out on your dining room table addressed to various people. You left a handwritten note on a sticky note by your bed identifying your physician and counselor, noting that neither one knew of your plans.

Usually, on this day, I remember everything that happened leading up to your suicide and my notification. I remember coming home, going through all the motions that one has to go through to bury a loved one. I remember not crying until that first night, after I had a shower, when it just hit me, and I sank to my knees in my mom's living room and sobbed uncontrollably over what you had done. I also remember my grandparents, YOUR parents, changing that day, and a light extinguishing inside them that has never reappeared.

Today, however, on the 11th anniversary of your suicide, I want to try something different. It's an open letter, if you will, to let you know some of the things you have missed by choosing to take your life on February 13, 2001.

FAMILY

• My graduation from the dual degree program, which meant two different graduations on the same weekend.  Your parents showed, and Aunt Janie came with Bad Grandma.  You not being there was a wet blanket on the festivities.
• I accepted a job at CDC in genomics.  I ended up transferring to Global Immunizations right before the two year Presidential management fellowship was up, but I've now been at CDC for over 10 years.  I currently work in the policy office of the Center for Global Health.
• You missed my political activism take off. I've held several statewide offices in the Young Democrats, and a couple of national ones at the Southeast region level.  I was the first openly gay state president of young democrats in Georgia history. 
• I started playing rugby last fall in a bid to take better care of myself.  I enjoy it, and I'm trying to learn to trust my physicality.  It would have been nice to have you see one of my games.
• Your life insurance policies allowed me to immediately pay off my student loans, although for months afterward, I would have nightmares that you had faked your death, and the insurance company wanted its money back.
• Your life insurance also allowed me to purchase a condo in Atlanta.  I still live in it.  I also have your bedroom furniture as my own.  Some think it's creepy to sleep in the bed that you died in, but I now look at it as MY bed, and it's not like I kept the mattress.  I also have your dining room table, where you left all the notes.
• We followed your instructions fairly closely.  However, I felt you owed it to your parents to have a place where they could go and "visit" your remains.  After cremation, I had half of your ashes scattered as you asked, and half were buried in a plot next to where Grandma Ann and Papa will be buried someday.  It has been a great source of comfort to them.
• You aged your parents overnight with your suicide.  They became OLD after you died.  The light in their eyes dimmed significantly.  I am convinced you shaved off at least 10 years of a life they would have lived.  The only positive thing to come out of your suicide is the family has become closer; we look out for each other better.
• Mom still feels tremendous anger and guilt over your suicide.  She thinks if she just hadn't divorced you in 1998 you might have lived.  This, despite even your admission that the divorce was a good thing.  She dreams of you when she's sick, and often it involves her yelling at you about how you could do this to all of us.
• Pretty much every year between Christmas and this day, a pall is cast over all of our lives as we become more moody, sometimes depressed, about the coming anniversary of your suicide.  You foolishly thought we'd just get over your death after a brief period of mourning.  It has not worked out that way.  Movies that have suicide as a plot point, especially ones that approach your method, are almost unwatchable.  You've made us all members of a horrible fraternity of suicide survivors.  I'm luckier than most because there was nothing left unsaid between us.  I just wish you'd had more faith in yourself to make it through the dark period. 
• Even your friends aren't immune. They miss you terribly too, and your absence is something they notice.  I know that might surprise you.  No one who knew you and loved you has been left unscathed by your suicide.  We have all moved on with our lives, yes, but the memory of your death is never too far away. 

One thing that's amazed me is how much the WORLD has changed since you ended your life.  Here are some highlights of what's happened since that February 13.
CURRENT EVENTS/POLITICS

2001

FBI agent Robert Hanssen is charged with spying for Russia for 15 years (Feb. 20).

Balance of the Senate shifts after Jim Jeffords of Vermont changes his party affiliation from Republican to Independent. The move strips Republicans of control of the Senate and gives Democrats the narrowest of majorities (50-49-1) (June 5).  (A little birthday present for me!)

Bush signs new tax-cut law, the largest in 20 years (June 7).  This is the beginning of the end of the surplus.

Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh executed (June 11).

Terrorists attack United States. Hijackers ram jetliners into twin towers of New York City's World Trade Center and the Pentagon. A fourth hijacked plane crashes 80 mi outside of Pittsburgh (Sept. 11). Toll of dead and injured in thousands. Within days, Islamic militant Osama bin Laden and the al-Qaeda terrorist network are identified as the parties behind the attacks.  Like most Americans, I watched this live on TV at work.

Anthrax scare rivets nation, as anthrax-laced letters are sent to various media and government officials. Several postal workers die after handling the letters.  CDC was at the center of this storm, and it resulted in the ouster of the CDC Director.

Beatle George Harrison dies of cancer on Nov. 29.

2002

President Bush declares Iran, Iraq, and North Korea to be "an axis of evil" in his first State of the Union address.

Kenneth L. Lay, big buddy of Bush and chairman of bankrupt energy trader Enron, resigns; company collapses after it is revealed it hid debt and misrepresented earnings.

U.S. withdraws from International Court treaty. First of many "screw you" messages sent to the world from the Bush administration.

U.S. abandons 31-year-old Antiballistic Missile treaty (June 13). Oh look, another "screw you"!

Bush signs corporate reform bill (July 30) in response to a spate of corporate scandals: Enron, Arthur Andersen, Tyco, Qwest, Global Crossing, ImClone, and Adelphia, among others, were convicted or placed under federal investigation for various misadventures in fraud and crooked accounting.

Pennsylvania miners rescued after spending 77 hours in a dark, flooded mine shaft (July 28).

Bush addresses United Nations, calling for a "regime change" in Iraq (Sept. 12).  See, Bush is going to avenge his daddy by invading Iraq after getting the CIA to deliver fake intelligence on "weapons of mass destruction".  Sorry for the spoiler.

Snipers prey upon DC suburbs, killing ten and wounding others (Oct. 2–24). Police arrest John Allen Muhammad and John Lee Malvo (Oct. 24).

After a nasty election where the GOP said Democrats were on the side of terrorists, Republicans retake the Senate in midterm elections; gain additional House seats (Nov. 5).

Department of Homeland Security is established (Nov. 25).

Boston archbishop Cardinal Bernard Law resigns as a result of the Catholic Church's sexual abuse scandals and cover-up of priest-child molestation. (Dec. 13).

Jimmy Carter wins Nobel Peace prize.  Timing is seen as a rebuke to President Bush's rush to war with Iraq.

2003

Space shuttle Columbia literally dissolves upon re-entry into Earth's atmosphere, killing all 7 astronauts (Feb. 1).

U.S. and Britain launch war against Iraq (March 19).

Baghdad falls to US troops (April 9)

Bush signs ten-year, $350-billion tax cut package, the third-largest tax cut in U.S. history (May 28). First time ever that the country has cut taxes in a time of war.  Step 2 in financial ruin.

Iran is discovered to have been hiding nuclear activities (June 18)

California governor Gray Davis ousted in recall vote; actor Arnold Schwarzenegger elected in his place (Oct. 7).

Saddam Hussein captured by US troops, hiding in a spider hole. (Dec 13)

2004

Bush proposes ambitious space program that includes flights to the Moon, Mars, and beyond (Jan. 14). Turns out to be nothing more than a cheap re-election ploy.

A. Q. Khan, founder of Pakistan's nuclear program, admits he sold nuclear-weapons designs to other countries, including North Korea, Iran, and Libya (Feb. 4).

Spain is attacked by Al Queda, killing over 200 people, and resulting in the government being voted out of office days later. (March)

U.S. media release graphic photos of American soldiers abusing and sexually humiliating Iraqi prisoners at Abu Ghraib prison. Images spark outrage around the world (April 30).

Gay marriages begin in Massachusetts, the first state in the country to legalize such unions (May 17). No pestilience, plagues, or other vengeance from God happens.  Massachusetts also doesn't slide into the ocean.

Summer Olympics held in Athens, Greece (August)

Bush is reelected president with a little over 50% of the vote.  Georgia (and many other states) officially ban all recognition of gay relationships in the state constitution.  Georiga's amendment passed with 76% of the vote.

Yassir Arafat dies (Nov 14)

Ukraine presidential election declared fraudulent (Nov. 21).

Hamid Karzai inaugurated as Afghanistan's first popularly elected president (Dec. 7).

Massive protests by supporters of opposition candidate Viktor Yushchenko's lead to a new Ukrainian election; Yushchenko eventually declared prime minister (Dec. 26).  

Enormous tsunami devastates Asia; 200,000 killed (Dec. 26).

2005

The Terry Schiavo case (right to die) becomes the focus of an emotionally charged battle in Congress (March 20).

Pope John Paul II Dies (April 2). Benedict XVI (former Cardinal Ratzinger of Germany) becomes the next pope (April 24).

Former Teheran mayor Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, a hard-line conservative, wins Iran's presidential election with 62% of the vote. He defiantly pursues Iran's nuclear ambitions over the course of his first year in office (June 24).

Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor announces her retirement (July 1).

London hit by Islamic terrorist bombings, killing 52 and wounding about 700. It is Britain's worst attack since World War II (July 7).

Hurricane Katrina wreaks catastrophic damage on the Gulf coast, including the drowning of New Orleans; more than 1,000 die and millions are left homeless. Americans are shaken not simply by the magnitude of the disaster but by how ill-prepared all levels of government are in its aftermath. (Aug. 25-30).

Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist, who served on the U.S. Supreme Court for 33 years, dies (Sept. 3). He is replaced by John Roberts.

Another major hurricane, Rita, ravages the Gulf coast (Sept. 23).

House majority leader Tom Delay is accused of conspiring to violate Texas's election laws. He steps aside from his House leadership position (Sept. 28).

A federal grand jury indicts Vice President Cheney's chief of staff, with obstruction of justice and perjury in connection with a White House leak investigation. (Oct. 28).

President Bush nominates arch conservative judge Samuel Alito to replace retiring Justice Sandra Day O'Connor on the Supreme Court after failing to foist a random woman on the court from the White House Counsel's office (Oct. 31).

California Republican congressman Randy "Duke" Cunningham resigns after pleading guilty to taking at least $2.4 million in bribes (Nov. 28).

The press reveals that in 2002, Bush signed a presidential order to allow the National Security Agency to spy on Americans suspected of being connected to terrorist activity without warrants. (Dec. 15).

2006

Jack Abramoff, a lobbyist with ties to several members of Congress, is sentenced to six years in prison by a Florida judge on fraud charges (Mar. 29).

The Supreme Court rules that military tribunals cannot be set up to try prisoners in the absence of Congressional authorization and that prisoners are entitled to fair trials under the Geneva Conventions (June 29).

Democrats gain control of both houses of Congress in the midterm elections (Nov. 7). HUGE surge of relief.

Saddam Hussein is convicted of crimes against humanity by an Iraqi court (Nov. 5), and hanged in Baghdad. A witness videotapes the hanging using a cell phone and captures the chaos that unfolds as Shiite guards taunt Hussein (Dec. 30). Of course, it goes viral on the internet.

2007

California Democrat Nancy Pelosi becomes the first woman speaker of the House and will preside over the 100th Congress. Democrats take control of both houses of Congress for the first time since 1994 (Jan. 4).

President Bush announces that a surge of an additional 20,000 troops will be deployed to Baghdad to try to stem the sectarian fighting (Jan. 10). 

Lewis “Scooter” Libby, former chief of staff to Vice President Dick Cheney, is found guilty of lying to FBI agents and to a grand jury in the investigation of who leaked to the press the name of a covert CIA agent. The agent, Valerie Plame Wilson, is married to Joseph Wilson, who in 2003 questioned the Bush administration’s claim that Saddam Hussein was pursuing a nuclear weapons program by seeking to obtain uranium from Niger (March 6). Libby is sentenced to 30 months in jail (June 5). President Bush commutes his sentence (July 2), but he refuses to pardon him.

Bush and his Attorney General caught up in a mess about interfering with US Attorney investigations, and then firing US Attorneys who didn't take politics into consideration about which crimes to pursue.

President Bush signs law that legalizes government eavesdropping of telephone conversations and emails of American citizens and people overseas without a warrant as long as there is a "reasonable belief" that one party is not in the United States (Aug. 5).

Al Gore wins Nobel Peace Prize for his work on climate change.

2008

• Jan. 3: The presidential primary season begins with Iowa wins by Democrat Barack Obama and Republican Mike Huckabee.
• Feb. 5: Arizona senator John McCain emerges as the clear front runner among Republicans in the Super Tuesday primary races. On the Democratic side, New York senator Hillary Clinton wins big states such as California and Massachusetts, but Illinois senator Barack Obama takes more states.
• March 8: President George W. Bush, saying intelligence officials must have "all the tools they need to stop the terrorists," vetoes legislation that would have outlawed all methods of interrogation that are banned in the Army Field Manual, which prohibits waterboarding and other harsh techniques that have been used by the CIA.
• March 18: Sen. Barack Obama delivers a pivotal speech on race, denouncing the provocative remarks on race made by his former pastor, Rev. Jeremiah Wright, Jr., but explains that the complexities of race in America have fueled anger and resentment among many African Americans.
• March 11: The government begins to intervene in the U.S. financial system to avoid a crisis. The Federal Reserve outlines a $200 billion loan program that lets the country's biggest banks borrow Treasury securities at discounted rates and post mortgage-backed securities as collateral.
• March 16: The Federal Reserve approves a $30 billion loan to JPMorgan Chase so it can take over Bear Stearns, which is on the verge of collapse.
• May 15: California's Supreme Court rules, 4 to 3, that same-sex couples have a constitutional right to marry.
• May 20: Senator Edward Kennedy is diagnosed with malignant glioma, a brain tumor.
• June 3: On the final day of the 2008 primary season, Sen. Barack Obama secures 2,154 delegates and becomes the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee. He's the first black candidate to head a major party ticket in a presidential election.
• June 12: The U.S. Supreme Court rules, 5 to 4, that prisoners at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, have a right to challenge their detention in federal court.
• June 26: The U.S. Supreme Court rules, 5 to 4, that the Constitution protects an individual's right to possess a gun, but insists that the ruling "is not a right to keep and carry any weapon whatsoever in any manner whatsoever and for whatever purpose."
• Oct. 10: Connecticut's Supreme Court rules that a state law that limits marriage to heterosexual couples and a civil union law that protects gay couples violate equal protection rights guaranteed by the constitution.
• Oct. 27: A jury finds Sen. Ted Stevens (R-AK) guilty of seven felony charges for lying on financial disclosure forms and failing to report more than $250,000 in gifts from the VECO Corporation, one of Alaska's biggest oil-field contractors.
• Nov. 4: Democratic senator Barack Obama wins the presidential election against Sen. John McCain, taking 338 electoral votes to McCain's 161. Obama becomes the first African American to be elected president of the United States. Also in the election, Democrats increase their majority in the House and pick up five seats in the Senate.
• Nov. 4: Voters in California narrowly pass a ballot measure, Proposition 8, that overturns the May 15, 2008, California Supreme Court decision that said same-sex couples have a constitutional right to marry.
• Dec. 19: President George W. Bush announces plans to lend General Motors and Chrysler $17.4 billion to survive the next three months.

2009

Jan. 22: President Obama signs executive orders closing all secret prisons and detention camps run by the CIA, including the infamous Guantnamo Bay prison in Cuba, and banning coercive interrogation methods.

Jan. 31: Michael Steele is selected by the Republican National Committee to be its new chairman. He is the first African-American to hold the position.  Because, after all, who better to fight a black man than another black man, right?

Feb. 17: President Obama signs the $787 billion stimulus package into law. The president's hope is that the package will create 3.5 million jobs for Americans in the next two years.

March 2: Insurance giant American International Group reports a $61.7 billion loss for the fourth quarter of 2008. A.I.G. lost $99.3 billion in 2008. The federal government, which has already provided the company with a $60 billion loan, will be giving A.I.G. an additional $30 billion, making it the largest company loan the government has provided during the bailout. March 14: A.I.G. announces they will pay top executives more than $165 million in bonuses, despite having received $170 billion in bailout funds from the U.S. government. The company claims the bonuses were promised in contracts and are no longer negotiable. Nearly 80% of A.I.G. is now owned by the federal government. March 16: President Obama has asked Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner to pursue all "legal avenues" in order to block the bonuses to A.I.G. executives.

March 6: Unemployment in the U.S., which has been steadily growing for several months, reaches 8.1% in February 2009. This is the highest rate since 1983.

April 2: Rod Blagojevich, the former governor of Illinois charged with attempting to sell President Obama's vacated senate seat to the highest bidder, is indicted on 19 charges, 16 of them felonies.

April 3: The Iowa Supreme Court unanimously rejects a state law banning same-sex marriage. April 27: Same-sex couples are granted marriage licenses for the first time in Iowa. Iowa is the third state to allow same-sex marriages, after Massachusetts and Connecticut.  Three of the judges are later thrown out in a retention election.

April 7: Vermont becomes the fourth U.S. state to legalize same-sex marriage, just days after Iowa becomes the third. The legislature votes to override Governor Jim Douglas's veto of a bill allowing same-sex couples to marry, nine years after the state became the first in the nation to allow civil unions. Vermont is the first state legislature to legalize the practice; the other three U.S. states' approval of same-sex marriage came from the courts.

April 30: Justice David H. Souter announces he is retiring from the U.S. Supreme Court when the current term ends in June. He is replaced by Sonia Sotomayor.

April 30: Chrysler files for bankruptcy protection while entering into a partnership agreement with Fiat. It is the first time since 1933 that an American automaker has been forced to restructure under bankruptcy protection.

May 6: Gov. John Baldacci of Maine signs a bill legalizing same-sex marriage. The law will not go into effect until summer 2009.  Voters overturn the law in a state election.

May 26: The California Supreme Court upholds the ban on same-sex marriage, solidifying the vote made by California residents last November. The 18,000 same-sex couples who were married before the ban went to effect are still legally married, however.

June 1: General Motors files for bankruptcy and announces it will close 14 plants in the United States.

June 4: In a speech during a visit to Cairo, Egypt, President Obama calls for "a new beginning between the United States and Muslims around the world," asking for new alliances based on mutual respect and common interests.

June 25: Michael Jackson dies at age 50. He is found unconscious in his home, then rushed to a Los Angeles hospital where he is pronounced dead. His physician is found guilty of the death.

June 30: Nearly eight months after the election and a long battle over a recount, the Minnesota Supreme Court rules that Al Franken (Dem.) wins the U.S. senate seat for Minnesota. The final recount gives Franken a 312-vote lead. His rival, Norm Coleman (Rep.) concedes. Franken's win gives the Democrats in the Senate the filibuster-proof 60-seat majority they have been hoping for.

Aug. 25: Senator Edward "Ted" Kennedy, a fixture in the Senate for 46 years, dies of brain cancer at the age of 77.

Oct. 19: The federal government announces it will no longer prosecute those who use or sell marijuana for medical reasons, if they are complying with state law.

Oct. 21: The Obama administration orders pay cuts for the top-paid employees at those firms that received the most stimulus money. The top 25 earners at seven of the companies that received the most taxpayer money will have compensation cut up to 50%.

Nov. 5: A shooting at the Fort Hood army post in Texas kills 13 and injures 29. Ten of those killed are military personnel, while one is a civilian. Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan, an army psychiatrist, is the alleged shooter. He was shot four times by an officer on the scene, but he survived the attack.

Dec. 1: President Obama announces that the U.S. military will be sending an additional 30,000 troops to Afghanistan, in an attempt to prevent further Taliban insurgencies. The troop surge will begin in Jan. 2010, and will bring the total number of American troops in Afghanistan to 100,000.

Dec. 25: A Nigerian man on a flight from Amsterdam to Detroit allegedly attempted to ignite an explosive device hidden in his underwear. The explosive device that failed to detonate was a mixture of powder and liquid that did not alert security personnel in the airport. The alleged bomber, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, told officials later that he was directed by the terrorist group Al Qaeda. Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, a group based in Yemen, takes responsibility for orchestrating the attack.

Obama wins the Nobel Peace Prize basically because he's not President Bush.

2010

Jan. 21: In a 5-4 decision, the U.S. Supreme Court rules that the government cannot restrict the spending of corporations for political campaigns, maintaining that it's their First Amendment right to support candidates as they choose.  Since corporations are people under the constitution, and all. This decision reverses 100 years of law on the speech "rights" of corporations. 

Feb. 2: Following President Obama's State of the Union Declaration that he wants an end to the military policy "Don't Ask, Don't Tell," which forbids openly gay men and women to serve in the military, top officials at the Department of Defense look for a way to end the law. Admiral Mike Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, announces that he feels repealing the policy is "the right thing to do." Defense Secretary Robert Gates says he will follow through with Obama's orders.

Mar. 21: The House of Representatives passes a bill that will overhaul the American health-care system. The bill will be sent to President Obama to sign into law. Among other things, the bill will allow children to stay on their parents' health insurance plans until the age of 26, prevent insurance companies from denying coverage due to a patient's "pre-existing conditions," subsidize private insurance for low- and middle-income Americans, and require all Americans to have some sort of health insurance. The budget office estimates that the law will reduce federal budget deficits by $143 billion over the next 10 years. The government plans to earn money for the law with a tax on high-cost employer-sponsored health plans and a tax on the investment income of the wealthiest Americans. Mar. 23: President Obama signs the health-care overhaul bill, called the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, into law. Mar. 30: Obama signs the "reconciliation" bill, which outlines minor changes and additions to the new health-care act, coupled with the bill that overhauls the student loan industry. The health care revisions were drafted by the U.S. Senate as a measure to prevent Republicans from filibustering the original health-care bill.

June 23: After a controversial interview with Rolling Stone that included some demeaning remarks about President Obama and his administration, General Stanley McChrystal is fired as commander of the American Forces in Afghanistan and replaced by his boss, General David Patraeus.

July 15: Congress approves a landmark financial regulation bill, strongly supported by President Obama and by and large the Democratic Party. The bill increases the number of companies that will be regulated by government oversight, a panel to watch for risks in the financial system, and a consumer protection agency. Some Democrats and critics argue that the bill is not tough enough; Republicans claim it gives the government too much power in the business sector.

Aug. 4: A federal judge strikes down the voter-approved gay marriage ban in California, calling the law unconstitutional. Judge Vaughn Walker, the chief judge of the Federal District Court of the Northern District of California, claims that the law, which was voted into place with 52% of the vote in 2008 as Proposition 8, discriminates against gay men and women. Aug. 12: Judge Walker lifts the stay on the banning of gay marriage in California, allowing same-sex couples to marry while higher courts consider the matter. He delays implementation of the order until August 18, however. Aug. 16: A U.S. appeals court rules that same-sex couples cannot marry in the state of California while the court considers the constitutionality of the ban.

Aug. 5: The United States Senate votes 63 to 37 to confirm President Obama's most recent nominee to the U.S. Supreme Court, Elena Kagan, as the newest Justice. Kagan is only the fourth woman to ever hold this position, and she'll be the third female member of the current bench, joining Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Sonia Sotomayor.

Aug. 31: Seven years after the war in Iraq began, President Obama announces the end of Operation Iraqi Freedom with a withdrawal of combat troops. Obama emphasizes that U.S. domestic problems, mainly the flailing economy and widespread unemployment, are more pressing matters to his country. The U.S. will continue to be a presence in Iraq, mainly with civilian contractors but also with a smaller military contingent of approximately 50,000 troops. The remaining troops are scheduled to leave Iraq by the end of 2011.

Nov. 4: The Republican Party gains control of the House of Representatives in the midterm elections, but the Democratic party retains the majority in the Senate. Two members of the Tea Party also have victories, Rand Paul of Kentucky and Mark Rubio of Florida. Senate majority leader Harry Reid wins his reelection in Nevada and his fellow Democrats win key Senate races across the country; therefore, Reid maintains his leadership position. Representative John Boehner of Ohio is poised to become the new Speaker of the House, replacing Democratic Representative Nancy Pelosi of California.

Nov. 24: Tom Delay, the former House Majority Leader from Texas, is convicted of money laundering and conspiracy to commit money laundering involving corporate campaign contributions. He faces up to 99 years in prison in his sentencing.

Dec. 18: The Senate votes 65 to 31 in favor of repealing Don't Ask, Don't Tell, the Clinton-era military policy that forbids openly gay men and women from serving in the military. Eight Republicans side with the Democrats to strike down the ban. The repeal is sent to President Obama for his final signature. The ban will not be lifted officially until Obama, Defense Secretary Robert Gates, and Admiral Mike Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, agree that the military is ready to enact the change and that it won't affect military readiness. Dec. 22: President Obama officially repeals the "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" military policy.

Dec. 22: After years of debate and compromise, Congress passes a $4.3 billion health bill for the rescue workers involved in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks in New York City. The bill will cover $1.8 billion in health-care costs for the 60,000 rescue workers registered for monitoring and treatment; the City of New York will pay 10% of the bill's overall costs. The bill will also reopen the September 11 Victim Compensation Fund for five years, which provides money to compensate for job loss.

2011
Last year saw the Republicans drive the country to brink of bankruptcy by refusing to raise the debt ceiling.  The hard right of the part is in control, and a "grand bargain" with Speaker John Boehner was derailed.  A super committee meant to find $1.5T in budget cuts failed miserably.  It's a weird time.

Well, that's what you've missed.  The world is a very different place than when you were last in it.  I could have used your guidance and advice many times.  But what is done cannot be undone.  I just hope you are resting in peace.

Funny, I don't remember getting this particular email in 2004 or 2008! The emphasis on certain words is mine.

Subject: "Did You Know?": Obama/Candidate Photographs and the Election

POLITICAL ACTIVITY AND THE FEDERAL WORK PLACE – GENERALLY
1. Q. Now that President Obama is a candidate for reelection, may federal employees display his picture in their offices?

Answer: NO. An employee covered by the Hatch Act may not engage in political activity while on duty, in a government room or building, while wearing an official uniform, or using a government vehicle. 5 U.S.C. § 7324. Political activity is defined as activity directed toward the success or failure of a political party, candidate for a partisan political office or partisan political group. 5 C.F.R. § 734.101.

Thus, the Hatch Act prohibits federal employees from, among other things, displaying pictures of candidates for partisan public office in the federal workplace. See 5 C.F.R. § 734.306, Example 16. Because President Obama is a candidate for reelection, the Hatch Act prohibits an employee from displaying his photograph in the federal workplace, unless one of the two exceptions discussed below applies.

The first exception applies to official photographs of the President. The Hatch Act does not prohibit the continued display of official photographs of the President in the federal workplace, to include both public and employee work spaces. Official photographs include the traditional portrait photo of the President displayed in all federal buildings, as well as photographs of the President conducting official business (e.g., President meeting with heads of state). However, these official photographs must be displayed in a traditional size and manner and should not be altered in anyway (e.g., the addition of halos or horns). Pictures that are distributed by the President’s campaign or a partisan organization, such as the Democratic National Committee or Organizing for America, are not official, even if they depict the President performing an official act. Similarly, pictures downloaded from the internet or clipped from magazines or newspapers, screens savers and life-size cutouts are not official photographs for purposes of this exception.

The second exception, which applies to all candidate photographs, concerns employee personal photographs. An employee would not be prohibited from having a photograph of any candidate in his or her office, if all of the following apply: the photograph was on display in advance of the election season; the employee is in the photograph with the candidate; and the photograph is a personal one (i.e., the employee has a personal relationship with the candidate and the photograph is taken at some kind of personal event or function, for example, a wedding, and not at a campaign event or some other type of partisan political event). An employee must not have a political purpose for displaying the photograph, namely, promoting or opposing a political party or a candidate for partisan political office.

Questions?: Please contact the CDC Ethics Program Activity Office

Ok, Maybe I DO Get Overenthusiastic

I wrote this essay in October and think it is worth sharing.

I would recommend that anytime you stop seeing someone in a romantic sense that you sit down with that person and have a chat about it. The things you can learn are quite useful, and it goes a long way to soothing hurt feelings. Some of you are aware that in the past couple of months, I have felt terribly wronged, misled, and otherwise lied to by someone. Names are not important (and please do NOT call out any names in comments). Suffice it to say that this person finally agreed to sit down with me one-on-one and talk. I think the talk went very well, and had I had talks like that with previous exes (although this person didn't last long enough to be an actual "ex"), I could have saved myself a lot of self-torment and heartache.





In this conversation, I was able to provide my perspective of what went on between us and to explain where my thought processes led me, even when the conclusions were in error. About a month ago, I had become pretty drunk and for the first time in my life, I was an ANGRY drunk. Never before had this happened, and I hope it never happens again. I don't remember what I said to him, but I do remember the overwhelming sense of rage. It's the kind of rage I've only felt a couple of times in my life, and never drunk. It's never been pretty. I'm fairly slow to anger, but when I do lose my temper, it can be volcanic, and I can say some of the most vicious things imaginable. That's why I try to always recognize when I'm getting angry and to deal with it immediately rather than let it fester or grow. It's a strategy that has worked pretty well for me. Apparently, Angry Drunk Jason unloaded on this guy for about an hour (via text no less). Then I switched to depressed, morose, self-pitying drunk Jason. Luckily, this guy deleted the whole ugly scene, as did I, before I passed out.





Anyway, what led up to that unloading of venom does not in any way excuse it. I made that clear when I started asking him to sit down and talk with me after that incident. I wasn't sure he'd actually do it, even after he said yes. After all, he'd stood me up before, but to his credit, he did show up. I spent a lot of time talking, explaining things about my background, and why I thought the things that I did. It wasn't a monologue, thankfully, and he provided feedback along the way.





What I learned is that I tried too hard, and made him feel like I was pushing him toward a certain "boyfriend status" ahead of the timeline he was comfortable with, so he just shut down and backed off, basically avoiding me like the plague. Why not just tell me I was being too intense to relax or back off? Good question. He says he didn't know what to say, so he said nothing. It's a bit of a cop out, but one that rings true to me. He knows that this course of action simply made things worse, and lead me to believe that he'd been telling me a pack of lies which infuriated me. Nothing will send me into orbit more quickly than giving my trust to someone and having them betray it.





I have trust issues with men. There's no way to get around that fact. I've had therapy to work on it, but it's a very slow process. My first experiences with having my brain soaked in "love chemicals" which produce the unique sensation of falling in love with someone with it's euphoria, the sense of fireworks exploding in the sky, etc etc did not go well. In fact, they have NEVER gone well. After a particularly heinous period in my early-to-mid-20s, I simply vowed that I would never allow anyone to hurt me like that again, to rob me of my sense of self-worth and feeling that I was loveable and worthy of being loved. The result was that I built a particularly strong and effective wall around my heart so that a person could get pretty darn close to me, but not close enough to do real damage. Flash forward a decade or so, and this strategy certainly kept me from having my heart broken again, but it left me completely alone with no prospects of that changing.





Over the last several years, I've learned that if I don't want to die alone (a thought which has haunted and frightened me since I came out of the closet in 1994), I have to be willing to take risks emotionally. I have to be willing to open my heart to being broken again if I expect someone else to do the same. The crappy thing about that idea is there are no guarantees that it'll work out. You expose your heart to pain, and you're likely to get hurt, even if you find love. The people we love can be the ones who hurt us the most sometimes. So I could either grow old and die alone, but heart not being risked again, or I could learn to tear down that wall I'd built and take a risk that could REALLY pay off or it could end up in heartache again. But if I didn't take "enter the game" there was no way I could win. Besides, *I* get sick of hearing myself complain about never having a man; I can only imagine what my friends think!





Anyway, why this guy ended up being the person to unleash the love hormones in my brain, I don't know. He's not the type I usually go for, and had he not expressed interest first, I probably would have never paid him a bit of attention. But he did express interest first, and I was intrigued and then really liked what I saw. Next thing I know, by the end of the first date, my brain was pumping out dopamine, norepinephrine, serotonin, oxytocin, and vasopressin (the "love chemicals" of the brain) in apparently large quantities. Spending the night together soon after only put production of these chemicals into overdrive. What can I say? I don't share my bed often, but when I do, it's very much a bonding experience for me. It's why I don't do overnights casually in the sexual context. Sharing a bed on group trips does not have the same effect ;-)





It had been over a decade since I'd experienced anything close to these emotions, and I have to admit it frightened me. Even though I'd been "in training" via therapy for such an event, when it arrived, the terror started to rise in me. Because I have never had a good experience when I have felt these emotions, my rational mind equates them with impending doom and heartbreak. I had to fight very hard against that fear when I spent time with him. I knew I had to force myself to remain emotionally open and completely honest, even though that felt like surrendering all the power. It was terrifying, but I managed to do it. What I found was that I became somewhat obsessed in making sure that I wasn't putting forth all this effort in vain; that I wasn't being "played" or used. I was so afraid that if this guy turned out to be a douchebag, that it would undo all the effort I'd put in to being willing to take a risk.





So I definitely became over-enthiastic. I couldn't help myself. The ironic thing is that he wasn't the only person I was spending time with, getting to know. But he was definitely in the lead just based on brain chemicals alone. I did seek too much reassurance, tried way too hard. It would have helped me come back to earth had he just pointed that out and been honest about how much it was driving him nuts. When I started to get information that indicated he was playing me, that's when he chose to start avoiding me, which led me to conclude that my information must be correct since actions speak louder than words.





There are other details that don't really matter, except for one. He admitted, and apologized, for lying to me about stupid things. The chief one being the night he simply stood me up when I was supposed to cook him dinner and then gave me some crap excuse about his phone dying being the reason he couldn't contact me until over 24 hours later. Had I had an ounce less of those damn brain chemicals flowing in my head, I would have never spoken to him again after that. It stands out as the single rudest thing that has EVER been done to me. He also lied about text messages not being delivered, all of which I knew. Not only did the lying anger me, the notion that he thought I was stupid enough to buy his pathetic excuses insulted me to boot. I was pleasantly surprised that he owned up to it, and that he apologized. I told him that empathy for other people is not a sign of weakness or a bad trait. The truth is always better than a lie, especially when your lie is so transparent.





Another thing about this guy is his charisma. I've seen him work that charisma on other people, and it's pretty amazing to see him switch it on and off so quickly. His level of charisma rivals the best politicians I've met in my life, and I've shaken hands with Bill Clinton! This guy can, and does, turn his charisma on and off at will. When he's turned it on in your direction, he's very hard to resist or with whom to remain angry. Some of what he told me was probably self-serving, especially his misunderstood bit. What he told me about his experience of my behavior, though, was very useful. I *do* get over-enthusiastic when there seems to be a mutual attraction. I blame it on the fact that I'm basically starved of romantic love, so when the opportunity looks like it will arise for me to experience it, I'm like a starving man at a buffet. I'm sure it scares people off, like it did this guy.





I'm not sure how to control that response. Do I warn future prospects that this is how I get, and to please tell me when I'm coming on too strong since that is not my intent? I'm not getting any younger. I need to find good answers, and a good man who will love me quirks and all. I'm still scared that such a man does not exist, and that if he does, it's certainly not in the metro Atlanta area. I don't know how to beat that fear down either.





Where's a mail order husband when you need one?

I'd like to leave you with this quote that explains perfectly why I have tried to tear down my inner wall and why I am so determined not to rebuild it:

"Life will break you. Nobody can protect you from that, and living alone won't either, for solitude will also break you with its yearning. You have to love. You have to feel. It is the reason you are here on earth. You are here to risk your heart. You are here to be swallowed up. And when it happens that you are broken, or betrayed, or left, or hurt, or death brushes near, let yourself sit by an apple tree and listen to the apples falling all around you in heaps, wasting their sweetness. Tell yourself you tasted as many as you could." Louise Erdrich, The Painted Drum, p247

Fighting resegregation in Georgia

Today, I wrote the US Department of Justice to urge it to reject the proposed Georgia legislative maps for violating the spirit and intent of the Voting Rights Act. If you wish to write the Justice Department with your concerns about these maps aiming to create a super-majority white conservative control of the legislature, here's how you do it:

Write a letter to the Department of Justice. Where to send your letter:

Mr. Chris Herren

Chief, Voting Section
Civil Rights Division
Room 7254 - NWB
Department of Justice
950 Pennsylvania Ave., N.W.
Washington, DC 20530

If you want to send your letter through an overnight express service such as Airborne, DHL, Federal Express or UPS, then your letter should be addressed to:

Mr. Chris Herren

Chief, Voting Section
Civil Rights Division
Room 7254 - NWB
Department of Justice
1800 G St., N.W.
Washington, DC 20006

You may also email your letter to vot1973c@usdoj.gov and please enter “Georgia Redistricting” in the subject field.

If you would rather not send a letter or email, you may also call the Department of Justice at 1-800-253-3931 and ask to speak to the Georgia Redistricting team. You can also Fax 202-616-9514 and on your cover page, please reference “Georgia Redistricting”

My letter:

Hello -

My name is Jason Cecil, and I am a Georgia resident who lives at 1503 Oakridge Court, Decatur, GA 30033. I wish to comment on the proposed redistricting maps that Georgia Republicans have adopted.

As a resident of DeKalb County, these maps endeavor to disenfranchise myself and my neighbors by placing us in oddly shaped districts that slice through multiple communities of interest and dismanteling multiracial coalitions that have bound our communities together in the last couple of decades. My proposed state House district looks like a candy cane that coils around my neighborhood and then shoots over to Stone Mountain before ending in south DeKalb. My area of DeKalb has little in the way of common community interest with the rest of this proposed district other than being located in DeKalb County.

The state House and state Senate maps show a clear disregard for communities of interest, and have the intention of eliminating ALL White Democrats from the state legislature. The Georgia Republican party is endeavoring to segregrate the parties to ensure that the GOP is seen as the "white" party and the Democratic party is "black only". These maps produce majority white districts to elect Republicans and majority black districts to elect Democrats. As a white Georgia Democrat, I feel my vote is being targeted because of my race. The proposed maps ensure that I am not able to participate in multiracial coalitions to elect representatives of my choice. Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act prohibits racial discrimination of any kind. The proposed maps appear to be systematic in their targeting of White Democrats which isolates African Americans and all other voters by limiting their ability to build coalitions.

What's even more offensive is that the Georgia Republican party has claimed the Voting Rights Act "made" them do it. There is no legal standing for Republican comments that they are allowed to have up to 73 percent Black Voting Age Population in a district. It is a manufactured number. The Voting Rights Act does not require a specific threshold, and the outcome cannot reduce the electoral power of minorities,including their ability to coalition with other groups. The artificial creation of Black districts at the expense of integrated districts violates the intent of the Voting Rights Act. These district maps manipulate the Voting Rights Act, maximize GOP voting performance at the expense of multi-racial coalitions. The proposed maps maps DISCRIMINATE against the ability of Georgians to build multi-racial coalitions which have been a proud feature of state and local politics for the last 46 years.

Other factors that lead me to oppose these maps:

1. GOP-led reapportionment hearings were not held in places and times in which most Georgians could attend. The panels did not fully reflect the diversity of Georgia.
2. Discrimination based on past political expression has been frowned upon by members of the US Supreme Court.
3. The growing Hispanic and Latino population in Georgia is being isolated by eliminating the sole Latino Democratic Representative in the legislature. The message to this population is: Get on board with white conservatives if you want a voice in state government.
4. The maps target two of three LGBT members of the legislature by putting them in districts with fellow African American incumbents. These two legislators are the ONLY African American LGBT state legislators in the United States

I ask that the Department of Justice reject these maps for violating the spirit and intent of the Voting Rights Act.

Respectfully,

Jason A. Cecil

Decatur, GA

What I Learned Tonight

In my last post, I mentioned my current challenge of sticking with something for the sake of physical fitness.  Well, through the misery, the dry heaves, the asthma attack, the new bouts of hyperventilation, and learning to run... I have stuck with it.  Rugby is kicking my ass, but in a good way.  I found an iPhone app called "From couch to 5k" that I've started working with that alternates periods of running with walking.  I find that running is doable in digestible chunks.  I find that at practice, I can now jog halfway around the pitch without feeling I need to slow down.

Oddly, the thing I enjoy the most about the conditioning part of rugby practice is the stretching.  It hurts, but in a good way.  When I first started at the end of July, I could barely grab my ankle, but now I can get a couple of fingers on the toe of my sneakers.  I've learned a lot about stretching which is useful to me, and I'm grateful to Gary for showing me what he knows.  Even at the gym, the stretches we do, especially for the legs, are very useful.

I've received a lot of support from the team that I didn't anticipate.  I still find it embarrassing to be cheered on as I straggle behind everyone else to finish a drill.  I'd much rather have someone there with me, urging me on to the finish...then bring the cheer when I do :-)  That's just my sense of embarrassment at needing to be prodded, but it's good for me.  I do need to be prodded, encouraged to push just a little farther without going overboard.  It's an odd balance, but several guys on the team seem to have a gift for it, at least where it comes to me.

The one asthma attack I had was due to the fact I had forgotten to take my inhaler prior to practice.  Not a smart move.  When I take the inhaler prior to practice, I'm fine.  I've found in the last week or so that I have a different problem; in trying to take slow, deep breaths, I lose control of my breathing and start to hyperventilate.  It still scares me when it happens, but I've learned I can beat it by intensely focusing on an object and really putting my mind to seizing control of my breathing once more.

Tonight was an especially interesting practice for me.  We started out with the usual stuff:  a job around the pitch, squats, stretches, high knee jog back and forth.  But then we started with this exercise that Gary promised was going to prove once and for all that we definitely have thigh and butt muscles.  He warned us we'd feel it tomorrow and curse his name.  I'll admit, I kinda wished at that moment that I could just go home.

I didn't, though.  The drill went like this:  we start at the end of the field (blanking on the name of the line right now), do 20 squats, then we do deep lunges to the 25 yard line, pulling up the opposite arm of the leg that is at a 90 degree angle from the squat.  At the 25 yard line, we sprint to the 50 yard line.  Gary strongly suggested that we really high knee the sprint in order to pump blood into thighs that will be screaming by that time.  At the 50 yard line, we do another 20 squats.  Then the lunges again to the 75 yard line.  Then high knee sprint to the 100 yard line.  Turn around, rinse, and repeat all the way back down the pitch to where we started.

I kid about the rinse part, but what was no joke was how my legs felt.  I've been practicing squats on my own at the gym, so the first 20 were OK.  The lunges started to hurt halfway to the 25 yard line.  But I did it.   Most of the other guys were in a bit of a race, so I was WAY behind.  Coach Zach came up beside me to show me proper form and to do the lunges with me so I'd get it.  He stayed with me all the way down the pitch and back again, encouraging me to take it one piece at a time.  The 2nd half of the pitch, I thought my thighs were going to give out.  It's a weird sensation to feel the strength in your legs just give out like that, but I stuck with it, and they did not give out.  They hated me, screamed bloody murder at me, but they kept working.  I was not able to run, but I did high step it through the sprint portions.  And in that last bit where I was lunging to the finish line, Coach Zach said, "In front of all these guys, you're going to finish this.  You can do it."   That's when I got a round of encouragement for me to finish that I found embarrassing, but I plugged ahead and  I did finish.  I didn't finish pretty, but I finished.

Honesty time.  Before that experience with Coach Zach, he really frightened me.  He reminded me of my 7th grade basketball coach who was gruff, liked to yell a lot, and thought nothing of ridiculing you.  I have lived in a bit of fear that Coach Zach would turn his ire on me.   Whenever he talked about the need to build stamina because without it, you are useless to the team, I figured he was talking about me directly.  When he came up to me while I was lunging, I expected to be yelled at for doing it wrong.  Instead, he simply showed me how and had me mimic him, and then stuck by me to make sure I kept up my form.  He didn't yell at me or ridicule me for being slow.  Him sticking with me made me not want to give up.  Getting that kind of personal attention told me that he had some faith me, and I wanted to honor that faith and not let him down.  If he guessed that's how to motivate me, he guessed correctly.

We moved on to defensive drills and tackling.  This is where I learned something tonight that I had not known before:  I LIKE TO HIT!  And by hit, I mean tackle.  It turns out that I have some raw ability to do it too, which is even better.  In the last practice, we were told to imagine we were tackling behind the player, which fits into how I was once taught to punch.  You don't punch for the face; you punch for BEHIND the person's head.  That way you fool your brain into hitting with full force.  If you aim for what you are hitting, your brain will subconsciously pull back in anticipation.

I was paired with some of the more aggressive members of the team, which did worry me.  Coach Zach said we had to not approach a tackle with fear because that would end in injury.  So I only focused on the legs and I went to tackle, and I held on for dear life once I grabbed hold until the guy came down.  It was fun!  I liked to hit and take people down.

I wasn't as good at being the person tackled.  I did what I could to avoid the tackler, which Coach Zach says I need to stop doing.  "Forwards go forward, not sideways."  The point, I believe, is to plow through a guy trying to tackle you like he's nothing.  That I need to work on.  I think the notion of making myself a kind of big bowling ball when I have the ball and am being approached will be helpful in this endeavor.  Coach Zach even said that I could be pretty good once I learn to plow straight ahead.  Gotta admit, that was the highlight of my night.

We then started more real-game type of drills.  I found this disorienting and I ended up making a lot of mistakes.  I tackled a couple of guys way too high and ended up putting a kink in my neck.  But that's why they tell us to go low, and put our shoulders into the belly of the guy we're tackling.  It makes perfect sense.  I need to get comfortable with the chaos of a real game situation though.  Otherwise, I'm going to be worse than useless on the pitch in those situations playing defense.  The game of rugby moves FAST, and I gotta learn to move with it.   I'm not as worried about that because my brain can process something and with practice, I'll be fine.  I just need to find whatever it is that will make it click with me when we're doing the whole post-A-B-C stuff.

I already know that I'm going to be in MAJOR pain tomorrow.  I feel it a little already, but the feeling I had when I was able to successfully tackle tonight is something I want to capture again.  It makes the pain I"m going to feel tomorrow worthwhile.  It's amazing to know that there's something physical that I could be good at!   That is one reason why I'm writing this tonight instead of tomorrow:  the pain is going to make me curse rugby at least a little bit.  But that's why God invented naproxen  and cold compresses.

The challenge continues...

My Current Challenge

To say that I am not a fitness enthusiast would be quite the understatement.  Other than cardiovascular and aesthetic benefits, I have never found myself obsessed with the gym, even with the endorphins released after working out.  Thus, I have never been, nor will I ever be, a gym bunny.

This fact has made it entirely too easy for me to simply find excuses to skip the gym.  It's too late.  I'm too tired.  I'm cranky.  I don't feel good.  I'm hungry.  It's too early to be awake.  I have other activities that take my time.  I can't fit it in.  Blah, blah, blah.  The end result is that I'm grotesquely out of shape, my resting heart rate has gone up, and my waist size has expanded as my metabolism seems to be inexorably sliding to a complete stop.  This has had health consequences from the development of a "fatty liver" which makes my enzymes screwy to an absolute warning that if I don't act, and SOON, I will become the latest citizen of Diabetes-Land.

I want to avoid diabetes at all costs.  Diet isn't going to cut it.  Even eating healthier, the slowing of my metabolism makes that route only so advantageous.  Also, I enjoy a good meal.  Always have, and probably always will.  This means that I have to increase the number of calories I burn through physical activity.  The gym is one aspect, but my history with consistent gym going is spotty.  My lack of gym addiction makes it all to easy to push that down on the priority list.  Even when I have friends to meet at the gym.  It can be as simple as  resentment of never going to the gym closest to my house.  It invariably falls apart.

I'm equally not good at solitary sports which depend upon personal drive to have the discipline to succeed.  I simply do not care enough about athletic achievements to make that workable for me.  I've never been good at sports.  I was never well coordinated.  I was awkward.  The one year I played basketball in 7th grade after being the first guy in my class to hit puberty was a disaster.  I invariably screwed up in practice, got ridiculed by the coach, felt inferior and embarrassed, and the one time I did get on the court, I was fouled and couldn't even make free throws.

I need an organized activity where it's OK to not be talented.  Where I won't have others pile onto my own sense of athletic inferiority.  The one October I tried playing fall softball, I had the definite impression that I was annoying the more talented players.  I could smell the judgment, although I will say they never vocalized it.  I may have found a sport, and a team, that can fit my needs.  It will not be easy, because I really am out of shape, but this is a mission, a challenge, that I cannot fail.

In July, I went to a Rugby 101 "clinic" held by the Atlanta Bucks rugby club.  I suppose since rugby hasn't penetrated the United States school sports that it's expected people will come this not knowing a thing about rugby.  That is certainly true of me.  I thought of rugby because I've been told on more than one occasion that I have a build made for rugby.  So I went.

Going to learn a sport in the midday heat of July during the hottest summer I have lived through in Atlanta wasn't the hottest choice.  I overheated.  I had had coffee about an hour before the clinic, so I chucked that one too.   I had bags of ice applied to my head to bring down my body temperature.  It worked, and no one gave me any judgement.  The guys were super nice, and were quite adamant about not overdoing it. In the part of the clinic I did participate in, I actually had some dexterity at catching the rugby ball, which shocked me.  I thought that perhaps I could do this.

But there's a level of athleticism required in rugby that will make this probably the largest physical challenge of my life.  There's a lot of running, and endurance.  I knew there was puking in my future.  But I also knew that there was no way to make it through that without just doing it.  My cardiovascular system needs to be strengthened for endurance and so that it doesn't so quickly escalate to maximum heart rate, and the attendant vomiting.

I went to the first Bucks conditioning practice last Thursday evening.  On the plus side, it was held from 7:30 to 9pm, at the end of the day.  It was still 90F outside but the sun wasn't nearly as intense.  We started out running a lap around the field at Coan Middle School.  I, of course, brought up the rear.  Two laps was enough to send my pulse into the stratosphere and to bring on the nausea.

I had prepared better for this practice than the Rugby 101.  I filled an old OJ 2 gallon jug with water and chilled it mostly so I could dump it on my head and try to regulate my body temp that way.  I also ate nothing after lunch earlier that day, so my stomach was largely empty.  But it wasn't enough to keep away the damn nausea.

I hate being nauseated more than anything.  I can take things hurting.  I can even take vomiting, even though it's very difficult for me to actually vomit.  Nausea drives me nuts.  It's enough to basically cripple you, but nothing that anyone can really recognize except you.

I had to stop and start a lot.  It was really embarrassing, even though I'd warned the guy leading it that I was coming to him from a zero fitness level.  The guys were quite encouraging.  I didn't get the impression that I was making people roll their eyes at how lame my physical reactions were.  Gary was really good about telling me not to overdo it, and to encourage me to do what I could.  This was the first time doing a lot of these exercises, so I had the awkwardness of  that combined with an overwhelming nausea that would start up again soon after I got going.

Even with the leg throws, my issue was getting my legs up to where they could be grabbed.  Joe was kind enough to realize it would be better to hold my feet up, let my legs fall, and have me bring them back up.  The last lap around the field at the end, I ended up walking it.  But for me, walking it after I had vomited bile and felt like utter crap, was a victory.  I really wanted to just say "screw it" but I couldn't.  I knew I had to finish this workout for myself.  Killie (that spelling may be off for the nickname) came back around the jogged with me, asking if I thought I could do a slow jog.  I told him it was a victory for me to be even walking it, and he noted that my walking was keeping up with his light jog so it was all good.

The conditioning left me drained.  I was basically a zombie afterward when I went out to eat.  I'm sure my dinner companions found me less than charming.  I also wondered if some of the guys thought that would be last they'd see of me.  The next conditioning is scheduled for Tuesday night, and I will be there.  I hope it will be better physically than it was Thursday.  Gary gave me some pointers about what I could do at the gym to get my body used to sustained effort on a treadmill.  There is a bit of fear about what happens when actual practices start.  Gary made mention to all of us how the coaches would put us through hell.  The conditioning kicked my ass... I can't imagine what the coaches have planned.

My mom did not greet the news of me vomiting well.  Maybe I shouldn't have shared it on facebook, but oh well.  I need to share because I need the encourage to fight through, to improve, and stick with it despite the physical misery I will experience early on.  My mom both emailed and called me to express her concern.  She has visions that I will end up one of those people who just drop dead in a practice because I will push or be pushed too hard.

I'm not concerned about the being pushed too hard with the Bucks.  So far, they've really respected limits, and I have no reason to believe that won't continue.  This is definitely something I need to do for me.  It's going to be hard.  I'm not whining; I'm simply facing the facts.  I have to prepare myself mentally to face up to the regular embarrassment of not being able to do what other guys can do on the team.  I usually haven't participated in things in which I am not naturally talented.  From childhood through adulthood, I followed things that ran along with my passions from drama, to school honor societies, to politics.  I have established myself as a credible contender for the activities I've participated in.

My parents never pushed me to play sports, and I certainly wasn't inclined to pursue activities where I had zero natural talent.  But the stakes are too high for me now.  It's important for me to pursue this despite the difficulties.  Despite being pretty sure that I will see next to no playing time, and I certainly won't be a benefit on the pitch.  Knowing this, I still need to pursue this rugby thing, push my physical fitness into healthier levels that will keep me away from diabetes and hopefully improve other aspects of my general health.

 I need to face down something that has a lot of natural negatives for me and my ego, and to not give up.  Maybe I will find a natural talent in some aspect of rugby.  Maybe the game will click for me in a way that will allow me to make a REAL contribution.  I have to do this for me.  I feel that if I fail at this, the consequences for me personally will be bad.  What's worse, I'm afraid I'd lose respect for myself.  I'm a tough bastard in many ways, and I've faced down a lot of personal crap over my lifetime so far.  But now I need to prove to myself that I'm more than just emotionally tough.  I need to prove my mettle to myself.

But I may go through a personal hell to do it.  And I'll need the help and encouragement of friends, especially new friends I'm making on the Bucks team.

Federal Furlough Notices Released

In case you've never seen one, here is what went out to each individual staff member at CDC starting last night and through this morning.  My notice was received at 7:06am.  Thanks Teabaggers!

I. - Important Furlough Related Notice

As Secretary Sebelius communicated in her message to all employees, civilian and uniformed dated April 5, 2011, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services may be in a furlough status when the current Continuing Resolution expires this week. In the absence of either a fiscal year 2011 appropriation, or a continuing resolution for HHS, no further financial obligations may be incurred as of midnight on Friday, April 8, 2011 except for those related to the orderly suspension of the agency's operations or performance of funded or excepted activities, as defined by the Office of Management and Budget.

You have not been identified as excepted from the furlough based on one of the following criteria defined by OMB:  (1) Employees involved in obligations 'authorized by law' or (2) Employees involved in the safety of human life or the protection of property. This means that if the Department is in a furlough status, you will be furloughed from your position, and will be in a nonpay, nonduty status.  (Commissioned Corps officers will remain on active duty, but in a non-work, non-pay status)

Please begin identifying the required actions you will need to complete in order to effect an orderly shutdown of your office operations should the official shutdown occur.

All employees will receive their regularly scheduled pay on Friday, April 15, 2011 for the pay period ending Saturday, April 9, 2011.

Because this furlough does not have a planned end date, Departmental leadership will make a reasonable effort to inform all employees when the furlough is over and when they are expected to return to work. Please also continue to monitor the news for the latest information regarding the furlough.  When you hear that a continuing resolution or a fiscal year 2011 appropriation for HHS has been approved, you will be expected to return to work on your next regular duty day.

For additional furlough guidance, please refer to the Question and Answer document and the Office of Personnel Management's website at www.opm.gov/furlough/furlough.asp and www.opm.gov/furlough2011.

Thomas R. Frieden, M.D., M.P.H.

Director, CDC, and

Administrator, ATSDR

A 10-year-old note

The build-up to the 10th anniversary of my dad's suicide has been fairly quiet emotionally.  I didn't even think about it much until the past week, although it has haunted me over the weekend.  Yet, I didn't feel like rehashing the event in detail, as I have in the past.  If you are interested, you can read about it here.

My thoughts have been most focused on the notes my dad left.  He left 10 of them.  Randy Cecil was nothing if not a planner.  He knew exactly what he was doing and planned everything, even burning a disk of music he wanted played at his funeral.   Out of the 9 personalized notes, the envelope with my name on it read, "Jason, Mom, Dad, and Judy".  I didn't get my own note, which has bugged me.  As his only son, I thought I deserved a note of my own.  Perhaps he couldn't face the prospect.  He adored my grandparents, so perhaps it was just easier to lump me into a note for them and his sister, my Aunt Judy.

Anyway, by the bedside table, Dad left the following note (italics indicate something written in my dad's handwriting):

February 13, 2001  5AM


To Whom It May Concern:

I took my own life without the knowledge or assistance of anyone.  I used prescription drugs that I saved over time without my doctor's knowledge.  Please notify Pam Cecil at 381-3332 (work) or 266-1591 (home) and Michelle Harr at 243-4882 (work), 312-4409 (mobile) or 223-4403 (home).  Do not notify my parents or son as I prefer Pam or Michelle to do that.

Please give my will to Michelle Harr as she is my executor.

Randal H. Cecil
Randal H. Cecil

My physician is Dr. James Borders.
My therapist is Jacky Thomas.


I was struck at how, even at the moment of his impending suicide, Dad wanted to be sure that no one got into trouble because of his actions.  He explicitly clears his medical doctor and therapist of any professional blame.  And that was the right thing for him to do.  I worked with Jacky to try to save him, and he fooled her in the end just as he fooled me.

Of course, the police had to open and read all of the suicide notes, even though mine was marked:  "ONLY FOR  Jason, Mom, Dad & Judy     Personal"


This note read:

February 13, 2001

Dear Jason, Mom, Dad, and Judy,

I'm so sorry to cause you this pain, but I could not erase my pain any other way.  I love you all very much.  Please do not blame yourselves as you did all you could do.  Please also know that I tried very, very hard for a long time to get well and could not.  The pain hurts just as much, if not more, now than it did at first.  Please do not blame anyone else either.  Please forgive me.

It is my strong desire to be cremated and my ashes scattered here in Lexington at Raven Run Sanctuary.  I do not want my body displayed!  Just have my picture instead (the one I gave to Jason and Judy at Christmas).  I would like a memorial service here in Lexington so that my friends can attend. I prefer not to have a minister or priest speak, just my friends and family.  I created a CD of John Denver and Judy Collins music that I would like played at the memorial please.

As for my guitar and recordings, Judy, please let Jason have first pick.  Also, I want my John Denver vinyl records and videos to be sent to Linda Symons in Australia.

Jason, please know that I am very proud of you and love you more than I can ever say.  Please be strong, take care of your mother, and live a good life.

I've got to go.

Love,
Randal (Dad)
Randal

Dad had a really bad habit of signing cards and such to me with his name followed by "(Dad)" as if I needed the hint.  LOL

The note itself is kind of impersonal, but I think it was difficult for him to write.  He didn't get all of his wishes in the 2nd paragraph.  I felt that since he had committed suicide, there were somethings we were going to compromise for the sake of his survivors, and if he didn't like that....tough.  I did have him cremated, and became a HUGE fan of cremation in the process.  When I die, I hope to be cremated myself.  But, I only scattered half of his ashes at Raven Run Sanctuary with my mom.  The other half I had placed into a cremation burial box, and buried it in the family plot in Dickson.  My grandparents, especially, needed a place to visit my dad's remains.  Someplace they knew a part of him lay.  And since they will be buried next to him, they will always be close together.

The other compromise I enacted was having his body on display for family only before the visitation for friends and others.  I know I wanted alone time with him, open casket, and I knew my family did too.  I made sure we all had a few minutes alone with him to say whatever goodbyes we needed to say.  It gave me a sense of peace, and I'm sure it helped everyone else too.  For the general visitation, though, his casket was closed with a picture on top.  His death was not gruesome at all.  After he took his anti-anxiety meds on top of the screwdrivers he'd been drinking all night as he wrote the suicide notes (computer time stamps told the tale), he put on an allergy mask and then tied two trash bags around his neck, securing them with rubber bands.  He suffocated within 30 minutes.  I guess he just didn't want to be gawked at.

It's no secret that my lack of having someone unrelated to me who loves me enough to want to spend his life with me, and I with him, drives my depression cycles and sometimes leads to outright despair.  But one thing about being a suicide survivor is that you know what it means to be left behind.  It also takes suicide away as a potential choice, no matter how badly I might feel someday.  I've lived through the devastation that haunts us to this day.  There's a hole in the hearts of many people in my dad's life that will never be filled because of the way he left us.  I don't think he anticipated that, or that we'd still care 10 yrs later.

But it is 10 years later, and I still do mourn for him.  I think about him.  I still miss him.  But I do pray he's at peace.

Our Political Discourse

When I first heard the news that Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-AZ) had been shot, I immediately figured it would turn out to be a teabagger exercising his/her "2nd Amendment Remedies".  After all Giffords was one of those swing districts whose re-election was one of the last ones called.  Her re-election campaign was ugly and full of fury on both sides.  Sarah Palin had her as one of the "targets" to take out in 2010 since she had voted for Health Reform.  I wasn't the only one who immediately jumped to that conclusion.  Millions of other people did too, and like me, they tweeted about it.

I was scolded for jumping to conclusions and not being helpful.  The nature of twitter is its immediacy.  It's very much like a rolling national, sometimes international, conversation.  There's a reason that so many people, mostly unconnected to one another personally, immediately thought about the Tea Party Movement with its talk of 2nd Amendment "remedies", watering the tree of liberty with the blood of martyrs, and threats of a 2nd American Revolution, and specifically Sarah Palin with her tradement "Don't Retreat - RELOAD!" crap.

That the right immediately went on the defensive indicates to me some evidence of a guilty conscience.  They immediately starting saying things like:

• "How DARE you suggest that our rhetoric might play a role!" 
• "Dude was crazy, we had NOTHING to do with it!  How DARE you!"
• "Liberals said worse about Bush!" (who, unless I missed something, never had someone take a SHOT at him)
• "Democrats use targets too!"
• "Violent rhetoric is just part of politics, and always has been!"
• "You're just crass and political trying to take advantage of a tragedy.  How DARE you!"

In all that hand-wringing and deflecting, never once did Palin, Beck, or her defenders say, "Wow, that is NOT what we meant by that rhetoric.  Everyone knows that.  Dude was crazy, but Jesus, if things we said helped in any encourage him, that's not what we're about.  Using gun sights and talking about "reloading" and "2nd Amendment Rememdies" in the heat of a campaign was taking it too far.  We wouldn't do it again, and we'll call out anyone who tries in the future."

But no, instead there is complete denial and attempts to change the conversation.  There's no acknowledgement that just because we CAN say something that we should.  There's no willingness to even discuss that perhaps political leaders shouldn't engage in the ultra violent rhetoric of the base.  All the examples of Bush bashing, and the calls for Bush's death came from no-name fringe people, most of whom were anti-war.  You didn't have Harry Reid, Hillary Clinton, John Kerry, John Edwards, Nancy Pelosi, or any Democratic leader of note going on the nightly news to spew out the same crap, or suggest that liberals needed to take up arms to seize back the country.  We were always focused like a laser on the next election, convincing people to show up to the polls.  Harry Reid did insult Bush, calling him a liar on the Senate floor which was as bad as it got.  We did feel that the Bushies were dangerous to the freedoms we loved under our Constitution, but we protested peacefully, sued (often successfully) in court, and got our voters to the polls in 2006 and 2008. 

But conservatives have, since the Clinton presidency, presented liberals and Democrats as beyond the pale, trying to create a socialist dictatorship with FEMA concentration camps and death panels that will swoop in and kill healthy grandmas everywhere!  Oh, and while we're at it, we're going to disarm the populace, and take a black marker to scratch out the 2nd amendment.  Since Obama was elected, we've endured the unending charges of birthers that Obama is a Kenyan Muslim looking to exact vengeance on America for European colonialism in Africa?!?  And we have just gone through a 2 year election cycle where House members feared for their lives, to the cheers to the GOP establishment.  We saw my Representative, John Lewis, get spat upon while walking to cast his vote for health reform.  And Giffords herself had her office windows broken after she voted Yes on health reform.  We saw Sharon Angle saying that people might have to use "2nd Amendment Remedies" as if we were on the verge of a tyranny not seen since the election of Hilter in 1933. 

Politics is rough, and campaigns have become mini-wars.  No longer do we think people are merely wrong in their policy preferences, but somehow EVIL and out to DESTROY the Constitution!  I've been as guilty as any teabagger in that fallacy.  I've assumed that people on the right are driven by pure greed and a disdain against people different than they are.  I think that not only are they misguided but dangerously so. 

A lot of this feeling is driven by real sense of potential danger I feel as an openly gay man living in the South. I am accutely aware that the VAST majority of my fellow citizens in Georgia do not think I have many rights worth respecting.  I don't have children, but I have many dear friends who do.  I know there are people who would gladly use the police power of the state to remove those children from their homes because their parents happen to be gay.  I know the Constitution of Georgia states that no relationship that I might enter into with another man will be recognized in any way, shape, or form.  If I had a husband and someone tried to contest a will that left him as beneficiary, I have no confidence that my wishes would be followed unless the case was tried in DeKalb or Fulton Counties.  For me, who is in charge makes a difference.  It's the difference between attempts at writing discrimination into the US Constitution with a "marriage amendment" versus the repeal of DADT.

I have learned that not all Republicans are enemies, but I find it much easier to intellectually engage with fiscal conservatives and have a debate about how much and what kind of governement is necessary than I do to engage with social conservatives who I believe would do not consider me an equal human being in any way, shape, or form.  I fear social conservatives, and until they learn to accept that gays are part of society and must be treated equally, I always will.

What frustrates me more than anything about Sarah Palin, her rhetoric, and the white washing of her record, and ludicrous denials of any responsibility whatsoever for dealing in over-the-top rhetoric...and all the conservatives who are screaming that Democrats are just as bad for even bringing up the rhetoric issue is the lack of personal responsibility.  Keith Olbermann had the decency to personally apologize for overheated rhetoric he has used.  Would it be too much to ask someone to acknowledge that he/she has engaged in overly violent rhetoric, and to agree that perhaps we need to tone it down?   For too many on the right, the unfortunate answer seems to be YES, that IS asking too much.

The assassin in Tucson was undeniably off his rocker.  I think he knew right from wrong, which is thankfully the definition of legal insanity.  I hope that he will be put to death for what he has done.  But honestly, people, it was only a matter of time before some crackpot decided to take matters into his/her hands.  Our divisions are too great and too deep to promise that only polite conversation be used in debate and campaigns.  But responsible political leaders need to have a filter for what is appropriate!  Just because we CAN say something does not mean we SHOULD.  Isn't that a lesson we were supposed to learn in Kindergarten?

Some suggest that making this argument is an attempt to chill political speech.  That we should not only continue to engage in overheated, violent rhetoric, but revel in it.  And when a tragedy happens like the attempted assassination of a member of  Congressman, we should merely dab away the tears at the tragedy, lament the loss the loss of life, and then carry on.  No reflection needed!  After all, Freedom of Speech apparently means Freedom from Criticism.  If we somehow suggest that we need to cool it with the war, revolution, and violence metaphors, then we are, by definition, enemies of freedom.  I don't think asking for responsible maturity in our political discourse, especially from our acknowledged leaders, is anti-Freedom of Speech. 

I hope we don't give in to pressure from the right to drop the discussion about the tone of our politics.  No one should suggest making a law to regulate speech, but there's nothing in violation of the Constitution from applying shame and peer pressure to urge people to use a little judgement when exercising the precious right to free speech.  It may be the only way to continue to preserve our system.