post halloween party

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

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

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

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

busted ass

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

I am not a hipster

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

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

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

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

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

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

contact

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

p.s. no we didn't do it

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

in the pines

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

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

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

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

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

Leadbelly did a great bluesy version of the song.

Who can argue with Dolly Parton?

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

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

alls I'm gonna say

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

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

takin the fam to the show-thanks Momma!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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


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

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

it's not a can of veg

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

hadn't seen that one yet

The culprit: our fairly small long hair chihuahua

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

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

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

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

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

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

smacks head with palm

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

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

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

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

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

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

breaking up? not so hard to do apparently

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Dear commenting brother

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

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

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

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

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

Regards,
your infinitely cooler and much, much younger brother

thirty is NOT thirty something

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

not the pastry

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

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

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

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

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

how to go about it

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

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

I can think of two right now.

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

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

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

nada, really

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

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

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

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

hate at first sight

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

gays in sports?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

just like that

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

quibbling with my head

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

quickly now

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

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

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

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

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

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

begulba

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

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

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

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

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

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

updatey

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Yeah . . .

no

unconnect

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

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

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

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

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

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

backing down

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

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

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

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

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

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

Damn I'm ready for my next tattoo!

dollar a pop

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

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

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

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

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

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

Frankencar

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

imagine I'm doing this in a dress

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

art shit somebody did

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

begin the dig

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

an answer to my last post

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Quit fucking with my head.

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

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

FUCK!!!

an attempt

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

shaggy white heads
the clover blooms throughout
the green grass lawn

quandary

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

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

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

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

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

I'm leaning toward the trip.

three shades

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

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

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

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

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

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

dudes and chicks

Any of my couple of readers that are friends with me on Facebook may have seen my profile lately and may have noticed a couple of quizzes that I took recently. They were both asking me how much I knew about men and women, two quizzes, one for each gender.

Do I have to preface the whole rest of what I'm saying by pointing out that I honestly do in fact know better than to rely in any way, shape or form with the results of a quiz at a social networking site? Do you perhaps please think I'm at least smart enough to get it?

I'll give you that the quizzes seemed to rely mostly on stereotypes. I get that. On some level though I do think that some basic stereotypes about gender differences have some bearing in the general neighborhood of truth, though given each individual person that claims one gender of the two is still only going to be somewhere on the spectrum that is gender differences. Think Venn diagram, people, with lots of circles. I get it.

I think that idea of gender spectrum is something that so many people fail to fully recognize, and I may have mentioned something along these lines in a past post even if vaguely. But none of that is quite the point, though it does have some bearing.

The only reason I'm sitting here now writing this is those two damn quizzes. And believe me when I tell you that I almost didn't bother because of the process. My computer and/or my internet connection and/or Facebook and/or anything else I might be leaving out seemed to conspire against me. The first time I tried to take the first quiz asking how well I knew men I kept getting sent back to home. The link to take the quiz didn't work.

I walked away from the Fb and had a beer and tucked some kids in bed. I lazed around a tiny bit and finally had nothing better to do. Dear ol' Fb was calling. This time I was able to go right to and then take the quiz. When I was completely done and leaving the end of the quiz page I saw a link to a different but related quiz asking me how well I knew women.

So on to the quiz results and the point of all this
How well do I know men? 25%
How well do I know women? 100%

Do I now need to point out that I didn't game the results? I didn't. I don't have time for that sort of thing. Okay, I'm blogging it now, so on some level I could have had time, but I'm not doing that. If I don't like a quiz result I just don't bother posting it. You can do that. I take the quiz and try to be honest, and if there's a reason to post the result then I do. I do also get that it's meant to be fun. I did also find out that Fb thinks I'm Frenchy from Grease, so please accept that I'm keeping this in the proper place in order of importance and accuracy as regards me and myself and my place in the world.

I'm really not going into the different ways my mind works to make a big deal out of something so pointless. I guess I do feel some need to point it out, that some nonsense social network site app tells me I must be a woman. It says something on some level regardless of how meaningless that is. Maybe it's just that nearly anything is enough to set my head off on a wild goose chase of nonsense considerations. Or maybe it says I might be a little bit gay.

That's all I know about the matter.

tiny balls

Given different circumstances my night could have turned out any number of ways. I'd gone to the gay bar to meet the guy I keep mentioning. We hung out for a bit, talked, laughed, discussed the drag queens.

He needed to get home, and I was getting texts from a friend wanting me to meet her for a drink. The guy and I left, walking to his car. We talked for another few minutes and admired the interior of a soon to be new restaurant that hasn't yet opened, though I'm not sure why. The inside certainly looked as if they were just closed for the night.

We finally parted ways but not before sharing a very brief kiss, a talk-to-you-soon sort of kiss. And then the car full of assholes ran a red light just behind us. They yelled something unintelligible at us, extended their middle fingers out of their windows and accelerated away.

It should have been more annoying that it was, maybe even a little hurtful that a car full of douche bags can't just leave people alone. I could easily see that the car was in fact full, four stupid heads bouncing around inside, but as they greeted us with their tiny little minds I realized that the stomp on the gas pedal really also indicated that their balls are also rather tiny.

Anyone can yell from a speeding car. Anyone can flip you off because they think they deserve to deride anyone they feel superior to.

Of course had they chosen to stop and do something more physical the guy and I could easily have made it back across the street to the bar which likely would have emptied somewhat in a cloud of fags and drag queens. And still nothing would have happened anymore than the tiny minds speeding off and away.

Yes, I know it can be dangerous out there and that I should be careful. I also know how fortunate I am that it's now and not years ago when I would have been even less safe. I get what has happened to too many gay people. But I also refuse to be intimidated.

a piece of goodness in my morning news

So, did you hear the one about the guy willing to fight the Taliban while wearing pink boxer shorts? Seriously. Go HERE.

Perhaps you don't know it, but all of the best shit I write comes when I'm a couple or so drinks into my evening. I'm sure that's the case less often than I think at this moment, but with the smell of the gay bar still on me and the whatnot in my head, right this second it feels like I'm at my best/worst like never before.

Every time I walk away from the guy that keeps messing with my head. I'm left wondering what exactly just happened, whether or not I said what I meant to say, whether or not I read him and got what he was trying to say.

A brief kiss, shouts from a passing car, and I'm home and not as alone as I feel right now. And I don't really feel as alone as the words suggest. But I just don't know.

Maybe that what I should get tattooed across my stomach in that undeniable and barely readable old English script, "I don't know." I seem to never know.

I don't think I should have tried any harder or pushed any more, but maybe I should have. Maybe I should have tried more, but I don't think so. At the same time I'm so seldom sure of myself in certain arenas while too sure of myself and full of my rightness in others.

This being patient and slow that I've been doing feels right. This two weeks that I've been slowly chasing him, hoping he gets what I'm trying to say, it seems so right. I can't know. I don't trust crystal balls even were I to find one and see something in it. My gut says I'm okay, he's okay and we might well be. My brain does its usual and makes everything seem, not wrong, but not as right as one might want.

And I hope I'm not spinning my wheels. I hope I find traction.

On the other hand, maybe I should listen when he tells me I'm being too dramatic.

qotd

Time was still and far too fast.

from Mark Helprin's book Refiner's Fire.

minus one for overuse of the word

Things are always weird it seems. By things I don't know that I can say in a coherent way exactly what it is that I mean. My situation is weird. My head makes things seem weird. The lawnmower sounds weird as Big Brother pushes it around the back yard.

I'm tired of sleeping on the sofa, but even if I could sleep in the bed it just seems too weird. I don't want to sleep there, and I don't want to smell Momma or her boyfriend when I'm trying to get to sleep.

There's a guy I'm trying to see, and whatever is going on there, though nice, seems possibly weird. I like him, and I'm pretty sure he likes me, and we seem to be moving at a rather glacial pace toward whatever might be about to happen, and it's weird. Maybe just my ability to be so patient and my delight in this patience and the slowness are a bit weird, and it feels weird to be so okay with this.

I suppose a big part of the weirdness of feeling lately is some other feeling I'm having, this feeling like some sort of internal springs are slowly tightening. It's as if they are setting themselves for some sort of action. It's sort of like being blindfolded and led some unknown direction and knowing that at any minute I'll be told to jump, still blindfolded, totally unaware of direction or target or reason.

I want to sleep in a bed and not just once, but I want my own bed in my own place. Having managed to blow all the income tax return I'm starting over, but at least I'm starting. I have a couple hundred in my savings account that I've managed not to need to bail myself out right before payday, but the way I've been living I could easily find that gone too soon.

Alongside the coiled springs feeling is that old familiar trapped and stuck feeling. I wish that was the weird feeling, but it's like an old acquaintance, I know it whether I like it or not.

And it's cold here in my part of East TN today. Not a horrible teeth chattering cold, but a coolness that I'm just tired of. I want warmth, not a jacket.

I'm tired and tired of being tired. Part of this is just being so lazy that my body doesn't know how to do anything but stare at a computer, go to work and hold down my spot at the bar. I'm tired because I haven't been sleeping well, and I've been drinking a bit more than is good for me. I'm not eating worth shit.

And I'm not really acting to change any of this. I've said and thought that I was going to make changes, and then I've gone back to how I've been, how I've acted. I haven't made those changes, and I'm paying the price.

Later, I keep telling myself. I have time I keep saying.

on my way to work

So, I know where he works. I'm a semi regular there, and was just there yesterday for the awesome local milk we've been buying lately.

I'm so tempted to stop in, my excuse being to buy a tea, one of the best iced teas ever, while my real reason would of course be to see him for just a moment, to say hi, to see his beautiful eyes and smile.

But I'm not going to. I'll see him soon enough. Though I'm sure of that I don't actually know when, but I can wait.

like like maybe

Have you ever found yourself trying not to like a boy too much? I've only hung out with him a couple of times not counting that first night months ago when I met him, and that barely counts because that's the nature of things.

We've texted some and talked on the phone a bit and hung out over beers, and I can almost still feel the feel of his beard on my cheeks. And then there's his eyes and his laugh, and there's me trying not to like him too much.

Because I do like him. I like how plain ol' nice it is to just sit and talk to him. I like how little and how much we seem to have in common. I like when my phone makes a noise and I look and see his name.

And now I've said too much, but I want to give you the soundtrack for the evening. We're doing two different Faith No More songs, Just a Man and I Started a Joke. Check them both out, whether or not your a fan of this amazing band.

smooth criminal

Perhaps I've mentioned here, though I don't remember, but I'm having some minor car issues lately. My front, driver side window refuses to roll up. It will roll down, and it did actually roll up a couple of times last week, but no more. I have a big orange garbage bag that rides around and acts as my window when I have to park my car outside.

After work last night I met up with a nice and very attractive young man, and we went to a couple of bars and drank a couple of beers. I rode in his truck to one of the bars, and he drove me back to my car at the end of the night.

As he parked next to my car I noticed my doors were unlocked. Yes, even though it's useless to do so, I find myself locking the doors. It was parked in the garage nearest the square, and since it's inside basically I didn't bother to put my orange window up. It seems like that might make my issue more noticeable and more attractive to would be thieves.

I exited the truck of the nice and attractive guy to get into my car and noticed that the ash tray had been pulled out and dumped on the passenger seat. I should add that I've removed anything of value from the car, and I've even begun carrying a bag so that I can carry my cd's and my stereo front with me when the car is parked in public.

I should also point out that the ash tray was probably open and that I roll my own cigarettes. I'm guessing that someone noticed the open window and then noticed what looked like roaches, marijuana cigarette butts for those not down with drug lingo.

So they found nothing of value. I have to almost laugh a little, but at the same time there's also some amount of violation involved. Someone thinks it's okay to mess with my stuff and try to steal my stuff. I'm sure a working and rolled up window would have dissuaded them, but I don't know. Someone's car was apparently broken into near mine as there was glass on the ground.

And this is why we just can't have nice things. Some asshole is always on the lookout for your stuff. So, to the douchebag who got in my car, HAHA you prick! You got shit, motherfucker!

Oh, and the guy in the truck? He's nice, and he's cute, and he seems to like me. I think I seems to like him as well, and that's all the info you're getting right now.

in a good way

Last night wasn't horrid. I was on the line with the guy that bugs me, or should I say one of the guys that bugs me. And he didn't annoy the piss out of me last night.

The kid is in his very early twenties and is a college student who apparently doesn't need the money nearly as much as I do. He was an infant when I bussed my first table, a small child when I was scrubbing off the drive through lane, not even in middle school when I sliced open the two middle fingers on my left hand, leaving a scar that is still there.

I wouldn't hold any of this against him but for the attitude that he tends to have. He's tried to tell me how to cook things I've cooked thousands of. He caught me at a downtime, but I'm coming back, and I own that line when he's not there.

For reasons of seniority I tend to have to take the lesser role on the line, and to some extent that's undertandable, but no more. I'm going to take the captain's seat from him, and I'm going to show him how it works when it works right.

But none of that was even the point. I started out to discuss why last night was nice in the best possible way. It could well not have been, but I managed to save my share and have the end saved for me.

There's a guy that I met through a friend, a friend I don't see nearly often enough, and a guy that I thought was kind of cool the first time I met him. I've run into him here and there, and he's remembered me and greeted me, though it never really got past that point. I sent him a message after one of our random encounters and was probably too myself. He messaged me back in a nice way but was seeing someone. He recently sent me an IM on Facebook, and we talked for a nice long while. We seemed to have some cool things in common.

Last night at work went well. We had a nice flow of customers for graduation weekend, and we served them good food, at least mine was good, and they likely left fat and happy. I did my share of cleaning at the end of the night but didn't have to close. I'd hoped to get off work earlier than I did, but I did insist on doing more cleaning than the closer asked. It was already late enough I reasoned.

We have a great patio where I work, and I was happy to enjoy my first beer of the evening in the outdoors with some decent people to chat with. Half way through that beer I got a text from a number not in my phone book inviting me for a drink. I remembered having given the guy mentioned above my phone number, but I had no way to know that it was him till I asked.

I'd have been content last night to enjoy a beer or two on the patio and proceed homeward, but the text inviting me out for a drink and the guy won the night. I soon tossed my empty can into the recycling bin and was off for the gay bar.

And we sat and talked. I didn't drink a bunch and didn't get any. I had a nice conversation. It was nice, and in the best possible way.

And that's pretty much it.

book meme

A certain Ms. Contemplator did this meme, and it's been ages since anyone else in my little segment of my venn diagram of the blogosphere did one. It's almost like we all did all the good ones and then quit. If you're so inclined I suggest THIS song opened in another tab as your soundtrack for reading. It's Leonard Cohen, and you're welcome.

1. To mark your page you: use a bookmark, bend the page corner, leave the book open face down?
Only book marks ever! I even have favorite bookmarks. My top fave is actually a piece of brown paper that came wrapped around Momma's first and fanciest sushi knife.

2. Do you lend your books?
I hate to. I've lost too many books that way, and I'm probably a bit selfish with my books, but I love all my babies.

3. You find an interesting passage: you write in your book or NO WRITING IN BOOKS!
It's not that I'm against writing in books, though I am, and I don't do it.

4. Dust jackets - leave it on or take it off.
I take it off when I'm reading the book. It gets in the way, and it's too easy to tear it up. When I'm done reading the book I try to remember to put the dust jacket back on.

5. Hard cover, paperback, skip it and get the audio book?
I prefer hard covers because they last better, but really the book is the thing in the end. I don't do audio books, though I'm not against them, but really books are meant to be read and held and smelled. Audio is for music, and audio book listening is music listening time wasted.

6. Do you shelve your books by subject, author, or size and color of the book spines?
Currently I shelve them by author and by suitability for children versus unsuitability for children. Of course shelving also involves shelves, so we won't go into the fact that none of the stacks of unshelved books are unshelved.

7. Buy it or borrow it from the library later?
I usually do the library thing because I'm broke, but if I had money just falling out of my ass you can believe I'd be boring the kids at the bookstore and hitting up some dot coms. I love having books. I love having entire book cases full of books in my house.

8. Do you put your name on your books - scribble your name in the cover, fancy bookplate, or stamp?
I don't even put the kids names in books they are given as gifts. I just don't write in them at all. It's not that I'm against it as such, but I kind of am.

9. Most of the books you own are rare and out of print books or recent publications?
I own books for a variety of reasons. I have random text books and books that were gifts. I have huge piles of books that were bought used so that we could give the boys a big pile of books for Christmas. I have some old and likely out of print books. I have some books that I'll never read and should just get rid of.

10. Page edges - deckled or straight?
Does deckling mean that uneven edges thing? or the sparkly gold thing? Either way I find it hard to do straight stuff, so I'd choose to think of the other kind as not deckled thank you very much.

11. How many books do you read at one time?
One, because more than that means I'm not giving the book its due. Also I'm easily confused.

12. Be honest, ever tear a page from a book?
no, I'd never deface one of my own books, and if I wanted a page bad enough I'd just steal the whole damn book, or buy it. Yeah, buy it! That's what I'd do.

If you choose to do the meme, let me know.

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.