the shirt

The shirt that started it all is black, has long sleeves (the left one has in a line running horizontally down the side the name of a band, NOFX) and features on the back a picture of a bratty looking boy holding a lollipop and choking a chicken. Beneath that it says Tour 94.

It's very large on me, not the size I might buy now, somewhat later than 1994. But at one time, a time I may have been more concerned with fashion than I am now, I found myself wearing clothes slightly larger than was necessary. I never wore my clothes ridiculously large, but there were a couple of years before I realized that I really just didn't like clothes that didn't fit.

The cuff on the right sleeve has almost always been about to come off. I try to be careful with it, and when it gets bad enough I can always sew it back on.

Almost as old as the shirt is my jacket. It's leather, from a store you may or may not have at your mall, a store that tries to convince you that everything is better made out of leather, but really what you want is that end of season jacket that's on sale so you can be like the other punks, or so I was thinking at the time. It was a gift from Momma, giving it that whole other something for me personally. The jacket itself is only of minor importance to this story other than that I always wear an extra layer under this jacket, one of which tends to be the NOFX shirt.

So I get to work and take the jacket off and then the layer, or maybe I was leaving work and putting the layer on and then the jacket. It really doesn't matter, but a younger coworker complimented me on it as she saw what it was.

For whatever reason this led me to ask various coworkers what they were doing in 1994, which we'll remember as being the birth year of this shirt. My answers were as varied as "in school" to "I was seven." Someone else was as old as nine in 1994. I was twenty two. I could almost have parented them, but even in the south that's asking just a bit much.

What was I doing in 1994? As far as the shirt goes it's its own little story. I was on my way from Charlotte, NC to Atlanta to see NOFX. We'd smoked some amount of something as we got started, and the something seemed to reignite some past LSD I'd consumed. I don't remember now why I drove, but the whole drive down was like a free trip. I quite enjoyed myself.

I would not recommend that anyone use drugs and drive. I was a younger person then and did things differently. I can't deny that I enjoyed the trip very much. I enjoyed seeing a great show, and to this day I enjoy when the winter months roll around and this shirt once more becomes part of my wardrobe.

I'm sure I've told lamer stories, but I honestly can't remember. It couldn't have been so long ago, but this is the lame story for tonight. I have an old shirt and behind that shirt is an amusing story of youthful ideas that one is immortal. It's enough to make a girl fish the tissue out of her sleeve.

ooh, baby, comments

I just published two comments from just over a couple of days ago. I keep forgetting to check my email, so I missed that I had comments. I should also blame it on not even visiting Blogger lately. I can't think of anything to write, and when I at least find a song worth sharing I find it so much easier to just click the Share on Facebook button.

Also, if you aren't my Fb friend you've totally been missing out on a wealth of Holiday music.

Yes, I didn't say Christmas, and I did capitalize Holiday. I think that's going to be my new thing. I will celebrate the Holidays as I see fit. I will purchase small trinkets and tokens of affection for a very few people. I will drink with you, raising our cup/bottle/flask/goblet/what-have-you in a toast to good tidings, to good cheer, to merriment, and most importantly, that ever unattainable yet always in demand, peace on earth.

I honestly don't care what or how anyone celebrates, but I was talking about comments and apologizing for having been so long in allowing them passage through the gates of my censorship. I'd have waved them through much earlier had I but noticed.

And then I mentioned the email checking I haven't been doing. At first it was just not having done it, and now it's the knowledge of all the things waiting for me, mostly Yahoo shit that I want to read and tend to enjoy, but it piles up if you don't stay on top of it. There are currently nearly a weeks worth of three homeschool groups, a local group based on a shared zip code, all Fb and Myspace nonsense . . .

I'm sure I'm forgetting something. I really don't want to bother, but apparently I must. And now, since I actually visited Blogger with a completely different purpose, I bid you farewell until completion of the next post.

I hope I didn't blow my blogging wad over this post. I really did sit down to write something else entirely, but upon arrival at the Blogger page I found the comments, and now we're back to that when I'm trying to stop so I can post and then start all over.

Shit.

I mean seriously!

there he goes again

Also, another commercial I hate is not a specific commercial so much as every single one that suggests that a home microwave and a bag of something from your grocery store's freezer aisle is comparable to something cooked by professionals in a restaurant.

They usually show a series of clips of chefs, and you know they are chefs because of the coats and the toques (the stupid ass hat that sits three feet off the top of your head and gets knocked off constantly) which suggests a certain quality one must assume. I can do the same job in jeans and a tshirt and busted old boots from Sears, but that isn't the point here.

We are slowly lead through a segment of that professional kitchen till we somehow end with a mother/wife/woman removing some sort of packaged product from her microwave. On some level we tend to imagine the corporate kitchen where all these chefs work tirelessly, creating each of these packages of foodstuff individually, putting great care and precision into each one. You open the freezer door and touch a piece of their soul in the process.

Or maybe we are merely led to believe that, without any real effort on our part at all, we too can attain a level of craft that a real chef works years to perfect, an unattainable goal that drives one to insanity at times.

I can't necessarily argue with buying food for convenience if you feel you need to. I get that some days the bag of pasta dinner just-like-in-the-restaurants-but-in-seven-minutes is the best way to go.

Just don't lie to yourself. And accept that the commercials are lying to you. It may not seem like a lie, and perhaps they don't come right out and say it as such, but you know for a fact that their food is not anything like what you could make or what you could order in a decent restaurant. And if your local favorite is serving shit that tastes equal to what you can purchase and nuke then for fuck sake find a new favorite.

it would be

A woman is at the store stocking up on Tylenol when the voice over prompts her to wise up and take Aleve. See, if you take a shit ton of one kind of drug because you have such pain then maybe it's time to pare that down to a single much more powerful pill?

That's right, it's time for another commercial that I hate. I really do hate commercials for the most part. There are always a couple that I'm okay with or that make me laugh, but for the most part I just see a swamp of ridiculousness and pandering and making people think they are stupid or entitled.

I hadn't really considered the drug aspects of this commercial. No, what pissed me off is, as the woman realizes she can just purchase the one bottle of Aleve rather than the multiple bottles of Tylenol she puts down her basket in the middle of the aisle, still containing the Tylenol, and walks away.

Who does shit like that? Who leaves a basket of anything sitting on the floor and leaves it? She's created some minor hazard, but more importantly, out of sheer laziness, she's left extra work for someone else, tiny though it may be. Okay, maybe the hazard is the bigger deal than the fact that someone has to bend and reach more than he or she might have.

But then I think about the whole drugs thing and it raises questions. Well, raises questions isn't really where I'm going, because I've already posed similar questions in the past. For a country with such issues with drugs we sure seem to like them an awful lot. What if there was a plant that grows easily, was safe for human consumption, was useful for a large number of uses including some amount of easing of pain? That would be cool.

for-like-ever

Via advocate.com I learned of this article/interview at latimes.com about Ian McKellen. He's seventy years old and has been out since forever. I'm only familiar with him due to his roles as Magneto in the X-Men movies and as Gandalf in the Lord of the Rings movies and hopefully soon as Gandalf again in The Hobbit.

I need to do something about that familiarity, because the man has been in movies since forever as well. He has of course done actual theater. I will likely never see him actually doing thus, so he's a movie actor to me.

I've had the two links from above in tabs for what seems like days, which it has been, fully intending to write something, but I haven't really known how to approach it. I think I'll just leave it here, and if anyone does read they can comment and tell me what they think.

Also, I wouldn't post it if it weren't interesting, but I'm not going to review it more than to tell you it's got great gay power of story as JJ would say, assuming I'm using the phrase properly, and he throws in a couple of stabs at religion while making some valid points.

reject letter

If you know where I live then it would likely come as no surprise that there are around these hills people who believe that gay people are all evil, predatory perverts. It's part of the agenda you sometimes hear about that apparently makes us go out and recruit people.

This intractably held position is firmly rooted in scripture, ancient texts meant to exist for all time as the code to absolute right and wrong, assuming it's KJV.

I'm just really having trouble even finding a way to approach this. What I really want to tell people and make them understand is that they can disagree. They can have an abiding faith that gay people are going to totally ruin it for everyone when the plague of a week long endless rain of flaming frogs and hurricanes that only rip up chain link fence and ruin automobile paint jobs. Believe the shit out of it, but there's a line at which you can't make me do stuff because you believe something I don't.

All of this stems from a letter to the editor I read in the local alternative newsweekly, print edition. My first response when I read the letter earlier today was to wonder why they bothered printing it. I began a post about the letter before finding the online version. It kind of sucked the day out of my day a little. I was freshly home, finally off work, had the French press working its magic on a cup of coffee, and I was smoking, standing on the back porch ready to read a brand new edition of the local alternative newsweekly.

I began, as I sometimes do, with the letters to the editor. It's right there in front. My next response was just a general dismay that I'd bothered reading this particular letter. From the first paragraph you know what you're getting.

If you don't want to bother reading the letter it starts with a fervent call to pray away the gay, a longstanding and oft tried technique that still seems to have zero-ish percent actually working to make someone not gay. We're led then into the horrors of the gay agenda and the eventual comeuppance exacted by slapped in the face once too often god of justice.

People really are free to feel however they want. You can hate me and think I'm an awful person, but religion is for churches and for personal codes of conduct, not for setting civil equality standards. If you can't give me a reason for laws that do not in anyway rely on your ancient texts then it probably doesn't have much place in a document meant to govern a free people.

For blog purposes I then went and found the online version of the letter, linked to above. Of course having found it I then had to read the online comments. One comment, as of now, is a long series of quote from people one might consider to have been founding fathers, one is to question the newsweekly's decision to publish the letter, and one is from the editor not entirely justifying the publishing with a request for a more reasoned response worth publishing and suggesting it isn't right to reject letters based on disagreements with wingnuttery contained therein.

As gay people we shouldn't need to keep explaining why we should be treated as people. It really is just that simple. We are normal and a part of the human gender/sexual orientation continuum that so many people can only see as man plus woman equals the only thing that is okay, KJV version. They trivialize everything down to sex as being the ultimate query, can you and your partner perform sexing that can result in pregnancy? And then they won't accept our claim that what we are discussing is so much more than sex but is also on so many levels an issue about sex.

So my own question comes back to why the newsweekly felt any need or obligation to run this particular letter. I get not rejecting letters because of point of view issues. Certainly it makes sense, but when the other side is using such horrid arguments to justify discrimination I can't really see any reason to present them. We all know people like that. We get that we live where we do and that this is a fairly common sentiment regarding gay equals damnation. As important is that we see it so damn often that it's inescapable. Perhaps christians will find that acceptable, that their message is so pervasive that people are really less likely to listen or to take them seriously.

V, not for vegetarian specifically

Last week saw me once again making my newly famous mushrooms and dumplings. I forgot to get peas when I hit the grocery store, so they weren't part of the deal. And I'm not entirely certain that mushrooms and peas are an equal protein exchange for chicken, which isn't the point, but it is something to think about. I trust my vegetarian friends to take care of that themselves.

The occasion was that a friend needed a home cooked meal and some friendship. She was at a place, and I knew it, so I invited her over. She invited another friend who is in a long running place, a friend who also needed some friend and a good home cooked meal.

Apparently when you're me that's all it takes to end up with lesbians and a trans man at your house. And so, just maybe, Tuesday nights with V and a vegetarian meal are the new thing at my house.

I have to say that I'm not a planner. I'm not good at making things happen, not a professional instigator. I like doing stuff, but being the pussy that I am I just don't tend to go out of my way. I suppose that's part of why I sit around at home doing nothing so often. It's a thing that could use some work, but the shy part of me, the part that's obviously afraid of something intangible, is not happy with the change that needs.

This week was going to be chili, though I'll be the first to admit that whatever I made isn't really chili. It was good, but it wasn't the chili that I set out to make. And without trying I actually made a vegan dish, but vegans can suck it, and if I'd thought to buy cheese it wouldn't have been served as vegan.

Did I mention that we watch V? Yes, that V, the remake of the early '80's scifi series involving Marc Singer and aliens with somewhat less than benevolent intentions. I remember it to some extent as a nearly eleven year old child, though it seems the majority of people I've come to know lately either didn't watch it or weren't born or just weren't old enough. I actually tried to discuss the original series with a coworker recently. When he pointed out that he was a year old in 1983 I had to turn and walk away.

All that to say that you should swing by next week. I'm not sure yet who will be here or what I'll be cooking. I do ask that you bring your own beer, and if I get enough interest it might have to become a potluck. My only other request is that you shut up during V. It's no Saddle Cub or Top Gear but I do love it so already. Also dogs and kids are welcome, but there's no fence around the yard, so your dogs best not be the running off and acting crazy in the neighborhood types.

already? seriously?

Moments ago I refreshed my Facebook homepage and was met with a head smackingly obnoxious status update of a "friend," a person I may just have to unfriend over this shit.

When I joined Facebook I intended it to be the family safe place because my brothers and then parents were all members. I thought I was happy with Myspace being the place I was going to be out and myself, but over time things changed. I grew to like Fb more and became friends there with more and more of my actual friends.

I then found myself being friends with a number of people I'd gone to church and school with as a child, though the overly conservative right wing type stuff soon caused me to remove all those people from my friends. I realized I wasn't actually friends with these people and didn't want to be.

One of my two closest friends as a child/teen is now the only of those people with whom I'm still friends, though I haven't spoken to him in nearly twenty years and likely have absolutely nothing in common beyond some shared childhood.

As of today I might just have to remove him. His status update is one of those typical Fb polls, though this one is just stupid. Apparently we are asked to vote yes or no as to whether we agree with President Obama referring to the White House's celebratory tree and whether it's okay for it to be referred to as a holiday tree or whether he must refer to it as a Christmas tree.

First, I don't give a fuck what he calls it, and I can't imagine why it matters. Of course I get why the wingnuts are going to shit themselves over it since they can't stand the fact that there does truly exist a separation of church and state or that people might ever try to be sensitive to the beliefs of others. Second, it isn't even Thanksgiving yet. Nearly seven weeks till Christmas and the douchebags are already fussing.

I'm so not looking forward to any of this shit. I care little enough for the holiday season anyway, and I don't celebrate the christian version of the holiday, nor do I celebrate the solstice aspect of the event. I'll accept an excuse to get together with what friends and family I'm able, and I always love a huge meal with those friends and family.

Just give us this one year that we don't have to deal with the wingnuttery. Though the people who most need to hear this aren't here at my blog, I'd still like to beg them to please just let it go. So many people are going to approach this holiday to celebrate their own variant of the day, and it really is okay. Christians do not own the day or the celebration, and their whole version of it is basically stolen in part or in whole from other belief systems. So please, please just let it go.

Also, I didn't forget the Jews, but I'm not going to sit here and be sensitive enough to figure out the one true spelling of whatever they hell they call it. And black people can have there one too, but again, I don't celebrate it and am not at all concerned. Shit, Jews and black people are likely those people most reasonable about the fact that we all have our own approach and are most willing, it seems, to live and let live. So for that I thank you.

p.s. maybe the sensible ones among us should use this particular year to be the assholes and get uptight and offended, clutching our pearls and being aghast when people wish us Merry Christmas.

p.p.s. I suppose that, given my choice to blog about this, I'm fueling the fire and doing the thing I'm bitching about. If you're surprised by this then you don't know me.

already? seriously?

not surprised but still

Some of tonight was spent watching the film Jesus Camp, a film many people are aware of. I remember when it came out, when it seemed to blow up the little corner of the blogosphere that I'm marginally a part of.

I'm certainly not afraid of a film, but I am somewhat worried about the mentality of the sort of people portrayed in the film. I'm not surprised that people are like that, and I come from a not too dissimilar background, so I'm well aware of the indoctrination that happens to kids born into such religiously zealous backgrounds.

I'm nearly ready to call what I saw in the film brainwashing. I'll admit to raising my own kids in a way that mirrors my beliefs, and to some extent that's what is portrayed in the movie, but then it must be admitted that these people take it to a whole other level.

Big Brother didn't watch the whole movie with me. He and The Boy were too busy playing with some new toys they bought today with their own money. But they were both in the room playing, and he did see some amount of the movie. He was aware of some of it and watched some of it with me.

I want my kids to know they can ask questions when they have questions. They don't as much as I'd like, but when they do I want to be honest. This movie and the few question Big Brother did have because of it opened up some interesting conversation, but more than that it made me think.

I was able, because of this movie, to discuss with him the dangers of taking too seriously everything you hear. I was able to discuss the need to approach things objectively, to at least try to view all sides of a discussion. I was able to discuss the fact that repitition, music, chanting, etc. can put people in a state of mind that is almost trancelike, that it opens people up to suggestion. I even got to discuss abortion and my views.

I want to think that my most important point throughout the discussion was the point of having an objective approach. I want him to understand that my views are my own, that other people are welcome and within their rights to hold differing views. Most important is getting information that will allow him to make an intelligent decision about what he believes.

More than anything what I personally took away from all this is my own need to interact more with my children. It's so easy to just let them go about their business, to give them quick answers to their questions, to allow myself to become so absorbed in my own things that we don't live together and communicate together so much as exist within the same realm.

And as for the kids in the movie, I really felt sorry for them. They are taught a certain dogma, they are taught the "right" answers. They weren't taught to look at things from any sort of distance, to judge things on merits that aren't completely tied up in their faith based world view. I worry for the ones that are fed this singular view, the ones who know better, who look into themselves and see that it isn't right or isn't right for them.

And finally I'll share one bit that stood out to me. The kids at the end passing out religious pamphlets approached the black family to ask that age old question, "If you were to die where would you spend eternity." They got the answer of heaven, but as the kids turned away one of them mentioned to the others her belief that they were probably muslims. It's much more likely that the people were christian somewhere within the typically accepted protestantism of the U.S., but I assume based on their skin color, the kids made the leap to muslim. Just wow!

post halloween party

One of my workmates is throwing his Halloween party tonight. In part this has to do with those of us who had to work not getting to party. He's cool that way I suppose, and he's really, really easy on the eyes, though that has nothing to do with any of this.

Being a Halloween party, he insists on us all wearing costumes. I have no problem with that as it's part of the fun, but I seriously have no idea what to wear as a costume.

I could run to the thrift store for female clothes that fit and go in drag. I could wear the pants and vest of a three piece suit and be zombie fundy. I can dig the boys' black cape out and be a vampire. I could . . . I could . . .

None of these really appeal to me. None of them sound especially fun or inventive. So I'm stuck here racking my brain for something I actually want to be. I really just have no idea.

busted ass

Yesterday, while completing the last task before being done with work, I did in fact bust my ass. It wasn't technically my ass as much as it was both shins, a knee, an elbow, my hands and, as it turns out, a hip.

Tuesday in many restaurants is a truck day. At some point, usually never at the best, most opportune moment, the day's deliveries begin to arrive. This means that the truck driver for your distributor of choice will show up with stacks of boxes that he will leave sitting in your walkway. You get to spend some amount of your day clearing this out.

Clearing the mess involves breaking the stacks into other stacks based on where things go. Cold and frozen items move immediately to their new, respective homes as the last thing you need is for your food to thaw or come to anywhere near room temperature. Next you'll put up your dry and canned goods followed by chemicals/cleaning products and disposables such as to go containers.

A large part of the job involves taking things out of boxes which tends to leave you with a stack or pile of empty boxes. I've gotten really good over the years at reducing a mess of boxes into a neatish stack of broken down and flattened cardboard.

Sometimes these broken down and flattened boxes will sit somewhere out of the way until someone has time to discard them. We discard ours by carrying them to the opposite side of the square, about a block a way, and a short way down an alley to a room where all the businesses close enough take their cardboard for recycling.

Throughout the square there are a number of benches and tables, the tables each surrounded by four small benches. They are great for people to sit and eat or to use their laptops or to sit and sway drunkenly while waiting for friends. Apparently they are also perfect for busting one's ass.

My last task yesterday was to take the cardboard, and we had quite a stack. I tried to position the boxes in a way that they would be somewhat easy to carry and would leave me able to see where I was going. The second part of that was not carried out as well as possible.

I exited the restaurant backward, using my back to push the door open. A customer was leaving at the same moment, and I was even able to hold the door for him with my foot after swinging the boxes out of his way. I then left our patio while attempting to manage the boxes and move them to a more reasonable hand hold. I did not succeed soon enough and was unaware of the ass busting so soon in my future.

I'm not sure which leg hit first. One of the tables with four small benches sits about ten to fifteen feet from our front door, and I tripped over one of the benches. I think what happened is that my right leg hit first as that bruise is placed at the right height for the bench. As I began to fall my left shin slammed even more abruptly into the bench causing me to fall harder. I cleared the bench rather spectacularly I assume as I seem to remember some feeling of flight as the boxes flew out of my hands. I'm pretty sure I came down on my knee and elbow at this point while slapping my hands onto the ground as I tried to catch myself.

No one saw this happen, but a couple a short distance away gave a most disapproving look to my voluble shout of FUCK! as I hit the ground.

I retrieved my boxes, and, in some amount of agony, continued on my way. The shins hurt just to walk and at the moment the next most painful thing were the heels of my hands. I finally reached the recycling room, tossed my boxes onto the pile and was finally able to visually asses the damage.

I have a nice cut/bruise combo on my elbow and a tiny blue bruise on my knee. Both shins are bruised blue and yellow with a minor abrasion to match. The hip shows no visible sign of damage but hurts nonetheless. The heels of my hands hurt a small amount but also show no visible signs of damage

Had anyone else seen my flight it would have at least had that humorous edge that doing something spectacularly stupid earns. As it is, the disapproving glance was all I got from anyone else, and the couple who provided that seemed less concerned with a hurt fellow human than with having heard a swear.

The moral of the story is to to watch where you're going. Don't start your box carrying journey till you know you can see the obstacles. And if you're going to hang out and work at Market Square for the number of years I have, for fuck sake learn where the benches and the table/bench combos are. They're bolted to the ground for fuck sake and don't change position.

I am not a hipster

To really describe the hipster is just too difficult. They are a seemingly less rare breed than I'd once assumed, but I also realize I'm not as up on what the kids are doing as I could be, though I can spot one when I see 'em. None of that is really the point, but suffice it to say I am not a hipster. The point really is a horrid, new trend I'm loathing lately.

I'm wondering how this happened, this new fashion I've seen too much of lately. It's not really new and certainly not a fashion I'd ever want to see back, but as summer winds to an end and the days become cooler and shorter, the shorts on the guys in my town have gotten noticeably shorter as well.

Honestly, it's been in the works for some time now I'm sure, and I can only assume it's some sort of nefarious plot the way I've suddenly seen this trend. I can honestly say that what wasn't really that cool in the early days of summer is upon us.

I can think of one guy in my town, not someone I'd really call a hipster as such, but in a sense he is, who was wearing the short shorts as far back as a couple years ago. I have to believe that he started it, though I must also admit that perhaps it's a universal hipster thing that he was only ahead of the curve on in our small town.

I think of these shorts as Larry Birds, because I'm always reminded of his pale self hanging every which way out of a green tank top and green short shorts. It's not a pretty sight, and it's not a pretty sight when some pale, local young twenty something with his finger on the pulse of all that's too cool for you and a scarf tied just so around his neck in ninety plus degree East Tennessee summer sports them with his beat up loafers.

I will not be wearing shorts that fall mid thigh. I really don't much wear shorts anyway, and I've always been able to prove I'm a dork in different ways. Besides, it's really too cool for me anyway.

contact

There's a closeness that I miss, a closeness that Momma and I shared even though I was so deeply in the closet throughout our relationship, a closeness that I miss, and I think sometimes that missing leads me to make decisions I wouldn't otherwise make. I think perhaps she has the same problem, but either I'm wrong or she's just unwilling to accept my view.

This is not meant to discount pure, animal horniness in any way, because that's there on some level. Like most humans I do indeed love sex. I can look at it from a distance, however, and wish for something more committed than just random hook ups. Hook ups I can get, but I've done well to avoid those situations and places that make it too easy, because it isn't really what I want.

But that idea of closeness also makes it difficult. It's so easy to confuse that closeness with sex sometimes. It's too easy to let sex stand in for the closeness I miss having.

Momma and I still have a great friendship and are closer than many people. I love her very much and am concerned for her and want great things for her. I'll hurt myself to help her. I'll fight for her. But there's a whole other level of whatever that we won't ever share again, an unexplainable thing I can only think of and describe as closeness.

I'm not sure that I really have a point in all this blathering. I sort of do, and it's between Momma and me, and you won't really get the point of this, and that's fine.

I guess what I'm trying to say is that sometimes fucking isn't the same as touching, though sometimes it is.

Also, don't read anything into this, because you're most likely wrong, because none of this is actually about me and Momma. It's about me and it's about Momma, she and I as individuals and not us as an us. We have our own issues separate from each other with randomly occurring Venn overlap.

p.s. no we didn't do it

p.p.s. it's also not about anything in particular as much as about attempting to do better for myself over a period of time

in the pines

Flipping through the channels out of boredom I stopped for a moment on the Biography channel. They were discussing Kurt Cobain. I held a certain fondness of Kurt and for Nirvana back in the day. That first video I saw featuring them in the school gym and Kurt in that green striped sweater was really powerful at that moment. It was one of the first songs that really shook me a bit and caused me stop and take notice. Before that I'd just sort of listened to music.

A little something in the way of background might be useful here. Given my upbringing I never had a lot of friends who were into whatever music was popular at the time. I was raised on some amount of bluegrass and gospel and Marian McPartland's Piano Jazz, among other things. So when I started choosing my own music it wasn't based much on peer pressure. There was the "classic rock" via Z93 if I remember correctly, thanks to a brother who may comment here and has, but there was also a lot of Billy Ocean and Rick Astley.

Of the tiny snippet of Kurt's bio that I caught was some discussion of Nirvana's MTV Unplugged appearance and their version of the song known by me as In The Pines. It's also known as Where Did You Sleep Last Night and even Black Girl. It's been recorded numerous times over the years and under an even greater number of titles than I've listed.

Regardless, it's a song I've loved for many years, and the reminder tonight caused me to look into it. I won't tell the whole of what I've found because someone already did a better job at Wikipedia HERE. What I will do is give a list of links to various versions of the song so that you can enjoy it too many times like I've done.

I enjoy The Stanley Brothers version a bit, traditional bluegrass style

Leadbelly did a great bluesy version of the song.

Who can argue with Dolly Parton?

And for a dose of OMG tragic with a taste of Rufus-how-could-you? also featuring some lesser people, and knowing my Rufus love . . . seriously, how?

Finally let's visit the Louvin Brothers doing a different song, the ever popular murder ballad Knoxville Girl.

alls I'm gonna say

Okay, we've all heard about the Balloon Boy kid and his parents worried sick about poor baby floating away in the UFO. I have very little in the way of opinion.

I do however have one question. Was America glued to this story out of concern, or did they just want to be watching when his little ass plummeted to earth?

takin the fam to the show-thanks Momma!

Tuesday night saw the whole family, me, Momma, Big Brother and The Boy, enjoying a night out at a local theater (or theatre as the Bijou prefers to refer to itself.)

We went to see one group but were mesmerized by the opening band. I have to admit to being proud of both kids. Big Brother makes me proud because he's open to new stuff and enjoys so much that kids aren't generally expected to like. To me it's not so much proof that my kid is special as much as it is proof that kids are cool. The Boy made me proud because he totally behaved in public even though he is what we might call in the south a bit of a fussbudget. That's a nice way of saying that he's ornery in his pickiness (bless his heart.)

We went to see Andrew Bird and were lucky to also get to see St. Vincent. I've included videos just down there a bit, and if you want you can skip ahead to the listening and not even bother reading anything else I've written. It might be your best bet actually.

First, St. Vincent, I had no idea what to expect. I'd read the blurb/interview in the local alternative newsweekly before realizing that they were opening for Andrew Bird who I'd been hoping to see for months since learning that he was going to be playing my small town. I have to admit that I went in with some air of impatience, looking forward to the band I wanted to see, assuming I'd sit patiently waiting, but St. Vincent put on a great show. Someone behind me, between songs, put it succinctly when he yelled, "We're enjoying your set!" Total Ktown moment that.

Part of my choosing the videos for the songs I'm posting is that I wanted good versions of live performances without having to use versions from talk shows (fuck Kimmel and Letterman in this instance.) I'm okay with at least decent sound and maybe a little crowd noise, but I really wanted to at least attempt to capture the feel of live, which of course isn't going to happen in YouTube videos in a blog post, but a girl wants to try.

Before we get to the music, set your television recording devices to PBS on 10/24 to catch both bands on Austin City Limits. You'll thank me.

So here is St. Vincent doing their song Now, Now.


Momma and I have been fans of Andrew Bird for a few years at this point. I was fortunate enough to see him in our small town a while back and loved the show. He's a great performer and is kinda on the hot side, which doesn't really mean shit in this instance. It's just an extra something.

Again, I wanted a video that at least nearly captured some amount of something you might get live, but having covered that as impossible already I'll just throw out the video. Actually, I'm giving you two Andrew Bird's. First is his song A Nervous Tic Motion of the Head to the Left which is one of his more popular songs. It's fine and all, but the second video is actually him sans band doing one of my favorite of his songs, Glass Figurine.

it's not a can of veg

Want some more advertising driven rage from me? I've got some. This time it's aimed at Chef Boyardee and their insistence that kids are too stupid to eat vegetables.

The first commercial that I noticed in this newish campaign involved a father absentmindedly reading aloud the label on the can of crap he was feeding his children. As he approached the part of the label that indicates the full serving of vegetables the mother began a cacophony of noises to make it impossible for the children to hear that dreaded word "vegetable."

In another ad the child is reading the label and reaches the word "vegetable" but has trouble reading it. I can't tell you how this or the previous ad ends as I either mute the tv or change the channel.

I'm willing, on occasion to feed my kids Chef Boyardee. I get that it's crap, but the kids enjoy it, and I'd like to think that we all eat well enough in general so that sometimes eating less healthful fare is quite okay.

Like most families, we have kids that are very different from each other. Big Brother is a much more exploratory eater, trying new things and gauging for himself whether he likes them. He's even willing to try foods he may not like to test his palate for changes or to try unliked foods in different preparations. The Boy is very picky and could exist on a diet of rice with butter and salt as well as cereal and peanut butter graham crackers and candy if we'd let him. He is willing to dislike food without really trying them.

The concept of vegetables is not something either of my boys has ever disliked as a general rule. There are few vegetables Big Brother doesn't like and few that The Boy does, but vegetables as a catch all for the food group isn't a particularly hated category.

Chef Boyardee, like other companies and like many people, parents and non parents alike, too often have this idea that kids just hate vegetables and that mention of the word will send them away from the table. I seriously doubt that any kid knowing there is supposedly a full serving of vegetables in the "pasta" would refuse to eat that can of gloop, though perhaps there are children who would refuse out of principal.

It really irks me that Chef Boyardee is willing to sell their product as a healthy alternative to real food, that they willingly suggest there is a serving of vegetables that is equal to an actual serving of vegetables. I get that some kids can be picky, as mentioned above. I get that kids can be difficult to feed. But to suggest that a can of tomato-ish sauce and overcooked "pasta" is a healthy alternative is just sad.

It reminds me of a Jay Leno bit I happened to catch a few years ago. He was discussing the Kraft Lunchables and had a spoof ad with a mother expressing joy over finding the new products, Breakfastables and Dinnerables and saying, "Now I never have to waste time cooking food for my kids again."

And yes, I did put scare quotes around "pasta." When discussing Chef Boyardee I feel that they should be required by law to use a different word to describe the noodle like things found in their cans.

hadn't seen that one yet

The culprit: our fairly small long hair chihuahua

The others: a full grown husky and other dog of uncertain breed (to me at least) of equal size to husky

The two dogs listed under other were being walked on the street in front of my house, both on leash, both really sweet and friendly dogs that I and the boys have met and petted.

Our dog was outside, not on leash as he doesn't tend to run too far even when he does leave the yard. I was finishing a smoke and getting the dog inside when he noticed the others and felt the need to run, barking, to within at least fifty feet at which point he turned, ran a couple steps toward me, then turned back to bark again.

He was feeling it, seriously, and as proof the line of hair down his neck and spine to his tail was all standing up in his tiny dog rage. I hadn't seen him pull that one before, that rough and ready to fight hair, that angry little mohawk of aggression.

Our dog really is a little sweety mostly. Of course there are also those times when he jumps on the sofa and finds my lower abdomen to be the perfect pivot point as he charges toward me then jumps onto my abdomen with enough force that I suddenly have to pee, only to leap back off on his way past. It's like someone bounced about five pounds of adorable little claws off me.

And of course as soon as those other dogs did notice his little ass he turned and ran right back to cower under me where I was squatting in the yard waiting for his machismo to run out. He's such a little badass.

smacks head with palm

I mean, I'd take a one percent improvement in my day, but this makes my life one thousand times better.

Seriously? Are you fucking kidding? Is your laundry sooo difficult?

Okay, a little bit of back story. I'm talking about a commercial. Haven't done this in a while, but this is the newest one to irritate the piss out of me, and I do truly hate this one.

It's for a new product, a laundry sheet that contains detergent, fabric softener and some sort of anti static substance.

And it really makes some dumb ass woman's life one thousand times better? I'm sure that's not even a little bit true. I can't imagine that measuring detergent is so difficult.

I've been sitting on this post, waiting to see the commercial again so I could call it out by name, but fortunately for my sanity, unfortunately for my posting accurately my hatred, I haven't seen it since minutes before I sat down to write this. I'm sure you'll see it and remember my vitriol, but I can't be bothered.

breaking up? not so hard to do apparently

This is exactly why I haven't really discussed my most recent "relationship." It ended the night of my birthday party, at least two weeks later than it should have if not more.

When I say I've been seeing someone it seems to create an image of sorts, but you can't really do justice to what it truly was.

Without going into too many specifics I was seeing a guy that a different guy had left me for. It was so random that we ended up hanging out at all, and things really seemed to fall into place indicating something possible as a relationship. There was, at the start, some mystic seeming, we found each other in spite of it all sort of bullshit.

I soon realized I was a distant second in favorite pastimes for this guy, and I just don't know how to compete with World of Warcraft. I'm not sure how many hours I spent sitting on his bed wishing he'd stop playing, feigning interest in some new nonsense or other.

The sex was really not good either. We all have our druthers, our needs if you will, and this guy was just too insistent on his way and an inability to go about it any other way. While the first couple of rounds were fun, I quickly realized that, like his WoW issues, there was this other thing that was never going to work. I will only try so hard if I'm the only one trying.

There were a couple of other things that I knew were signs, and to my credit (or not depending on how you see it) I really did try. I guess by try I mean that I gave in a whole lot when I didn't want to because I realized early on that I wasn't ever going to get my way. Having figured this out so early I should have walked away, as mentioned above, but part of me did like him, and part of me just hates the idea of being alone.

I think the extra couple of weeks I spent trying have cured me for now of that aloneness issue. I'm quite happy at the moment, relieved even, that this thing has drawn to a close. I do expect some minor amount of drama at some point.

One good thing was that this all fell out at my party. A few friends that thought he was cool were able to see a side of him they hadn't but that I had. When this all comes up in the next couple of weeks, and it will, I'll be able to remind them about that night, and they will remember. It's all kind of sad really and makes me feel kind of bad.

What else makes me feel bad? I didn't go home with him as he expected, and he didn't have any clue that my drunk ass was about to rudely break up with him. That wasn't really my intent, but it all just sort of fell out of my mouth, more reason I should have done this a different and earlier time. As it turned out he had one idea of how the night would end, and I had another. It was my party after all.

I'm pretty much done here. I didn't talk much about this before because I've come to realize how fragile each and every chance at love really is, and that's really what I'm after, love. I want to think I can just shelve these ideas of finding love, of not being alone. I want to think that this will be the time I take a break from boys and just look at me and where I keep fucking me up, because I could do a series of Sunday morning sermon blog posts on ways I could do things differently. Hell, maybe I'll get a mattock and a shovel and cut some stairs to climb out of this rut.

Dear commenting brother

I'm taking your last comment with a grain or two of salt. I realize you're being snarky, and I'm pretty sure you realize I talk out of my ass on occasion. It's possibly a genetic abnormality I share with a person or two or more, and though it isn't my best habit it's also not my worst.

I'd love to meet your wife. You and she should take a drive north. I'm going to guess your schedule is slightly more flexible than mine, and I'm going to assume that your car and finances are more likely to handle the trip than mine. I'm not holding it against you that you haven't made it north recently.

I do wish some family could have shown up, but at the same time I understand that a lot has transpired over the last couple of years that might make it oddish to actually see each other. I'm not holding that against anyone either and accept my equal share of whatever blame gets doled out for this. I'd like to think we have time while acknowledging that we can't know for sure.

As for the party, well it wasn't the sort of thing most of you would have been especially into. We nearly closed one bar down only to walk across the street and for real close another one down. We then stocked up on beer and drove to another friend's house. Also I made out with my wife for the first time in a couple of years as well as a wonderful lesbian friend. I may have forgotten more. I also am wearing a sharpie tattoo on my arm that is a heart with an arrow through it with the words MOM and DAD crossed out above the word PUSSY. It still makes me laugh even though it should have washed off by now. I don't remember now who put it there.

In closing, I assume a level of snark I hope you intended and hope you weren't actually upset by my poor choice of words. I do love you, and I do appreciate how available you've been. Also I do hope and fully expect that we will get to hang out fairly soon.

Regards,
your infinitely cooler and much, much younger brother

thirty is NOT thirty something

If you're a friend on Facebook then you may have seen my event invite. One does only turn thirty something about nine times, and I'm about to use up one more, and I'm nearing the limit.

I bought myself what I'm sure will be my only non alcohol gift, a sweet pair of sunglasses. A friend has the same pair, and I saw them recently and fell in love. I actually went to the evil Wal Mart for them. I suppose everyone does have their price, and mine involved a ten dollar pair of ladies sunglasses.

But I do look good in them, and that's really what matters. Some random person in China gets to pull a handle that presses plastic lenses into plastic frames all so I can look just gay enough.

I'd like to invite everyone to the shindig I'm making happen. I'm going to invite as many people as I can imagine I'd want to see to show up at my regular bar, and I'm going to drink beer and eat both wings and nachos. I may even see my way clear to some tequila.

Of course I know everyone won't be there, and I don't want them all there. The people that count will likely mostly be there, and that's what counts.

Did I tell you the story about how I never really made friends till I came out and then it was still weird but it's slowly becoming a thing I think I can do? It's a great story. It keeps going still. I think maybe one day I'll be good at it.

Anyway, that's all a bit more drama than we're going for here. It is true, but I won't allow it to bring this post down, so I'm checking out. It's time for more mindless BBC America.

not the pastry

For a variety of reasons the turnover in restaurant staff is really high. Of about eight people that I work with, in ten months I've gone from the new guy to number three in longevity behind the kitchen manager and some other kid who's mostly part time and a student. There's also the dishwasher, but he barely counts. And this isn't even a full staff, just a current estimate considering we're short a couple of people who are no longer employed yet not yet replaced.

In addition to the kitchen manager there are also two lesser managers who have power when the actual KM is not in house. Of them, one was a previous employee who is on a second tour. The next is a guy that worked there sort of before me. He worked one shift a week and the random oh-shit-can-you-please-come-in-today shift. He doesn't really count in my opinion because he just doesn't, which is not to cast any aspersions on him or his character. He's a good guy and a joy to work with, that isn't really any of the point though.

None of this really means anything anyway, as it's not the point. The point is the turnover. Pretty much the entire staff that were the regulars when I started are now gone. The front of house is not really any better, but they're front of house, and sometimes you barely notice when one of them comes or gos. And that's not meant to suggest any ill intent toward servers, but seriously.

I'm not going into the specifics of why I think it's been so bad where I am. I will say that it's an issue I've seen too many variations of in so many places I've worked. No matter how cool or how good a manager the person right above you is there's always someone above them that may or may not be as good a manager. At some point up the ladder you're bound to run into something.

And sometimes that's the one between you and an oven that actually works.

how to go about it

There is the whole thing about liking guys, and there are so many guys that I kind of find myself being friends with. Then there are the ones when I have . . . something I can't describe.

There are the not gay guys that I meet and have a moment with, those guys that I think, if only they were gay.

I can think of two right now.

It can be hard to deal with them, knowing how much I like them, and knowing I have no chance with. I want to be able to be friends with them, but it's hard to not think about the reality that they are guys that, if they were gay, I might could have a relationship with them.

But they are not gay, and I have no chance at this thing I think could be.

Sometimes it really hard to deal with, trying to force myself to just be friends and not have feelings. But when can we control our feelings?

nada, really

ugh, another wasted day. I won't admit to you what time I actually managed to wake up, but it was somewhat later than the time at which my alarm went off.

I didn't actually need to be up when the alarm went off, but it's the time I've set to not want to sleep past on those days I don't work in the morning. Today is a night shift day, so I don't work for another couple of hours.

Technically, I did at least wake early enough to accomplish a few things. I've checked my blog reader and Facebook and email. I still haven't taken the overdue books back to the library, but since I'm off tomorrow I'll likely just let them be another day late. I'd rather have time today for a shower and to finish my coffee.

So that's my morning/afternoon in a nutshell. Now it's off to smoke and read a bit of Hemingway. That's Momma's fault. She'd never read him, but for whatever reason she kept finding herself running into references concerning him till eventually she pulled down the one book we have, a book of his short stories. She left it laying out, and I find myself picking through it. I've always enjoyed Hemingway, so it's not hard to read him if he's just laying around.

hate at first sight

I am so tired right now and would like nothing more than to lay down and take a nap, but if I do that I ruin my night.

Have I mentioned that I hate naps? They just don't work for me. I wake up grumpy and a little disoriented and usually find I've slept longer than I wanted. Also, the only time I really feel like napping is when I'm consistently not getting enough sleep for enough days, and the nap only means I'll be awake later in the night than I want.

I have a whole pile in my reader that I'm not going to read right now. We went to Hot Springs NC for a quick camping trip this weekend, we being me and a a niece and the friend of said niece who drove up to hang out for the weekend. We met Momma and the boys there as well as some other friends and a couple of people I didn't know.

Of the people I didn't know, one was a cool girl and her daughter. I liked them well enough, but the guy she brought with her, a guy I can only assume is the boyfriend, was the reason my camping trip was completely ruined.

This guy was stumbling around in complete drunken black out mode, was going through people's things, stealing beer, playing his music too loud, falling into/onto tents and saying things that he would never have said sober. Apparently he's in AA, but if you don't not drink then AA aint gonna do shit for you.

In situations like this I tend to find myself growing protective of my people, and when the people present are family and/or younger people, I get more protective. I did what I could with the douche bag guy, but at that point there wasn't much I could do. I pretty much just had to hang out until he crawled into his tent for the last time

I'd arrived fairly late to the campground having worked that morning, and douche bag guy was well into being drunk, though at first it didn't seem soooo bad. He was obnoxious enough of course, but I didn't really get the full effect till a little later.

Anyway, not to go into the whole story, but the guy completely ruined the camping trip for me. Even the next day, when he was sober and hearing about what he had done the night before I still couldn't bring myself to feel anything other than desire for him to be away. His apologies for his antics sounded as if they'd been pulled out and used a number of times over the years, and I'm sure they have.

I've known people like this before, people for whom alcoholism is like a monster side of them that crawls out and takes their control. They act like fools and are annoying and offensive, and sometimes you can walk away and let them self destruct on their own. You can't help them because they aren't going to take help they aren't ready for, and they feel something like remorse when sober they are made to face their actions, but on some level it's still a sham. They are going to drink again, and they are going to be assholes again, and then they are going to do it again.

The next day douche bag guy hung back as the group that was going tubing set off up the trail. He acted as if he needed or forgot something. I was not tubing and was sitting away from the coolers watching random children. I heard a cooler open behind me and turned to see douche bag guy feeling around inside it. He didn't see me because his eyes were set on another of our group. Douche bag guy was watching the wrong person and continued to do so as he then went into my cooler.

I let him steal the beer and warned the friends that he was drinking again and stealing beer, and if I had animosity for this guy before it was all I had for him by this point. I decided it wasn't worth the trouble especially since I wasn't going to be there much long. Niece and niece's friend needed to get back to my town and their car and start their long trek back home.

And that's the story of my weekend mostly. I did go out for a bit last night, met up with some friends, played some pool and some foosball, lost all games played. It was mildly redemptive, if that's even the proper use of that, but it sounds good, so I'm leaving it. I know what I mean.

gays in sports?

Do gay people like sports? It seems like a silly question, but apparently even some gay people don't know any damn better.

Since I've been out I have not been personally involved in sports at all. I do enjoy watching MMA, and not for the gay, soft core porn aspect that has been pointed out to me often enough. I love soccer as well and played several seasons in a local adult rec league. I've also coached my sons' teams several times.

As mentioned, I've not been personally involved since coming out. When it was all new there was just too much going on, life sort of got in the way, and sadly, Momma and I both allowed life to get in the way for the kids as well. Big Brother is registered for the fall season, having missed a couple of seasons, and has his first practice tomorrow night, but I'm just not ready to be involved as a coach for a couple of reasons. One, I'm just not ready to do that, and two, I think he's getting into an age group that I'm just not going to be able to reasonably coach. Maybe that's my own fear getting in the way, but that's the way it is. I've always told myself that, as his coach and father, I needed to be able to recognize when it was time for me to step back, and I think now is that time.

None of that is quite the point or the motivation for this post, though my point does involve the gay and sports.

Reading at advocate.com I ran across a story that pointed out that there are gays playing college football and many of their teammates know that they are gay. There are no out players at the professional level just now, but there are a couple of players who've decided to come out after retiring.

And finally we get to zero in on my point, the comments to the article, the divide that still exists between gays, at some level, where we have to either be one or the other, flaming or macho. It's all in the comments, gays versus each other.

On the one hand we have the macho man that is soooo tired of the fact that all gays are seen as flaming and not into sports. On the other hand we have the guys who can't imagine that anyone would like such puerile pursuits as sports.

Pulling a couple of quotes from the comments will prove my point about this chasm.

-And, as far as being in the NFL and out, some players would prefer to stay closeted than to have gay fans swarming all over them-from Michael

-this sport has a built in macho factor that, hopefully, most gay men are intelligent enough to reject-from James

-Not all gay men want to play dress up and go shopping or tweek out on drugs-from Jon directed at James

I hate that, even among gays, we have to be one or the other. I'm certainly not the most macho guy, though I don't really feel I fall into a category that one would call flaming, but even if I did, that wouldn't effect the fact that I can appreciate perfect passes that set up a shot on goal or the skill it takes to work a good choke hold from a full mount. I can enjoy watching David Villa shake off a defender to put an impossible shot past the keeper and appreciate that he's one of the hottest guys in soccer. I can also enjoy looking at clothes and hanging out with a group of straight girls and giggle about nonsense.

We get enough stereotypes from outside of the gay community. Why do we force them on each other?

just like that

Driving south on Broadway, looking over the 640 interchange, over the ridge that ends right there, you can see the haze that is the air we breathe in this town.

It's one of the few truly hot days we've had this summer, not that we haven't had hot days, but most days have been unseasonably nice, even the days that were overcast, threatening rain.

The recycling has been taken and deposited. The dishwasher has been emptied and refilled and sits now full of clean dishes. A load of laundry is slowly agitating in the machine so that my pair of jeans will be clean for when I go see the boyfriend after work.

I'll wake up late Sunday, turn over and put my arms around him, knowing that he sleeps more than I do, and I'll lay there, slipping back and forth between nearly dozing and nearly awake. I'll slip outside before he's all the way awake and smoke a cigarette, and I'll then brush my teeth so he doesn't bitch about the smoke breath.

I should have stayed in bed this morning, waking only to still feel irritable from last night which ended poorly, me feeling a little taken advantage of, like everyone knew that I had control so they could all go and do whatever they wanted. I tried to make plans based on what people told me they would do, but in the end I was stuck at home because people knew I was stuck at home and had no need to concern themselves with what I might have wanted or needed.

That's a hell of a way to go to bed, trying to sleep but finding sleep as elusive as ever, the nearly angry mindset lodging in my skull and slowly growing into a headache that wasn't going to make anything easy.

I'm ready to be done with work, ready to clock out and speed west to his house, to feel his arms around me.

quibbling with my head

I miss my blog. I'm not sure what it's become. I know it's not the same, and I know that I enjoyed doing this at one time. I kinda don't lately.

Certainly it's changed as so much of my life has changed, but even while I write those words I have to admit to the places where I've not changed or made change.

And that sort of thought process nearly leads me into the sort of post I've written too much of lately, and the sad fact is that I've written so many bitching about myself and my tendencies posts that I've ended up deleting rather than post. I'm not getting anywhere with this nonsense, but I don't seem to stop it.

Perhaps I know the secret. Perhaps I need to go back and comb through the archives and find if I can remember what I used to write about that made me enjoy this damn thing called blogging.

Maybe I'm also too afraid to gay it up too much. I went and shared my location with more people than may be safe for my sanity. Mom and Dad, if you're reading this, I'm afraid I do mean you.

And that's why you sometimes don't hear from me for a week or more. I let this thing change too much, or maybe I let myself become too morose and depressive when writing. Maybe it's the whole fear of too many eyes. I've most definitely deleted too many craptastic posts that were just too full of woe is me.

But I do have an idea that I'm willing to play with, so if there's a new post showing up minutes after this one then I've done gone and done it as we might say down here in the south (or is that South?)

For now I'll just drop a nugget on you. The new boyfriend introduced me to Varla Jean Merman, and this song is just . . . It's called The Bearded Lady. Enjoy!

quickly now

Because I haven't posted in possibly ages I feel like I should at least check in. I almost posted a mile worth of update last night but decided I was sharing a bit more than I'm quite ready to.

Things are happening. My living situation still seems not to be going anywhere, but it's a problem needing resolution, and I've been forced to realize I've made too many excuses as to why I'm not doing more. I think tomorrow, since I'm off work, will be a great day, hopefully, to make some calls and maybe a visit or two.

The guy I mentioned recently is still cute and nice, but he and I aren't looking for the same thing. I think the incredulously pronounced, "Oh my god, you really are looking for a boyfriend," should have been clue enough, but the fact that I haven't texted him in two weeks and haven't heard from him is definitely the bright, neon sign pointing me away.

And in that same vein, I'm suddenly in a great place. There's a whole other guy with whom I find myself in the beginning of something. We do seem to be looking for something similar and get along great and have a lovely back story that got us where we are. I'm not sharing right now, though I'm not really superstitious, but I'm not willing to jinx it by discussing it. Weird of me, yeah?

And now I need to figure out what we're going to do about lunch and quick. I've renewed some of our library stuff, but everything else is due today. I have to be at work at four and have the kids to Momma's work so I can walk to my work in time. Unless it rains and runs us off, we'll spend the afternoon downtown.

That's what you get for now. I hope you can justifiably expect more posts soon.

begulba

I have 895 published posts. If this makes it through final editing, and very few do these days, I'll be a tiny step closer to a thousand.

I don't really think that means anything at all. It doesn't make my recent output less than suck, and it doesn't seem to have made anyone fall in love with me and want to take me away from all this.

What does it do? I can't say. It makes me feel like I can sometimes spit out something readable that isn't too cryptic or enigmatic. I can sometimes write things that make me smile when I reread them as opposed to the usual cringing and eye rolling I tend to do when faced with something I've produced.

It's late. The extra kid in the house is asleep on the sofa. I'll tell you her story one day, the family values that seem to have put her in a place better than her mother was/is able to provide, the stability she's been given, the love that surrounds her. But that's not for now.

It's late, and Momma is somewhere between work and here. I've got at least one more beer and a cigarette in my near future.

That wasn't even an update. You should feel cheated as a blog reader.

updatey

There's really nothing to post write now, but I find myself drawn to regardless.

Maybe it's just the laziness inherent in today, though most days are like this lately. I can only be so lazy, having to be at work at four. I have to close tonight and am curious currently about the weather.

There, a weather post. That's what we need.

Our local weather has been extremely odd this year, especially considering how far into summer we currently are. Our truly hot and humid days have been few and far between, and we've had more straight days of rain than ever since I moved here. We've been more worried about drought the last few years, though I don't know how we're doing currently I can't imagine we're doing bad in that regard. Today is cool and breezy and cloudy. We may or may not see rain which might directly effect the business I see tonight.

Either way it should be a fun night. Oh, maybe this is a post about my job.

From the front door of where I work I can see a new place, still under construction. There's a location of this business toward the western part of this town, and though I've never been I have heard nothing but good. I might end up out west soon talking to someone out west about an interest in a job on the square.

I don't entirely hate where I am, and there's potential, but a good portion of the current management could easily care enough to try harder, and it's sadly not something that should even be a try. I'm not going into it considering how I lost the last job, but I'd love this job but for a single horrible attitude so entrenched in this place that I doubt sometimes there's any getting rid of it.

And I guess I could say the same about me sometimes. I keep falling back into traps I keep setting for myself. Apparently recognizing them too late keeps being too late. Perhaps a complete change of direction . . .

Sure, maybe that's what the post is, annoying introspective post that makes you grit your teeth and want to scream at me, "Shit or get off the fucking pot already!!!"

Yeah . . .

no

unconnect

I spent some amount of time the last couple of nights severing connections. It's not as bad as it sounds as it was just the ending of some Facebook friendships.

When I got on the Fb I was totally doing it to connect with family who had also gotten on. Soon enough I started getting requests from and sending a couple to some old school friends. There were a couple of people on that list that I was never actually friends with, and there were even some that I can't say I even remember.

I wasn't expecting to be out on Fb, and I even mentioned that to a couple of people in the early days. But really it's just not worth it. I don't want to have to care what someone might think.

I'm sure these are all wonderful people, but I've come to realize I basically have nothing in common with them other than some amount of shared past, and that's really just not enough.

I suppose the clincher was yet another right wing, uber conservative sort of thing someone left laying around, and the option is ignore or bitch. It's not worth bitching when you will never convince people that there's even a chance there is another point of view. Some people can only accept their singular world view.

So now it's just family and actual friends or people with whom I would actually be friends, people with whom I could reasonably spend time and not have any issues.

backing down

There's every chance I mentioned with some amount of joy that I was finally going to be living elsewhere by now, and I sorta did for a minute.

I'll admit now that I saw issues that I ignored, and now that I stepped into the thick of it I'm having to back down, admit I was wrong.

It's mostly a kid issue. The only other place I currently have to live is just not good for the boys. There are a couple of different issues that aren't so much huge as much potentially huge and not worth putting them into or even around really.

The place is mostly safe, so that isn't the problem, and I'm certain all this sound cryptic and doesn't make a hell of a lot of sense. I suppose that's pretty much where I'm going to leave you.

So now the fun part is talking to the person with whom I was nearly a roommate. We discussed going in that there was a chance this wouldn't work and that I could walk away. That doesn't make me feel any better about having to back out, and given my non confrontational nature it's even more difficult.

And that's where I am now. I suppose it's late enough that I should just kick the shoes and belt off, empty my pockets onto the coffee table and fall asleep to some Tattoo Highway.

Damn I'm ready for my next tattoo!

dollar a pop

So now both boys are losing teeth. I suppose over the last couple of years I sort of forgot that losing all one's baby teeth meant losing ALL the baby teeth. Yes, this includes the ones in the back that I don't see and don't make your cute little six year old that much cuter.

The Boy has recently started losing teeth and finding money under his pillow, and just yesterday Big Brother lost another. He has one more that he's sure is going to come out soon.

I forgot to have Big Brother straighten his bed today and noticed while tucking The Boy in. While adjusting his pillow back to where it usually goes I found his most recent tooth and slipped it back under his pillow. I was tucking him in when he checked to be sure it was still there.

We've never been big on pretending the Tooth Fairy was real, but we do like the idea of buying their teeth off them. It is sort of part of being an American child, though I imagine many people likely draw a line and stop at some point.

I took his tooth after asking him if it was okay. I know he knows better than believing in the ol TF, and he certainly knows where the money comes from that he's found under his pillow over the years. There was a certain feeling of killing off some magic upon essentially buying the tooth outright, but he's a dollar richer, so I doubt he really cares. He's that much closer to a mouth full of regular teeth and that Nintendo DS he's been saving for.

A dollar a pop? I'm glad we never set the bar any higher than we did. I can deal with that price.

Frankencar

For my Facebook friends this is likely a second reference to my Frankencar, but it's such a lovely story that I surely must share it with more of you. It's great fun. Also, I'm not telling the whole story at Fb because that's not what it's for.

Though I haven't bitched online nearly as much as in real life about it, I have mentioned a time or two that my driver's side window in my car hasn't been rolling up lately. Sadly, due to the lazy nature of myself as well as other issues I use as excuses this has been a problem that's been long in need of a solution. That solution happened today.

Before I go further I'll share some of the joys of having a window that won't roll up. I've carried everything of value that generally lives in my car in an Army surplus gas mask bag. It's a great bag, and I actually have a female friend with an identical bag that she uses as a purse. It holds a number of cd's, the front to my stereo, the bandana I wear for work, my car phone charger, an extra lighter or two, my cigarette tobacco, a spare tshirt for post work drinking, sunglasses and some other something sometimes. It's a great bag that should also have been holding my auto registration, but as soon as I carry that to the courthouse I should be okay. Another joy is our mysteriously sodden spring and summer. It's rained most days for the past few months at least a little, and one day I even got to drive in a thunderstorm with pea size hail. The car is also very easy to spot with an orange bag over the window had I ever forgotten where I parked.

Pull-A-Part, as you may likely figure from the name, is basically a large junkyard. The cars are in sections and rows, a section for domestics and a section for imports, the rows all numbered. The place is automated which was certainly a help.

Step one upon entering PAP is to visit the computer and find the make and model of your car, and while you can't search by year it does list them by year. You can then print a list of each of those cars. Other info includes the row in which each car can be found as well as the date the car was brought in. It helps to know which year's parts will correspond with your car so that you can be sure the parts will work. I wasn't quite sure of this, but knowing I needed a power window switch and having looked at it a number of times I was hopeful I could figure it out.

I visited several cars, most of which had been visited before, and each one had already been stripped of the part that I needed. A final visit to the last Accord was nearly hopeful, but considering I'd seen ten or more stripped out doors already was endangering my ability to hope. This car was three years newer than my own and fairly different in terms of body shape as well as interior trim.

I approached the car and pulled the door open happy to find the door panel intact and holding the exact part I'd been searching for, though it was obviously going to not fit exactly as it should. I pulled the panel and had to remove six screws to get the switches off. There were also three metal clips that had to be pried off and sent flying. With a little elbow grease, a fair amount of swearing and generous bit of sweat I had this part off, a part I knew wouldn't fit exactly but hoped would work.

Eight and a half dollars later I was outside again, wandering happily-ish toward my car. I needed to move quickly to get home in time for Momma to leave for work, and I wasn't able to check the part at PAP, obeying the pleasant signs that suggested one should not repair cars in the parking lot. I had hope and Lily Allen blaring as I roared up and out of the driveway, onto the road and back home.

A quick bit of prying pulled my switches out of the door panel, and some squeezing and pulling got the wiring harnesses loose. I plugged the newer switches in, turned the key and perhaps giggled a little as my window finally worked again. The newer switches fit into the door panel while not actually fitting the door panel, but I'm quite certain that I don't care. My window rolls up.

imagine I'm doing this in a dress

What a day, gay pride in my little town. For me it was somewhat anticlimactic in so many ways, most of which I must accept the blame for.

I slept much later than I should have, and though I'm not going into it, I'm so tired of waking up in this living room on that sofa. That's almost at an end, which I'm sure I've been saying, but I totally mean it this time. What matters is the effect that has on my sleeping and the fact that I totally should have been up and ready to go.

We, myself and the boys, wandered out of the parking garage in time to see the tail end of the parade and wave at the float representing my own regular gay bar. I didn't put it to them like that and didn't actually mention that particular bit of info with them at all. They did meet the bartender that semi regularly feeds me High Life and almost met the local drag queens with whom I'm most familiar.

I also drank some beer when I shouldn't have and got a little pissy at the job from which I should have asked off for the night all things considered. But as the night progressed I came to accept my fate and deal well with the having to cook for people. I'm sure there were some amount of gays dining with us for pride.

I did get lucky enough during a smoke break to catch some of the drag show on the square which was so awesome to see happening there. I really don't know the beginning of the relevance of drag queens in gay male culture, and I will soon look into that. All I know is that I didn't used to think it was my thing, and really it's still not, but I've realized over the last couple of years that I can appreciate and enjoy it. Whether it's more proof that I'm gay or whether coming out has allowed me to accept a broader array of art forms is not the debate for this post, so we'll leave it at that, but it does beg yet another question. How does one explain to his children about drag? I'm not going to bother I think, opting instead for a wait and see approach, but the thought of it came up.

I did try to give them at least a cursory explanation as to where we were going as we left the house yesterday. It's the first time I've gone with the boys to pride, and I did want them to have some idea of what was coming, but the going about it without making it a big deal is the problem.

I just want the whole gay thing to fit seamlessly. I suppose that's what we're really going for in general as a people, to just be. I think we'll know we've arrived when Pride Day is to John Q. Public what that one Mexican holiday and that other Irish holiday are. I long for the day when douche bag frat boys spend June 27 downing rainbow jello shooters while wearing kiss-me-I'm-queer tshirts even though they aren't even a little gay.

Before this turns into a pride as new year's for gays post, which it almost did but for some timely editing, I'll try to figure out where I'm going to go to wrap it up.

It was a decent day, though I'd have preferred not to have to go to work at all that day. If I'd been able to work the day shift I'd have been happy, and things would have been cool. Things were cool, but the not gay wedding we catered, though I did a great job in my part of feeding them, sort of pissed me off. If you don't know why I won't bother you with the details. We'll just let it go.

And that't that. What will happen between now and next year's pride? I can only imagine, though it's fun to think of sometimes. Things are changing as I speak.

art shit somebody did

As happens in the area where I work I ran into a friend tonight. She was fliering for an art installation she's doing, and I realized as I talked to her something great about one of the new changes I haven't mentioned because I haven't been blogging regularly like a good blogger should.

Momma has moved back to her old job making sushi very close to where I work. She's close like we can walk to either restaurant in the time it takes to smoke a cigarette close. We discussed our schedules when she took the job and settled on three days a.m. and three days p.m. each so that we are still both off opposite each other for the kids but also in a way that's fair to each of us and the restaurants we work in.

The point of all the rambling above is that I now have Friday nights off work. I realized this upon seeing my friend's flier because it just happens to happen on the very next First Friday for my little town, our local downtown come see some art shit somebody did night.

And I haven't been off and able to go since sometime last year in that brief moment that I had a boyfriend, and we tried to go to First Friday, but he had to be a dick and make us so late that we couldn't actually visit any of the galleries really. We did make it to one, and then . . . I don't even know. The night ended somehow or other, but it wasn't the First Friday I'd envisioned.

So, yeah. I'm sorta happy about this.

oh no he . . . oh . . . he did

At some point you get to where you don't know what to think about the people you think you know. I refuse to give you too much information, but this is a comment left to a friend. This was left at the friend's Facebook page. This is a person who is sort of family and sort of friend but is also neither, more the mother of a friend who was related to some family with whom divorce makes us no longer family.

Does that make sense? I can't say if it will or doesn't, but given the shake up I'm working through I can't help but not bother.

Sit back and feel the dumb as the nonsense rolls over you. I really did just copy and paste some real person's jibber jabber, and keep in mind that I'm not arguing the point this person holds valid so much as questioning the round-the-bend assumptions and suggestions.

It's because vaccination is a religion, or a cult, if you like, and as such, involves irrationality. As Dr Herbert Shelton once pointed out:

"Belief in immunization is a form of delusional insanity."

When arguing with pro-vaxers, one therefore always needs to keep in mind that one is arguing with people who are insane, due to having been deluded into believing that vaccines prevent diseases.

Basically, they should be locked up for their own good, and for the sake of other people's safety. The way they're running around loose, at the moment, endangers everyone's sanity, health and well-being.

begin the dig

Edit number one of the night included a lot of drama that I'm trying to will myself from getting into too much. I've been accused of being dramatic lately, and I suppose it might sometimes seem that way. I don't see it that way. None of that is really the point.

I brought a couple of boxes in from the garage. They're sitting in the floor behind me. I had an idea that I was going to smoke a bowl, drink some beer and sit down in the floor and go through a couple of places where I have stuff I need to look at and sort through and pack or get rid of.

Then there are those other things and even more those different things. I think about the physical property I actually brought into a relationship that became Momma and me, and I think about the mass of accumulation that is thirteen years later.

What about the books? the cookbooks? the cd's? I can't find Rufus Want One, and I'm only listening to Rufus Want Two because only he is right right now and I can't find One. I'm not happy, but really, right this second, it's not my biggest concern.

What does it say that I feel a little bit guilty about feeling so happy at the prospect of moving out? I can't explain why I feel either way. It's a bit of a mental minefield if I start thinking too much about it, and given my disposal to dwell a bit much sometimes it's best left alone for now.

I do need to go, and I suddenly have a place to go. Some amount of getting-used-to is to be expected, but just knowing the weirdness to come, the getting-used-to I guess, but it's more such a huge step in a sense.

I guess that's really all I have to say. I brought a couple of boxes in. Momma brought them home about a month ago. They are not the usual tomato boxes we tend to salvage from work as recycling boxes, and the first time I saw them I wondered whether or not she was giving me a nudge, some boxes into which I could fit my stuff that needed to leave with me.

What of my salt and pepper shaker collection? my vinyl collection on which I'll soon have nothing to play those dear records I so seldom visit? Don't even mention pictures, the old kind on shiny paper. And the random objets de art? I so totally spelled that wrong, I'm sure, though without a huge heap of concern.

I just don't know. It's probably too late to start digging through those two cabinets tonight. I still have Facebook to check and my email and reader one more time. And I'm tired from being up early for work.

an answer to my last post

I hate that I feel I need someone. I want to be able to be me for a while, to figure out what I'm doing and what I want to be doing.

The idea of a relationship feels like a life raft, except that if I'd just try, I could swim to shore, though it might take some work.

Instead, I just seem to keep trying to find a boat to climb into, and I never even make it to shore.

I could have already been there, could already have found my way, but I just keep not.

p.s. the "boat to climb into" phrase is in no way intended as a sexual reference, though upon my edit reading I've made myself giggle a little.

p.p.s. even after reasoning it out and making actual sense of my mental nonsense I still want to be his boyfriend, even if just for a little while

The people that will read this won't get it, and the person who needs to see this won't, and he wouldn't necessarily get it if he did read it, but I have to say it.

I'm not being mean. I'm being confused, and you aren't helping. I almost think I know what I want, but when you call me on it I don't know what to say. If I say what I think I'm afraid it will drive you away, and I'm afraid to answer in terms that will tell you what I think you want to hear because it would be a lie.

Quit fucking with my head.

FUCK, are all boys like this? Are they ever just open and honest? Can I just get a straight answer? Can I give a straight answer? Can I just say what's on my mind without you rolling your eyes at me?

I just want to fucking cry sometimes because boys are stupid and don't tell me what they're really thinking.

FUCK!!!

an attempt

Because I like haiku and this poor version of one has been forming slowly in mind for a day or so . . .

shaggy white heads
the clover blooms throughout
the green grass lawn

quandary

Two sort of major events are taking place on the same night. One will require a few minutes travel, while the other over three hours. There is no way I can even imagine doing both short of winning the Powerball and renting a helicopter.

One of these is a derby bout, but it's not just any bout. It's Hard Knox's first WFTDA sanctioned bout, and it's kind of a big deal. I've been looking forward to it and even have a ticket, though I could easily pass it on to a deserving soul. I really want to be there for my team, cheering them on, smile plastered across my face as I see the league sporting their new WFTDA patches.

The second of these will take a drive to Nashville, and I've really wanted to make this drive for some time. One of my oldest and closest friends is having a birthday party that day. He's invited me as has his girlfriend who I've never even met in real life. She seems to have invited me without him knowing as she explained what a great surprise it would be.

The trip is really calling to me. I could go so far as to suggest that I almost feel I need to make this trip. I haven't seen this friend in too long, at least a couple of years. At the same time I know how big a deal this bout is too our league.

I guess I just don't know. I'm almost afraid that the main issue is finances because I'm just not making that much money, and I've blown too much the last couple of weeks hanging out with the guy I keep mentioning. Financially the trip will only involve gas money. I know that the friend and girlfriend will house and feed me. I'll have to make some token purchase as a birthday gift for the friend, though not because I'll have to so much as I'd want to.

I'm leaning toward the trip.

three shades

It happened on Friday night, sitting on the patio after work. I was hoping that a certain guy would text me and want to hang out, but I was also thinking it would be nice just to get some beer and go home and hang out with Momma.

Another friend came by to have a drink and hang out, and eventually a workmate finished closing the kitchen and joined us. A short time later another person came by though didn't quite join us so much as hang out on the square side of the patio to chat for a moment.

The workmate was the one non gay person there at this point. It's always nice to see the non gay person and recognize that they are the minority for once. This has some bearing on the point of the post as you will soon see.

A customer was leaving our patio about this time, and I noticed something as she pulled her sweater on. I commented to those around me that she was wearing three different shades of pink, and indeed she was. Her skirt, top and sweater, though all pink, were all obviously different shades.

The joiner, from his side of the fence commented, "That was gay." And I have to suppose that it was, my noticing her various versions on a single color theme.

Anyway, it's not much of a story, but now you know it, and you can carry it with you your whole life.