Being a gay Greek boy in the middle of nowhere, is a bit like a bear crapping in the woods.  If you live in a big city like New York or Chicago, you don’t care what the bear does, because your interaction with that animal is non-existent.  Unless you smell the bear poop, you’ll never notice the bear.  The bear, however, does not care whether someone in Chicago smells its…droppings.

How can I get someone in New York, or any other big city for that matter, to smell my shit, so that I can get the recognition I so aspire to have? I know that once somebody smells all my crap, they will like the person behind the aroma, or maybe not.  I can’t control whether someone will like me or not, but I can control whether I like myself, or so says the personal development book I am currently reading.

Speaking of personal development, I am a junkie.  Self-help books, CDs, and seminars are my crack cocaine.  My former tenants in Omaha are crack and alcohol junkies, always doing whatever they need to do in order to get their next fix.  They take advantage of their neighbors by stealing and deceiving them, thus depleting their resources to the point they have to start all over again.  They have trapped themselves in this vicious cycle they feel they can’t escape.  Their reality is supposedly much more different than mine, but much like them, I also take advantage of other people, especially teachers and mentors, by reading, watching, and listening to whatever they have to offer and I can get my hands on. 

Sometimes I apply the information I learn and read, other times I don’t.  I definitely get a high, however, every time I read an inspirational book or listen to a motivational CD, and that makes me feel good, much like the way my drug-addicted former alcoholic tenants feel, when they light up the crack pipe. This feeling, which is a state of euphoria and gratitude, makes me at peace with myself and assists me in appreciating all the lessons I learned from each of my former tenants. 

All this learning I’ve experienced, gives me the luxury to escape my current reality of foreclosures and bankruptcies and create a new one, which is usually much more abundant than the last. The crack addicts and prostitutes I had to deal with for so many months, have never experienced this kind of extravagance, because once the crack is smoked and gone, they always return to this world of lack and scarcity from which they feel they can never escape. They feel they must prostitute themselves in order to get more drugs, so that they may feel better about themselves.

A bear in the woods is very happy being a bear, pooping whenever he feels like it, without a care in the world.  He does not need any stimulants or prostitute himself to another bear in order to feel better.  He is very happy just being a bear.  Maybe I should bring a drum and a dancing bear that will poop all over the sidewalk in the ghetto, so that my former residents on Howard Street can smell what it’s like to have abundance in their lives. Knowing them, they will most likely steal the bear and sell him to a circus, so that they may raise funds in order to get their next dose on the pipe.

As for me, I guess I aspire to be a bear that is happy to shit in the woods. So take a whiff.