Unlikely Time Travel

Come with me on a journal journey through the perils and pitfalls of coming out as a gay man as an attorney in the 90s, and where it has gotten me now. I love to talk about stories, be it mine or yours, so please feel free to react and respond!

[remembertheplunge]

Update: I am now active on my Instagram account! Follow me on my IG for more blogging and media! Link down at the bottom of blog!

My name is Lew

I am an elder criminal defense lawyer. I have been practicing criminal law since 1981 in California. I have been keeping journals since September 1977. I began posting some of those journal entries, plus thoughts and notes about current times on February 5, 2023.

I came out as a gay man in 1984. I was married to a woman then. I left the marriage after telling her I was gay.

I journaled my journey through the turbulent 1980's and 1990's. During that time, I was pretty vocal about being gay. And, I paid a steep price for it professionally and socially. I volunteered to help people with aids through their illness and death through two Aids support agencies. . And, I also documented the 12 year relationship I had with my gay partner, Jim, who died in 2009.

I wrote pretty much daily about these events and many others. I never intended for the entries to be made public. But, I now think they should be, as they weave what I believe to be our common story of what it's been like to be out, human and gay in the past four decades.

And, as I journaled, I developed ideas and ways to journal and wrote about them in the journals. I discuss the impact journaling has had on me. And, the amazing revelation reviewing journal entries for the blog of just how incredible our lives have been. Memory fades. The journal details do not.

Now during the Trump deepening dictatorship and authoritarian state, I journal thoughts on resistance and thoughts on making it through these dark times. Just as others on Tumblr are doing. Making Tumblr a great resistance community gathering spot.

[remembertheplunge]

Street Art.

The above 3 pieces hang in my pantry. I found the "heart and hand" one day on the side walk on a walk to a coffee house in Santa Cruz several years ago. I bought the face portrait from Vern, a street artist in Berkeley. And, I got the "Housing is a Human Right" poster at a recent "No Kings Rally" in Sacramento, California.

[remembertheplunge]

To be Modern, Have no Soul

Oscar Wilde said:

"To be midevil, have no body

To be modern, have no soul

To be Greek, have no clothes."

I choose to be Greek!

End of entry

Note 6/5/2026:

The above journal 11/15/1995 margin note is from my November 1987 journal

I think it's very interesting that Oscar Wilde said "To be modern, have no soul." He was speaking of the late 19th century when he said "Modern". He was an Author and playwright who was imprisoned for having a gay relationship. He died in 1900 soon after being released from jail. But, his description of being modern as having no soul lived on right up to today. You have to fight to reclaim soul. You have to live for more than money and power. You have to give a creative twist to your existence. Just as Oscar Wilde did. He lived and died with a huge , flaming and flamboyant soul!

[remembertheplunge]

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[sapient-simian]

Light Pollution: The Overuse & Misuse of Artificial Light at Night

Light Pollution: The Overuse & Misuse of Artificial Light at Night

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The Dark Site Finder map lets you get a good sense of where near you might be good for stargazing.

[theunvanquishedzims]

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I remember that 1994 Earthquake. My gay partner Jim's cousin Ruth Ann and her husband Johnny were thrown uo toward the ceiling of their bed room when the earthquake hit. Up the street and around the corner a few blocks from their house, a water pipe and a gas main broke. Fire was shooting into the sky and a river of water came gushing down their street. (Following this blog is, I think, a photo of the pillar of fire.) They had to move out on their front lawn. Can't recall how long they had to stay there! They lived in Granada Hills near Van Nuys, Southern California.

[remembertheplunge]

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In Our Burning Circle

Good goodbye girl Hand to Hand meeting tonight. Goodbye to Lew F. and his wife Sandy. We affirmed the great girth, fortitude, space and pride in the speed of the spinning circle. All of this we affirmed. Although in separate parts, we are weak seemingly and lack merit. In our burning circle we are fire and that flame spreads out through our act---through our deed. So, it's good to bless a special union with word, deed gifts. laughter, food and drink. Solemnity metaphor. A kiss goodbye forever. But the spirit lives on--nurtured by the group's own energy.

end of entry. (Please see following post for original journal entry 10/11/1990)

Note 6/3/2026:

The above post is taken from my October 11, 1990 journal entry. I am writing about the Stanislaus County Aids Project .people with AIDS support group which I was a member of. We were matched with a person with AIDS who we helped trough their illness and death. from AIDS. Sandy and Lew F. were our group leaders and were leaving the group. After the goodbye meeting, I came home and wrote the above tribute.

1990 was a time of fire and rage and of the simplicity of just being there for the person with AIDS.

[remembertheplunge]

A gay turn off a straight road

10/13/1990 entry in my journal (Transcript follows)

10/13/90---today I ain't so sure. Will this house thing go through? What will some future Lew pen through these pages--some distant Lew who knows what I do not and cannot. Will he laugh or scorn me? I dunno."

End of entry

Note: 6/2/2026

I ran into this quote today for maybe one of the first times since I wrote it in 1990. My past self had the faith to believe a future self would be there to read this. And, to believe, that the journal entry would survive almost 36 years into the future to be read. He was right! And, me, the future self ,does not laugh at him or scorn him. My issue in October 1990 was whether I should sell the first house I bought in Modesto, California in about 1988 and buy a new home several miles away. I ended up doing it and moved into the new house in 1991. Because of gay related political battles around work, I subsequently lost my Deputy Public Defender job in August 1997 and then, as a result, the second house to foreclosure in August 1998. But, I had met my partner, Jim, and we bought the house that I currently live in in June 1998. We lived and laughed and loved here. My partner Jim died here in this house in 2009 of liver failure under hospice care.

So, I look at the collective housing journey with sweet sadness. The house that I live in now represents a culmination of gay struggle. With my books and art and symbols of the past, it has become a kind of a gay shrine. I share some of I with you now and then on my blog. Lew of October 1990 was on the right track. It just took a gay curve off the straight road!

[remembertheplunge]

Chaos Control

Marsha Sinetar in her book Living Happily Ever After at page 43  in her chapter entitled “Delight in Organizing Chaos" wrote of chaos “Creative people organize chaos. They impose simpler, more refined understandings on complex patterns." She went on to quote Artist Ben Shahn  who said “I love Chaos: it is the mysterious, the unknown road. It is the ever-unexpected, the way out: it is freedom, it is man’s only hope. It is the poetic element in a dull and orderly world.”

My margin note to the above: “Chaos plus pain = growth = happiness”.

The Trump Regime whips up chaos ion order to disorient you and cause you to give up fighting the unending confusion. I love chaos. I Sur-thrive in it , not just survive in it. If you still your center and only act when the action will be most effective, you can use the Chaos generated energy to make headway on bringing about the needed change.

[radical-revolution]

The highest form of peace is having no desire to be seen, validated or understood by anyone.

the relentless pursuit of validation is an exhausting "game" driven by a fragile ego. True peace comes when you stop trying to project an image or manipulate how others perceive you.

[remembertheplunge]

I like the feel of this.

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Our new relationship takes flight in the margin notes

I bought Marsha Sinetar's book "Living Happily Ever After" 10/10/1996 and met my gay partner Jim soon after on May 10,1997. On pages 40 and 41 of the book (above) I wrote in the margins "July 5, 1997 Saturday J.W. (Jim) and I set out on an adventure to find a Valley Home. (words partially blurred)...this is only our 55th Day!" I Comment on that entry I/8/2000: "Found two of them! It took a little over 2 years. but, we did it.!"

On the title page of the book I wrote "Lime green hostess pants and tuna roll ups" Jimmy L's vision of Lew and Jim in their suburban ranch style home 6/20/1998. Twin Peaks.

Jim and I met at the Twin Peaks Bar on The Castro in San Fransisco. Jimmy L was regular there and a friend of ours. He was giving us a hard time about buying a house together out in the San Joaquin valley town of Modesto!

Later on 4/21/2001, I wrote how Jim and I joked about returning to the Twin Peaks "Today we'll be at the Twin Peaks again! We know we shouldn't we know it's not right". That came from a John Prine and Iris DeMent song Jim and I loved "In Spite of Ourselves". We had many a good time at the Twin Peaks! Sometimes they were a bit too good! Party central!

[pangur-and-grim]

Queer Books and Authors are at a Breaking Point

Authors, agents, publishers: every part of the industry is seeing the strain of five years of escalating anti-LGBTQ censorship.

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if you'd like to show support, here are some upcoming queer books:

When Life Gives You Corpses is a brilliant YA about a cursed praying mantis who falls for a young witch. Yield Under Great Persuasion is a raunchy, but surprisingly sweet story about two men repairing their relationship. Fabulous Bodies is a horror story about a queer rockstar rising from the dead.

This is Where the Future Bleeds is a fantasy set in a vividly imagined land, where two women (who happen to kiss) are the key to healing the broken sky. You're No Better is a story about a teen struggling in the shadow of his murderous parent. Oil on Canvas is about a woman who finds disturbing paintings in the home of her dead mother.

and then here's a list of 26 queer books by Black authors set to publish this year, and a 10 upcoming books by trans authors. if you want to fight back against queer censorship, use your wallet! or (if that's not an option) you can contact your local library and ask them to stock a copy.

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Alex Rowland (Author of Yield Under Great Persuasion and several other amazing books!) has a kickstarter going on for their most recent book! Fantasy Romans! Fantasy Emperor Hadrian and Antinous! As an Academic Text! By a Fantasy Author! So cool right?? Check out in the link below! Five days left to back it and some seriously cool merch!

The Wisdom of Emperors: Deluxe Collector's Edition

A new fantasy novel by Alexandra Rowland, author of A TASTE OF GOLD AND IRON, RUNNING CLOSE TO THE WIND, & YIELD UNDER GREAT PERSUASION

[remembertheplunge]

Bliss cartoon given to me by my late gay partner Jim. He loved clipping cartoons he thought I’d like out of the paper and giving them to me. This one just made me laugh again when I accidentally came upon it tucked in one of my books.

[remembertheplunge]

[remanence-of-love]

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Turn off your phone! Come down off the drug of device connection. What you can't do on line is feel or touch. Take a shower. Really feel the heat of the warm water . Feel the towel rub your skin. Notice the color of the towel. In the shower for just one second, don't think, just feel. Imagine the water washing your troubles down the drain. In doing this you begin to train your mind to seek peace on it's own. You train your mind away from your device dependency.

[remembertheplunge]

Diagnosed with AIDS a year 10/10/1990

(Below is a partial transcript from the above 10/10/1990 entry from my journal)

"As I said to Arturo tonight on the phone, I have lived! (I really said "You, Arturo, my dearest sweet whisper breath of purity--you have lived). He told me that he considers every day now a miracle because he thought he was dead in Mexico. "You appreciate!" I said . "You know the beauty, the grandeur, now of juxtaposition". His brutal Mexico illness experience vs the TLC (tender loving care) he finds here. Local boys (with AIDS) do not have that. They see only collapse and decline from suburbia. Oh, Arturo's mind and memory starts its first loosening ebb and sway. He has been experiencing this for a while, he says although I can't tell. He's been diagnosed (with AIDS) a year he said."

End of entry

Notes 5/28/2026: Arturo , a gay man, was my AIDS match from 1989 to his death in 1994. On 10/10/1990, Arturo was 30 and I was 35. We were matched through the Stanislaus County AIDS Project, an organization which oversaw volunteers who helped people with AIDS through their illness and death. Arturo had come to America from Mexico with the help of a Coyote (immigrant smuggler) and had recently gone to Mexico for magic water which he thought might heal him. I encouraged him to go.