the fun, does it ever

I'm certainly not the first person to contend that with the solution to one problem comes the very next problem. Often the problem gives us a break, a pretend respite between issues, a lull that we can pretend to fall asleep because we feel so safe.

Just about a month ago my car was repaired and no longer leaks quarts of oil onto the ground. I tallied some of the figures of some of the purchases made during the leaking days and found that I spent just over three hundred dollars on oil to replace the leaked oil, an oil pan and gasket, replacing tools that I broke, and the actual repair job itself. Add in the couple of meals between me and the boys on the couple of days when it was so much easier to just eat somewhere, and the total climbs ever higher.

And then I had a few weeks to enjoy my car. Now I have a great big orange garbage bag for a window on my front, driver side door.

From the moment we bought this car this window was slow to roll up. It wasn't bad, but it was noticeably slower than the rest. It progressively got worse, and on cold days it worked even more slowly.

Now it doesn't work. It will roll down, and it's almost all the way down now, but it won't roll up. It won't even try, and it won't even make a noise that would indicate an attempt. It doesn't even make any clicking noises, though whether or not that matters is not something I can claim to know, but the absence of even clicking noises does seem indicative of something.

Oh, and the seat belt. The seat belt in the rear on the driver's side won't come out. That's historically been Big Brother's seat, but sadly he is forced to sit in the middle. I remember as a child that we wouldn't ever have known if a seat belt worked or not because we never used them. They were pretty much just those things we crammed down into the seat, and we only pulled them out to look for a lost quarter or pencil that had been eaten by the seat.

Oh, our modern world. I'm not against seat belts and do trust that they work to keep my family safer. I'm not sure about the air bags, and that's the reason neither of the boys can sit in the front. I'd be more than happy for Big Brother to sit up front with me and not have to worry about that back seat belt, but the safety device I'm not sure about can be deadly to a guy his size, so he's stuck in the middle of the back till I get the seat belt issue resolved.

And this has been a typically east TN rainy as hell spring, and today, my day off, my day for errands and whatnot, it's raining. It's been pretty much nonstop all day varying from downpour to drizzle and all points in between. I need to run these errands, and I'm sure I should just suck it up and go, but I don't want to get wet.

I'm not really sure what to do about the window. I can call my friend to bring her meter, and we could test things to narrow down the issue, and I'm sure in the end I'll end up replacing a motor or regulator or something else I don't understand. I could get estimates for just getting it fixed and not attempt a home repair at all, and this idea seems nice given the issues I had with my most recent repair attempt, but the cheap/broke part of me doesn't want to blow the money. The not-a-repair-type-person part of me doesn't even want to bother. I've taken the inside panel off the door and peered uselessly into the frame, and I don't even want to have to do that again.

So maybe I'll make some calls, and maybe I won't. Maybe I'll run my errands and have a soggy ass, and maybe I won't. Maybe I'll just feed the boys pizza and ramen so I can take a nap and not worry about anything.

is so much fun

Last night saw me have a couple of interesting encounters. The first you won't get to hear the story of, but the second is at least worthy of a post, though I can't truthfully say it shows me in the best light.

I suppose this morning is a more apt description of the timing as I'd been out fairly late. I had had a bit to drink in the night part and ended up at someone's house. This is a someone I know, so be happy knowing that it wasn't an anonymous hookup.

"Mr. Hull, I pulled you over for speeding, and the light that illuminates your license plate is out. Also your tags are expired. Can I see your license and registration?"

"uh . . ." makes digging for wallet sound as I dig for wallet. "Here's my license. My registration is at home because my window won't roll up, so I took everything out of my car."

"Have you been drinking tonight?"

"Earlier."

"Well you smell like a . . ." I forget what I smelled like, but all I actually smelled was ass and lube, and I wondered if he could smell it and wondered if he too recognized it as the smell of gay sex, but I digress.

He went back to his car for a minute while I tried not to be blinded by the lights. He returned and first asked me why I wasn't wearing my seatbelt. I pointed out that I had been when he pulled me over, and I didn't point out that he watched me take it off to get my wallet out of my back pocket.

I watched his finger go back and forth, trying to move my eyes, feeling as if my head were turning though I tried to keep it still. I was sort of fixated on a nearly healed cut on his finger. He tried to trick me after what seemed like ten minutes worth of over extending my eye muscles by suddenly going up, but I was game for his attempt. Next I did the ten steps of heel to toe walk, turned in a small space at the end, and walked back ten more heel to toe steps. My favorite was the lifting my foot six inches off the ground and counting, one-one thousand, two-one thousand, etc. I actually made it to about fifteen before my balance required I put my foot down, and I actually said something along the lines of, "Fourteen-one thousand, fifteen-one thousand, and eventually I have to put my foot down." I may have laughed a little on the inside where the officer couldn't see.

I sat for a minute waiting, and he finally came back again and explained my charges, one of which was no insurance. I didn't point out that he'd asked for registration and not insurance, but I did show him my insurance card, and he was nice enough to scribble that charge out.

So went my second field sobriety test. The first time was a few years back, and I did it with two pulled hamstrings, injuries incurred earlier that same day while playing soccer. I passed then too.

I can't claim this as the greatest story, but it is a story, and now I have better things to do. But do take a warning. Don't drink and drive, and not just because you might spill your drink.

If you want to hear a band called The Business sing about drinking and driving go HERE. It's actually a fun song.

fave song totally?

As kids we often have favorite things, songs or foods or whatever, and sometimes this carries into adulthood, though I do find as I'm older that I can less easily narrow down a group of anything into a single favorite.

The idea of a favorite song especially is difficult as there are just so many good songs out there. In addition when you deal with songs you realize that there are so many versions of good songs, and often the different versions are good for different reasons.

Our recent library trip found us picking up a two cd set of June Carter songs. She plays and sings with everyone from her sisters to Johnny Cash and so many more. One of the songs is a song that's come to be a personal favorite, Foggy Mountain Top or Some Foggy Mountain Top or Foggy Mountaintop, depending on where you read it.

I went poking around YouTube last night with this song in mind and found several versions. Each is good for different reasons though they are essentially the same. I don't know how many verses there are in the song as each version features different verses as well as slightly differing versions in wording. The boys sing about girls, while the girls sing about boys. It may not come as a surprise, but I like the versions sung about boys.

We'll start with a slightly more modern version, Dolly Parton and Porter Wagoner with some really nice electric guitar HERE. I do like this version, and beyond it being Dolly it is a great rollicking kind of thing.

Next we'll check out Bill Monroe and Doc Watson. If you know good music then you are familiar with these gentlemen. Listen HERE to their version, two masters of the musical form.

And finally the ladies that started all this, June Carter and her sisters HERE. If you aren't familiar with the Carter family that's a shame. Acquaint yourself as soon as is reasonable.

As always with the YouTube, I can't be held accountable for the quality of any of the videos. I found videos with good music, and really that's what we're here for, so play and enjoy.

Dear Perez Hilton . . .

. . . or whatever your real name is, please shut the fuck up already.

Really, I didn't want to blog about this, and I'm sure we've all heard the story enough times. Miss California, as part of the Miss America pageant for girls who can walk and look pretty at the same time, was asked by celebrity slander blogger Perez Hilton for her opinion on same sex marriage. Miss CA bumbled her way through an attempt at an answer and only managed to give us a new term "opposite marriage" to describe those unions of heterosexuals. The gist of it was she's unsupportive of marriage equality.

Mr. Hilton, the blogger famous for . . . uh . . . mmm . . . drawing on pictures of young media starlets? I think? decided to call Miss CA some less than nice names. The right leaning media picked up on it, and suddenly the mouthy douche blogger is the voice of gay America?

We have Joe Solmonese and Michelangelo Signorile and many more intelligent and thoughtful people who are willing and have been willing to speak for us in an intelligent and thoughtful manner. We have blogs like Good As You and Box Turtle Bulletin to give us gay related news stories and present our side in, you guessed it, an intelligent and thoughtful manner.

So, for all our sakes, Perez Hilton won't you please go back to whatever you were doing before? Go on The View and snark about barely adult girls in too little clothing, or maybe go on some celebrity "news" shows and badmouth boy bands. Honestly, I haven't thought as much about you in the couple of years I've known of you as I've been forced to in the past week, and I'm about sick of it.

Yes, I know I'm foul mouthed and say rude things, but I do it on my blog. If I was somehow on national television, I'd like to think I could better represent my people, and I'd damn well do my best to do it in a manner that is both intelligent and thoughtful. Wow, those two words again.

So, in closing, please, if you have any respect for equality and the idea of gays being seen as equal and deserving, please, Perez Hilton, shut the ever loving fuck up already. Please?

it's called a joke

I hope that a thousand years from now mankind is still so stupid and deluded that when they stumble across my blog they suddenly have a new reason to kill each other over vague attempts to decipher just what the fuck I was saying in that archaic twenty first century brogue that I spoke way back then.

It would fucking well serve us right with our damn thumbs and chairs and art.

did they all move away?

Of the gay guys I seem to meet in this town I have found that they seem to fit into one of two camps. The random gays are generally much younger than me, what I'll call college age. I might see them anywhere, and all too often my broken gaydar doesn't really help with giving me any actual knowledge as to their actual sexuality.

Next on the list would be the guys at the gay bar. I don't hate hanging out there, at least not until the one overly large, creepy guy keeps staring at me. He won't even talk any more than a grunted greeting, staring at me as if transfixed. There are the two bartenders with whom I'm now on a first name basis. They even know to get me a High Life when I come in, though one of them does often bring me just about any other Miller product, forgetting somehow that it's High Life I want.

But really the thing that stands out about the second group, much like the first, is the general age range, though here it's at the other end of the spectrum. These are the guys enough older than me that I'm again just not interested. These are the guys who've been out for years, who see me and think of me as very young. Often that's part of the point when they talk to me, because who doesn't want to sleep with a young man?

A lot of the copliments I might pay myself are things I can prove. I do make good biscuits, and I am a fairly decent cook. The crap that I write seems often to interest people, and I even laugh again at my jokes as I reread occasionaly. I'm a decent speller most of the time, and I can take a cut on the hand or a smack to the knee while working and endure the pain pretty well, sometimes. And apparently, though I never really realized before, I'm at least not unattractive. I've had more than a few guys point it out at the bar, and though it may all be in my head, I seem to be noticing girls checking me out lately.

The point of all of this really is that middle group that I can't seem to find. There are the older than me and younger than me gays that I spot or meet or have a drink next to, but the guys my age are nowhere to be found, and don't even get me started on gays into the sorts of things I'm into. I've mentioned it before, noting that Motorhead and homosexual males don't seem a pair one often finds. The sad but oddly uplifting songs of Mr. Leonard Cohen seem a perfect gay fit, but again I have to wonder in the gay man's world of dancable pop music where I and my love for the morose fit.

So did all the gay guys my age leave town? So many of the people I meet seem to be from somewhere else, and I sometimes get a feeling as if these guys are from towns so much smaller than this town, that this town must have seemed like the big city, the welcoming lights you see from you little farming community, that this place is so big and bright and welcoming they need never move on from here. The young gays are just now getting old enough to get out and get a taste, and perhaps many of them are just here for college, or they came to school and haven't quite managed to grow up enough yet to know to leave.

The guys my age must have tired of this town and its sometimes small town feel. They must have all moved on to bigger and better and less homo insensitive places. I'll admit to having met maybe two guys my age that seem even a little interesting, and both of them are attractive and seem likely to be cool in a way that I could enjoy hanging out with them. They are also both in relationships, which should make me feel that maybe there are at least a very few gays, but why I don't seem to meet them I can't fathom.

I do love this town, but I do sometimes yearn for a bigger place, a place with more people, a place I stand a chance of meeting someone. It's more than an age issue or a compatibility issue or a musical taste issue, but it's at least those three things, and it's more.

Of course, the chance I'll get to leave this town are nearly nonexistent, and my actual desire isn't necessarily to leave or to stay. As usual, what I really want is not something I can so easily tease out of the murky swirl of thoughts inside my head, that layer upon layer of ideas and possibility.

I'm sure there's great advice, unhelpful things one could say about being myself, being patient, work on being the person I want to be, take care of my own needs, don't rely on a guy for happiness or some such shit. I'm sure I'm doing those things to some extent. Whatever, I just want to meet these guys that I know have to still be here somewhere.

grrr!

In the last two weeks, two young boys, boys very near the age of Big Brother (my oldest son for any new readers) have committed suicide. These two children killed themselves because they were tired of being bullied and harassed.

They were tired of other kids being mean to them, and they had dealt with it so much that, at eleven years old, the only solution they could come up with was suicide.

What was the majority of the slander they dealt with? They were being called gay and were referred to as faggots. Were they faggots? Were they gay? Does it fucking matter when you are eleven years old?

How is this okay?

To anyone who thinks that homosexuality is a sin or is wrong, how can you possibly explain away the sort of bias that would drive an eleven year old child to kill himself? I don't care what you think at this point. I don't care what you think about me. I'm gay. I'm a faggot. Condemn me all you want. If your god really loved I think there's a good chance that he would take it a little easier on children who don't even know what sex is but are being damned anyway.

Read your fucking gospels already. Read your blessed are the meek. Read your blessed are the peacemakers, and then show me where the verse is that reads blessed are those that drive children to kill themselves.

Enough already.

P.S. if you don't know about the stories to which I refer at the beginning of this post then try using Google. Seriously, google the words "gay suicide" and see what you come up with. Hell, you don't even have to google it yourself. I made you a handy link. It's as easy as clicking.

omg is that guy still alive?

Somewhere behind me the television is on, muted so that I can listen to The Cure and Rufus Wainwright on YouTube. I never got into Joy Division, but HERE is The Cure doing the song of theirs that I did like.

I have flannel pajama pants and a dirty shirt, a sofa and a quilt awaiting me. On the t.v. is Richard Lewis, his same weird ass mullet like thing of a hair do and that creepy "stop laughing at me" overcoat. I don't know if it's a "classic" performance or something new. He looked old and raggedy when the '80's taught us that all stand up comedians are not created equal, and a sitcom does not a funny person make.

I'd for reals rather be here with you listening to sad and/or gay ass music. Speaking of which, and actually happy instead of sad, how about some Judy Garland HERE? Yeah, I thought about Rufus, but I went Judy.

If you wanna, go HERE to hear Sara Vaughan do yet another song I considered giving you the Rufus version of.

Do I sound fixated by a certain Mr. Wainwright? I'll admit he's hot, and some of us remember my swooning because of him. That was soooo long ago in blog history. Things are so different now, or are they so much? So much of my life feels back to normal while so much still feels in a state of turgid agitation.

Turgid agitation sucks donkey dick. But it's not so bad. What makes things better would be some more good music, and if you like Emmylou Harris and Dwight Yoakam then you will love THIS.

Know who else makes me swoon? A certain Leonard Cohen. We end with him doing a song I hear done live recently, but first, the guy that did the song we're going to hear Mr. Cohen doing. HERE is Chris Scruggs doing a different song, and HERE is Leonard Cohen doing the song that is the point of all this. It's just some music I like by artists I like.

It may seem odd to have thrown in Chris Scruggs above, but I saw him live recently, and he kind of makes me swoon a little(a lot) and he did the song I ended with. His version was much better, but since we can't find that on the YouTubes we'll just settle for the other version.

I hope you enjoyed this musical journey, and if you didn't then you just don't have any tast whatsoever. I'm sorry, but there's nothing I can do to help. I tried my best.

arguing with arguing

One of my brothers, on his blog, is discussing freedom of speech being used in arguments. His suggestion is that we too often do not allow the same freedom that we demand. Go HERE at Chris is Searching to read his point, then come back for mine. I almost commented last night when I saw this, but I was a little woozy and maybe somewhat goofy from the combined efforts of antihistamine and a couple of beers. I hate Tennessee allergies!

So, we've decided there are any number of arguments one could have, and we know that there must be at least two opinions in contradiction to each other. We've also pointed out that communication can only happen when both sides listen and attempt to understand. That may not have been verbatim from the post, but it's there.

So what do we do when we feel that there is no argument other than the one an opposing opinion tries to force? I'll continue using Chris's example of gay versus straight, because, in my opinion, there is no actual argument here. What there is of an argument involves not mere straight people but a religiously motivated point of view that refuses to accept the vast majority of points I and other gay people might make.

If we argue about sports teams then we can actually have some sort of argument. Perhaps my team has better attacking and a solid defense but tends to lose it in the midfield. Perhaps your team has a great midfield and a great front line, and perhaps they can serve balls into the box all day, but your attackers just aren't getting shots on goal.

Arguments as to which team is better or more likely to win are valid to a point. There are points on each side that one should consider. But getting back to Chris's example, what if I just can't accept that the arguments from the other side are valid? I can say that I don't believe biblical restrictions should apply when discussing civil law which isn't the same as reminding you that your team has drawn or lost as many games as they've won.

My argument as a gay person is that before and more importantly than my orientation is that I'm a human and a US citizen which should be all I need to demand equality. I should have the same rights and responsibilities under civil law as any other person. The only possible counter to this is going to be derived from a religious point of view that somehow wants to demand that everyone follow their pov/code/laws regardless of personal beliefs.

So, giving you your freedom of speech is one thing, but we also have to take into account the argument itself. I'm willing to allow you freedom of speech as well as freedom of thought, but if you are going to argue any point of view then we have to start from similar places.

I'd like to ask anyone willing to indulge in freedom of speech with me. I'd like to hear an argument that could be seen as gay versus straight that doesn't involve religious views or the Bible or any other text that any group considers as their sacred code. I want to hear from a civil point of view that involves us living here and now in 2009. I don't want "that's how we've always done it" or "god said it so it must be true." I don't want Leviticus, though if Thomas Jefferson or Thomas Payne mentioned gays I'd be interested.

an eleventh and a first

One more has passed, another anniversary of the day Momma and I got married. Little did either of us know what all we were in for even given the couple of years before that.

We didn't celebrate, though I did joke about it in passing. We actually both worked. I'm finally being given Saturday a.m. shifts and arrived this lovely morning at nine-ish and dove straight into the work. I quickly had the line set back up having put up so many of these items a mere ten hours earlier.

I opted not to do a prep list as I waited for the boss to come in. Whatever time I spent doing it would be wasted as he would just redo it anyway, so I began making bread. I know this has to be done, and I know it's one of the main things a day shift has to focus on here.

Meanwhile, later in the evening, I've agreed to help work a catering event, an event I was offered days earlier. After a barely frantic couple of texts, I had secured the services of a friend and her kid, a most lovely pair. There was most of a day wait in between the request for services and the actual agreement, a wait I felt each interminable moment of.

There was some amount of rushing around between the two halves of my working day, mostly to purchase frozen pizzas for the babysitter to feed the kids and of course home to shower and change. I rushed back downtown to pick up food then headed east to the event.

I missed the ceremony, and I don't know what the couple whose celebration I helped cater prefer to call it, but for all intents and purposes and as close as we can get right now a lesbian couple got married, and I fed them pasta. Did they know they had even more gay at their wedding/union/pairing/swearing thingy than they bargained for? Of the two male bartenders plying their trade I would bet that one of them is also gay. We have discussed my broken garday I'm sure, so I can never be too certain.

My night ended back at work, with the same person with whom I'd so recently been catering, bent over the triple sink scrubbing dishes. It so shouldn't have been our job, and I was two beers into my needing to go home, and I had my nice clothes on, and my shoes are still dirty, but thankfully the shadows are being nice right now, because I just looked, and it kind of feels better that I can't see it. But some of the dishes were ours from the event, even though we basically bailed the dishwasher out of his own self imposed dilemma.

I ended up making the agreed upon amount for my services as well as an extra tip that was half as much as what we knew we were making. I gave it all to the babysitter, especially considering the bad habit of coming home late again.

The evening ended with some perusal of the internets. It was its ever lame thing, the glow in the night that drags us to it, that constant drip of water that no amount of attention ever seems to stop, those internets.

And now it's a day later. I'm sore from toting food and dishes and from falling on slick tiles and hurting my hip. I'm tired just because I am. I'm just generally in a mood anyway lately, so there's always that.

whaddaya hidin'

According to Sean Braisted at Nashville for the 21st Century, Nashville's Metro Council has a bill that would require restaurants to post nutritional information for their food. As is to be expected, restuarants and their flunkies are fighting the bill, arguing that it would be too unwieldy and/or expensive and/or . . .

I've worked in restaurants for years and expect I will continue to do so, and I've considered this issue before. I don't really dwell on the idea, but I am sometimes surprised that more people don't seem interested in nutrition data in restaurants. Sure, if there's an actual need, allergies for example, they will ask appropriate questions, but people don't very often ask beyond that.

Fighting this sort of bill is a lose/lose situation for restaurants in my opinion. As restaurateurs we should have nothing to hide, and we should be willing to admit what we've done to your food. As people we should be willing to share the information because it's the right thing to do.

But there are considerations, things that should not give our representatives and lobbyists reason to fight the bill but should give us all a reason to work together. You don't want an extra fifteen feet of drive through signage, and you don't want to look for the walking fingers on the front of your suddenly book thick menu.

I would personally want the information available if I owned or managed a restaurant, but I don't know how I'd post it. How big would a menu need to be to contain all the info the customers should be privy to? How would you put that on a drive through menu? Would it be good enough to have this info available online, or could we just have printouts for customers?

So, I'm a cook, and Metro Council bill or not I'll tell you what I put in your food. Of course considering what the politicians from my end of the state cook up on a regular basis, nutrition info is only so important here in the east. We're more likely to get bills that ban things that make the menu sound gay or potentially gay.

omg five things that somethinged

Of the cars I've driven more than a few times, or semi regularly, over the years I'd have to say I probably owned as many as not. One of these cars was a certain green thing that certain friends or family might well remember.

Of the people I think of as friends there is really only one person I knew from this time with whom I'm still friends. I'm still related to most of the people I was related to then, but there are a shit ton more than then, but that isn't the point. I'm as friends with my relatives as I am, and the less said about that this moment the better, in a good way, seriously.

That one friend will remember this car, and there's a good chance that we were in it the first time I told someone that I thought I was gay. He was cool then, and he's cool today. Another guy I knew very briefly who gave me my first beginning to end, all the way blow job, the kind with no expectation at the moment of reciprocation, might also remember the car. So began my love of the blow job, but again, that's so not the point.

The point is the car, this particular thing that was in my family for a number of years. The last car my grandmother owned, the car I took over when she passed it on when she could no longer drive, the car that my oldest sister in law learned as a young adult to drive to work in, was a singular car in my mind. It boasted all the electrical amenities available in the very late seventies, was large and American made. There was an extra pillowy layer of cushion on top of the seat cushions that made it extra soft.

I hadn't thought of the dirty story from above for a number of years, but the damn Facebook did me in. Anyone there has seen the five cars quiz going around. If you know me there you may well have wasted some small amount of time looking at tiny pictures that fail to accurately represent what these cars truly represent for me. One could even imagine them as little time capsules of memories of times. This car certainly represents a certain time for me.

As mentioned a couple of fairly gay moments came to me in this car. What's gayer than coming out and sucking dick? And again, I hadn't really considered this car in a number of years till that damn Facebook quiz. I saw a friend had done it, and it looked cool. I've come close enough to owning the cars or had some share of ownership in them.

And then one of my brothers did the same quiz, and there among his five cars he's owned is the same car. The car in the picture is so far from the same color, but just seeing that shape and imaging that car, the nonsense and fun of being young, I was taken back in time to a moment so long ago. Such young, carefree days as only happen when we are too young to know better.

And years later, remembering this car, the trickle of ownership it saw for such a long time. Grandchildren rode in this car to eat at the cafeteria, then young gay man explores sexuality in a strip mall parking lot, while years later a young wife and mother goes about her day, all the above in style and luxury.

Don't get me started on the sofa in the garage that was left by a different grandparent in the house in which I currently reside. It was only recently that the sofa reached the garage, replaced by another sofa from my mother in law. Don't get me started on that sofa either.

can't take the mess

This house has been one of America's top ten biggest residential messes for what seems like months now. I'd take a picture, but that would be too depressing to show anyone.

I have made a start in making a dent in the mess.

Keep in mind that it's ninety percent toys, and I seriously doubt I had a hand in making this toy mess. I have now put up a few, mostly just retaping the bottom of the Cootie box and putting the Cootie parts back in it, and I also picked up all the Battleship pegs that had gotten dumped out of both the red and the blue game boards, or whatever you call them. Battlegrounds maybe?

My next offer of help came in the form of separating toys by type or end location, meaning putting all the Legos in a pile and all the Transformers in a pile and . . .

I've done this in both the playroom and living room. It all happened yesterday, and magically the piles are still mostly separate and distinct.

Now I just need to motivate two boys to finish the job. I won't mention their bedroom, but the floor is invisible beneath a sea of Legos and Littlest Pet Shop and Playmobile. I sound like a really crappy ad for all these toys right now.

And it also just shows how we aren't hippy parents with primary colored, peaceful toys. We don't have large chunks of wood sitting around inviting imagination, and we don't have anything made out of foodstuffs that was both experiment and play. There's nothing wrong with any of that, but it's just not us. We have light sabers and toys that do unending battle with evil. We have monsters and pirates. We also have two naked Raggedy Andys, but that's neither here nor there.

Of course there is a pile for books, everyone from James Patterson to Richard Scarry to Bionicle instructions. I currently have a book pile in the bathroom, but we aren't worried about my tiny mess just now. It's the kids we're worried about.

And that's my day. I keep mentioning cleaning and how I've made it too easy, but we have as of yet failed to do any cleaning. I need to do one or two loads of laundry and put up some clothes I folded last night. I've emptied the dishwasher and need to reload it. I have beer cans to stomp for recycling and a few new ones to rinse. I also need a shower and to be at work by four. Maybe I'll remember to take my knife and sharpen it on the stone at work.

If nothing else gets done I'll definitely work. It's a Monday, and the weather report I checked last night indicated rain, and the sky outside looks as if it's promising a good dousing, but so far it isn't the one hundred percent chance of rain that NOAA suggested. That means I won't have a whole hell of a lot of work to do at work, but it is the one inescapable component of my day.

So, now my plan truly comes to fruition. I will now finish blogging and go find the boys. I'll share with them the news that I need a shower and remind them that video games are a good diversion for them while I'm in the shower. They will be offered the trade of picking up small piles of toys for video games. The older will take the bait quite readily, but the younger, still not able to quite put together the concept of future reward versus current dislike of work, may take some prodding.

And in the end the house will be less not clean. I'll be able to see more of the wretched carpet and will be reminded of the need to vaccuum. I'll put it off for a couple of days while the blanket of toys reforms throughout the house.

And then I've got my week planned.

not really parallels

Something came up in my reader in one of the blogs that I've only recently discovered, The Bygone Bureau. It has absolutely nothing to do with the German homeschool whatever, but it is about aspects of German education as seen by an American living in Germany and teaching.

If you aren't a homeschooler or into home education news then you may well have no idea why I even mention Germany and homeschooling together, but if you are aware of this particular not a news story then you can imagine I thought of it when I saw an article about Germany and education. I'm only aware of the story because as homeschoolers we can't help but at least know it exists as a story.

Unlike my usual m.o. I offer no opinion. I found the article interesting, but then this writer, Locke McKenzie and the particular blog The Rambling American were what coaxed me to look further at The Bygone Bureau in the first place.

driven to the brink

Via advocate.com today I read the story of an eleven year old boy committing suicide. According to his mother he was tired of being teased and bullied and called gay. The article doesn't tell us whether or not the child was or was not gay, but I don't really think it matters.

According to the mother she attempted to work with the school and tried to get them to stop the bullying, and according to her the school was entirely unresponsive.

And now for my anger.

1) what is so hard about not allowing school children to use discriminatory language? Are the kids also allowed to use racially based words to insult each other? Are they allowed to use religious based words to insult each other? When will it no longer be okay to use words that belittle based on an assumption of sexual orientation?

2) why would a parent continue to put their child in situations where they are terrorized in such a way? Why not stop sending the child to a place, even if it is school, where they are going to be antagonized and hurt on a daily basis?

I don't want to think about this story, because honestly I have enough on my mind. I can depress myself quite easily. And if I think about this poor little boy, this child so close in age to my oldest son, if I think about it I'm going to cry, and I'm going to be angry, and I'm going to wonder about the children who drove this child to take his own life. I'm going to wonder about the type of parents who raise children to treat others like this.

As long as there are people in this world willing to demonize me and other gay people then we are going to continue to see this sort of fallout. We are going to continue to see children taking their lives, and we are all poorer for having these hate mongering monsters still alive, still walking around, still screaming their homophobic epithets and claiming victim status when we demand they stop. The real victim is gone. He wrapped an extension cord around his neck and said, "no more." Why was this the only way to stop his hurt?

we have plenty in the freezer

In the distance, slowly approaching, I hear it, the ice cream van.

I hate the ice cream van. It's not just the obnoxious music or the even more annoying "HELLO" that sounds so full of attitude.

More than anything it's probably my cheapness coupled with my lack of funds. I get tired of telling the boys no. I want to buy them ice cream, and I'd love to buy the ice cream based novelties sold out of the annoying van. The boys some days want so much to get ice cream from the van.

But I hate the van. I hate hearing it blocks away and never knowing exactly where it is. I hate people marketing to my children, especially getting up in our faces pretty much in our home. Television commercials are one thing, providing fuel for a steady diet of "I want that." But they are commercials, and I think that, from a fairly young age, most of us grow immune to the near constant deluge and are able to shut out the ads.

Not so with the damned ice cream van. Even inside the house the sound worms its way in, and there it is "HELLO" amidst the horrors of music that could only be worse were it a midi file, though that may actually help, but given the two options it's sort of like the difference between wiping your ass with sand paper or just slapping it clean with the binder of a spiral notebook.

oh so tired

I did not sleep for shit last night. I didn't drink much, and I really don't want that to be the reason I couldn't sleep, but considering I spent the night in the bed of someone I don't actually know doesn't really sound like the greatest reason either.

After getting off work last night I carried my shift beer up the square to the pub only to decide that I wouldn't be spending any time there due to the horrid nature of the music. I went to the little honky tonk bar for a beer only to learn that there was no one there I wanted to hang out with. A quick beer there, and I left for the gay bar.

I didn't expect much there, not much more than a beer. I knew there was a really good chance that I'd run into the last two guys I let pick me up, and I did.

One of those two didn't see me at first, though I saw him. I wasn't actively avoiding him, and I'd be willing to spend more time with him, but I'm not sure what he's looking for any more than I can pinpoint exactly what it is I'm looking for. He gave me the old "did you lose my number?" routine which I served right back. His phone is no more one way than mine. Of course now I'm debating whether to text him and start our conversation up again. I'd kind of like to see him, but I just don't know. He had to have seen me leaving with the guy I left with, especially considering he was sitting next to me at the bar when I left.

One of the bartenders was off and hanging out. He's young, really hot, and dating someone. He approached me at one point to say Hi and that he had a friend he wanted to set me up with, a friend he claimed needed a boyfriend. I was open to meet someone.

And then suddenly there was someone else sitting next to me at the bar, a fairly young looking and fairly hot someone, a guy giving me this look and telling me that he thought I was hot. I can't say that I went there with the intent of hooking up with someone, but I have to admit that some amount of going to the gay bar involves some amount of at least willingness to hook up.

And I didn't sleep for shit. It's been a while since I had one of those doze for a minute wake for a minute nights, and last night was one of them. I'm not unhappy with any of what happened, but again, given my two options of why I didn't sleep, I can't say either of them make me proud. Either I'm a drunk or a slut, both labels I'm okay with wearing for the moment but not the place I want to be.

dear friend

I know that you think your boyfriend is hot. He does seem to have a nice enough body under his overalls, and believe me when I say I don't have anything against overalls.

Yes, the hillbilly mohawk is kind of cute(ish) on him as is the chinhawk(not really) and yes he is amazing on the pedal steel.

It's probably a very good thing that you are so attracted to him, and honestly, why else would you have initially gotten together were it not for a mutual sexual attraction? That's pretty much how we humans seem to find ourselves in these sorts of things.

I don't find your boyfriend unattractive, but really, do you need your gay friend to agree with your opinion of your boyfriend's hotness? Do I really have to tell you what you want to hear?

So, really, let it go already. I'm not going to pretend he's hot, so you can stop pretending to be so damn offended. We'll still be friends, and I'll still not want him, and that's okay. I've got enough issues with straight guys that I don't need yours added on.

Thanks!

allowed

"God is allowing me to go back to school." So reads a message from a "friend" posted on Facebook. Other friends have commented back, generally congratulating this person on their utter helplessness in the face of the absolutely mundane thing he has allowed god to do, a thing that millions of people do all on their own with no need to thank an interstellar being.

I'm amazed at this sort of thing, though I should be used to it, as it's the sort of mindset that I grew up with. It's as if we are just mindless automatons that can't think or do for ourselves without the guiding hand of space grandpa providing his willingness to allow.

I'll admit that I haven't made the best decisions in life, and I'm likely to make some bad decisions in the future. I let myself down much more often than I should, but I'm willing to admit this and own my mistakes. I don't need someone of questionable existence to accept all the blame or all the credit for what I do.

I guess I just don't get it. Of course these are the people who see an accidental pregnancy as the payment you must accept, along with the next eighteen years of child rearing, as a just punishment for a sexual indiscretion, so I think we can accept that their reason is often a bit skewed.

But seriously? God allowed you to get into school? And I bet he spoke in the ear of the person reviewing the different applications? Did he secretly rubber stamp the application when the office wasn't looking? Did he make the other applications illegible?

I'm ending up so far from any point I thought I was going to make and have ended up too close to crazy wing nut rant land. I can't think clearly when it comes to this sort of thing. I think I'll turn the rant off for now.

oops, I seem to have . . .

Yes, I did it again. I saw it coming, and I didn't do anything about it. I suppose there's nothing I can do about it, and I kind of hate it, but at the same time I doubt there's much I can do about it.

I have a crush on a straight boy.

He's the roommate of a guy I work with who isn't not hot in his own way, but he isn't the sort of guy who I have to assume is my type. I'm sure there's a point at which the line that represents "my type" corresponds with hot enough, but we aren't graphing that particular concern at the moment, and we won't likely visit it in another post, so we're left to ponder.

The roommate however seems to fall into a category that I've been recognizing as "my type." He's roughly my size/height, but he has really dark hair/eyes, and there's a certain charm, a bit of something I can't name. I like him.

And he likes girls.

I've sort of hung out with him here and there, and the moment I saw him I was a little smitten, so the having hung out only seems to add to the problem. I hung out with him a bit tonight, and the whole time I was torn between knowing I have no chance with him and continuing to enjoy his company in a way that makes me want him even more.

And it's not just that he's hot, though he certainly is. I can't claim to know him too horribly well. Like I said, I've sort of hung out with him here and there, though the here as well as the there are either the place I work or the bar a few doors down.

He is really more a symptom than the problem. I should even admit that it isn't that it's even such a huge problem. I'd wager it is an ongoing concern among gay men in general, so it isn't even an issue common only to me. It does get annoying at times.

He does of course have to get in line. There are at least two other straight guys that I know and am somewhat friends with for whom I seem to harbor some desirous feelings. No amount of Jedi mind trickery is going to make any of them suddenly gay, though I won't pretend I'm not trying. I guess for now I'll just keep my imagination oiled and ready, waiting, ready for that moment.

hating patience, well, not hating it, just having to be it

This is one of those moments when I feel I have absolutely nothing to say, but I feel compelled anyway. So out with it.

My right hand hurts like hell. It isn't a constant thing, but certain movements are really unpleasant. I can't think of any specific thing I did, but I'm fairly certain there was at least one whanging with the back of the hand some part of the car in my attempts to fix the car.

In the end I gave up on my attempt at car repair. It was breaking the 3/8 to quarter inch adapter that finally did me in. You may remember the 6+2(3) inch adapter that was going to allow me access to the bolts on the exhaust pipe that I couldn't reach, and here too was the demise of the 3/8 to quarter inch adapter. It was a borrowed tool, but it's Craftsman, so it's replaceable.

I did in fact take the car to a shop and have it fixed for a sum more than I'd intended but less than that which I could have paid. I did bring my own oil pan and gasket, so that was money saved, and they found the bottle of oil I had (just in case) and added that in with what they put in.

And I'm ever so happy to have my car back. This feeling of my car is still somewhat new. Momma has had her own car for a short time, and then suddenly my car was leaking entirely too much oil, and as it sat parked for much of the time, not to mention on jackstands two different times, I've driven Momma's car a good bit, and we've had to continue the running each other to and from work that having two cars would have, and will, fix. So I'm back to having a car that is all my own.

I don't have to adjust the seat or the mirror suddenly. They're always right where I left them. It's nice not hitting my knee as I get in and realize the seat is too close to the steering wheel. I may even spill less coffee this way.

I just got a phone call from Momma. She believes my phone is not accepting texts from, claims that she's texted me four times. I don't have any new texts from her, and her phone is the one that's sadly and slowly (or not so slowly) dying. I don't know what to say to that.

And the US MNT beat Trinidad and Tobago in Nashville tonight with Jozey Altidore scoring all the goals in a 3-0 match.

frustrated update

In addition to the cross member that I finally did have to move I'm now faced with more parts removal to access the part that I actually need to remove and replace.

The little bit of exhaust pipe that runs under the oil pan must also come out. I was fairly certain I'd be able to work around it, but such is not the case.

Did I mention my growing frustration with this repair? I'm certain I may have at some point.

I'm about to leave the house to visit a friend. I'm going to borrow two three inch socket extensions to add to my new six inch and hope that I actually get twelve inches that will allow me to remove three bolts out of eight that I need to pull to get the exhaust pipe out of the way.

Also, it's raining again, and I can see out the window the small pile of cat litter that is supposed to be soaking up the oil in the driveway. Did I mention having accidentally stepped in it earlier? The rain is turning it into an especially delightful and disgusting mud.

laid out flat

The front end of my poor car is off the ground yet again. The job is slightly harder than I'd hoped and involves moving a support arm that I'd hoped to be able to work around. The socket extension that I borrowed from Momma's boyfriend was already on its way to broken, and I finished breaking it before I finished needing it. Rather than finish the job yesterday I finished that part of my day with a trip to Sears. Momma's boyfriend and I now own our very own six inch, 3/8 inch socket extension.

I'm off work today and should have the entire day to finish fixing my car. Today it's raining just enough to keep the ground wet and keep me out from under the car.

That's only one thing that's messing with my head today. The frustration that completing this one simple car repair task has become is starting to get to me. My weekend that I could have worked on this car was spent driving to, attending and returning from a roller derby bout in Cincinnati. It was a trip we'd planned, and I don't at all regret going, but sitting here now, frustrated about my car, it just seems like time added to the time I've not fixed the car.

There are other issues dancing around inside my head, things I won't go into just now. And it isn't that these other things are so big or are new or . . . It's just a dogpile of irritation and frustration, and I'm not doing the greatest job of fixing any of my issues. I keep finding myself in the moment frustrated and exasperated and feeling somewhat helpless that this moment there is nothing I can do.

Dr. Seuss called it the waiting place. I'm sure it's come up here before.

Bleah! This isn't the post I wanted to write today, and I actually did have some things I was thinking. If the rain continues to keep me from lying on my back on the asphalt under a few hundred pounds of Honda then maybe I can get to it.

I've also agreed to write a bout recap from Cincinnati, so I need to get to that before the day is over. I've tended to have a bad habit of putting those off in the past, and I find my recaps are better the sooner following the bout I write them. And The Boy has just informed me that he's hungry. My answer of "good for you" won't really help him get anything to eat, so I suppose that's my cue.

oil slicks

So, did I tell you about my car? It's been leaking a god awful amount of oil for too long, and I finally had the time and weather to prop the bitch up and look underneath.

I really hoped it would be the gasket on the oil pan, and I did get a new gasket as well as plenty of new oil and a filter. It's a bit past oil change time, so we'll do them all together.

The car sits on jack stands in the back driveway, a drain pan beneath the dripping. We have a long and obnoxious oil slick running down the driveway because I never thought to kick a pan under the car when it was parked. I did think of it yesterday, but that's several days and most of a dollar short.

Whether or not the gasket is good is of no consequence at this point. I crawled under the car and soon realized the real problem. Somehow or other the oil pan is cracked. I hate even admitting it, but either Momma or I has had an accident that went unmentioned. It obviously didn't have to have been much, and I could guess it might have been something that didn't seem, at the time, to have been so bad.

It doesn't really matter how or by whom, so I won't dwell on it. I also won't dwell on ninety bucks for a new oil pan. I called a couple of places and checked a couple places online. In the end it's Eddie's up the road a bit. They've got a hill full of old cars to pick from and can find me a used one.

The boys and I, in Momma's car (thanks Momma!) took a drive north today. The place sort of sneaks up on you as things can do on this highway. The road runs over and around and through a series of ridges, so it's quite easy for something to be sitting out in the valley below you or hidden behind a wide curve.

I talked to the nice lady and confirmed my need for an oil pan with a cash deposit. Our recent rain is making their job harder as they drive the tractor to find the car from which to pull the part, so I'm expecting a call tomorrow that my oil pan is ready for me to come pick up. With any luck it will be early enough in the day that I can fix my car in time for work.

And that's the story up to this point. I do so hope that the repair doesn't bring to light any further destruction or needs. I want this (and the brake light) to be the last thing I have to fix for a while. I also put two tires on it this week, the day that I went for my oil change supplies, so for the moment, I'm about car repaired out.

looked at

I went to look at a house yesterday. I liked it, but the person with whom I've agreed to be a roommate has not yet seen it. I should think she'd like it, but I can't know that without her seeing it and agreeing.

The house is a good deal and in a location I love. I'll admit that it puts me in easy walking distance of two bars I tend to frequent occasionally, but it's even less of a walk to a playground and small park.

I know and am friends with the person renting the upstairs of this house, and that proximity to this person and people around her would be good for me.

The house itself is beautiful, over a hundred years old, full of wood and mantels and huge doors and a claw foot bathtub.

I'm pretty sure I could move in almost immediately. I met the owner yesterday, and he and I seemed to get along well enough, the forty year age difference not seeming to play any part at all. We ended up wasting the better part of an hour wandering through the house more times than we needed to, commenting on the beauty in the architectural features, admiring his work in hanging blinds and working around the more than a century gap between those windows and modern windows, and they don't make curtains that long anymore.

Not rushing into a deal of course sounds like a good idea, but I want to give the proper amount of credence it deserves, no more and no less. Because I really want this space, but I don't want to be an idiot about it. Am I overlooking cons in favor of the pros? Am I intentionally ignoring anything I know should be a deal breaker? I really don't think so.

So the problem is aligning potential landlord with potential roommate. I only know what she tells me, and I'm not sure how antsy she is to move compared with how antsy she claims. I know she just moved into a place and has no lease and wants to get back closer to town rather than being in some other county that I couldn't place though I am familiar with its existence.

And that's where I am as of right now. I can't stop thinking about this house, and I really want to move, like now. I feel sometimes as if I've put this off much too long, but I also fear the next big cut, the moving out, the total separation that comes with actually starting life not somewhat attached to this woman I've . . . actually, I don't know that this is the post for that conversation. Yes, there's still a weirdness attached to this whole thing. I guess it's just one of those situations where a good thing sort of feels like a bad thing in the here and now.

things I don't do

Nothing much happened this past week, or so it seems, but then quite a bit happened as well. Momma got a car, and I finally looked at a place to live other than the one I am now in. I didn't hang out outside the square very much other than the night I went to the bar that has all too often proved unsafe for me, and I didn't dance.

As we all should know by now, I don't dance. I accept that there is a point I could find at which I may feel okay about dancing, but as the social function it is on a packed dance floor with too loud music that I don't actually like is a recipe for too much for me.

Other people do not have any issue with dancing, and for them I can accept that it's none of the ways I think about it. It isn't an unpleasant place for them but is in fact an enjoyable portion of their evening out.

Too often though people don't get or just won't accept that I don't dance. They want me to, and they tell me all the good things that will come of dancing. I was even offered the chance to meet all of a particular friend's "gay boys" if I would just come with her. To make matters worse for me was that this group of people were at the farthest point in the dancing throng that one could get. I really wasn't wading through that to get to them.

I suppose I sort of do wonder if getting over it and dancing might not be good for me, but I also hate that I should have to. I don't get why anyone would act as though they need me to dance. I don't need their presence next to me to sit at the bar and drink beer and talk to people.

And sitting here thinking about it, what I most prefer is moving around, running into people I know, just hanging out. So, next time we hang out, remember that. I don't dance, but don't I don't care if you do. Go! Have fun.

Oh, and you aren't yet getting the story just now about this particular bar at which I seem never to have a good time. I've collected a couple of stories about this place from other people. Some are similar to mine while others are just messed up in relation to mine and those like it.

So, yeah, mysterious foreshadowing what?

motorcycles

First I should point out that I haven't ridden a lot of motorcycles over the course of my short life. I never had access to them in general. There was a family with whom my family were friends, and we visited them often over the years that we knew them. They had daughters the age of two of my older brothers and a son around the age of me and my next youngest brother. This kid did have a motorcycle or two, and a couple of times he actually took me riding.

Years later my next older brother bought a giant beast of a Honda Gold Wing, a bike I would never in my life imagine wanting to actually have. I have a whole other style when it comes to bikes, and it's a style that I never really allowed myself to think about till very recently.

I'm now going to make a connection that may seem a bit of a stretch, but in my mind it's sort of part of something similar. Do I start now with the disclaimer? I'm not into the gay fetishism of bikes and leather and the sort of things that go with that, but my interest in motorcycles is something that I feel I closeted like my being gay. It's something that I knew was there, but for whatever reasons I never allowed myself to consider.

It's always been there. I've always had to notice bikes wherever they are in relation to me. Even when they aren't the style or type that I would prefer I look and watch as long as I can see them. Even when it's a huge cruiser holding a pair of retirees who opted for the training wheels package I stop and look.

And now they're everywhere, now that I've allowed myself to accept that, somewhere deep inside me, there's a kid who never got a motorcycle but always wanted one. It reminds me of coming out, when I finally admitted and accepted that I like boys and not girls, boys were everywhere. It doesn't hurt that spring is trying to peep its first blossoms of warmth into the blue east Tennessee skies, because this town is a bike town, and they are everywhere.

If you want to see the sort of bike that forms a bulge in my pants then click HERE. It's an old Triumph and is so beautiful. I want one.

So, with some patience and hopefully some common sense, I'm going to get some more important things out of the way, things like finding a place to live and getting back to paying off the school loans, but there's a bug that's bitten me and an itch I'm going to have to scratch. I'm sticking some money in tiny increments somewhere no one but me will find it. I'm going to start looking for something probably oldish and beat up a little bit. I'm going to figure this thing out and make it happen.

new phone

At some point in the past I'm sure I bitched about my phone. It was dying a slow death. Now it lies forlorn and abandoned. I got a new phone.

I love texting, not in the way that a teenage girl does, but in the way that I hate making phone calls but often want to let people have access to a particular thought process that involves them.

This is technically the third phone I've had, though the first was technically a work phone. After some people misused their phones they were quickly taken away. My next phone was a few years later, and as of mother's day that phone will be four years old.

All of this to say that I'm on my third phone, though considering the work phone wasn't my primary phone, it could also be seen as only my second.

I took care of the Razr for the years I've had it. I never really used it that much in the beginning, but lately it's seen more and more use. It really has been time to replace it, so I finally did.

I think I got a decent deal, and considering the phones AT&T had to offer, it was the exact one I wanted. Sure there are fancier phones, but this one is a pretty green and has a qwerty keyboard, and the camera seems to take good pictures, and the actual phone works better than the old phone, or at least I think it does. Maybe I'm still high from new/pretty/fancy phone vapors.

So while the Blackberrys are neat and cool looking, and the iPhone is like, an iPhone duh, I like my Samsung. As mentioned it's pretty, and I actually enjoy getting to type out my little messages. I'm anal retentive about not using u when I mean you, and the t9 shit isn't going to do it for me. It's too much. I don't like it.

But my new phone? I love it, though not quite as much as a baby loves it when you push their knees toward their chest and help them get that fart out.

upgrade

My phone is a piece of shit. Actually, my phone is just getting old, though it seems there was a time when nearly four years wasn't such a long time to have a phone.

But it does feel to me as if I'm carrying around a piece of shit phone because of the issues it has developed fairly recently.

Roughly twice a day I have to turn the phone off, open the back and move the sim card around a tiny little bit. I realized within the past week that I have to use it on speaker phone to actually hear all of the conversation I'm attempting to have when attempting to have a conversation. There is a piece in the hinge that gets loose and can actually fall out sometimes. When closed the two halves are a bit wobbly. The back, beneath which is the battery and sim card, fits but could easily be pulled of if it were to snag on something.

So, very soon, I'm going to the dreaded mall to the AT&T store. I thought about ordering a phone online, but Momma suggested checking out the different phones to make sure I like the one I've planned on ordering. That makes sense, and I can probably also get the phone then and there and not have to wait.

Now I just need a pair of children to finish brushing their teeth. I can hear them playing in the bathroom, so I'm guessing I need to stomp back there and yell and waggle my finger at them.

Party on, Garth.

planetary alignment time

At some point in the past I'm sure that I mentioned Bob Brezny's horoscope, and I'm sure at the same time I included my own disclaimer. I do not believe in astrology any more than I believe in myths and/or superstition and/or interstellar entities.

I don't have any issues with Bob Brezny's Free Will Astrology though, and I rather enjoy it each week in my local alternative newsweekly. He doesn't quite give it the usual approach where random alignments of certain planets or certain alignments of random planets and stars approaching their zeniths in particular juxtaposition with other heavenly bodies dictates who and what and where in regards to the choices you are bound to either make by making or make by not deciding otherwise.

Having said all of that he has once again presented a list of options that seem to hone in on something awfully close to something akin to what I'm sort of letting my mind dance along the periphery of.

I'll give you that the preceding several paragraphs are as hard to read as they are hard to make sense of, but give me my verbosity and I'll give you the following snippet from my most recent Free Will Astrology horoscope. In it I as a Virgo am asked:

Would you rather have love:
1. knock the wind out of one of your illusions, thereby exposing the truth about what you really want;
2. not exactly kick you in the butt, but more like pinch and spank you there, inspiring you to revise your ideas about what it means to be close to someone;
3. spin you around in dizzying yet oddly pleasurable circles, shaking up your notions about how to keep intimacy both interestingly unpredictable and soothingly stable.

And it is timely because I am at and have been at a place where ideas of love weigh heavy on my mind.I'm ruling out number two on the grounds that pinching and spanking aren't really the sort of things I'm into. You're quite welcome to enjoy yourself as you see fit, but I don't have to want to do it.

Numbers one and three however both contain at least some amount of making me think. But I'd have to be able to give you some idea of what I even think about love in the first place.

1. I honestly couldn't tell you what I want right now. What I want right now can so easily change depending on when exactly right now is and where I am given when right now is. Sometimes I'm content to be alone, to have and do and be what I want. Sometimes I just want a strong pair of arms around me. Sometimes I want a partner in crime, a yen to my yank.

For me this also brings up questions of type. I'm learning that, while I have some amount of a type of guy that I think is hot, I'm in no way bound or hindered by this, and I'd barely even call it a preference. I think I'm good at letting each guy have as much chance as he deserves based more on how I feel upon meeting them versus how they appear physically.

Basically I feel that I have at least a tenable grasp on the ideas of expectations and desires and wish fulfillment.

3. I can't help but feel most people sort of want to be spun around and dizzied by love. I do want something not entirely predictable and yet soothing in the knowledge that I'm with someone willing to work through shit and be understanding. I like the idea of waking up with someone familiar yet who makes you shiver a bit in a good way when you see him.

That seems sadly naive and juvenile, that expectation or even just desire for some Disneyfied existence, as if I'm waiting for a charming prince, though I have to admit part of me dearly wants a charming prince as much as I want to be the charming prince.

Oh the travails of being a modern gay boy in the big (smallish) city.

deuces? we hope not

Within minutes I may well find myself wiping someone's butt. I've been happy the past couple of years not having to wipe a butt that was not attached to me, and I suppose, considering the child in question, that having to wipe a butt won't really be a big deal.

Today started, for me, about eight this morning. I loathe such early mornings as a general rule, but one does what one must.

I got a text yesterday from a very good friend who needed to accompany her mother to the doctor, and she also needed a babysitter for a few hours. I of course was more than happy to help out as I love this family and am always willing to help.

So, for the first half of my day, there are three little boys running around my house instead of the usual two. That's one extra pair of hands hauling out toys after having not picked up the last batch of toys they pulled out.

And, as it turns out, I've currently dodged the butt wiping bullet. Apparently it was a numero uno rather than a deuce. I'm honestly happy to put that one off for a bit, though I'd wager a little something that it's going to happen before the day is too old.

clearly cold yet sunny as all heck

Today is beautifully sunny if quite cold. I should be making plans, should be getting out of the house.

I'm feeling lazy though, as usual, and I just don't know that I feel like doing much. I do actually kind of feel like doing something, but what that is I can't quite pinpoint.

I shouldn't point out, because you don't really want to know, that the hemorrhoid isn't helping me want to do anything. I'm sure the sitting at the computer that I'm so good at isn't helping either, but that's what I'm going to do right now. Plus if I stop sitting here then I can't finish this post.

And the sad part about the post is that I honestly have nothing to say. I have no valuable insight into anything right now. I have no deep thoughts to offer, no pertinent or key facts about the matter.

I do have an overwhelming desire to lay back down and go to sleep. I was in bed by three-ish last night (this morning) only to wake around the nine o'clock hour in order to get Momma to work. I still haven't told you about her new job, and I'm certain I will.

And that's the start of my day in blog post form. It all equals a big fat nothing going on, but that's okay. I think maybe I'll just get back on Facebook and stalk the cute boy I just became Fb friends with.

on not bothering

Lately, almost like a form of depression, I've been in a slump of just not bothering. The house is a mess and the recyclables pile grows ever larger. I know I need to cook or fix lunch, and I do make sure the boys are fed healthy food, but I do it in a way that requires the absolute least bit of bothering on my part.

My showering habits are also included in the not bothering. I generally sleep on the sofa and end up just dumping my pockets and yanking the belt before I tumble under my quilt still mostly fully clothed. I awake the next day in dirty clothes only to switch out shirts at work time.

I got off work a little before ten Saturday night and had the whole evening free. I did take a shower then but am now, Monday afternoon, still wearing the then clean clothes I put on to go out. Of course those then clean clothes are a pair of jeans and a Lucero tshirt, so I'm basically wearing my daily uniform, and I'll probably just continue wearing the same thing to work when I leave in the next twenty minutes.

It is a slump, and it is probably more depression than merely like, but I really am not mentally in such a bad place. I'm thinking more and more as I ponder this new not bothering that it's likely a combination of timing and placement. I am not where I need to be and don't feel currently able to move to where I need to be. It's a lose lose situation where I'm subconciously not moving anywhere at all, even if it's just so simple as bothering to do small things because I'm not able to do the big thing.

No, it isn't healthy, and no, it isn't making me happy. I don't like the slump, but unslumping oneself, as we may have covered (and Dr. Seuss certainly told us) is never easy or fun.

I'm not generally given to self loathing, though its minor cousin low self esteem is certainly playing a part. It really just adds to the swirling ingredients that are making it so much easier to not bother.

And I grow weary of this. I need to bother. Hell, I even want to bother. I want to find joy in cooking again. I want to realize how easy cleaning these multitude if tiny messes truly is. I like being clean even, though honestly, the winter weather and my dry skin generally gang up on me this time of year and make showering both unpleasant and hard to want to deal with, but still, while I'm not currently exactly dirty, I will be soon enough, and I will need to want to bother.

But then I settle back into the waiting place, and bothering becomes such a bother. I couldn't tell you what I'm waiting for, but it certainly feels like waiting, as if some sudden something will finally happen and life will once more turn rosy and/or peachy.

Maybe if I just wait long enough . . .

not really worse

I should really go to bed earlier pretty much every night. I'm yawning and sleepy and want to lay back down for just a little bit, but I know better. I know there's no just a little bit, that I'll sleep for another two hours and wake annoyed and disgruntled.

There is way too much shit in my head lately, and by lately I mean as usual. There is too much that I just don't want to think about, too much that I feel I can't control.

There are things I know I should be doing differently, but I don't change anything. There are things I know I should do that I'm not doing, but I don't do anything differently.

At some point everything seems to piss me off. And at some point everyone that I know seems to get tired of me and then disappear.

Only half of what I've said is true, and the other half I've probably blown out of proportion. But it all comes back to the same kind of thing and me wanting to go back to bed. I know the just a little bit will turn into a couple of hours, but right now I just want to be asleep.

still full

Tonight's supper was sort of a curry. I say sort of because it was more just me throwing some things into a pot with some coconut milk and green curry paste. I suppose that makes it enough of a curry, but . . .

We had some bell peppers and cilantro and a couple of other things I could have used for something, and Momma, needing to get ready for derby practice, suggested a stir fry.

I didn't actually feel like cooking at the time. I've got some weirdness from last night on my mind, and that's been pushing other stuff to the back of my mind. As it turns out, cooking was a great way to think about something else for a bit.

The grocery store had one last remaining package of pork loins that had been marked down to about half price to which I added a couple of banana peppers, sugar snap peas and some young white potatoes. I don't know how authentic potatoes in curry are, but the place Momma now works does it, and they should know. And remind me to tell you about Momma's new job soon. I don't know if I've mentioned it yet, but now isn't the time for that.

Finally, from the store was the can of coconut milk. We already had the curry paste because we are such wonderful cooks and keep such a well stocked pantry. Actually that last part is only slightly true, but we do have lots of stuff, though that really only makes us so cool. The rest is just us.

I enjoyed it, peppers, pork, potatoes and the beans, simple enough to throw together and tasty enough that Big Brother and I both had seconds. The Boy? Yeah, he ate leftover frozen pizza and a burrito, also leftover. That's how he rolls. Momma, soon after she returns from practice, will likely enjoy her share.

not especially new jams

First of all I'm going to thank Grumbles for turning me onto this band. Grumbles is not his real name, but it is a nickname I gave him in my own mind because it's the name I came up with one day, probably after mimicking his often impossible to decipher voice.

Grumbles (full version Grumbles the Bear) is a decent guy with whom I worked for a short time at the gpub. He's a tattooed punk sort of guy who likes to fight, but he's such a decent guy and loved to call me Rainbow Bright. Believe me when I say that if Rainbow Bright is the best you can come up with when thinking of something gay to call me then I'm so not insulted, but I do empathize with the lack of gray matter, and besides, Grumbles is just a decent enough guy.

And now on to The Swellers and the video I posted. I would actually rather have found a different song, though I do like this one, but I really only picked this one because all the other videos I ran across for other songs had fairly high suck factors, being mostly live shit from someone's digital still camera. If you want to hear that then go search for yourself, but I offer you this video, Bottles, a song as lovely as any with a video that's a least fun to watch. You could also just go to their Myspace and listen too. That's probably easier.

more nothing than not

One more week has slowly slinked past and nearly away. I can't say that I did anything especially productive, didn't move myself to any better sort of place, no enlightenment or zen. I did walk around a number of messes in the floor, and I have made several pizzas and a few dollars. I've likely drank my weight in PBR and High Life.

I don't remember when I last posted, but I do remember having some grand ideas about what was coming, that I was going to get back to being a better blogger. I can say that this isn't something I did so much as very much consider.

I really need to pay off a couple of bills that are collecting dust, but I also need to sit down with Momma and discuss those bills because she's been in the one in charge of knowing what was happening with them for so long that I'm almost scared by the stack of them.

I also need a new phone. Mine is a nearly four year old Razr that was great once upon a time, but time has taken it's toll, and it's slowly dying the way only a phone can. At least twice a day I have to turn it off and wiggle the sim card about ever so slightly. One of the pieces in the hinge is quite willing to slowly work its way out if I talk on the phone for more than a few seconds. My voice mail has turned itself off at some point. I remember setting it up, and I remember getting messages, but now I have people complaining that the voice mail box isn't set up, so they couldn't leave me a message that time I didn't hear the phone ring or couldn't get to it quickly enough.

I won't be making this entire post about my inability to post or about my sad little phone. I've obviously now made it about both of those things, and I'm quite content to let it be. I also need to mosey down the hall to a certain room where I can go and find a certain relief, but we don't really need to go into the details of me having to go number two for the second time today, but since the need is there to actually go, I will leave you scratching your heads and wondering why I even bother posting sometimes.

But at least now you know. Also, I won't be editing, so comment and make fun of my misspellings and poor word choice. You know you want to.

unsure

I'm not sure exactly when it happened. I've been slowly spending more of my going out time at a gay bar. It's the one closest to where I live, and I generally like the place. It has a great neighborhood bar feel about it most of the time with the usual weekend drag shows and the crazy but lovable mc whose songs I have to admit I prefer to those of the regular drag queens.

I have nothing against drag, but it's part of gay culture that I both understand yet still don't quite care about. It just isn't really my thing but in an okay way.

As I've slowly begun to become a regular at this place I'm starting to feel both more and less comfortable. When you are a stranger and the new guy the other guys can be a little put off by you. That I once went in and had a drink with a friend who is also friends with one of the bartenders seems to have helped. This particular bartender has remembered me and even my beer of choice for the past several visits.

In addition, some of the other regulars seem to have grown more comfortable and have begun to talk to me more. This has been helped at least a little by an encounter with another regular who is not much liked by most of the staff and other regulars. I know what he did to get my defenses up, though it was mostly a benign incident, but I'm really not sure why the others seem to dislike him so. I do take it as somewhat of a warning that so many people have issues, but I'd also like to think I can think for myself.

The day before Valentine's day I ended up at the bar fairly late at night. A couple of people made attempts at talking to me, and one of them I have been friendly to in the past. Another was the weird guy from above while another was a nice enough person for whom I have no interest. Another guy bought me a beer, but he wasn't the least bit talkative and not even a little attractive to me.

Here's a nice time for a brief tangent. When I was in the closet the last few years I was so thoroughly in and in denial that I refused to even consider anything that might bring the gay out. I didn't look at or check out guys, I didn't consider them in a way that might help me discern what my type was or even if I had a type. As I'm now out and thinking about these things and noticing guys I find attractive I'm coming to understand that I do sort of have a type, but I don't allow myself to work solely within the constraints of that.

Having said all that, the last guy I talked to on the eve of that horrid holiday is a guy I've talked to a few times since. We've sort of talked on the phone and texted several times. We've hung out quite a bit, and I've hurried home from his house in the morning in time to get Momma somewhere she needed to go.

And making the tangent less of one, I think about this guy and types. I kind of like him, but there are weirdnesses that aren't bad so much as things that make me think. He isn't a guy that I would initially consider my type, but there are things that attract me to him, and we've enjoyed the time we've spent together. My plan is to take things slowly and make sense of things as opposed to the way the cute ex and I rushed headfirst into whatever it was we had.

Oh, and he's slightly older than me, somewhere in the vicinity of three years. It's a big break from the twelve years between me and the cute ex, who was younger. As far as the ages go I imagine mostly I'll feel closer in age, but then one considers the difference in the amount of time we've been out, and that tends to make me feel so much younger. I'm actually happy to have a moment (or more. Who knows?) with a guy closer to my age, though life seems lately to throw me into friendships with people younger. I realize how little this actually matters, but it's still something to think about if nothing else.

And I still have posts in my head. I actually have a couple of other things to write about. I nearly threw everything into a big catch all of an update, but I quickly realized how tiresome that is. Actually it's tiresome for me. I throw all sorts of shit into one post and use up too much blog fodder. Then I don't write for a few too many days and don't give myself this outlet for further thought and consideration of the things in my head and life.

So I'm done with this for now. I'm also getting texts from a certain cute man, and at the moment I'd rather give him my attention rather than this blog. Of course there are also the kids. They need a good hollering at probably.

stinky me

There's some sort of theme running through my days that seems to involve me needing a shower but not always getting to it. I know I need to do it, and I want to be clean. My hair is all kinds of hell and grossness.

Yesterday I fucked around on the computer for too long and just ate away my time. Today I've gotten our taxes done (I hope) and efiled (I hope) and am now waiting twenty four hours to see if the IRS accepts them.

You may remember Momma's name issue that we've had around this same time every year. The Social Security Administration and the IRS always decide at the last minute to give us hell about their inability to have understood what she was saying when we got married and she changed her name. Last year was the year that someone at the SSA finally explained the problem, and as far as we know it's been fixed.

We should be getting just enough money to catch up on our bills, and if we are really lucky and have been good boys and girls maybe there's tattoo money in there as well.

Remember last time we talked when I was stretching my ear? Yeah, well I went too far too fast and ended up tearing the inside of my ear hole a little. I had to back off and go back to my most recent size. Hopefully Sunday will be a lazy day and will see me being patient-ish with the other ear. I'll get these bastards fixed eventually.

Is this update enough for you? I still need that shower, and I'm one cigarette and about a third of a cup of coffee from getting in there. I can't wait to be clean, to scrub the stench of work off myself in time to go back to work and get more of that stench back on me.

And it hasn't been a week or more since my last post. See? Maybe we can do something with this after all.

? to zero in hours

I hate everything I write lately.

It's not that there aren't drafts sitting around waiting to be deleted, because there are. But that's the sad fact of it that they really are going to be deleted.

What did I used to write about? What were those things that made me laugh or steam or just gaze into space and wonder?

My day? I went to the mall. I thought Momma and I were going to figure out something about our phones which we both need new ones of. It turned into her staring lovingly at the iphone. Then on our way out, I wanted to stop at the punk/goth/cavern like store at the mall. I know that their body jewelry is cheap and momentarily effective, so I wanted to stop there anyway, but then I saw the thing in the front window with the tshirts about the thing that Momma's boyfriend loves, and she mentioned earlier that his birthday is soon. What better gift for him, and I get to look at the next size up ear somethings for my ears.

And on rereading/editing I feel the need to point out that I didn't get Momma's boyfriend a gift. I merely pointed her in the direction so that she could please her man. And then she went and had to look at every single tshirt in the half off section in the back, and suddenly the boys see candy and want some.

Either way I got some decent looking tunnels for the ol' ears, and by the time I go to bed tonight, one of mine will be up to a zero gauge. I'll be uneven in that respect for a short time, but by the end of the week I'll have both ears up to zero.

That's really not even that big, for what it's worth, but it's big for me. This is one of those random things I wanted to do years ago, one of those things I put on hold for whatever reason. And I can't even tell you one good reason to stretch my ears other than I want to. I like it. I know better on several levels, especialy at my age. It doesn't make sense.

I'm actually spending the night jumping a couple of sizes. It's a bit more work than I was expecting, assuming my ears were more ready to stretch than maybe they thought, but the job is nearly done. The taper is slowly finding it's way through.

I'm sure that's enough story for tonight. I'm tired of backspacing over words to get to the misspell, so I need to stop typing. I'll let you all know how things turn out.

white

I burned myself at work tonight. That in itself is not surprising. It's the nature of the beast that this job is.

No, the thing about this particular burn is that it turned white, like a frozen kind of dead white.

I was making a shrimp alfredo and accidentally tossed one of the shrimp out of my pan. I went to grab it with tongs and managed somehow to touch a tiny part of my thumb, maybe a half inch long place near the base of my thumb, against one of the pointy parts that are the part of the eye of the stove that holds the pan above the flame.

I actually thought about googling gas burners and/or eyes or whatever it took to figure out what the pointy parts are actually called, but I did in fact not do that. I chose not to. Anyone reading here is welcome to tell me the name of the pointy part, but I can't guarantee any sort of prize.

And the point isn't prizes but that the burn turned white. It did not blister as I'm used to burns doing, though now, a few hours later, it has finally turned into a blister. But at the moment it happened, and then for the next couple of hours, it was just this weird looking white, almost like that bit of frostbite on a ruined steak you just found in the refrigerator.

That's my story for the night. It's at least a little interesting to me, and I know that the people to whom I told about and showed the burn exhibited signs of being mostly nonplussed. I can only imagine how moved you are right now.

oh really

Though I'm sure no one noticed, I haven't been online in a couple of days. Momma and I got a little behind with paying Comcast, so they took our internets away. Momma placed a call, and the nice man gave us the web so she could give him some money, and now we are back.

And what did I miss? Did anything exciting happen? So far I haven't checked any of the blogs I read, and I haven't actually signed into my google reader at all yet. I checked my email then went straight to Facebook and then Myspace.

I had two friend requests at Facebook, my father and a lesbian friend. I know that's no big deal, but it's funny to me sort of. Facebook was going to be the secret family place where I didn't tell anyone about the gay. I broke that rule today.

One of my brothers set his status to say he was listening to Abba by choice. The first comment he got in answer was a simple Q to which he replied with the word secure. I of course added a Q? to which he replied that his friend had called him queer.

Of course I knew that the Q was a suggestion that my brother's sexuality should be called into question because he was listening to Abba, but I did have to point out that I am both queer and secure and don't listen to Abba. As I mentioned to him, to me, being called queer is kind of like mentioning that I wear black shirts, though in reality I choose my shirt on a daily basis. The only choice I made in regards to my sexual orientation would be acknowledging and accepting it.

Yes, that is a bit much considering someone I don't even know who is a friend of my brother put a Q in answer to his Facebook status, but where's the fun in life when you don't challenge people once in a while.

And finally, the whole point of it all is that I've finally admitted on Facebook, if in a tiny and barely noticeable way, that I'm gay. I wasn't going to do that when I first got on Facebook, but more and more I'm tired of not being honest about it. I don't like for people to not know, because it's so much easier to just let people know that I'm gay so that I don't have to feel like I'm avoiding the issue.

The moral I suppose is that people are still going to use words descriptive of homosexuality as insults, but when I see it I'm going to call you on it. And you don't even have to be gay to play along. All you have to do is let them know that you have a brother or sister or son or parent or friend who is gay, and then you can ask them what negative thing they are suggesting about being gay they think applies to the person you care about who is also gay.

Wow, I turned a blog post that began as an update into a sermon. I guess that's what happens when you turn all uppity fag on people.

frikkin tired

I ran my ass off today trying to keep up with the vultures at the bar scarfing down the free pizza. The weather brought everyone out to the square, and the happy hour was hopping.

I made the big batch, the seven pounds of flour batch, of dough, as that's the most our shite mixer will handle, and it's the amount I was told was a good number of pizzas to make. For what it's worth, we get eighteen doughs out of that size batch.

My day started well enough. I got the dough made and portioned and went to the bar to set up the pizza stand and get my cheese and produce. I went back to the pizza cube (that's what the regular guy calls the place we make the free pizzas) and chopped my veggies and set up my station to make the pizzas.

I do them two at a time, and I can usually almost keep up with the demand. Today I could not even pretend to keep up. I was slapping out pizzas and fast walking them to the bar, and not until I took the last two pizzas did I get there fast enough so that the previous two were not completely gone.

I did make a buck forty five in tips though, so it wasn't all worthless time. Of course the vultures could have dipped into their tight little pockets a tiny bit more than they did, but why bother being grateful for free pizza?

Fucking vultures, ravenous wolves, drunken bastards or whatever they are. Ingrates I calls 'em.

Actually, I may call the customers all those things, but it's a fucking job, and it beats the shit out of so many things I could be doing. But fucking tip the pizza bitch once in a while already. Shit, do they expect me to drink on my own dime?

sometimes shouldn't even look

Why do we do things we know are not good for us? I'm not talking about those activities such as drinking too much or smoking. I'm talking about those things that we know are just going to bring us down but aren't especially unhealthy.

My example, and the reason for this post involves the damned Myspace and a picture I could tell I didn't want to see.

Okay, a little history is in order. In early November of last year I was in what I thought were the early days of a beautiful relationship. Everything was great if perhaps a little quick. I had a delightful boyfriend who really seemed to like me, and I was slowly (quickly) falling in love.

November came, and Momma threw a birthday party for a friend on a Monday night. The weekend prior was spent without the boyfriend as he'd decided we needed to "do our own thing" for a couple of days.

I feel I've pieced together what really happened and have decided that he met another guy and wanted to go be with him. He called me the night of the party, the night he was supposed to be back in town to meet and hang out with me. He was stuck out of town and would see me as soon as he could.

Another day or so passes, and he's finally back in town and asks for a ride from work. I pick him up, thinking the best thoughts, happy to see him. He draws away from me when I try to hug and kiss him, and I start to realize something may not be quite right.

We need to talk, so we go outside where we can smoke, and he tells me the first story about why we can't be together. Sometime later, after he leaves, we talk again, and after some prodding he tells me a different story. A very few days later his status on Myspace has changed from "in a relationship" to "single" and then suddenly back to "in a relationship," and there are new pictures of him and another guy.

So the story I piece together is that I've been dumped for this other guy, and here's where the slightly unhealthy part comes in. I see tonight that he's got a new picture up, and I go to his photos to look at it, and it's actually a very sweet picture of him and the new guy. But instead of seeing sweet I see a place I can't ever be again, shoulders on which my head will never rest, arms that will never embrace me again the way they once did.

I was actually almost in a good mood before that. I've been fighting the depression most of the night, and I was even almost ready for bed. It doesn't take much to throw me off the rails lately, and now I'm almost afraid to go to bed.

I'm tired, but I don't want to lie awake yet again reliving what should have been, thinking about what was, picturing what is. I really need sleep, and I want to go to sleep, but I know myself too well.