upgrade

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

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

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

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

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

Party on, Garth.

planetary alignment time

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

deuces? we hope not

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

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

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

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

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

clearly cold yet sunny as all heck

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

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

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

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

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

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

on not bothering

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Maybe if I just wait long enough . . .

not really worse

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

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

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

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

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

still full

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

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

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

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

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

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

not especially new jams

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

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

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

more nothing than not

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

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

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

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

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

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

unsure

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

stinky me

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

? to zero in hours

I hate everything I write lately.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

white

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

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

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

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

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

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

oh really

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

frikkin tired

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

sometimes shouldn't even look

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

homescholing or parenting?

We had a fairly busy weekend of friends and kids over to the house with some small amount of friends and kids crashing out and spending the night. From all of that one child remains, the three year old son of some good friends.

Our weather is beautiful today, and the boys are all outside playing. I stood up a moment ago to find a window to peak at them through, a quick check to be sure they are okay.

As I located them in the backyard, I could tell that the three year old was upset about something. I watched then as Big Brother, my ten year old, squatted down on his knees and pulled the three year old to him. Big Brother gave him a hug, and the three year old sat on his knee for just a moment.

With no one around to say anything, to suggest he do so, my ten year old just caringly consoled a three year old. I smiled and was proud of him. I'm always proud of him of course, but this one moment I had to think that something we are doing is right.

don't wanna work on nothin

Now for the idea that needs to germinate and grow into actions.

I was up late one night, no surprise there, and I was reading through the blogs of gay bloggers in my reader. The next day I tried to retrace my steps through the blogosphere, but I couldn't recall where I'd started, and I didn't then want to open up the history window and spend time tracking it all down.

From a blog I read I think I went to the comments and ended up wandering through links to blogs to comments to further blogs and links, and eventually I found myself in a nice enough part of town but one in which I didn't know anyone.

Someone mentioned the search for "the one," and someone else suggested that this was a problem too many gay men have, that they are too often too busy searching for "the one" and don't ever spend time doing anything else.

The idea was along the lines of spending too much time at the bar trying to hook up, or spending too much time at the gym trying to look good, or spending too much time on clothes trying to impress. None of these are necessarily bad things to do, but to do just this little bit and to spend too much time on this and nothing else is not a great idea.

The suggestion was then made to stop looking constantly for "the one" and spend time making yourself a better person. Wait for "the one" and while waiting work on yourself. Discover what it is you should be doing instead, whether it's a hobby or self improvement or . . .

And this is the idea that's been in my head, not quite germinating into something I can work with, but sitting there, waiting for me to stop my own endless cycle of the bar and the beers and wishing all those cute boys would stop being straight and notice me.

And what am I doing about this? Nothing as of yet. I don't know where to start. Actually, less late nights, less fallen drunkenly asleep on the sofa, still wearing my clothes. Fewer days starting toward noon where I drag myself awake, force myself upright only to waste my pre work hours facing into the light of the computer.

There are ideas of things I should be doing, writing more, cooking like I mean it (like I used to), working with the boys. I should probably find a way to exercise semi regularly. I need to pay the library off so that I can become a regular there again. The homeschool group is languishing, and I can't even remember the last time we met up with any of our old hs friends. Honestly, I'd love to start baking again, though it was never something I did enough to actually make into a habit, but there was a time not so long ago that I was actually making decent bread and getting to know my baking.

I also need a shower, but I'm not sure if I can work that in between laundry loads. I'm sure I can, and I'm sure I'll be running to the car to get to work with my hair a little damp. And speaking of hair, it needs to be trimmed and soon.

And there's my need-for-self-improvement blog post. I'm quite certain that I've written something at least a little similar fairly recently. It probably sounds like the kind of thing I might have said. There's a short somewhere between knowing and doing. There's a part of me that recognizes how much easier it is to suck down a few tall boys and make it all better, though there's also the recognition that comfort inside a rut is no way to live.

Finally there's the part that keeps enabling myself. It's the part that is always handy with an excuse, a little of the ol' "it's too late today. You already have to do this other thing, and you have to be at work in just over an hour. Check your email one last time."

my hand is stiff and a little sore too

Yet another day rolls by, and I have nothing much to say. The sun is finally out, and the weather is warming slightly. We still have much of our snow on the ground, which is a little unusual.

We do seem to accumulate a similar amount of snow at least once per winter, but in the past the first bit of sunshine is usually enough to melt it away. With the freeze we got just after the majority of the accumulation it became too solid to disappear.

Once again it's First Friday which, coupled with the temperature, will most likely assure us of a busy night. Once again I fairy the pizzas till evening and then back to the kitchen. I'm scheduled volume tonight, though given the possibility of busyness at the business, I may end up closing.

My life is becoming a bit of a cycle. My lows aren't as low lately, and I'm away from the house much more than once upon a time when it felt like I never left the house. But I'm not doing anything much to make my life better. I end up at the pub, drinking the cheap beer.

More often than not I'm hanging out with someone or someones, but as often it's people I run into at the bar. Yes, that is exactly the kind of thing a bar is great for, but I need to make plans and do stuff with people because we intend to.

I have a post I almost think about, one that I'd love to have brewing in my head so that I could write about it. The ideas behind it are great ideas, but I've barely let myself really consider the things I'd need to do, and I've not implemented anything that would set me on the course I see I need. It's all very mysterious when worded so ridiculously, but really that's as much as I'm willing to say right now.

And that is that. I know how excited you all get when I've written something and how dashed on such inconsolable shores you then feel when it's nothing but this sort of tripe. I have no excuses.

rah rah pizza fairy

Currently I'm waiting to go to work. I'm also waiting for Momma who is at an interview. Better yet, she has the job and is on her way home from the interview. If she is unable to make it home in time, the plan is for her boyfriend to take me to work and watch the kids for a bit.

Today I begin my life as a pizza fairy. There is a guy who makes pizzas in the kitchen where I work, but they are actually the free happy hour food for a bar nearby. He is going on a month long vacation, and the duty to make the pizzas has fallen to me.

So, every week day for the next month I go in at my usual time in the afternoon, but instead of going about my usual prep and line work I get to make a batch of dough, set up the pizza station and make pizzas for the first three hours of my day. Days I'm scheduled at the regular job I will then clean up the pizza prep area and clock in at the usual job.

I'm also working the next six days, so between the two jobs I should make a decent if tiny bit of money. Also it will be fun having something different as well as being able to not quite be in the regular kitchen while still getting to participate with my presence. You have to love being in a kitchen to appreciate that.

And finally, I have to admit that, I think my taking the pizza fairy duties is not a bad way to get in with the family enterprise. I like these people, and I like their businesses. I like the gig, and anything within reason that I can do to cement my place and my money making ability is worth looking into.

So, job interviews and additions to jobs can only be good. As with anything in life, we can't really know where these things will take us, and I can wish for the best for Momma as she interviews, and I can go in and make good pizzas before going back to my own kitchen in time to bail people out and help clean their messes. Maybe my next job addition involves cleaning up the nearby bar on an early Saturday afternoon as they get ready to open. Fuck, I'll take it!

Oh, and the pizza fairy thing is because the current pizza guy is gay. Of course we have to point that out, but it's a benign jab, and I'll happily be the pizza fairy. I'm secure enough in both my manliness and butchness as well as my fairyness now that you mention it.