Forty years after becoming a man, why volunteering makes so much sense

It’s May 9 today, the anniversary of my Bar Mitzvah back in 1970, the Hebrew ritual where a boy assumes the responsibilities of a “man” at age 13. Translated, it means Son of the Commandment. It’s a pretty old ritual, older than most of the ones we follow today on this good Earth. And I felt it was an appropriate time to discuss something that has become dearer to my heart as I get older, in light of a question a friend asked me recently.

“Why are you doing this again?” he queried. I had just told him that I was training to become a VCOP – Volunteer Citizens on Patrol – in my Quebec community of Cote Saint-Luc. VCOPs are fairly common in communities elsewhere in Canada and across the U.S., but not so much in my home province. It’s a fairly important task, as our force aids other important services, such as paramedics, public security, fire-fighters and the police, by adding extra trained eyes and ears to city streets day and night. We patrol in official equipped vehicles, on foot patrol, and more recently, on mopeds, in teams of two, for a minimum of six hours per month.

After I passed the Red Cross’s Emergency Medical Responder course and did volunteer ambulance shifts as a stagiaire with EMS Cote Saint-Luc last year, I truly realized how essential volunteers are to their communities and to the population-at-large. I had to leave EMS after getting the job that had me taking The Giant Colon Tour across Canada, but because I enjoyed volunteering so much, the VCOP corps seemed to be the next best thing. I am about to complete my training and will soon be clad in VCOP yellow and orange and fulfilling my monthly requirements. I’m quite looking forward to it.

So, when my good friend asked me the aforementioned question, it gave me pause to consider how many more people just don’t “get” it. Here we are, at a time when young students MUST complete a certain number of hours volunteering for various causes in order to graduate from secondary school and there are actually parents of these kids questioning “why are you doing this again?” I was, and still am, stunned by the ignorance of this simple question.

So, on this anniversary of the day I became a man, sort of, 40 years ago, it occurred to me that to become a man must include assuming some of the key responsibilities of manhood. And giving to society instead of just taking, which far too many people are still wont to do during these very selfish times, seems to be at the very foundation of what keeps us surviving. Otherwise, imagine a world without volunteers, where no one would lift a hand to help their fellows unless there was a fiscal or other benefit involved. Without volunteers, society would pretty much grind to a halt, as hospital resources were taxed to bursting, as non-profit organizations closed their doors, as many communities lost the very life blood that kept them afloat.

We ALL should be forced to volunteer somewhere at some point in our lives. Believe me, every one of us has things to do, or we are too tired, or depressed, or just plain sick of everything going on around us, to want to jump up and rush off giving of our time, for free to top it off. Life isn’t getting easier, that’s for sure. But deep inside, there is this need to help people, somewhere past the wall of selfishness that screams “but what about me?” If you are already volunteering, you know how good it feels. It transcends the desire for self-fulfillment on one hand, but actually creates a new sense of self-fulfillment on the other. Volunteering makes me feel that my Bar Mitzvah wasn’t a big waste of time, after all. There have been many times since when I really questioned what it was all about. At least my circumcision had some health benefits to back it up.

So, my friend, in answer to your question, that’s just about the best reason for “doing this” that I can think of. Come join me in the van. I’ll do shifts with you anytime and I think you’d look fabulous in yellow and orange.

Meditations on the threshold of 53

So, here I am, on the cusp of 53. Fifty was kinda weird, like entering some alien territory: it had me dunking my big toe into the tepid waters first. This current state-of-affairs is one part “same old, same old,” the other slightly terrifying. Let’s just say I have had better times.

I have the luxury of looking back on my life: I say “luxury” because I can still do it. Lots of people I know (or know of) have died by now, which is mind-boggling at a time when the medical field seems to be regressing while proclaiming how many advances are being made. Yeah, they cracked the genome, so what? How many people do YOU know who have died of cancer already? I know several, many of whom died way, waaay too young.

My dear mother, may she rest in peace, died in 1984 (at a young 68) from CNS Vasculitis, brought on by an allergic reaction to Septra-class antibiotics. The reaction caused the blood vessels in her brain to atrophy and become all squiggly instead of straight, resulting in a lack of proper blood flow to her brain. This presented as sudden senility and in just five weeks she progressed from someone suffering slight dementia, to blind and not knowing who I was, to comatose.
Let’s just say that, for me, I could not write as nightmarish a horror story with all my creative senses on full steam. It was really awful. Even that is not as awful, however, as losing a friend in the prime of their young life, like Laine Coxford. Or Ellen Cohen. Or any of the individuals I know in name only who die tragically, far before their time.

If you get to this age, there is a lot of obscenity to consider when you ponder life. It’s cruel. The happy moments narrow proportionately to age, as everything becomes more challenging with every passing year and the sheer stupidity of those we rely on to lessen our loads – read government bureaucrats here – increases. Yet I would not trade a moment of life, not yet, anyways, for the alternative. Death MAY mean eternal bliss, who knows? I’m not so sure about the 78 virgins in heaven part, mind you... but then again, which guy in his right mind would WANT 78 virgins, anyhow, even with an eternity before him during which to keep them happy? Talk about daunting!

I remember hearing a doctor in a hospital telling the family of a sick, elderly individual that they would do everything possible to keep this person happy. And one family member commented: “Happiness is overrated, anyhow. What’s happy?” It made me think then... and I am thinking about this again: happiness is within you and that’s about it. No ONE can make you happy, because it is far too transient an emotion. It is an oasis in your pool of neurons... it does not last.

You get a gift, it makes you smile momentarily and now and then it might make you smile again. But no amount of gifts, money, food, success, power – none of these things – can make you truly HAPPY, or shield you from all the sorrow, pain, doubt or mishaps that are part of the human condition. People will betray you. Your body will weaken and get sick. All those moments of which we are proud or gleeful will fade with time.

If you allow that knowledge to prepare you for whatever is coming, good or bad, and you live life with no expectations at all, just doing your best to get by, you will survive as well as you possibly can. Be GOOD to people. Pet a dog. Smell a flower. Meditate and remember to breathe properly: I think Buddhism has it down right.

So, on the lip of 53, I can admit that I am surviving and I have made it here, through good times and bad. I have been lucky, very lucky, to have struggled this far despite some challenges, although the road ahead seems steep to me at times. Yet I have known great love, the pleasure and luxury of having some very good and loyal friends, some careers, experiences and voyages that I will never forget. In truth, I think I am more fortunate than many people I know. If it were to end tomorrow, I would smile in the knowledge of all those things.

Thinking about all of that, I actually feel happy... and that’s a pretty grand thing.

Like career change, never too late for a good confession

This blog entry has been awaiting birth for about 43 years now. Let’s call it a revelation, or, possibly, a confession I make to the world and seek absolution for. If I had a priest, I think you will agree he’d be mighty proud of me.

The story begins about 48 years ago, when my cousin and I, both under five at the time and six months apart in age, he being the elder, started hanging out. He – let’s call him Sam (a pseudonym) – lived in Chomedy, just off the island of Montreal in the municipality of Laval and I adored him.

Chomedy wasn’t as developed then as it is today. The fields near Sam’s house were devoid of human life and there were actually cattle skulls and skeletons there, which makes me wonder today what actually went on there. Was it land upon which the beasts were slaughtered, their remains later disposed of there as well? But I digress.

Because Sam’s place wasn’t so close (Montreal’s below-ground expressway hadn’t been built yet, so getting there took longer), seeing Sam was a big deal for me. The drive, right past the historic, now-defunct Parc Belmont amusement park in my father’s powder blue 1961 Comet, was a seemingly-endless adventure for me. And spending time with Sam, which I liked to do weekends when the opportunity arose, was like magic. He was the brother I never had and I loved him like one.

During the summer, Sam’s mom (my mother’s sister and a second mother to me until several years ago, when she died at 94), Sam, my mom and I were driven by my dad to Old Orchard Beach, Maine, some six hours away and a favourite destination of Quebecers since the 1800s, when direct train service linked Montreal and Maine. He dropped us off and we spent a month there, while he returned several times on weekends, when he did not work. Sam and I had the time of our young lives, our days spent on the pristine seven-mile long beach and our nights in the town’s most famous attraction, Palace Playland, an amusement park featuring a massive pinball arcade – it was the era before video games, after all – where you could pose as a pinball wizard and tilt the night away, or Ski-Ball dozens of times in order to win tickets you could later exchange for the tackiest prizes. The park still exists to this very day, as does a section of the famous Pier that dates back to the 1800s.

Old Orchard wasn’t the only spot we vacationed every summer.... and herein lies the crux of my tale. The Laurentian mountain cottage community of Sainte-Agathe-des-Monts is just 45 minutes away from Montreal by car and we would spend a week or two there, as well. We would stay at Lodge Lac des Sables, built right on the lake and owned by the Weinrich family. And here, our days were spent fishing off the small pier owned by the Lodge, shooting targets with our BB rifles next door at the municipal beach and walking the short distance to town to buy treats at Dairy Queen, take a ride on the Alouette site-seeing boat or see movies in the Alahambra and Roxy theatres, musky, cool, cob-webbed places that offered perfect refuge on a hot summer’s day.

We would also visit the small Canadian Tire store in town and here is where my confession comes in. Despite the fact I grew up to become anything BUT a criminal, please remember that Sam could do no wrong in my eyes. So, when he suggested we steal Rappala Minnow lures, too pricy for 10-12 year old boys to afford, I jumped at the chance. This was my chance to prove to Sam that I was as cool as he was... and I didn’t let him down. There were no closed circuit cameras then and, really, your chances of getting caught were quite low, unless you were a bumbling thief. I’m not sure how many lures we stole that one summer in particular, but it was quite a few and all I recall is that they worked like a charm on the doomed bass, sunfish and trout of Lac des Sables.

I haven’t been in touch with Sam for about 25 years. He ditched my aunt (the woman who raised this asthmatic boy from the day she married my uncle, when his son Sam was three) and when my motel owner uncle died, leaving what I heard was more than a million dollars to Sam and his now ex-wife, they moved to the Bahamas. I am not sure if he has any regrets today about stealing those fishing lures and for all I know he did far worse than that during his lifetime. I am not even sure whether Sam is still alive. But I certainly am and, on behalf of both of us, I offer apologies to Canadian Tire. I see you have done well as a corporation despite the loss of that particular revenue, but it was wrong of us in any event. Children, do NOT try this at home...

So, padre, how was my first-ever confession? Thank you for listening.

Julia, Tony and Me

Since making my seminal decision to enrol in a culinary academy and become a chef, I have really become transfixed with the entire concept of cooking in a manner I have never before experienced. More of an indulgence than an experience.

Two weeks ago, I paid my $420 deposit at the St. Pius X Culinary Academy and a seat will be held for me once classes begin on August 26, 2010. And I can't contain the sensation of excitement that has empowered me, it seems, to learn as much as I can about cooking throughout the coming summer.

A bit about me until now, weeks away from turning 53. I never saw myself as a chef, but I have enjoyed cooking during my lifetime. When I was quite young, I would curl up with my mother and watch The Galloping Gourmet, Graham Kerr, whip up all manner of gastronomic delights. My mouth would water as he prepared meals and then offered samples to audience members whose months had also been watering once he took the first bite and expelled his trademark carnal-like grunts of absolute pleasure.

When I was a teen and my parents would go away on their annual one or two week-long summer vacations, I would rush to the grocery store and purchase various foods that I could whip up into culinary feasts of my own. What I remember most was the sausages pan-fried with Martini & Rossi Vermouth and onions, served with an omelette on the side, a most delightful dish that I recall fondly. Or I would take chicken pies, heat them up, then slice them open and layer tomato slices, mushrooms and several spoons of Cheese Whiz over the tops and oven bake them until I had a delicious dish I also think of with my mouth watering... and my heart thankful I stopped.

As an adult, I have enjoyed many food shows on TV, though I have been without the Food Channel for a while now and really must add it to my account. I have also learned that I am great at following recipes and have made Tarragon Chicken Flambé, various soups including lip-smacking corn chowder, and other dishes.

So, when everyone asks me that first question "Oh... were you always passionate about cooking?," I can't say yes with complete honesty, but, yeah, I have enjoyed it a lot. I really do believe I will become passionate about it the more I learn how to do it really, really well. Give me a large kitchen with plenty of counter space, all the necessary pots, pans and utensils and turn me loose on an unsuspecting planet, please!

The past two weeks, I have actually started discovering that I really LOVE to cook, as I prepare more and more meals for myself with my stove rather than the microwave I have relied upon the past five years. And I bought two things that have augmented my perspective on the subject: the DVD Julie & Julia, which I am currently watching and enjoying tremendously scene-by-scene, and the book Kitchen Confidential, by master chef and bad boy Anthony Bourdain.

I am still laughing at my initial belief that he was trained to cook at the Central Intelligence Agency, when in fact it was the Culinary Institute of America in Hyde Park, New York, the letters CIA being so imprinted on a brain riddled with stories of international intrigue.

So, I think my need to write regularly will result in more of these cuisine-addled blog entries once I begin the 1,400 hours of training that will culminate in the fall of 2011. But till then, I request your indulgence and also your assistance... as well as your patience... as I learn about this new chosen field. I am sure many of you are foodies and I would like to learn from you. What I promise is that if I ever write a book on my experiences, I will include your names on the list of acknowledgments... as well as the ensuing feature film credits...

My first request is quite simple: if you know of any great books on the craft of cooking that you can recommend, I'd really appreciate your passing on this information. Books... the best shows.... films (the 1996 film Big Night, starring the incomparable Stanley Tucci, is one I really recommend to you), please, let me know. I will think of you with every slice and dice of my finely-honed kitchen knives.

Also, if you know of any restaurants looking to hire an apprentice, so that I can get experience, I am eager and willing. I am taking this very seriously, as you can see. Though it won't be easy, I know it will be the thrill of my lifetime.

Bon Appetit!

Never too late to change your career

Losing my job at 52 has really been an eye-opener in so many ways. You hear so many people tell you that after 50, the job market is pretty much downhill and, as long as you are on the “cooler” side of 50, it doesn’t pertain to you and you simply think it’s nonsense.

Try turning 50 – and then lose your job - and see what happens. It’s not fun, I tell you, because it’s hard to find a job. I know. I have a lifetime of experience and experiences to bank on. I have people skills, talent, smarts and that” je ne sais quoi” that you simply can’t possess at a young age. I don’t know if such commitment is born of fear, or simply commitment by rote, but older workers take their jobs much more seriously and unless you work for a totally anal, micromanaging creep who is adversely affecting your health, you hold onto your job no matter what. Chances are, by 50, there is no place to go but down if you fail. You will let your family down if you are married and have kiddies to feed... or if you are on your own, as I am, the next place to go is straight into the welfare line.

It was while imagining my possible life as a welfare recipient (and I’d really prefer to die first) that I decided I needed a career change. Actually, the thought germinated following a conversation I had with a former boss, who commented that “your line of work is the first job to be cut during hard times.” It didn’t hit me till later that she was right. I am a writer, one with PR experience, but a writer pure and simple. If you look back through history, the pathways of cemeteries take you past the graves of untold numbers of writers who were tremendous craftsmen... and who died either relatively unknown or paupers, likely both.

They “made” it after death. Irishman Bram Stoker was huge after he died, but during his lifetime the author of Dracula, Lair of the White Worm and other tales made his money first as a clerk and later as the manager of Europe’s greatest thespian, Henry Irving. Providence, Rhode Island’s H.P. Lovecraft, arguably the author of the most frightening and disturbing literature ever, died almost totally unknown, his stories published post-death by friends who made them extremely popular from the 1940s onward.

I am a very good writer and have had a modicum of success at it throughout my life to date. And if I keep going in this direction much longer, I’ll die a pauper, too. Not what I want for myself and, so, I realized it was time for a change. A good friend works at the English Montreal School Board and he apprised me of courses offered by the EMSB that assist people in changing careers. You can be an auto mechanic, he told me, as my eyes glazed over instantly... or a chef. Chef? I have no idea why I reacted so strongly on the spot - maybe I’d been watching George Costanza’s attempts to realize his architectural ambitions for far too long, or maybe my inner Chef Ramsay was outed - but when I heard I could study to become a professional chef, basically at no charge, I decided there and then that was what I wanted.

I enrolled at the Pie X Culinary Institute yesterday and people have told me they haven’t seen me this excited about anything in a long, long time. I feel excited, on top of the world, in fact. And even though I know this is going to be a veritable “battle royale” (classes from 5-10 p.m. Mondays – Fridays for 14 months, 1,400 hours worth, starting in late August), I know I have it in me to bare down, grind it out and come through with flying colours. Many people are thrilled for me and quite encouraging, while other comments range from “HUH?” to “Are you crazy?” I spoke with an acquaintance today, a restaurant owner here whom I respect and who has always seemed to truly care about my welfare and I discussed this career choice with him. He told me that the only thing that mattered is how much I enjoy my training and the subsequent work I do. “In the end, you may find you hate working in commercial restaurant kitchens, but the good thing about being a chef is that there are 50 ways you can go... as long as you enjoy it, you will be okay.”

And, you know, he is so right, and I thank you, Peter, for your insight. I can work in a mainstream restaurant or a hotel kitchen. I can find a backer and start my own establishment, which is where a mature age comes in quite handy. I can cater. I can give cooking classes. I can become a professional critic who really knows his stuff. I can write my own cookbooks. And I can certainly cook really, really well for myself, booting my trusty microwave into oblivion. I know I won’t be unemployed, because I can cook anywhere in the world, a logging camp if need be.

The fact is, I will have a career that I can bank on. I will always be a writer, till I die if I keep my brain sharp enough. But chances are better that you won’t meet me on the street one day, begging for loose change, while I am wearing my chef’s hat. No, it really never IS too late, and I am going to prove it to you. Beef bourguignon, anyone?

High-tech: Destroyer or saviour?

I just caught the opening night presentation of the film The Crazies, a remake of the early seventies film by zombie veteran George Romero. It’s the very unsettling story of a U.S. military plane crashing and unleashing a virus among a small town population, a virus which turns ordinary people into rabid killers. The story’s been done a hundred times, usually by depicting the killers in zombie guise, but this version of The Crazies is particularly well done and unsettling.

It really made me think, not that unusual a phenomenon, because I think far too often sometimes, generally about how the world is going to hell in a hand basket. When the first Crazies was released, I was in my early teens and life was far more simple than it is today. We had no computers or cell phones, my family had not yet even acquired a colour TV and as for video games... let’s just say that the high-tech miracle of the day was Pong, where you stared at a white line on a black screen that knocked a white blip to your buddy’s white line until you were dizzy with a mix of boredom and, yeah, fascination.

My world then changed, about 1975 or so, when my buddy Cherif and I were at a local bar that had just picked up this stunning new game called Pac Man. We were amazed... or rather “a-mazed,” spending about 50 quarters and two hours watching Inky, Blinky and friends scurry around trying to avoid being eaten by Pac Man. We had no idea at the time, but Pac Woman and even more astounding games weren’t so far behind. I think the burgeoning video game craze caused me to read less, down to one book a week from two.

Truly, we had no idea about anything back then, none of us. The genome? Black holes? Global warming? The ECOLOGY? What the heck were those things? We still had cords attached to our rotary telephones and also to our TV remote controls in the late seventies, for heaven’s sake! Digital? That meant our fingers.

Then, suddenly, the early eighties appeared and with it the production of home computers far more complex than the Commodore 64 you may have been using as a fancy adding machine till then. And since those days of amber monitors and horrendously slow activity (remember what it was like to download a picture using a 286 and dial up? ARGGHHHH!), can you possibly get your head around all the technological advances that have multiplied at an exponential rate? I mean, really, can a kid possibly exist without the latest mobile phone, or Wii game, or laptop, or fancy coffee shop to WiFi it into? Invite most teens or young adults to watch a black-and-white classic movie with you and they look at you as if you are daft. They can’t even get through a song without fidgeting madly, as if on speed.

And we adults are no better. The Internet, with its buckets of email, plethora of opportunities to watch porn, multitudinous pathways toward engaging in extramarital relations with others who are SO lonely because their husbands, or wives, and children are all so thoroughly bored with life that the family unit is a prehistoric concept... well, if the Internet isn’t the face of evil, I don’t know what is. Don’t get me wrong, I am not preaching and I am not innocent. I, too, have been warped by the Scientific-Technological Complex and I am scared to death of what happens if it all comes crashing down around us. Because there is NOTHING else anymore and The Crazies made me realize that we have all been made a lot crazy by technology.

Here is one really unsettling thought. The world, as it stands, is so precariously close to annihilation and it will not take a massive nuclear exchange to end it all. You have all likely heard of EMP, or Electro Magnetic Pulse, no doubt. That is the signal given off by the detonation of a nuclear weapon, which causes electronics to stop functioning. Cars, for instance would stop in their tracks if a nuke was dropped on a city quite far off.

Well, a few recently published books have postulated that the explosion of a low-yield nuclear weapon above a city would not kill that many people through radiation, blast effects, etc., but would fry all electronics below that are not properly shielded. Set off a few of these nukes in the skies above a country and you will fry most of the electronics of that nation.

Think about this. Everything today uses electronic components, because everything is digital. Computers – and computers run everything, from the fire department and EMS services, to the water filtration plants, nuclear reactors, hospital equipment and such – will not function. Neither will trains, planes or automobiles, because all their electronics will be fried. We rely on transportation to deliver food, medical supplies... everything. We rely on electronics to stay warm in the winter, or if we use oil, oil trucks to deliver it to us. We rely on transportation to deliver new electronic components from elsewhere in the world, to replace the fried ones, because everything we have as replacements will also be fried. And we certainly rely on transportation and electronics to run the military machine that would protect us if, following an EMP strike, the villainous nation that attacked us decided to move in for the kill.

High-tech’s a great thing? I challenge you to tell me how we are better off today than we were in the 1970s. We have a lot more to worry about today than what happens when television networks all switch to High-Definition, or whether Blue Ray forces their competition out of business, but even then, we have been duped into laziness and complacency while the Scientific-Technological Complex has waived the bait under our very noses... and we took it, hook, line and sinker. It’s almost like the computer-run devils in the Terminator films have engineered the world we now live in... and are tightening the noose on humankind with every passing technological advance.

But then again, The Terminator and The Crazies are just movies, aren’t they? In reality, it’s not 2012 and its bad acting that has me worried. Actually, a three-mile high tsunami or an earthquake off the scale would be a blessing, compared to some of the other possible scenarios that we are directing ourselves.

Pong, where are you when we need ya?

My roots: A diary is all I have

I've got this little diary perched upon my computer desk as I write this. A Five Year Diary, dating back to 1957, bound in satin with a blue and aqua floral motif and with a little lock on it. It's cute. My mother wrote the words "A bundle of joy" on the first page. It's also all I have to go on when trying to uncover the biggest mystery ever... where I come from. The still-legible, beautifully-written words of my adopted mother, Mina Eisenthal, jump out at me from a bygone era. The day of my birth, April 26. My various booster shots. The assortment of doctors she used to treat my many ear infections. The time I cut my hand and had to be rushed to the hospital. All my weight and height measurements.

And reading through this precious little tome about 10 years ago is when I realized something didn't add up. A Jewish baby's bris, his circumcision, is Halachically (according to Talmudic law) supposed to take place upon the eighth day following his birth... so why was mine on May 24, 1957, 28 days later? Doing some digging, and using the diary's entry on May 24 (which in the diary, contained the guest list), I learned from our since-deceased family rabbi, A. Bernard Leffell that a "beit din," or Rabbinical Court, had been established at my bris for the purpose of ritual conversion. So, I was not born Jewish. The mystery deepened.

My late mother and father, Mike (Mendel) Eisenthal, had always told me I was born at the Jewish General Hospital here in Montreal. But when I happened upon his cheque registry for 1957, I found a listing for a cheque made out to the Royal Victoria Anasthesiologists, dated April 25, 1957 in the amount of $25. So, somebody needed anasthesia the day before my birth... my birth mother, perhaps?

Then again, the late date of the circumcision is troubling, because it could also mean that they managed to fudge the date of my birth in the official records, a procedure done all the time in the black and gray market baby adoptions of that period... and I could have been born eight days before May 24, or May 17. Wanna hear a funny coincidence? Growing up, my parents celebrated my birthday on two dates, making me sound like a lunatic in elementary school when you had to stand up and tell the class about yourself at the start of each new year. I had TWO birthdays, lucky me... April 26 and May 18!!!! My parents' explanation for this seemed logical at the time: I always seemed to have a cold around my birthday in April, so they held my party on May 18, 18 being a lucky number in Judaism, representing life.

I have researched the circumstances behind my adoption as best I can throughout my adult years and I always hit a brick wall. Since birth files are still sealed in Quebec, there is no way to get into them and I have exhausted virtually every other means of finding out what my roots are. Many of you won't get why this is important, but for many adoptees, this uncertainty is agony. Just imagine, for instance, every time you have been asked by a doctor whether you have a family history of something...and then ponder each and every time you have known absolutely nothing about your background.

I hold onto this little diary as if my life depends on it. I guess it does.