Hello Happy Blog Readers and Welcome to World AIDS Day.

This last weekend, I was in the town where I grew up visiting Mumsy and Daddy-kins for Thanksgiving. I was prepared to be stressed and depressed as I have been the last few times with them except...this time I was rescued.

Helping Mom take boxes to the post office, I ran into the brother of one of my childhood friends -- who told me that J was also in town. J lives in Virginia, and it's rare for us to see each other. When we meet, we pick up where we left off as if no time has passed. Even though what J and I talk about isn't always belly-aching laughs, the history of our friendship means we don't have to say much of anything to imbue the conversation with depth. I've known him for 25 years.

J picked me up from my parents (just like the old days), and we went to one of the town's hangouts: A place I worked as a dishwasher the summer after high school graduation, and which *also* has a listing in the venerable Preppy Handbook. The place hasn't changed since the summer of 1981, and it was, uh, eye-opening to see some of the same folks working there.

Once we had ordered our Elliot Ness lager (Great Lake Brewing Company on draught yee haw!), J moved on to talk about the failure of his second marriage. It was apparent from his eyes how painful this is. They have two children and she will probably get custody. I also learned how someone with an addiction to Vicodan can support their habit: Multiple physicians prescribing it; paying neighbors to get it prescribed to them; buying it over the internet. He'd had enough; he is going to have problems moving on.

J & I always talk about his first marriage. His first wife was a real bitch and he had no problem moving on from her. I always have fought back the urge to apologize: You see, his first wife was my girlfriend in high school and it was because of me he met her. I knew she was Evil personified and I used to rant to J all about her manipulation, her sneering, her goading. But did he listen? I'll never forget how I freaked out when, in college, mutual friends told me they had been dating -- for years. I did not want to lose J's friendship, and so I immediately called and changed my tune.

It was fairly usual to party with each other at college, so on my next visit to OSU, the happy couple and I went to a club to hang out. It was around halloween 1982 and the club's big draw was the first showing of Michael Jackson's "Thriller" video -- ha ha ha ha (that's Vincent Price laughing ominously). I remember we all danced to it and pretended to be zombies. (Such mature 19 year olds!) A couple of years later, she did a very passable imitation of Madonna's "Material Girl", which expressed sentiments not too far off from her real life perspective.

(Having dated someone so unpleasant, it would be too easy to make a crack like No wonder I'm gay but no. Instead, I would say I sought, maybe even unknowingly, difficult women to date knowing there would be other reasons to attribute things like, ah, impotency. For all straight women reading this -- it's nothing personal; that's how I handled it.) I asked J what he had seen in her, and he said they shared a lot of interests. O-Kaaay.

J & I moved on to talk about organized religion, and its impact during our high school years. I'll save more of this for another entry, but Campus Life swooped down and into our town during the late 1970s. Campus Life was (is?) a christian youth organization and supposedly helped stamp out a horrible drug problem in our school. (In retrospect, I wonder how terrible it really was. Nobody ripped out their eyes by their own hand or killed their parents in a rabid frenzy -- these were the kinds of stories we sat through at all-school anti-drug rallies.)

What I won't forget is the peer pressure Campus Life exacted. Well I suppose in 1978 everyone was being born again. Campus Life was everywhere; them and their favorite book, The Way (aka The Bible). We would pray at pep rallies that God would help us Win against Solon and other competing schools; there would be mid-school prayer sessions; and wholesome after-school activities like volley-ball and The Way studies.

Campus Life's greatest impact on me was to highlight hypocrisy and what I might call "moral prissiness". I remember being slapped in the lunchroom for taking The Lord's name in vain. In the realm of sex, certainly we were told that it was healthy -- but within a lot of limits: They were expert in fanning the flames of desire with the flames of hell. That year, I had already "become a man" (stave off the laughter, bloggers!), and while that experience wasn't all that great (Oh I have feeling I'll write about that another time), it definitely made me realize the idiocy of anyone Saving Yourself For Marriage.

For my group of friends, J among them, we had fun discovering "with shock" that some of the certain vocal "young christians" would be making out in the back seat of cars -- which, upon our discovery, we flashed our brights, honked our horns and threw pop cans at them. (Now *that* was fun -- such mature 16 year olds!) By the time I was a junior, the root opinions I hold about spirituality today had been formed.

Sometimes when I compare growing up tales with others, it seems as though my experience was different: Evangelicalism did not hold back some of my friends during the same period. Some of them lived in rural towns, doing it with everyone and anyone, including the preacher on down and back. Believe what you like about the Catholics; but I have friends who set out to seduce a Father or three.

Fast forward to now: J told me that everything gets messed up as soon as sex gets involved. To a certain extent I agree, but I agree in the past tense: I know my high school experiences colored how I came out in the 1980s, and because of that, maybe that's why I'm physically healthy today. I wonder to the extent these high school years impacted abilities to form a healthy relationship. Hmmmm...getting out the thinking cap. Even if it did; gosh, I hope it doesn't anymore.

Ah, the good ole days. You can probably tell I'm hovering by the mailbox for my next class reunion notice -- although I *am* curious to know how some of my "christian" colleagues have fared... You can also guess my opinion on the Separation of Church and State. Sadly, this opinion does not appear to be shared with the ruling elite in this country or, with their mouthpieces on the radio. Perhaps I should have told J that a good prayer will handle addiction to prescription drugs.

Came across an interesting article on evangelical thought and one regarding a recent, notable prescription drug abuse debate. -- check them out!
Have I been forgiven?