My Screen Goes Dark

I love reading other blogs & getting to know interesting, opinionated people from around the world. Even a decade ago, I never would have imagined a world like the one we live in today. We are all so connected & yet so hostile to anyone who is seen as different. Despite all the knowledge at our fingertips, we continue to live on a planet torn apart by religious fanaticism, fellow humans killing each other, passing laws & attempting to make life miserable for those that they find contrary.

I write these words as I agonize over the fact that my beloved laptop is dying. When I open the applications, the screen is often to0 dark to read or see the cursor. My 6 year old Dell XPS M1210 will finally open with a clear view about every 15th try. I tried not turning it off, but it will sometimes go dark while I am using it.

The Resume Photo Of Your Host a 25 Years Ago.

Composing & posting on Post Apocalyptic Bohemian gives me clarity, helps me work out my priorities & just plain makes me happy. That anyone reads it seems like a little miracle to me. I may soon loose the amazing device that opens the world to me. This scares & confuses your bohemian host. If I loose you for a while, dear readers, it is not by choice, I am not ignoring you, & I will miss reading you & I will miss you checking in on me. A new computer seems close to impossible at the moment, but I am always up for a miracle. They have touched me before.

Stuck In A Moment

I have had 13 month challenge to myself to do a post everyday on Post Apocalyptic Bohemian, & on rare occasion I fail. Missing a post makes me feel bad, & if by any chance I have readers that look everyday & notice, then I am regretful & embarrassed.


18 months ago, I saw my physician for some problems that I was having. I was diagnosed with depression &  I started on a medication- Wellbutrin. After about 12 weeks, I really did notice a difference. I still felt everything I had been feeling, & I continued to have issues that I had to face & deal with, but the medication just seemed to take the edge off of the heaviness that I was being oppressed by.


In July 2009, my company chose a different health insurance provider, & in the process I lost my primary care physician who I loved. Not only did I like & trust my doctor, but his clinic was close to where I lived, & he was easy to get an appointment with, often on the same day.


It was too daunting to choose a new physician from the online directory on the website of the new provider. How does one jut blindly pick someone as important as your doctor? So… I did nothing.

In the past few weeks, the depression as reared its very ugly head, despite the meds, I felt the return of the crushing feeling. It manifests itself like a giant boot that makes a shadow on my life & then starts to slowly crush me. I feel a heaviness & a deep sadness. I have a family history of this problem. My mother's sister & brother killed themselves & her mother had severe mental problems in an era when medical science did not deal with as they do now. Luckily, maybe because I have been trained as an actor, & probably because it has always comes easily to me, I have been able to adopt a work “persona” that is upbeat, creative, & achievement oriented. My work colleagues would be shocked to know that I have any problems at all.

At the Husband's urging, & because I knew it had to be done, I blindly choose a new doctor. I asked for any M.D. at the clinic closest to my house. I was told that there was an appointment available the first week of May! I could go to a clinic in another county or another state, but I would have to wait to see someone close at hand.


While treading emotional water waiting for this future appointment, I rather slipped into my old habit of manifesting the depression with long sessions of sleep (some people suffering from depression have trouble sleeping. I could sleep all day), jags of complete helplessness, & a bunch of crying. I got stuck in a moment. I found writing a post to be an overwhelming task. I found dealing with my life to be overwhelming, much less sharing something about me with readers & fellow bloggers. As my good close friend, drinking mate & occasional lover- Bono said:


I never thought you were a fool
But darling, look at you. Ooh.
You gotta stand up straight, carry your own weight
'Cause tears are going nowhere baby


You've got to get yourself together
You've got stuck in a moment
& now you can't get out of it
Don't say that later will be better
Now you're stuck in a moment
& you can't get out of it.


I am trying to get back to famous gay people birthdays & some anecdotes from my nefarious past. I hope you didn’t miss me… well, actually I hope you did miss me. I missed you.

Oh, & by the way... I like puppies:

When I Get Up Each Day, I have No Idea What I Am Going to Write About

I had been using a computer for more than a decade, & I was proficient at Excel, Word & Publisher, I could negotiate my way around shopping on line, downloading music & finding porn, but I didn’t know about the world of blogs until the 2nd half of 2008. I had Googled a subject matter that took me to a blog & I was immediately gobsmacked. This blog was a daily journal sort of thing that documented the life of a hot young American guy, living in Ireland with his hot doctor boyfriend when he wasn’t going out to sea on the ship that he worked on. This blog was butch (the author was obsessed with pugilism & football) & very gay (naked men & lots of same sex kissing). I still read this blog: American Irish. Soon I was reading about 10 blogs everyday & I was fascinated to get to know people from around the world & bits about their lives & their opinions. Little did I know what I was in for.

For years, I had been in the habit of challenging myself to do something different, & shake things up on the occasion of my birthday in early January. On January 3rd 2009, I vowed to start a blog. I had no idea how to proceed & it took me until the 24th to make my first post. I had challanged myself to do 1 post a day for I year. I failed miserably, with just 2 posts in January & 3 in February. I felt I had lived a fairly interesting life so far, meeting & working with some very talented people, living in several great cities & traveling to even more. I had deeply loved & been with the same man for almost 30 years…but I had no idea how to put my experiences into words that would engage a reader. My 1st posts were about my Husband, my dogs & our house. I didn’t tell the husband about the blog until March 2008 & he was, at the start, none too pleased, & he made me change a few things in my initial post about him. My very 1st comment from someone was on this very post.

Then I decided to celebrate the birthdays of famous gay people that mattered to me. I enjoyed the research & the connection I felt to these figures, but the Husband suggested that my posts were too verbose & encyclopedic. I began to streamline & put the emphasis on why these famous figures mattered to me.The Husband has the eye & the temperament of a good editor. The posts improved. One day, the Husband left a complimentary comment, & I was thrilled.

 Because of the blog, I have taken some flack from people in my life, mostly saying that I am way to candid & too open about my life & opinions. Someone once mentioned that the posts were always love- “ with you it is just love, love love”. But yeah, that was the idea… a celebration of what matters the most to me. I think the writing improved, the posts came more easily to me & I started having fun by having relationships with other bloggers.

Bloggers love to get comments & I started to note what sort of posts generated the most comments. I never geared a post toward the goal of garnering more comments, but I did notice that the most comments were on the posts that were the most personal. I also that discovered that I had many readers that never or rarest left comments. I was actually surprised & immensely pleased when my dear friend LJSM (whom I met doing theatre 26+ years ago) told me that she read me, but would save up for a week so that she could have a bunch of posts in 1 sitting. I found out that WCK3, who is often mentioned in posts, reads it almost everyday. Of course there is the bewilderment & heartache due to a small handful of major players in my life that NEVER look at it! I am torn between- “hey, reading the blog is not a requirement for my friendship” & “fuck you, this blog is my baby”.

I can honestly say that having Post Apocalyptic Bohemian has made me feel more authentically myself at exactly the time in my life that I needed it the most. I have made some very dear blogger friends. I have met 2 of them in person & was thrilled to be in their company & meet their spouses. I reviewed a favorite book- Someday This Pain Will be Useful To You & the author- Peter Cameron wrote me a thank you email. I did a post about one of my favorite recording artists from the 1980s- Karla Di Vito & she left a comment on the blog! I had record label write that they liked my music reviews & could they send me recordings to consider? & best of all, I was finding my voice.

A Few Of My Own Favorite & Most Personal Posts:

http://nopoboho.blogspot.com/2009/07/25-years-ago-today-my-best-day-ever-so.html

http://nopoboho.blogspot.com/2009/11/never-face-facts.html

http://nopoboho.blogspot.com/2009/09/my-life-is-david-lynch-movie.html

http://nopoboho.blogspot.com/2009/09/one-ringy-dingy-born-on-this-day.html

http://nopoboho.blogspot.com/2009/07/reflections-on-my-garden-in-summer.html

http://nopoboho.blogspot.com/2009/07/mr-steve-goes-to-town.html

574 posts, 84 followers & 29,750+ hits since I started counting in April… today is the 1st anniversary of Post Apocalyptic Bohemain. Thanks for having me. I am grateful. I'll drink to that!

"Life is partly what we make it, & partly what it is made by the friends we choose.” Tennessee Wiliiams

The Bagdad Theatre (note the spelling), a great old movie house from Hollywood's Golden Age, on Hawthorne Blvd. Part of my "Steve's Tour".

I have only been blogging since January, but I have already made some really great friends & acquaintances with fellow bloggers. They are a very interesting & diverse set of characters. Earlier this summer, I met the fascinating, handsome & talented Will of Designerblog & his equally charming husband Fritz. I had worried a bit about loosing the magic or possibly disappointing Will by meeting in person. While on a visit to meet his brand new granddaughter in nearby Salem, we spent a lovely summer evening in our Boys’ Fort, getting to know each other & staying up late telling theatre stories. It was a lovely visit & I feel blessed to have new friends that live in New England. I look forward to seeing their house & compound some day.

The reservoir at Mt. Tabor in SE Portland. Mt. Tabor is a city park in a derelict volcano cone right in the middle of Portland.

Another blogger who I read every day- Mark of Tales Of The Sissy had introduced us, via email, to his good friends Jamie & Michael who were new to Portland after relocating from Washington DC. We had enjoyed sharing food & drinks with these 2 young men this summer. It is invigorating for 2 old guys to make friends with the younger set. They are a fun, opinionated & funny couple. Last night, we took the bold step of meeting blogger Mark & his handsome husband- Joe, who are visiting Portland from the Delaware seashore. We had marionberry martinis at the boy’s house in NE Portland & then went out for Thai food. Yesterday, I took the out-of-towners on a tour of “Stephen's Best of Portland”. I never enjoy my adopted city more than when showing it off to visitors. So far, meeting fellow bloggers in person has been an extra special treat. I enjoy hearing the stories of other people, their lives & experiences, & it is a really lovely to put a face, indeed a cute face, to the writer of a blog I read almost every day.

A "must" on any tour of Portland is the stunning Japanese Garden.

"We all take different paths in life, but no matter where we go, we take a little of each other everywhere."
Tim McGraw