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Payday. I remember when that used to mean something. Sort of mean something.

I now tweet. I am not altogether sure why. It remains to be seen if any of the friends and family members I've invited to join me at Twitter will show up (what..? you don't love me anymore?) and I don't know how chattily "intimate" I really want to get with strangers. At the moment I have a few Twitter followers but what does that mean really? Who are they and what's their interest in the arch haiku scribblings of Little Me?

I am looking about me as I type and thinking with a sigh that it's time to do a bit more spring cleaning. More than a bit. Awhile back I read a book (okay, I read part of a chapter of a book) on feng shui, and I'm thinking now it did make its point about how psychologically oppressive clutter can be, and also how the placement of furniture can make a room more inviting or make it a place you find yourself wanting to avoid. It's about Chi, the energy that, according to feng shui philosophy, permeates everything in and around us. I do not have a smooth Chi flow. There's too much stuff in the rooms I live in, blocking the kind of vibrant energy--Sheng Chi--that makes fresh thinking and a more creative life possible.

And look at all these books overflowing the bookcases--do I really want or need them? All of them? Am I going to be reading again the ones I read twice long ago? Will I ever get around to reading the ones I bought years ago that have been sitting collecting dust? Who am I trying to impress by hanging on to them? They should go. Most of them should go.

On the other hand...

I've always felt more than a little queasy about getting rid of books. Books aren't old clothes or old shoes or broken toys, after all. A really good read can open worlds previously unknown to you or console and uplift you in ways even people and pets can't. You shouldn't be careless or cavalier with books like that, you'll wind up regretting it. There are books I've boxed and donated away that I later wished I'd kept; I wish especially that I hadn't given away (or sold)books I'd bought when I was just getting into my teens and easing into my twenties. I'd love to take a look at them now to glimpse what I was into and curious about at that time of my life. Did I jot any precious little notes to myself in the margins of the pages? Did I write my name and the date and place of purchase on the inside cover?

But you know, then again...

There's something to be said for knowing when to move on and let things go. You can hang on to a thing, even a book, past the point that's it healthy or necessary to do so. Sometimes taking a deep breath and just getting on with it has a cleansing effect. And--mostly by accident, admittedly--I've discovered that sometimes letting possessions go can be a boon to someone else who needs them more.

For example, just before and shortly after moving into this apartment I boxed a fairly large collection of books, including some queer-centric bios, novels and self-help stuff, sending many of them to my building's common floor reading room. Later I had second thoughts about a few of the titles I'd given away and decided to retrieve them, only to find in my search that all of the LGBT themed books--every single one of them--had disappeared. There were maintenance and cowboy-booted construction guys all over the place during this period, as the building was being rehabbed top to (no jokes, please) bottom, and as I'd walk through the place I'd observe many of these guys trying, in some often crude form or fashion, to out-macho one another.

Well, you know how it is. Heteros generally like to assume that everyone around them is just like them, but one of the first and most gratifying lessons you learn when you're queer is that that's just so much horseshit. If you're "different" so is someone else in this room, on this floor, in this building. That's the law of averages, honey.

At first I was disappointed, even upset, to realize that my gay books had vanished; briefly I toyed with the idea of putting up flyers imploring their return, but I reconsidered. Even if I could have gotten them back, maybe it was better not to, better for someone else. Somewhere in that collection of sweaty, strutting, power tool wielding dudes beat the heart(s) of a fierce Pride queen (Alright, that's an obnoxious stereotype, but you get what I'm saying) who maybe hadn't the confidence or courage to purchase those titles (even online) but needed them nonetheless. And really, what was I doing with The Gay Kama-Sutra?

How do you tweet all that?

That Father

This is crazy-making.

Okay, look--I liked this show a lot in its original run when I was a grammar-schooler, and I continued to like it in reruns during my growing up years, and here, deep in Middle-Age Land, as I watch a Season One DVD on my desktop, I find I still like it. A lot. That Girl (both the Girl and the show) still has real appeal. I still love the popping, vibrant colors, Ann Marie’s kicky sixties wardrobe (Oh, God, I wanted that girl’s closet!), the truly wonderful exterior shots of a vanished New York, Harry Geller’s (or was it Dominic Frontiere’s?) spritely-sweet and evocative incidental music—especially Earle Hagen’s now iconic opening theme and its seasonal variations--and even the charming innocence of Ann and her boyfriend Don’s improbably chaste romance.

But her dad. Lew. Lew Marie. Criminey, what an obnoxious ass!

On the commentary track for “What Are Your Intentions?”—along with the crisp, beautiful audio and video transfer, the great pleasure of classic movies and television series in DVD format are the bonus features, especially the cast and crew commentaries—Marlo Thomas and series co-creator Bill Persky discuss with great amusement their memories of the making of the show and the episode’s storyline about overprotective fathers. The two laugh heartily at Lew Marie’s sarcastic distrust and endless jibes at Donald, comparing aspects of Lew's behavior to Thomas’s real-life dad, Danny Thomas (Make Room For Daddy) and Persky himself with his own young daughters. This was how dads were, they recalled fondly, back in the era when dads were really involved in their kids’ lives.

Um, okay.

As I consider it, Lew Marie’s ferocious desire to guard his only daughter’s health and well-being, by which of course I mean her virginity, is understandable given she’d insisted on leaving home to make her own way in the world at a time when daughters generally didn’t do such things, and he and the Mrs. didn’t know this Don Hollinger guy very well.

What isn’t so understandable to me is Mr. Marie’s continuing abrasiveness toward Donald as time (and the series) went on. After all, this was the man his daughter loved and would eventually marry (in the series finale). Couldn’t he have given his daughter’s judgment the benefit of the doubt? Couldn’t he have respected her feelings enough to reign in his worries and stifle his impulse to pick apart Donald? What was that about, anyway? First Mr. Marie is upset at the prospect of his lovely and naive young daughter leaving home to move to the big bad city and live and work in it alone; then he’s pissed off because she’s found herself a handsome, successful, good-hearted guy who’s every bit as loving and protective of her as he is. I mean, what is that?

And what’s up with Ann allowing her father to be so disrespectful and so relentlessly, well, mean, to her man? Sure, she’s young and her dad’s authority still has some sway, but as she would (gently, pleadingly, and more than once) point out to him, she’s not a child anymore and it’s really not okay for him to treat her like one. So why did she so often let him? Why didn’t concern for Donald’s feelings compel Ann to object more forcefully to Lew’s insensitivity? ("Oh, Daddy...") Did Marlo let Danny get away with that shit?

I meant everything I just said. I’ve always thought Lew Marie (played with pugnacious gusto by character actor Lew Parker) was an abrasive jerk to every male above the age of 12 who ever smiled at his daughter, most particularly the man she adored, and it really bugged me.

But can I tell you something else? Right alongside my annoyance I’ve always felt a twinge of jealousy of Ann Marie; more than a twinge, as finally I became Ann’s age and was faced with navigating a world of make-believe and machismo. I mean, just imagine. Imagine having a father for whom you are the center of the universe, who loves and fears for you so much that he’s willing, with no apologies and above your objections, to step over the line time and time again to safeguard your health and well-being.

And, okay, your virginity.