LEGAL & DISCLAIMER NOTICE: ©: 1999 / Will Brady // I hope you’ve found this site interesting, even thought provoking. Please don't write to me about the content of other peoples' sites linked from here. On the other hand, please let me know of any inactive links. Constructive comments, suggested links to add, are welcome.
This website is maintained by Will Brady / wbrady@connix.com / Last update: 16 December 1999
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 19 December 1999
Holiday shopping. Mostly in one store.
On the home front, was given about another 1/2 [face] cord of wood for just moving it. Also managed to get several heavy creosoted wood pilings that shall make great stairs in the hillside behind the house. the wood shall be a good distance from our well and are not of significant size, so even tho' I'll be handling the wood while setting it in the ground I'm not too worried about this.
Things sobering the holiday is that I know one friend in particular is hurting right now and there ain't a whole lot I can do about it. He seems to have gone along with a psychiatrist who thinks it's ethical to speak with others in demeaning and abusive language in order to alienate his client from life long friends. I have been told by the employers of this "shrink" that "he's just not a 'people person'" If that's the case, could someone please tell me what a man who emotionally abuses others is doing that business? I pray my friend will come out of this alright.
12 December 1999
Set the house up for the holidays. We used colored bulbs on the bush (which Big Ed says are tacky but we like 'em) and those icicle strings on the stone wall next to the house.
Work has kept me busy (big surprise, eh?). There's been an push by 1199 [the "Health Care Worker's Union"] to get members of Corrections, Youth Services Mental Health, family members and Advocates together to not only protest the shoddy treatment people labeled "crazy" have been forced to accept but to strategize for other more progressive changes. My persistent call is for "zero tolerance for abuse" which makes some (but not all) rank & file union members nervous.
One concurrent action has been to get people to call Governor John Rowland's office and at 1-800-406-1527 and tell him to "Keep the Promise" and stop screwing around with cuts in the mental health services budget. (Rowland's office has already proposed cutting more that $[US] 44 million from funds that would go to community services. Something that the forced treatment proponents [NAMI, Fuller Torrey] must privately love tho' would have to publically denounce]. More bucks for drugs, restraints and seclusion? Nah. Just do like New York State did; take that from community services too!
Planning for a trip to San Diego in late January. Any suggestions on things to do are welcomed (see my e-mail link above).
30 November 1999
Last week was so unseasonably warm. I was able to pick blossoms of forsythia and wild roses and even saw magnolia tree in bud! Which was nice, since I was able to use them in pots to decorate for our annual Post-Turkey Day party. The party was pretty lively. One person remarked, "Gee, seems you have everybody from the first selectwoman to the town drunk." Which was about right.
But I'll admit it was pretty eerie being able to have the porch door wide open at 10 p.m. and no one complaining about the cold.
The eats were tops! Jim brought a scrumtious terrapine -three layered: venison in a red wine sauce; pork in white wine and goose in an herb sauce. There were lots of shrimp, and a homemade wild mushroom soup (from Garry and Chris Miller) ...oh, and hummus. LOTS of hummus (most of which we still have).
We'd even managed to clean out the back room for overflow visitors. Now, the back room is no ordinary spot. Deed records have it built by the 1790s and local folklore has it that that room was once the home of the area's first freed black man (he bought his way out of slavery)
Venture Smith.
Were this the case, it most certainly had to have been an early home, as he went on to become a
successful merchant and moved to Haddam Neck, CT, some miles north of where we live. BTW, the
rest of his story can be found in series at:
Part Two,
Part Three and
Part Four.
Now the weather has turned back to cold again. Frost on the windshields, and me clamoring for more wood stacked close to the house. Next step, winter snows.
22 November 1999
Took at trip to New York City last week in recognition of Community Access's 25th anniversary.
While there got to visit with Margaret Bodell, and to visit her gallery
13 East 7th Street | New York, NY | 212-477-1820
Also got to go to a great dive Parkside Lounge on Houston Street.
At home on the weekend went to see MOMiX Dance Troupe in New Haven. Vibrant and alive!
I've also gotten to working on a piece about living rurally in between New York City and Boston.
15 November 1999
Watching PBS's series on New York City. Puts another context on life nowadays. I must confess to being a bit baffled about the persistent assertion that NYC was the embodiment of the capitalist ethic until I noticed that Chase Manhattan and the Ford Foundation are principle funders of the program.
The show a fitting contrast to my town's Open Space Committee, where we talked about preservation of forested spaces, the townships' five principle watersheds (including the 8 Mile River Watershed) and of what we hope to do to preserve the rural character of the town
This is no simple feat, given that already far too many people take a drive off the Interstate (Route 9) and mistakenly assume once they cross the bridge that they are still just a subway stop of Zabars (the only "vibrant of hub of American culture" on the continent, apparently).
But fact of the matter is, we are not in New York, or even any place close and that yuppie scum family who buy the lot in the woods are all too frequently shocked to find out that garbage pick up and tap water don't come with the territory.
My point here, however, is not to be nasty to the urban expatrite, but to suggest that such a soul be forewarned that, once moved here, even though we appear to be close to Manhattan on that Triple AAA travel map, you had best be prepared to live without going to the theatre every night, or shopping malls, or (gawd forbid!) even getting to the grocers for much more than a loaf of bread.
We may look close to the Big Apple (or Beantown, for that matter) but it just doesn't hold up. Out here, you had better have a hobby to pass the time
Which is fine with me. I like it this way
9 November 1999
Home with a cold today.
Got plenty of wood piled up however. ...and the back section of the house is now re-shingled in better shape for winter. Now to get the chimney re-pointed and the cellar sealed up.
worked some on the opening page of rondak.org which looks suspiciously similar to my own opening page.
6 November 1999
David (who serves on the town's Historic District Commission) and I started out going to Litchfield County for a tour of historic sites, buildings and to participate in the annual Historic Distric Commissioners' meeting. We never made it
Instead, although starting early, we got as far as just north of Thomaston, CT when the heater coil decided to crap out, steaming up the inside of the pick-up cab with those sickly sweet ethylene glycol vapors and pouring anti-freeze down on David's shoes (sorry David)
SO ...we pulled into the entry of an old rest stop (long ago abandoned and locked-up since a headless and handless male torso was discovered in the woods some years back) locked up the beast and hiked back down the two mile hill.
After the generous loan of a helpful homeowner's cell phone, we called my friend Dean in Bristol, borrowed some anti-freeze and water and hiked back up to make some quick repairs to the truck, bypassing the heater and runnning stuff right through engine to radiator. I mean, so what? Who needs the heater just 'cuz winter's coming up, right?
Then we all went back to Dean's house, giving up on the meetings in Litchfield. We then loaded up my pick-up with some very heavy fresh cordwood ~cut red oak and sugar maple "branches" (over 1 foot [.35 meters] diameter) and hauled this, and a second truckload back to my place. Now it is very unstylishly piled in a heap beneath the stone wall that borders out property from the road. Tomorrow I get to stack it. Can't wait!
On other subjects, I worked this week on making more tweaks and improvements to the patients' rights handouts for hospital staff to know about.
Got into a hissy fit with a couple of people who live in places like Toronto, Ontario who opined that people who live in the area between New York City and Boston couldn't possibly know anything about rural life, much less rural gay life since the entire area is "just a stone's throw from these two 'burbs. He then saw fit to educate folks who don't live in urban settings about the country. My friend Bruce found all the hub-bub mildly amusing, muttering that "boys will play on their computers" and refused to get into the fray.
But for me, this online discussion resulted in more type spilt across the ethers than I care to think about. So as not to waste the ferment I plan on gathering the resulting comments for another page to add to homo ruminations page.
Seems that the Toronto, Ontario folks think that country living (and one's participation in such) is determined more by how far my house seems to be from a yuppie scum hangout than by how one lives one's life.
Go figure!
In other areas, I saw a discernable jump in site visits after this page was noted on David Gwynn's PlanetSoma and the Bear History Project written by Les Wright. Thanks guys.
I haven't done anything to keep track of how many are new from who may have visited more frequently. For those who keep coming back ~thanks for your patience and curiosity at the site's evolution
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Catch you on the rebound! ~Will Brady
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