[Diplomats] say the restrictions should remain until the UN certifies that Iraq is free of weapons of mass destruction.

US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld has said he does not believe they will be found unless Iraqis knowledgeable about the arms programmes reveal their whereabouts.

"It is not like a treasure hunt where you just run around looking everywhere, hoping you find something.

"I think what will happen is we'll discover people who will tell us where to go find it," he said.

Hey Joe Burgers!

Bob Grattaroti told me you had a web site ... I used a search engine and you popped right up!

We'd love to see you again ... touch base ... renew some laughs remembering past lives.

We live in Clinton now ... sold the old place in Bolton about 8 years ago, and bought a condo.  Neither of us is retired yet ... and don't expect to be for about a hundred years ;-)

Give us a call sometime ...xxx-xxx-xxxx[removed] ... and we'll get together ... perhaps at the Webster House ... some night .... Betty's treat.

Love you.

Hi Gary,

I knew my website would be good for something someday!

Your e-mail came in the midst of computer-chaos; I destroyed my operating system on 7/2.  I wasn't able to get it back to more than a steady limp until 7/8 and by then I knew more about Windows than I ever wanted to know.  Last night I did a full reinstall on a different drive.  The registry is a mess.

<sigh>

Last year I saw somebody I'd known in high school, and I was shocked to see how old he had become.  He seemed worn and weary.  And I felt old.  Since then, I have managed to restore some of my former self-deception (I see myself as an athletic 25 year-old who is carefree and immortal).  I don't like reality.

Ralph was a handsome eighteen year-old in 1979 when his best friend dropped dead in the street from a broken neck.  It happened only minutes after their car crashed on Rt 135 in Northboro.  I think I told you the story once.  They were drunk and Ralph was injured and semi-conscious.  But Ralph's friend, who had been driving, was--true to form--resisting arrest after refusing to get in the ambulance.  He was handcuffed and stood alone for a moment at the back doors of the ambulance which was waiting to bring him to the hospital.  Then he turned his head and died.

I don't even remember his name--I have for so long cut myself off from so many who would remember these things with me.  But I do remember he was beautiful--baby-faced, blonde-haired and blue-eyed.  He was two years younger than me.  And I remember he had a rage inside of him, driving away all who might get close, defending perhaps some buried scar or un-healable wound--all the while revealing his great pain in the effort to hide it.  I recognized these things from within myself, thus he became the object of my tenderest yet most helpless compassion.  But the thing that made him attractive most of all--far more than his good looks or our shared need--was that, unlike me, he openly grappled with his rage; it did not terrify him into hiding, nor paralyze him emotionally as did mine.  I held him in awe.  I wanted to save him, I thought of trying to get him on a TEC, to maybe get through somehow in the role of his new friend, though I knew little then about how to be a friend.  But I could act the part, and I would have.  If I wasn't paralyzed.

I was working 11-7 at Marlboro Hospital then, and I offered feeble condolences to Ralph as he lay in the ICU that night.  Twenty-two years later--last year--I saw Ralph again.  He didn't recognize me in our recent encounter, and I didn't reveal myself.  But it reminded me of that distant tragedy, of myself from long ago, and of my young emfatuation with his friend who was so beautiful...

They both were.

Now, Gary, life remains a toss-up for me as it always has.  Which is better? Dwelling in the memories of beautiful youth, with the dramas and tragedies of real living played out on a backdrop of the fondest age--in my case, my twenties.  (I mean it's a winner just for its soundtrack, with Dire Straights, The Cars, Abba and Boy George.  Who could resist?) Or is it better to wake from that painless unconsciousness to the agony of broken bones and injured friends; reality.  Should I live life, and die like he did--from traumatic paralysis--or worse? Or should I live life's memory where no one is yet dead and no hope is yet lost, and there to survive, though paralyzed? If the coin toss favors the latter, you'll never see this e-mail.  I wrote it.  I felt it.  That's it.  After all, this e-mail is far too cerebral and too heavy when it really should have been just a light response.

But I am a writer.  A writer is a self-centered child who thinks too much, then further thinks it's all worth writing down.  That's why I have immersed myself in home computers, and sloppy websites.  The computer is writing's antidote, it largely prevents it.  Except this time.  Your e-mail was timed just right.  When I first read it, I could not have responded adequately even if I wanted to.  And I didn't want to, not right away.  Hey, it's been no secret that I've allowed fear to rule the roost for most of my life.  And yes, there's a fair amount of fear involved here--just look at the sheer length of this manic response.  What is it that I am afraid of? I'll answer that in a minute.

After reading your e-mail, I then spent six days installing, re-installing, troubleshooting failed installs, running around my hard drive like a banshee with a digital machete, installing to G: then to D:, trying again on C: and even on F:, all the while aware that at the end of all this I could either respond to your e-mail, or ignore it.  Ignoring would have been easy if the system hadn't crashed, because I would have puttered away as usual, tweaking this, adjusting that, maybe playing with some images or (heaven forbid!) actually posting something to my web site.  And before I'd know it, a month or two would have passed and by then it would be too late.  But when it came time to avoid responding, to putter and tweak, I was then so thoroughly sick of my computer that anything was a better alternative--even writing.  Now, it looks like I actually am going to send this, so I can relax a little now...

I wonder how you've aged, and if you still like to float on your back like I remember from Buzzards Bay, when we were down at that retreat house Betty found, when you were trying to teach Karen how to float.  And I wonder if you still like your eggs 'basted' in bacon grease, like we made 'em in the trailer in Wellfleet.

And now my memories are hemorrhaging as I remember the potters wheel in the basement of that gorgeous antique house, and Freddy DaVito's flaky-puffs which the mice refused to eat, and the outside steps where you said a Chinese wise man had told you the secret of how to take a bicycle tire off a rim without tools (just ignore the pain), and the charming ladder-like crooked staircase, which was just inside the front door you never used.  I remember the dining room where Eric's bride-to-be was amused by us switching our forks from right to left, and the potluck buffet spread there on a late fall night when the team for TEC # whichever was meeting, and the many meals at that giant table in the kitchen.  And I remember the 'Christmas room' with the 200-year-old fireplace where, in 1990, you gave me Gary Larson's 'The PreHistory of The Far Side'.  I have it here.  I remember you made espresso that night.

Christmases.  They have gauged my retreat from you all, not just from you Gary, but from everyone I have loved.  First I stopped attending Christmas with my family, as my feeling of awkwardness there became too difficult to manage.  I felt increasingly phoney, artificial, out of place, and stilted with my family at Christmas.  In 1990 I had become that way with my friends.  It's really not my choice, though Buddhism teaches me responsibility for all.  I mean, if I could, I would have chosen for all Christmases to be like 1966, when I remember thinking that I would start a family of my own when I grew up so that I would not be lonely.  The way I saw it, I'd have to be straight, get married (to a woman) and have many kids.  Either that, or I would have had to be open to something unknown, a way of life which no one around me then could show me.  I was taught that having a family was the only alternative to lonliness--not intimacy, just numbers.  At only eight years old, I already knew that would never happen, but I ignored what I knew because I was taught to be afraid.  I was already resisting movement away from what was familiar.  It was never my choice, but it has always been my responsibility.  Thus far I have not handled that responsibility wisely.

Blaming lays a static, heavy, immovable foundation, and anchored there, we get no place.  No change is necessary.  Indeed, staying stuck like that has advantages to one like me who is overwhelmed and afraid.  But even immovable places are moved in time.  The sea errodes and mansions fall, fortunes shift and cities are built or demolished, the earth's crust creaks and continents slide apart, solar systems collapse and explode.  A grain of sand on Coast Guard Beach today will one day fuel a star.  Everything moves, and I can resist, or I can accept.  This life will end and other lives will begin.  I'd like to say I believe in reincarnation, but that would be laying stones again, trying to make things be a certain way.  I'd also like to say I believe it because Bob Grattaroti doesn't (and I think his logic is dumb).  <grin> I digress.

The act of accepting evaporates those stones and allows us to float with the flow, even on our backs if we like.

What was I afraid of in hesitating to write this? Back there in 1966 I maybe made the wrong decision--to try and survive in a world where I did not fit rather than to strike out into the unknown and find (or create) a world where I did fit.  I repeated that decision a hundred times over; stay safe and survive rather than take risks and live.  On a couple occasions I took the risks, and it really hurt.

I went to the youth center for a REC team meeting once, at a time when I was getting pretty fed-up with the lies I normally lived with so well.  Father Lange was going to be there.  He once wanted me to be a priest.  You and Betty would be there.  Larry and Ellen.  People I had known for years, close friends, confidantes with whom I had been dishonest.  And others who I didn't even know.

Driving there that night, I cried, as I often did when feeling sorry for myself alone in my car.  But I had decided.  And as I arrived--late as usual--at the back door of the place, I heard a song by The Escape Club, titled 'Walking Through Walls'.

mp3

Some things will never change
Some things we'll never know
Walking down the rocky road
Down and out with so far to go
Without you on my mind, I'd never make it
Without the stars in the sky...
Well love is love, and one is one
So I turn around and head for the Sun
And now I'm on my way
Without any hope
Without you on my mind
Without any dreams
Without the stars in the sky
Without any love, there's nothing at all
So I'm on my way home
And I'm walking
I'm walking through walls

You know something Gary? I don't know what I *really* did at that meeting, now that I think about it.  I mean, I know I came out, told everybody I was gay, and so on.  It seems everybody knew anyway.  But what I did that really mattered, I think, was withdraw from that team.  Did I go on that REC? I don't think I did.  At that meeting, what I think I really did was leave my family, again.  I think I was saying goodbye.  (!) Hmmm.  I hadn't ever looked at it that way before right now.

Wow.

Anyway, what I was going to say is that after my 'announcement' Betty and I were talking in the kitchen (at the youth center), and she said, "How many times did you come THIS CLOSE to telling me?" There were, over the course of years, many times.  But I didn't tell her, so, for years, I thought she didn't know.  I was shocked.  I wasted all those years playing a game.

Now, however, it looks like instead of accepting that realization, and moving forward, I ran away.  I ran from all my friends, and away from all the people I loved.  I dropped you all like dead weight, and ran so I wouldn't feel the pain of knowing I wasted years of life playing a silly game.  And so I wouldn't feel the pain of knowing that I was really, really afraid.

Writing this to you brings me back to the same ledger, only now it has recorded many more days I have lost, and more time that I have spent not loving, not caring, and not knowing or wanting to know.  For you, the hardest thing about me writing this is simply getting through it all.  For me, the hardest thing about writing to you is facing how I could be so cold and inconsiderate, so cavalier with precious days--and then facing just how scared I must be to have done those things, and run away.

That's what I was afraid of in writing this to you.

It's 5:00 AM and I have a headache.  The sky is light.  Who knows what will happen? Like the song says, some things we'll never know.  am I walking through walls? Or am I just pretending to?

Absolutely the longest e-mail I have EVER received.

Whew!!!

Betty read it ... I read it ... and we both said ... lets get him over here for dinner so we can talk.

I cannot even pretend to begin to answer such a long message.  We need to just BE with each other.

I work on Fri, Sat, Sun and Mon so ... Tues, Wed or Thurs nites are best for us.  However, we're going to the Cape on Monday July 24th thru the 26th . So ... lets set a date.  Where shall I pick you up? How will I recognize you? etc etc etc

Dear Gary,

That's the title of a play which I have not yet written; 'How Will I Recognize You? Etc.'

I look like an older Luke Skywalker...about Obi Wan Kenobi's age.  On second thought, I look more like Alec Guinness (pretty boys--like Luke--do not age well).  Or maybe Yoda's wrinkles and bright eyes provide a closer approximation, considering the coarse ear-hairs and all...

It fascinates me how astrology, based on the time and place of one's birth, can so insightfully reveal the subsequent events of one's life.  It's uncanny accuracy has led me to speculate that perhaps I chose the events of my life first, and secondarily sought out a suitable time and place to experience them.

I have many Earth and Fire signs in my astrological chart, maybe a little water too--I'm not certain.  But I know positively that I have *no* Air signs.  This is consistent, for my voice has ever had a weak effect, my speech halting and incomplete.  My screams have been as in a vaccuum, I have heard them only in my own dreams.  In general, communicating has always been very difficult for me.  Except when I write.

People expect Air.  They think that matters, or they are flattered by it's expenditure on their behalf--one or the other.  Politicians have Air, as do Infomercial personalities, salesmen, and farts.  Big Air.

Air is a good thing.  These thunderstorms lately have been gorgeous; clouds rolling, writhing, billowing up and out and over in the blue and pink warm summer evening sky, and then consuming themselves within their own gaping purple darkness--over and over again.  Air moves; it carries pollen, and lifts butterflies across continents; it stretches, strains, and rejuvenates weary Oaks--it is the Yoga of trees.  It blew Lief across the sea; and Christopher, and Sakajawaya.  It sculpts whimsical drifts in the snow and carries sweet woodsmoke through sacred silent snow-dressed forests.  God's warm breath lifts the soft hair of young lovers on Prom night, and it moves the stars--at least in our hearts it does.

I appreciate Air, but I don't produce much (except in the form of long-winded e-mails).  I am as yet an unbroken sheet of stone, bearing words of a deeply chiseled history unknown to most because most of us are, after all, listening to the Air.  At least I have been.  My silent story, carved as scars in stone, has been one I have seldom reached out to feel.  The Air is far more pleasant.

Prefaced thus, I will gladly join you both for dinner, and I will contribute as much as I can to the Air between us--as long as we don't give it too much weight.  It's not my medium.

And as long as you let me keep *writing* to you.  It *is* my medium.

Serendipitously, I have every Wednesday and Thursday off.  If this Thursday (July 19) is too soon, then I will be sure to try and redeem your invitation on August (is it August already?) 1st or 2nd.  In any case, I would greatly appreciate a ride--thank you for offering--since I still don't drive.  The Bean Counter is a place that is close to me and easy for you to find, at 113 Highland Street, across from the Sole Proprietor.

I do not know where I am going, Gary--in more ways than one.  But you just tell me when to show up, and I'll be there.  And for some reason, I feel like I want to show you and Betty my apartment--my cell.  It's not at all bad, but it is all me.  So, if there's time, let's stop by my house on the way to yours.

Aaaaarrrrgggghhhhhhhhhhhh

Mr.  Diarrhea Fingers is writing me again!!!

Astrology, air, butterflies, pollen, farts, Obi Wan Kenobi ... and all I did was say "lets have a meal together"!

Betty!!! Quick pull the plug on this computer!!!

wait ... here's his picture .....

Omigawd ... look at the picture! He looks like a bald elderly Burgers!

;-)

All seriousness aside ...

We'll pick you up at your apartment on Wed.  August 2 at 5:00 PM.  We'll decide where to alight then ... I like the Sole Prop ... I also like my own cooking ... still ... and yes ... I still like my eggs basted, but I don't eat them that way anymore ... haven't in several years ... Betty looks daggers at me if I do, and I'm afraid of daggers.  Eggs are a once a week treat .. only if they're soft cooked (yuck).  Bacon is a once per quarter treat.

See ya .... oh ... where do you live? Got to know that if we're going to pick you up ... and ... do they let you have a phone yet?

Hi Gary,

I am trying to write this on my cutesie little pocket PC.  (Sometimes I make even myself sick.)

I am very sorry, but I stupidly forgot to plan ahead, and I have to postpone our reunion.  I would blame my new calendaring software, but this kind of thing is not unlike me at all.  I am just as irresponsible as ever, only now I am older.  And the software, like all software I play with, is just a diversion from consciousness -- *especially* if it is a 'personal information manager'

If you are still talking to me after this, then I would very much like for us to meet next Wednesday.  (Then you can wring my neck!)

Please be patient with me. 

I will be extremely happy to wring your neck next Wednesday.

Can you somehow get it to Syracuse for me? On Monday noon we are leaving for Syracuse and will be returning on Thursday night.

As regards speaking to you, I don't remember when I last spoke to you.  Was it in the 80's Maybe 1987 or so? At any rate, I can't be still speaking to you if I haven't been speaking to you since whenever.

And don't be concerned about your age, your cutsie PC pockets, or your forgetfulness.  Actually, I'll put up with an awful lot lately to be able to go out to dinner somewhere ... anywhere.

Which reminds me ... we just celebrated our 43rd anniversary, Betty and I. We were remembering our 25th ... when we had Mass at home ... you were there ... then we drove to Gloucester to have dinner at the Rudder restaurant ... do you remember all the fun we had?

Sigh ....

Perhaps we can get together some day in August ... tell me what your little pocket gizmo says you can do week after next.  Or the week after that ... till then, I guess I'll have to keep eating Betty's cooking.

sigh

Hi Gary,

How's about the 15th or the 22nd?

Betty says wait till October, now.  We're away the next few weeks during the week.

Betty's down at the Cape ... I have a course to take ... then we're on retreat in Canada for a week.

Sorry.  but ... we'll get together yet!

"This is nothing," he explained.  "I've been doing eight-hour shifts since the war began.  I've usually treated about ten war-wounded a day, soldiers and civilians.  And there have been a lot of deaths.  Right now I don't care about the politics.  All I'm worried about is my wife and children living in Mosul. 

"But I can tell you one thing.  This is a miserable situation.  The Iraqi people don't know who to follow.  They are torn only between Saddam and America.  They deserve better than both." 

He added: "We dropped a few civilians, but what do you do?" He said there were women standing near an Iraqi soldier, and one of them fell when he and other Marines opened fire. "I'm sorry," said Sgt Schrumpf, "but the chick was in the way".

He added: "We dropped a few civilians, but what do you do?" He said there were women standing near an Iraqi soldier, and one of them fell when he and other Marines opened fire. "I'm sorry," said Sgt Schrumpf, "but the chick was in the way".

"That order was immediately followed by the loud reports of 25mm cannon fire from one or more of the platoon's Bradleys. About half a dozen shots were heard in all.

"'Cease fire!' Johnson yelled over the radio. Then, as he peered into his binoculars from the intersection on Highway 9, he roared at the platoon leader, 'You just [expletive] killed a family because you didn't fire a warning shot soon enough!'"

"That order was immediately followed by the loud reports of 25mm cannon fire from one or more of the platoon's Bradleys. About half a dozen shots were heard in all.

"'Cease fire!' Johnson yelled over the radio. Then, as he peered into his binoculars from the intersection on Highway 9, he roared at the platoon leader, 'You just [expletive] killed a family because you didn't fire a warning shot soon enough!'"