Goodbye Valentine’s Day 2011.   It’s time for both of us to move on.   Let’s always be friends.   Keep in touch will you?   No…really…

Well it looks like we’ve come to the end of our fourth annual Valentine’s Day Poster Contest.   And once more this year’s crop of disturbingly sincere losers worked even harder then last year’s to achieve that ultimate glory…which must make all our previous year’s losers feel even more pathetically inadequate.   But that losing is a prize that never stops giving is what makes every Valentine’s Day so special.   It’s like the finest wine…that feeling of losing out on the big prize only gets better and better as the years go by.

So lets all give this years worthy losers a pat on the back, a brief but sincere look of understanding, and some helpful advice to get out more and meet people!

Coming next: The Big Winner!     You should probably have somewhere better to be then here with me…

Yes…I know…I failed to show up Friday.   And Saturday too.   I’m sorry.   I had to be somewhere else.   I really wanted to get together with you but, you know, things happen.   I was busy.   This isn’t a good time.   I’ll give you a call when I have time.

Happy Valentine’s Day Eve!   It’s the big night before…when the message of that empty mailbox finally starts getting through.   What…not even a card?   Cheer up.   Here are another three worthy entries to remind you that Valentine’s Day isn’t just about getting a last minute card with the same boilerplate love poem several thousand other people got too.   It’s about holding in your hands proof that it’s the thought that counts.   You should probably put that letter opener down now.   No…seriously…

We’ll dash the hopes of three more worthy entries later today.   And then…Tomorrow Is The Big Day!

Once again right off the bat we have a selection of very worthy entries which would have absolutely won the Big Prize if only someone else hadn’t come completely out of nowhere to walk away with it, leaving them alone in the dust to wonder for the rest of their lives how they could have been so terribly wrong.   Let’s all give these worthy losers a very brief but sincere look of understanding and then quickly change the subject.

More oh so sincere hopes and dreams will find the floor suddenly cut from beneath their feet, only to thrash their way to the bottom of the briny deep tomorrow…but we’ll keep the bad news from them for a while longer, letting them toss and turn all night long clutching at that slender chance that maybe, just maybe, just…maybe…it will all work out after all.   It has to work out for me sometime doesn’t it?   I can’t crash and burn Every time can I?   But oh yes…oh yes you can…

Has it been a year already?   Another bright-eyed and bushy tailed spring, ready and eager to take on the world with bright cheerful blossoms full of color and delight, fading…fading…into dogged summer, hanging on long after the blooms are just a playful memory, hanging on…hanging on…hanging on…then one final burst of hopeful autumn color, only to end up in the dead of winter buried in ice and snow, with nothing but brief barren daylight and bitter eternal cold to look forward to?   Why…yes…yes it is!

It’s the time of year when we pay tribute to that which is most deeply human within us.   The heart?   Well…Not Exactly.   That almost infinite ability of the human heart to bleed?   Hahahaha…no.   But close.     No, no…we come together every time this year to celebrate the knife in the heart.

From: "Barnes & Noble" <BarnesandNobleEmail@e.bn.com>
To: bruce
Subject: Nothing Says "LOVE" Like 10% Off

WE'RE CELEBRATING VALENTINE'S DAY
with a little extra love for you.

EXTRA 10% OFF ONE ITEM
Limited Time Offer! Ends Sunday 2/6

SHOP BN.COM
Enter coupon code ##### at checkout.

.

.

Nothing says love like ten percent off!   Eighty dollar roses for a mere twenty bucks!   Valentine’s Day Lap Dances!   It can only mean one thing…it’s time once again for our annual Casa del Garrett Valentine’s Day Poster Contest!   A celebration of the spirit of Valentine’s Day, that traditionally begins with the following announcement:

We’re terribly sorry, but the deadline for entries has already passed.   I’m afraid the deadline had already passed when I announced the start of this year’s contest.   I know you must feel terrible about this.   Don’t blame yourself.   It isn’t you, it’s me.   Please try to find it within yourself to forgive me.

Now that that’s out of the way, let us pause for a moment and reflect on our past.   Because after all, endlessly digging up and reburying the past is part of what makes Valentine’s Day so very special!   Here are some of our worthy losers from days gone by.   They came oh so close to the big prize, only to walk away confused as to what went so terribly wrong.   All those endless nights they have spent afterward tossing and turning, wondering what they could have done differently, was its own very special Valentine’s Day prize that they are all still enjoying to this very day!

These contestants gave it their all, only to have their personal best cast aside as if they never even existed.   Then they all received our very special   consolation prize handshake, followed by helpful advice to get out more often and meet people.

But our winners were truly one with the spirit of Valentine’s Day.   This one, from our Very First poster contest is still my personal favorite:

But let us not forget our other winners, without whom there would not have been so many losers, so lost, so dazed and bewildered.   This is one of our year two winners (Yes…there was a tie!)

And finally…our year three winner who gave us all words to live by…

This year’s crop of oh so painfully earnest hopefuls will have to work extra hard to achieve glory.   They are going to have to give it everything they’ve got to give…only to spend the rest of their lives blaming themselves for not giving it even more when they had the chance.   They will spend long sleepless nights minutely re-examining everything they did, trying to pin point exactly where they went wrong, then dreaming hopeless dreams of getting a second chance to do it all differently and make everything right again.   If that scene in The Yearling where Jody shoots Flag is your favorite part of the movie then you have certainly come to the right place!

Tomorrow we begin our annual celebration of the knife in the heart.   Love is in the bag!   Let the twisting begin!

VII

He would not stay for me, and who can wonder?
  He would not stay for me to stand and gaze.
I shook his hand, and tore my heart in sunder,
  And went with half my life about my ways.

- A. E. Housman, from "Additional Poems"

The problem is you can’t fit that on a candy heart…

In our continuing series of posts plumbing the very heart and soul of Valentine’s Day…

Because I liked you better
  Than suits a man to say,
It irked you, and I promised
  To throw the thought away.

To put the world between us
  We parted, stiff and dry;
'Good-bye,' said you, `forget me.'
  'I will, no fear', said I.

If here, where clover whitens
  The dead man's knoll, you pass,
And no tall flower to meet you
  Starts in the trefoiled grass,

Halt by the headstone naming
  The heart no longer stirred,
And say the lad that loved you
  Was one that kept his word.

Thank you A. E. Housman for capturing it all so exquisitely well in this, and so many other fine poems…

Clearly, this poor lost fuckless soul is not one with the spirit of Valentine’s Day…

Male Rights Activist Calls for Valentine’s Day Boycott

Any guy who gives flowers on Feb. 14 is a blooming idiot.

So says Marc Rudov, a relationship expert in Los Gatos, Calif., who is on a campaign to get American men to boycott Valentine’s Day.

According to Rudov, who has authored books such as “Under the Clitoral Hood: How to Crank Her Engine Without Cash, Booze or Jumper Cables,” believes Valentine’s Day should be canceled permanently because it promotes unequality of the sexes.

No, no…   That sense that you have been cast forever into the status of abject inferiority is all just part of the light-hearted carefree Fun!   Smile…You Are Not Worthy!

Need some jumper cables there guy?   Well…you could go buy yourself some flowers and chocolate and send yourself a Valentine’s Day card from that imaginary girl friend whose engine you crank every night at bedtime.   Or…

…you could enter our Forth Annual Casa del Garrett Valentine’s Day Poster Contest!   That is…if you can manage to slip your worthy entry in before the deadline passes.   So Hurry…the deadline is February 5!   You might just make it.   It’s a slim, almost totally hopeless chance…one in a million.   No…one in a zilllion.   One in a Bazillion.   You’d be crazy to even think of trying.   But…isn’t that one slim chance of success in the face of certain doom worth the risk?   You might just beat the odds after all.   Maybe.   Just maybe.   If you don’t try you’ll wonder for the rest of your life if you might have won The Big Prize after all.   So do it!   Go for it man!   Crank that engine!   Remember…deadline is February 5th.   If you give it your all you might just make it.

Coming soon, to your local Going Home Clinic…

Bullying, as it turns out, can literally make your brain change for the worse.   This is how bullies extract their toll on the bullied forever…

The Brain: The Switches That Can Turn Mental Illness On and Off

This month’s column is a tale of two rats. One rat got lots of attention from its mother when it was young; she licked its fur many times a day. The other rat had a different experience. Its mother hardly licked its fur at all. The two rats grew up and turned out to be very different. The neglected rat was easily startled by noises. It was reluctant to explore new places. When it experienced stress, it churned out lots of hormones. Meanwhile, the rat that had gotten more attention from its mother was not so easily startled, was more curious, and did not suffer surges of stress hormones.

The same basic tale has repeated itself hundreds of times in a number of labs. The experiences rats had when they were young altered their behavior as adults. We all intuit that this holds true for people, too, if you replace fur-licking with school, television, family troubles, and all the other experiences that children have. But there’s a major puzzle lurking underneath this seemingly obvious fact of life. Our brains develop according to a recipe encoded in our genes. Each of our brain cells contains the same set of genes we were born with and uses those genes to build proteins and other molecules throughout its life. The sequence of DNA in those genes is pretty much fixed. For experiences to produce long-term changes in how we behave, they must be somehow able to reach into our brains and alter how those genes work.

Neuroscientists are now mapping that mechanism…

This is interesting on a number of accounts.   Firstly, as a gay man, it concerns me how the question of nature verses nurture is dealt with, as it has been a trip point in the culture war for decades now.   And as it seems to be turning out more and more, it’s a combination of both.   The story here is that genes may say one thing, but the effects of the environment, the physical environment, you grow up in, can overrule them all the same…

Two families of molecules perform that kind of genetic regulation. One family consists of methyl groups, molecular caps made of carbon and hydrogen. A string of methyl groups attached to a gene can prevent a cell from reading its DNA sequence. As a result, the cell can’t produce proteins or other molecules from that particular gene. The other family is made up of coiling proteins, molecules that wrap DNA into spools. By tightening the spools, these proteins can hide certain genes; by relaxing the spools, they can allow genes to become active.

How this plays out in terms of one’s sexual orientation fascinated me less then this…

…the influence of environment doesn’t end with childhood. Recent work indicates that adult experiences can also rearrange epigenetic marks in the brain and thereby change our behavior. Depression, for example, may be in many ways an epigenetic disease. Several groups of scientists have mimicked human depression in mice by pitting the animals against each other. If a mouse loses a series of fights against dominant rivals, its personality shifts. It shies away from contact with other mice and moves around less. When the mice are given access to a machine that lets them administer cocaine to themselves, the defeated mice take more of it.

Something, probably my body’s low tolerance to intoxicants, has kept me thankfully clear of addiction.   But I know its temptations.   There are days when I think if I could only drug myself out my my misery, life would be so much better.   But my body simply won’t let me do that.   I have no escape.   Well…I have one.   But it’s one I’ve not reached for.   So far.

I have the job of my dreams.   A house of my own I never in my wildest dreams ever thought I’d have.   My dream come true car.   And I am miserable.   Single, lonely and miserable.   If you don’t have love, nothing else matters.   You can be rich.   You can be living in the lap of luxury, and if you have no one, you have nothing and you know it.   You will always know it.   And at some level I have always known my brain was stacked against me in that struggle.

I was brutalized in grade school.   It was only   by shear luck that I lived in a tiny neighborhood that was diverted to this little expansion high school in a well to do neighborhood and away from my tormentors that allowed me to have at least a good final three years of grade school.   Woodward was paradise compared to my Jr. High School years and my elementary school years were only slightly less brutal.   When I wasn’t getting beaten up by the other kids, I was getting emotionally battered by the teachers, nearly all of whom dumped me in the problem child category, simply because mom was a single divorced mother.   The few in those days who actually took an interest in me and gave me a chance to learn have always had my eternal gratitude.

Woodward, I have said time and again, was paradise…absolutely the best years of my school life.   But even paradise could not undo the damage.   It wasn’t until my senior year that I finally started peeking out of the shell my tormentors had locked me into.   And by then it was, really, too late to start figuring out that dating and mating thing.   And besides, I was a gay kid, and it was 1971.

And I’m 57 now, and still single, and if anything surprises me it’s that I’m still alive.   I really shouldn’t be.   I honestly don’t know why I am still alive.   It’s your own fault Bruce.   We had to do it to you.   You were so weird we had to.   It’s your own fault Bruce.   You need to get out more.   Friends don’t help friends find a lover, they rub it in that it’s their own fault.   People who look like that, want people who look like that.   The more things change, the more they stay the same.   Why am I still here?

[Edited a tad…]

This last trip to Disney World found me hitting the Grand Mariner Orange Slushie stand in Epcot France and the Frozen Margarita stand in Epcot Mexico the moment I entered the park.   The stresses of my life at this stage of it are making it increasingly hard to just…relax…and enjoy myself without some form of self-medication.   It worries me.   But the worry is itself becoming more and more vague.   I’m starting not to care about my health anymore.

Anyway…I saw this graph which perked me up a tad…

My college experiences were So Different from most of the other kids…     Who the hell even thinks they can down 10 drinks in a sitting, let alone that it would take that much for them to start puking their guts out?   Anyway, the first thing I noticed about the graph is it Starts at five drinks.

So…I’m still cool.   Five drinks and I am, not kidding, on the floor.   If my end point is where everyone else is just getting started then I’m not doing so bad.

I’m in the mood to draw something…

What Is A Human Being?
1982

These are not always happy moods…

Self Portrait With Better Medium
1989

Adios…Valentine’s Day 2010!     It was a blast.   Really.   But we’ve both changed.     We need some distance.   It’s not you, it’s me.   Let’s always stay friends.

Well it’s almost time to wrap up this year’s contest!   And I have to say, this year’s batch of embarrassingly sincere losers was the best ever.   A sentiment that probably makes our year one and year two losers feel even more left in the dust.   Every Valentine’s Day is a little more special then the last one, for that very reason.

But we have one last batch of also-rans to celebrate here…

Let’s all give this year’s losers a drink and some helpful advice about getting out more often and meeting people!

Coming next…the Winner!   You might want to look away…

Here’s another batch of worthy hopefuls whose dream of winning the big prize were torn to bits by cruel reality.   What would Valentine’s Day be without that?   Lots and lots of it in fact…

We have a couple more worthy contestants to keep twisting slowly, slowly in the wind a little while longer.     But isn’t that desperately remote, almost laughable chance of success worth it?     Who knows…maybe…just maybe…

Hahahaha…   No.   But like lemmings to a cliff they will try.   And what would Valentine’s Day be without them?