Left to my own devices

"And look at the view from your balcony  the sunset is searing the sky  and how proudly you are pointing out to me  London through your eyes"  - Pet Shop Boys, The view from your balcony Those who know me know I'm an Anglophile. From novels by Agatha Christie, Peter Lovesey, P.D. James and Ruth Rendell, to television shows such as Inspector Morse, Fawlty Towers, Doctor Who, Black Adder , and Midsomer Murders , to following Instagram accounts that are nothing more than photos of various British locales, from a young age I've been a fan of (nearly) all things English. Heck, I even used to regularly watch Prime Minister's Question Time on C-SPAN during my teenage years, and listened to the book-on-tape of Margaret Thatcher's The Downing Street Years memoir. You can imagine my exuberance when, in late spring, some friends asked if we'd like to join them on a trip to England this summer. I was able to get the time off of work for it, as was Ashley. The final r...

     I f you live long enough, you see a lot of things change. This can include an evolving urban landscape, where businesses come and go with the times. Among them are movie theaters, part of my favorite trifecta of establishments, along with bookstores and restaurants. In my hometown of Champaign, Illinois, several movie theaters have come and gone during my lifetime -- the Co-Ed Theater that used to be in the heart of campus town. Market Place Cinemas that used to be out by, well, Market Place Mall. Country Fair Theater that used to be a part of the then-bustling Country Fair strip mall. And, of course, the lovely Art Theater, which closed in late 2019 after a century of showing films. The most recent casualty is the Savoy 16. Like most movie theaters, the Savoy closed for the pandemic back in March. This wasn't long after its parent company, Goodrich Quality Theaters (GQT) filed for bankruptcy. Well, GQT has navigated the pandemic waters and is re-opening most of its ...

The dream recurs on at least a semi-monthly basis, always a mixture of familiarity with alarming disorientation. From the very first time the dream occurred, I felt at home within the small New England church. And, for whatever reason, I immediately understood where I was. Starting in an abrupt stupor, I was immediately seated roughly two-thirds from the altar, in about the tenth pew toward the back. The rustic church was made mostly of wood, some of it stained, other parts (such as the beams and rafters) painted a gleaming white. There was stone, too. You could tell it was before a service was to begin. People were milling about, generally making their way into the structure. Somehow, I knew the location, but not why I suddenly found myself there. This caused some considerable consternation, as you might imagine it would. The church looked to be like what I imagine those centuries-old old Protestant churches are like in New England, hence the sense of knowing where I was, o...

Periodically my mom will give me some mementos, heirlooms, documents and photographs of our family history. I've enjoyed receiving them, though with more than a pinch of wistfulness included. The handing-down of treasured familial possessions is always a bit of rite of passage, a quiet signifier of aging and our own mortality. The keepsakes are wanted, yet there is almost the urge to reject what their receipt symbolizes. It occurred to me that there is another, even more personal, reason that I grow rueful whenever the subject of fondly-held items arises. I have no children to leave anything to. Now, admittedly, that is perhaps the most selfish reason to have a child, but then it can be argued that people have children for a variety of reasons. Some wish to carry-on their lineage, others want another human to love and care for. A few didn't expect to have a child, and are making their best go of it. So on and so forth.

Everyone has a favorite home. Of that, I am convinced. This can manifest itself in different ways, from being an abode that that one would move back to in a heartbeat, if they could, to simply being the dwelling they have the fondest memories of. Sometimes, it's more than one place that we would call our favorite. Regardless, I think -- or at least hope -- that this is a near universal sentiment. Oddly enough, my favorite homes are the most humble. Removing childhood homes, and the small little house I lived in ages 19-25, perhaps my best-loved abode -- the place I think of the most warmly when it comes to life with Ashley -- is the apartment we first lived-in together in Bloomington. A second-floor flat with two bedrooms and one bath, it was certainly modest, and we had our issues while living there, but we also had some good memories there, too.

Recently I came across an article that served as both an interview of late British actor John Inman, and a promotion of his then-new TV show Odd Man Out . Produced during a hiatus of Inman's hugely popular BBC program Are You Being Served? , this was a series that provided his first starring sitcom role, albeit it on the ITV network. Alas, it flopped, and was canceled after only seven episodes. What is of note from the aforementioned article is how much it seems to focus on Inman's private life. It mentions the mews house he purchased in Little Venice (what he described as the first home he'd ever owned), and how he was still a "bachelor" at age 41. Inman died aged 71 in 2007. The article was from 1977. At the time of his death, the actor had been with his same-sex partner, Ron Lynch, for 35 years. I'll let you do the math. Of course, hiding one's homosexuality is nothing new. Folks such as John Inman would have had to contend with a nosy medi...

Reading Matt Zoller Seitz's remembrance of his wife , Jennifer, on the tenth anniversary of her death, filled me with a sense of dread, sadness and anxiety. Despite having read Matt's reviews on RogerEbert.com for years and being aware of the books he's written about director Wes Anderson, this was an aspect of his life of which I was unaware. I felt sadness for his loss, even though it is now a decade old. The dread and anxiety crept-in because such a read will invariably make one reflect on their own life situation and think, 'Oh no, what if it happens to me?!' Ashley & I will have been together sixteen years this June. First and foremost: if anything ever happened to him, I would be devastated. Of that, there is no doubt. It's not something I dwell on, though I do think about it perhaps more than I should. Every time he drives to work, or even goes off to the store on his own, I hope he comes back. I've known people whose spouses have died in...