Bug

We enjoyed an unexpected burst of pop-culture nostalgia last night while we were all sitting at dinner. My stepsister Jennifer mentioned a movie that scared her when she was little, involving mutant cockroaches that set fires. I remembered it too, and within a few minutes we'd retrieved the name of the movie, "Bug," using the Internet. It was a 1975 production starring a busy but somewhat undistinguished actor named Bradford Dillman, and a bunch of others whose names never quite reigned supreme in Hollywood.

Thinking it would be fun to watch, we searched for it on Netflix. It wasn't there. But then we found the entire movie posted to YouTube. We patched the computer into the television and spent the evening laughing at "Bug." It's fairly suspenseful in places! (Or maybe that was just the wine.)

Isn't the Internet amazing? One minute we're talking about an obscure movie from our childhoods, and the next we're watching it for free. That just blows my mind.

I'm off to Anna Maria Island today for the weekend, and I don't think I'll have computer access there. So look for blog updates beginning Monday. Enjoy a few days off!

(Photo: Bougainvillea in Key West.)

Key West

My mom and I have returned from our crazy two-day trip to the southernmost island in the continental U.S.! We've both always wanted to try the high-speed passenger ferry that runs from Fort Myers Beach to Key West. So on Tuesday morning we got up super-early, drove more than two hours to Fort Myers and caught the boat for the three-hour ride.

My conclusion: Using the ferry is easier than driving, but Key West is still a heck of a long way away. We left home at 4 a.m. on Tuesday and didn't get back until 1 a.m. this morning. I am definitely going to need a nap today.


Having said that, though, we had a great time. We disembarked right at lunchtime on Tuesday, and stopped near the dock for some excellent seafood at Turtle Kraals, which is named for the pens where fishermen used to corral sea turtles. (Back when hunting them was legal -- shudder.) We wandered up and down Duval Street before checking in to our motel, and then we wandered some more.


I dragged my poor 74-year-old mom all over that island. We saw the amazing cemetery, the Bahamian neighborhood and sunset at Mallory Square. We had a gin & tonic on the roof of the downtown La Concha Hotel, which I've never done in all the years I've visited. We ate at El Siboney, my favorite Cuban restaurant on the planet, and at Blue Heaven, which has a huge reputation and an undeniably great tropical courtyard with lots of ambience. We took a trolley tour that looped all the way around the island, which was a perfect way for mom to see all of Key West.

We saw Hemingway's house, the aquarium, President Truman's "little white house," the lighthouse and other attractions -- from the outside, that is, since my mom's rule is not to pay admission for what she can see from the street. And we walked around Fort Zachary Taylor, a pre-Civil War fortification on the island's southwest corner with cannons, thick concrete walls and a moat, all on a remote beachfront with casuarina trees and crystalline blue-green water.

I also had chocolate-covered frozen key lime pie on a stick, which is a great idea.


It's very hard for me to walk around Key West and not miss the old days. I've been going there since 1985, and back then, it was a quaint, bohemian place -- also a traditional gay haven. It was hard to get to, and that kept most people away.

Over the last 15 years or so, though, cruise ships have started docking in Key West and ferry service has made the island more accessible. (When we were there, two big Carnival cruise ships were in port, no doubt disgorging hundreds and hundreds of passengers.) The changes to the island have been undeniable -- the tourists tend to be much older now, and there are many, many more of them. There are still gay guesthouses and at least one prominent gay bar, but otherwise I saw very little evidence of Key West's former status as a gay vacation mecca. And while there are local artists and craftsmen (and -women) along Duval Street, there's also a Banana Republic, a Starbucks and a lot of tourist schlock.

I'm afraid I probably bored my mom to tears pointing out all the places I'd been on past visits with my friends Kevin, Suzanne and Robert. Many other places are gone, closed or irreparably changed for the worst.

But oh well. Key West is still a lot of fun. It's just not like it was.

(Photos: A coconut on an Old Town street, a wall near the Southernmost Point, a discarded TV in Bahama Village, and a colorful wall which you might recognize if you have a really, really good memory.)

Hometown Highway

Recovery

Wow, was I tired yesterday! Having a 5-year-old around can be exhausting. My niece is cute and smart and lovable and amazing, but she is also a ball of energy, and as the most novel person in the room I was getting a lot of her attention. She wanted to be carried and bounced around and photographed, and I complied on all counts as much as possible. She, my brother and his wife all went back home late yesterday afternoon, and after a relaxing glass of red wine (because I need those antioxidants for health reasons, of course) I went to bed at about 9:30!

It was great to see them, though. I don't often have a chance to spend much time with my brother -- he has his family and his job in Jacksonville, and our visits are often condensed to a few days a year when there are always lots of other people around. This time we took a long walk together and got caught up, just the two of us, which I think we badly needed. Hopefully we can do that kind of thing more in the future.

Families are such strange animals. It's amazing how different people can be, even when they spring from the same genetic material.

Today I'm just running some errands for my mom and visiting my college pal, known to the blog world as "e."

I went running a few days ago and struggled to complete a two-mile circuit of my neighborhood. I couldn't believe how hard it was -- I was gasping and wheezing and had to walk part of the way. This morning I did the same run and had no trouble at all. The difference? Temperature! I did that first run at 4 p.m., and I thought it would be cool enough because it was past the heat of the day -- but I nearly died. This morning I went at 7 a.m., and I can verify that's definitely the way to go!

(Photo: The croton in our front garden. It's one of my old houseplants -- when I moved to New York 12 years ago I put it in the ground, where it has prospered!)

Feb. 22, 1982

You should hear all the things that happened to me today! I walked down to the post office to mail a package, but when I got there, I found out I was a dime short. Not wanting to walk the two miles back home again and not accomplish anything, I went out to find a soda pop bottle with a 10-cent refund on it. I finally scrunged up an old R.C. bottle and took it to the Majic Market, where they informed me that it was too dirty to turn in. I was ready to yell, but I just left and hunted around until I found a "clean" Mountain Dew bottle. Having finally obtained my dime, I walked back to the post office and got my cans off.

Cans? Yep. You see, since I last wrote in here a lot has happened -- namely my want ad has appeared in the BCCA want ad bulletin and my Tropicals are all gone -- all my good ones anyway. I didn't trade them hard, just 1/1 for currents. I've already mailed four packages and sent five letters. I haven't had any replies yet, though. It'll be a while before my cans come.

Footnotes:

I wrote that almost exactly 30 years ago in one of my childhood journals, and doesn't it make me sound like an especially old man? Walking miles to the post office and scrounging around for money-back bottles? Good grief. My whole family had a good laugh when I read this out loud yesterday.

I was 15 at the time, and in the middle of my beer-can-collecting phase (which makes for some mind-numbing journal content). The BCCA was the Beer Can Collectors of America, and we members traded cans by mail. "Tropicals" were Tropical Ale, an old brand manufactured around Tampa in the early 1960s -- the cans were desirable because they were old and very regional. Occasionally I'd find them in the woods, clean them up and trade them to other collectors. But I wasn't being demanding -- I traded one Tropical Ale for one current beer can I didn't have, rather than multiples. As I recall, many of them weren't in very good condition. A steel can doesn't last long in the woods in Florida's damp environment!

The journals are a hoot -- as I mentioned the other day, my brother has been storing them for me, and he brought them down from his house in Jacksonville this weekend. I haven't read them in years.

(Photo: This sandhill crane is already sitting on her nest not far from our house. We think this bird is a little demented. My mom said she persisted in sitting on her nest last year even after it was destroyed by a predator. I wonder if she really has eggs, or is just being hopeful?)

Mom at the Lake

Here's my mom in her native environment -- standing on the dock watching birds. She loves keeping an eye on the ducks, cormorants, anhingas, herons and other waterbirds out on the lake. The other day there were ducks on the water and she asked me what kind they were -- as if I would know. I said, "Black speck ducks." Because that's all I could see -- black specks on the water.

My brother and his family arrived last night for a weekend visit. My little niece is standing next to me at the moment with a sheet over her head, loudly proclaiming, "I'm a wizard!"

Ah, family life.

We're all going to my dad's house this afternoon for a visit.

The Beginning

I've been doing what I always do when I spend time at my mom's house -- going through a lot of old stuff, digging up memories. I left a few items here when Dave and I moved to England last summer, because we weren't sure at that point whether we'd be staying. Now that we know we'll be in London for a while, I'm deciding which of those items to take back with me. (I left room in my suitcase for just this purpose!)

I have a little box of childhood awards, for example, and Dave's mom put together some photo albums of his family which she gave us just as we prepared to move. We'd already shipped our belongings and we had to carry all our clothes with us, so the photo albums were temporarily left behind. I'll take those back.

I also asked my brother to bring me my childhood journals, which are at his house. I don't know if I ever mentioned how I began keeping a journal -- as I recall, I was inspired by a neighborhood girl who had a diary. I asked for one too, and my parents indulged me with a three-year diary that came complete with a lock and key. I never wrote anything particularly personal in it -- I was 10 at that point! -- so the key was purely ornamental.

I went from that diary to small notebooks in the sixth grade, and unfortunately, those journals and the diary are now gone. But I still have my journals from seventh grade onwards, mostly because my brother saved them. They might make some entertaining future blog posts!

(Photo: Mysterious graffiti on the street near my mom's house. Did they know I was coming?)