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I know that many of you still have been having difficulty leaving comments.  I have made another attempt to remedy this problem, but I need your help testing the latest fix.

It would be great if you could take a moment and leave a comment to this (or any other posting) to check if it now works.  Just click on "Post a Comment" at the bottom of the blog comments and see if it works.

IF IT DOES NOT WORK, E-MAIL ME AT clarewhite20@yahoo.com.

Thanks for visiting the blog.  Look for a tale of cultural adventure tomorrow. 

And remember, you are this blog's experts, so speak up!

Will You Be My Friend?

“What is your definition of a friend?” a friend asked. She was looking for material for her blog “Dangerous Linda.” Asking challenging questions like that is, I guess, why they call her “dangerous.” She was leading me down a path of true folly.

In the past, I've tried to define friendship, but have been smart enough to keep most of the ideas to myself. People have identified me as a good friend. Sometimes I am. Other times, I know, I have failed. I'm still not an expert.

“I don't know. I have never tried to define it,” was my half-true response. “There are so many different kinds of friendship. Some of them are not really friends, but maybe it changes to fit what I need at the time.”

“Give it a shot,” she said. “I'm trying to define friendship and I need your help.” MY help?

I tried. I started with a list. THAT was true folly.

• Care.
• Affection.
• Relative trust.
• Affinity.
• Love.
• Common spaces for good feelings.
• An unselfish desire for the person to whom you give things to pay them forward instead of paying them back, but in a way that benefits both/all.

“You're answering the question, 'Who are you in a friendship,' right?” she said. At this point, I am feeling a bit shaky and vulnerable. I am not only putting myself in a position of exposing my ignorance about what a true friend is; I am also risking exposure: she might now see that these ideals of friendship are ones that I have trouble living up to.

“I'm asking you how you know someone is your friend or if you want them to be your friend,” she continued.

I had to insert a modesty in order to protect me from hypocrisy. “Maybe (that was what I was answering, what I TRY to be in a friendship), but I have said a lot here that is really tough to live up to.”

“I don't know if I know,” I admitted.

I told her that for the first part of my life, what made me want to be someone's friend was that they wanted to be mine. After grade school, it was hard to find someone who really wanted to be my friend, someone for whom I was more than an incidental aspect of their surroundings and who understood me enough to get what my life was about. In time, I gradually came to the realization that my friends needed to be as much about what I wanted as it was someone else's desire to be with me.

I then bravely asked, “How is it different from wanting to be in a relationship? How is it the same?” That IS a dangerous question. I left myself open to a lot of self examination, more than she might have picked up on. Maybe this was more than I was willing to be accountable for. “Defining friendship can be dangerous, like defining a relationship before it gets figured out-- maybe,” I said. I was getting myself in a little deeper. I should shut up while I'm ahead.

“Hey, I'm asking the questions here!” she shot back.

“And you're asking ME?” I smarted back. “If you want an answer, good luck!”

Time to defer to someone else's wisdom.

One bit of wisdom came from the only fortune cookie message I have bothered to remember. I still remember it after about 25 years. It said something like, “A good friend is a gift one gives oneself.” It still makes me think. That God gives us a person is a blessing, but we have to use it; we have to make the friend.

Another insight I remember hearing is the idea that the people we want to be our friends are people to whom we are attracted. It is not necessarily that we want these people to be lovers. But HOW IS IT DIFFERENT from how we choose our relationships? Again, feeling vulnerable, I am afraid to answer that question and it is a question I only ask myself, alone—on my brave days.

I am afraid to ask in the light of the fact that most of my friends are women. Not as many men seem to want to hang with me, or let me hang with them. I am afraid to ask in the light of the fact that most of my relationships have been with women who have been friends. This is good, but tricky when the realities and particulars of that connection change, either toward or away from romance.

(Do I really want to contemplate that quandary in front of anyone, including my friends reading this now?)

What does it mean that I have no man attraction that works like romantic or sexual desire as far as I have been able to discover so far. I do have men friends and, maybe, I am seeing the part of attraction that has a lot of the pieces except the sexual desire. Is this the part that makes “friend?”

So, how do I know I want someone to be my friend? I don't know. Like. Love. Care.

Maybe the last bit of wisdom comes from a story told in class to me and other fellow students by Rabbi Michael Goldberg during a most-challenging semester of Jewish theological and philosophical study. It is the story of two neighbors. One greets the other and asks, “Neighbor, do you love me?”

His neighbor responds, “Well, of course I love you. We have been neighbors for years and we get along quite well.”

The first neighbor says, “But do you really love me?”

The second says, “How can you doubt this? Our children over the years have grown up together, best of friends. Our wives are quite compatible and we share the same law, values and God. Of course I love you.”

The first says, again, “Neighbor, do you love me?”

The second continues, “We have done business together all these years. We have never had a dispute. I admire you and your work and you mine. Is there still a question?”

The first takes the hand of his neighbor and says, “Then, if you love me, what are my problems?”

My friends, I hope I care enough to know. I hope I know enough to care. Friendship is such delight and such folly.

Pleasant Valley: Four Friends called Monkees

Remember the Monkees?

I was listening to the radio--or rather hearing the radio until I was struck by the airwaves carrying their song, "Pleasant Valley Sunday."  It is a bit of Byrds, The Who, a little evolved Beach Boys and a healthy dose of Buffalo Springfield.

It is a good production.  A lot of people don't realize the talent that lurked behind the tepid television persona and studio gloss.  Micky Dolenz, Davy Jones, Peter Tork, and Michael Nesmith.  They were all talented.  They all had stronger personalities than a television show or a canned musical group could contain.  (Maybe they didn't play all the instruments in the studio, which is not uncommon unless you are Prince, but they were all quite skilled and trained musicians.)

A lot of people also do not realize that some very talented and impactful artists tried out and did not make the cut to be a part of this manufactured group, including the Buffalo Springfield's Stephen Stills and the Hollies' Graham Nash.  Thankfully, they both found better things to do.

Before the Monkees, Davy Jones was more disposed to belting out show tunes.  Stephen Stills and Peter Tork were referred to as the "kids who looked alike" during their California days and got to be friends. There are a lot more stories, most not to be found in the reruns. 

TOMORROW.  LOOK FOR THE DISCUSSION ON FRIENDSHIP.

Hope to see you then.

Open Wide!

How many things do I have to remember to do for my teeth each morning? Until last week, I counted four.

But I am always forgetting something. There must be more than four things.

Things not to do for my teeth: one, do not use too much tooth paste. Your health teacher, the boy scouts, the classroom roving dental hygienist, and a lot of other people will tell you that you only need a baby pea-sized drop; using more creates a barrier between the scrubbing apparatus, the tooth brush, and the teeth; the last professional advice I received suggested that I do a quick scrub after spitting out most of the tooth paste.

Two, do not swig from the bottle of mouthwash. There are special oils in the mouthwash; the alcohol is not the only active ingredient. Swigging causes backwash and activates the oils. The persistent presence of the backwash causes the oils to remain active and they will get used up in the bottle just sitting there idle. The mouthwash will lose it's potency and ability to combat germs, bad breath and other things that compromise oral health.

Three, don't put water on the tooth brush and tooth paste before brushing. Okay, this is just an opinion I heard that might be valid, but I think that the reasoning behind it is similar that of putting too much paste on the brush.

And there are the things that I do for my teeth.

I had a very rough history with dental hygienists. I don't know if there is anyone who likes their time with the dental hygienist. I suppose that some people have an odd crush that masks the relative torture.

I especially remember Patti the Hygienist from my visit to the dentist over 25 years ago. It was an exercise of verbal humiliation, apart from the compromising position of being in the dentist's chair. Each barb was exasperated by the scraping of a metal prod and its insert in to the one soft cavity that brought a sad tsk of disapproval. The insult was added to by the injury of the flesh that was being ripped from my mouth, with the further insult of seeing it leave, bloody just before it was wiped on the antiseptic bib that protected my clothes.

Patti's head shook. I wanted to know when we would be done.

It is almost three decades later. A lot has changed. For one, hygienists seem to know that if they want people to come back, they should be a little kinder with their words and their tools. Second, I think the tools are better. Third, my current hygienist tells me that I am doing a better job of taking care of my teeth and the teeth and gums are in good shape. Take THAT, Patti the Hygienist.

I suppose they are doing well because I already have enough cavities. They are doing well because I have a better brushing technique. They are doing better because I am better at flossing. They are better because I floss, brush, tongue scrape and gargle with mouthwash. And with my last visit, I was given a tiny, little brush to reach behind the wisdom teeth of my very big, fat mouth.

I may still open plastic packaging with my teeth. Please don't tell my father who is quite aware of how expensive my teeth have been, and that's without ever needing braces. I will not, on the other hand, open a beer bottle with those teeth, thank you. 

I don't know how many things you do for your teeth.  I hope you don't forget them.

Your Secret's Safe with Me (or You Never Know What Stories Lurk Behind the Windshield)

I have seen them before, sitting in the car outside my house. They seem as though they feel they are anonymous. They do not know how out of place they are. Do they not know that I know why they are there? Certain kinds of loves will create such ignorances.

The car is nice. The well-groomed woman is in the driver's seat. The young man is also well-groomed along side her. They are animated and earnest to add to the heat coming from the vents of their idling car.

They are not from our neighborhood. They have not just stepped out of their homes into a running car. They are having their conversation our of earshot and out of the vision of someone from whom they want to keep this secret.

It is a secret... from a husband, a wife, some coworkers, a boyfriend, a girlfriend, families. It is not a secret from me.

But the fact of their meeting in the fashion in which I see them points to the impossibility of their situation. They are young enough to sustain the drama and old enough to know better. A few mornings ago, I spied them—at first not seeing someone in the dirver's seat but, without staring, saw that she had leaned over to place her head on her companion's chest. Out of words, motor idling, waiting to rev off for their respective jobs—and then they leave.

They leave a faint trail that will easily and quickly be forgotten. And even though their image is deeply impressed in my memory, their secret is safe with me. I am no one to them. I am no one to the people from whom they are hiding their tryst.

Out of the corner of an eye, they spy me spying them. They are slightly spooked. With a sudden awareness, they realize their secret is not so safe with themselves and it will soon be betrayed.

My Feelings Are Safely Tucked Away

After last week's post, one reader sent me a note about the “Startling experience of reading how you really feel about your life experiences. Most people tuck those feelings carefully away, seldom revealing them to themselves, much less to others.” I am glad to use her words. Today, she is this blog's expert.

What she does not see are all the feelings that I really have tucked away, hidden behind some of the words I write and, more starkly, the words I choose to keep to, and away from, myself.

This week is a test. It is one that I think I have failed. Maybe I am being hard on myself, because this week is one where I have tucked away a lot of feelings. Maybe I am being hard on myself because this week was hard.

The week left me with so little energy or time to create something wonderful for you—and a lot of other people who may never read this. This is not an excuse. A blogger has an obligation to tell the story of the day. Current. Topical. From the heart.

But the events that have put my heart in this place are a bit too hard to relive on the page, right now. I am tired. I am hungry. I can't sleep. I can't eat.

To paraphrase one of our prototypical Minnesotans, guitarist Leo Kottke, I just may have told the world a whole lot more about myself than I ever intended. At the same time, I am tucking away my feelings and the events that surround them.

One of the aims of this blog is to show others for the experts they are. (This means I need you to leave comments—or send comments via e-mail, clarewhite20@yahoo.com, even if they are not compliments.) Another feature is one that I should, as a blogger, try to avoid: writing to protect the guilty. So, I am tucking away my feelings, to protect the guilty, especially if “the guilty” is me.

Maybe you have read between the lines of this post and have pieced together and untucked the events and feelings for yourself. Maybe you already know the “more than I ever intended.” Whether you know or not, I'm not ready to tell.

P.S. I have been told that many have had difficulty posting comments on blogs. If you are having problems, try posting as anonymous or just write/e-mail me if you want me to post it for you.