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