I was going to start this post "Dear Drama Queens" or "Mr Solomonese" (the exec director of HRC), but instead just thought that I would throw my random opinion out there about President-Elect Obama's selection of Rick Warren to give his inauguration's invocation.
After the announcement of Mr. Warren's selection, the gay community erupted in fury and betrayal at Obama. Everyone from friends on facebook declaring their befuddlement, to the aforementioned Joe Solomonese speaking out on TV and radio new blurbs.
I admit, I don't pay the closest of attention to current events or the bullshit people do to one another. As much as I may joke about the Chris-police, my real prejudice lay with the way people treat each other on a one to one basis. How we interact in an interpersonal way. Groups aren't my thing. Groups don't have feelings, people do. On a grand scale, what's right for an individual should be acceptable for a group they are a part of; neighborhoods, churches, unions, cities and our country as a whole owe it to their members and citizenry to honor the individual with their actions as a group. Whether it be marriage equality for gays and lesbians being put before the general public in a vote-which is really just the hate mongers exploiting a loophole in the election process and putting the gay and lesbian community under the control of 90% of the population, and how fair is that?-or the President-Elect's right to choose his inaugural players to reflect who he is as a person and what he stands for as a President.
That's what he did.
He put together a winning campaign based on his vision of America. Inclusion. Land of Opportunity. All men are created equal. The right to freedom and the pursuit of happiness.
In his victory, he has set aside partisanship politics to assemble a cabinet of experts, not cronies from his personal life or political party which is what we have become accustomed to. So why should we be surprised or outraged that his inauguration is any different? He has chosen Rick Warren to give his invocation. Someone who preaches hatred from the pulpit-in my opinion, although those loyal to him would fervently disagree with me, and that is their right. He has balanced that out with a benediction address from Joseph Lowery, who is an advocate for gay and lesbian rights and full equality rather than a "separate but equal" type solution. The downside is that a level headed approach to conflict resolution doesn't play well on Fox News or the other commercially driven news programs who are dependent upon ad revenues for their network's income so poor Joe and his positions are not as widely familiar as Ricky-Retardo's.
Nonetheless, as a people I think that my community owes it to their country to take this in stride and look at the larger picture.
Unity.
If we allow ourselves to step outside our roles as citizens and look at the situation from a strictly unilateral standpoint, we cast ourselves in the role of fodder for the hate mongers on the other side. Indeed, we make their point for them. We are unstable, selfish, emotionally driven, small picture citizens that cannot be trusted with the power their income and voting power does afford them.
So man up, bitches. We have to ride this out and postpone our reactions until Obama's plan has officially been set in motion. If is fails, we can say "we knew it", if it succeeds then we save ourselves the humiliation of having to apologize for our behavior and reestablish our credibility as a sub-culture in our country.
And let us not forget that we pretty much fell in love with Barack because he is a friggin brainiac. Do we really have the hubris to tell this man he has not properly considered his actions after the two year campaign he has just come off of? Are we really going to be short sighted enough to think that any words Rick or Joe utter during their moments-and that's what they are, moments-in the spotlight have not been properly dissected for message? Trust me, those two are on a tight leash, every syllable vetted for meanings outside the incoming ruler of the free world's vision of unity.
Death to fags will not pass over Mr. Warren's lips during his invocation, trust me.
What he stands for in his own pulpit is one thing, there is a symbolism behind the pulpit he will populate on January 20th. That symbolism is Unity, just as this jackass has a home in this country, so do we all. That is what our country is all about.
Of course, to successfully complete this post, I had to set aside my feelings on both organized religion and our country's fundamental failure to maintain it's own charter of a separation of Church and State, but that's what a big boy I can be when I want to be.
Sunday, December 21, 2008
Friday, November 14, 2008
noah, are you stalking me?
i seem to have a lot of two's lately.
sure, now that i have vocalized it, i won't be able to think of anything to support that statement. let me take a stab at it, though...
i worked from 5:30 this morning until 8:15 tonight.
on the way home-after ordering pizza from my current regular place, hot mama's (regulars are important to me, i've got a little rain man in me) i set off for home. natch, i told the chico on the phone i would just have whatever i ordered last time..."your regular, chris?" he says, the smile obvious in his voice.
ouch.
i don't mind being consistent. i do mind being a "creature" of anything, habit included. and why is it that near strangers are close enough to me to point out my consistency, but my boss isn't?
i think one of those folks is likely a better, happier person than the other. agreed?
as i am walking home, waiting for a crosswalk light to change-as i do on occassion-i hear someone say, "howdy, chris". looking over i see a former colleague of mine from macy's that i worked with in portland. he and i have run into each other randomly since i moved here. more now that he has moved to town, too.
little bitch-bear has lived here a year and has a boyfriend. a live-in, no less. how's that supposed to make me feel? pissing and moaning as i like to about how undateable this town is.
grr.
anyway, this is the second time in three days i have run into him. we both head into the same murder mart. me for beer, him for ice cream. i'm thinking about my pint of ben and jerry's in the fridge. yum.
top it off with the fact that the place they live-did i mention they live together?-is hardly two blocks from me.
i get home and check my email as i unwind with a beer, waiting for my pizza goodness.
i have a message from a guy i have been trading emails with. zane. my age-ish, good job, house, seems nice and balanced. my sister would definitely approve. this is the second email i have gotten from zane in a week since we started chatting. before now, one every ten days or so.
as i am responding, my mind drifts to my friend jz-squared. one of the "z's" stands for...zane. great. now i have two of them. it's not like i met a couple of guys with a common name like, oh, chris. zane. awesome. top it off with him being twice jz-squared's age.
my phone rings...pizza girl. buzz her up. pay. "good to see you again, is it bad that i'm a regular?" i ask. "nah...i see lots of single guys a couple times a week. kinda surprised you became one, though. pizza always seemed like such a treat for you, not a basic food group like some guys". i'm a regular. oof da.
i just look at her as she stuffs my tip into her shirt-who still does that? she giggles and heads for the elevator. it's probably elevator #2.
i'm feeling better as i watch my latest netflix and eat pizza. lucky 7 is the flick. i think this may break the cycle. i realize i am serving myself two slices at a time.
setting aside my second pizza of the week, half through, i toddle off to the freezer and dig into a pint of cake batter ice cream. convinced now that i am really bucking the trend numerology seems to be dialing me into.
until i realize...it's my second pint of the week. damn qfc and their two-fer sale!
sure, now that i have vocalized it, i won't be able to think of anything to support that statement. let me take a stab at it, though...
i worked from 5:30 this morning until 8:15 tonight.
on the way home-after ordering pizza from my current regular place, hot mama's (regulars are important to me, i've got a little rain man in me) i set off for home. natch, i told the chico on the phone i would just have whatever i ordered last time..."your regular, chris?" he says, the smile obvious in his voice.
ouch.
i don't mind being consistent. i do mind being a "creature" of anything, habit included. and why is it that near strangers are close enough to me to point out my consistency, but my boss isn't?
i think one of those folks is likely a better, happier person than the other. agreed?
as i am walking home, waiting for a crosswalk light to change-as i do on occassion-i hear someone say, "howdy, chris". looking over i see a former colleague of mine from macy's that i worked with in portland. he and i have run into each other randomly since i moved here. more now that he has moved to town, too.
little bitch-bear has lived here a year and has a boyfriend. a live-in, no less. how's that supposed to make me feel? pissing and moaning as i like to about how undateable this town is.
grr.
anyway, this is the second time in three days i have run into him. we both head into the same murder mart. me for beer, him for ice cream. i'm thinking about my pint of ben and jerry's in the fridge. yum.
top it off with the fact that the place they live-did i mention they live together?-is hardly two blocks from me.
i get home and check my email as i unwind with a beer, waiting for my pizza goodness.
i have a message from a guy i have been trading emails with. zane. my age-ish, good job, house, seems nice and balanced. my sister would definitely approve. this is the second email i have gotten from zane in a week since we started chatting. before now, one every ten days or so.
as i am responding, my mind drifts to my friend jz-squared. one of the "z's" stands for...zane. great. now i have two of them. it's not like i met a couple of guys with a common name like, oh, chris. zane. awesome. top it off with him being twice jz-squared's age.
my phone rings...pizza girl. buzz her up. pay. "good to see you again, is it bad that i'm a regular?" i ask. "nah...i see lots of single guys a couple times a week. kinda surprised you became one, though. pizza always seemed like such a treat for you, not a basic food group like some guys". i'm a regular. oof da.
i just look at her as she stuffs my tip into her shirt-who still does that? she giggles and heads for the elevator. it's probably elevator #2.
i'm feeling better as i watch my latest netflix and eat pizza. lucky 7 is the flick. i think this may break the cycle. i realize i am serving myself two slices at a time.
setting aside my second pizza of the week, half through, i toddle off to the freezer and dig into a pint of cake batter ice cream. convinced now that i am really bucking the trend numerology seems to be dialing me into.
until i realize...it's my second pint of the week. damn qfc and their two-fer sale!
Wednesday, November 12, 2008
Heroes
I was stomping into work yesterday...marching down the hill toward certain retail infamy. I was attempting to elevate my mood with a little Melissa Etheridge and curb my sense of accomplishment for having dragged my ass this far with a cold and sore throat, in the rain no less.
Then it happened. One of those moments of clarity, a real "palm to the forehead" type of thing.
Scarecrow came on.
I always feel like I have had a "special bond" with Melissa's celebrity-see how I so casually referred to her by first name there?
I saw her at a little Long Beach bar called Que Sera in the-gosh-early 90's? Well before she was famous.
When Somebody Bring Me Some Water broke her out, I saw an early BIG venue show of hers at the Roxy. The guy I was dating at the time didn't want to go. I had to make a choice...this was important. I had to really think about it. I thought, "Petur or Melissa Etheridge...Petur or Melissa Etheridge" the answer seemed to be all about me. A bond was formed-completely one sided, I assure you-between me and Melissa.
So when she writes a song that is so broadly appealing and relevant, it makes that song all the more powerful to me.
See also: I Run For Life about her battle with breast cancer and Tuesday Morning about Marc Bingham. I feel guilty for not remembering if he's a "c" Marc or a "k" Mark. Marc with a "c" is hotter to me, so let's go with that one for the purpose of this blog.
Those songs just kill me. I lose it inside everytime I hear them...but they also serve as a great grounding element for me. They really put things in perspective for me.
Scarecrow is about Matthew Sheppard. The song is so powerful-I'll probably use that word a lot in this post. It has particular resonance with me because of my own gay-bashing incident in college-a moment when I was not powerful but powerless. At the mercy of two strangers exorcising some demons on me.
Clearly, my outcome was different than Matthew's, but I still find myself running into that emotional wall every now and then.
When I was in SoCal visiting my parents in late October, the campaigning on Prop 8 was in full swing. My mother and I were driving somewhere and at an intersection we stopped at there was a group of "Yes on 8" folks on one corner and opposite them "No on 8" had taken up residence. I was just waiting for the other shoe to drop...for chaos to ensue. I must have said something because my mom started talking about how she kind of came undone that night I was bashed in college. My room mate, Cindy, had called my parents in the middle of the night to tell them. They had piled the whole fam damily in the car the next morning and came to make sure I was ok. My mom described a vivid memory of the terror she felt walking past my room mate's car, it's trunk covered in my blood.
I was terrified. The images of the prior night still fresh in my mind, replaying out of control. Not just the rednecks who assaulted me, but also the cop who responded. The way he looked at me like I had gotten what I deserved...how he challenged me to declare I was worth medical attention when he asked if I wanted him to call for an ambulance. How his look judged me. Cindy was a brick house and she was about to have a moment with this old bastard cop. My other room mates had to pull her out of the room.
And I did feel like I had gotten what I deserved. I didn't feel like I was worthy of medical attention for my wounds. So I sat there, wide awake all night. Face swollen. Oozing and blackening. Nose unset. Gravel in my ass and imbedded in the skin of my genitals.
But I lived. At the time, I could have died of shame. Unable to acknowledge my own homosexuality or protect myself. I never did tell my family the true nature of that assault. If they ever put two and two together, we are too Catholic to discuss it openly. Maybe mom was trying her best to reach out to me that day...I just couldn't risk being wrong about it and causing her any unintentional guilt or pain over that episode. I know I have an ally in every member of my family, I don't need to personalize this fight by dredging up decades-old events to solidify that. But I wonder if my experience has any merit for demonstrating the length of this battle for equality. Surely, people don't consider this a "current event"?
This is why the underdog will always appeal to me. It's why, I think, I like some of the guys I like, including my ex although we never discussed it civily. I think I see that same fear and vulnerability in them and want to heal it just by accepting them for who they are. Of course, I know that I can't make it better. After 20 years, I know that they have to make it better for themselves and find their own way, just as I did. But I can be that mentor for them, that safety net if they want it. These men make up a large part of the group of men I like to call "The Prodigal Gays" because they come back to me-for whatever reason-and that is a great satisfaction for me, personally.
When I think of the victims who paid the highest possible price...I feel ashamed. Not by comparison. Rather because everyday that I bitch about my life, I diminish their death. Everytime our efforts at achieving equal rights are defeated, our civilization erodes and dishonors their memory.
Marc Bingham died a hero on Flight 93, his partner was not legally entitled to assume his personal effects. If Marc's family had been petty, there would have been zero legal recourse for the surviving partner.
Gays cannot marry in California. They are legally banned from formally celebrating their relationship as a heterosexual couple would.
It's a word.
Marriage.
It has been given uneven political currency because our country's founding fathers never thought to formally outline marriage in our country-one based on freedom from religious persecution-by making marriage a government function over a religious rite. Further, the government has molly-coddled the churches to the point that they basically let them copyright the word and enable their fight to protect it.
It's a word.
It no more belongs exclusively to the church than the word "Heaven".
No more so than the word "Girl" belongs to the gays.
Or the word "Aks" belongs to blacks. (That oughta take the serious edge off this blog)
The thing that concerns me the most about Prop 8 passing in New Utah is that California was the state with the clout to bring about marriage equality for interracial couples. That action spwned the phrase "So goes California, so goes the nation". That's what concerns me.
Matthew Sheppard was tied to a fence rail, beaten, burned and left to die of exposure. He didn't die. He clung to life for days before finally losing his life.
This October marked the 10th year since his assault and murder.
Ten years later our legislators are still trying to pass the Matthew Sheppard Hate Crimes Legislation and define equality in the work place and determine who is protected under the Employment Non Discrimination Act.
The hold up with ENDA? Bigotry. Some people still can't get their arms and mind around what a sexual minority is. They are trying to determine whether gays and lesbians are "people" while transexual and transgender people may simply be "freaks".
Well, folks...I accidentally answered that question with my careless use of the word "people". People are people. The rest is all adjectives.
When people forget that, I feel that rock in my ass (figuratively, in case it wasn't obvious) and wonder how long it will be that society will make me live with it there. Not society, that's not fair. The government.
At the same time, I realize that without people like Matthew, Marc, Milk and even Melissa we wouldn't be this close. We wouldn't be the political wedge we are today and sadly, we need to be a wedge issue before we can be equals in this country.
It's a step on the path to the equality that should never have been questioned in the first place.
I just hope we don't have to suffer too many more acts of heroism as a people before we make it there.
Then it happened. One of those moments of clarity, a real "palm to the forehead" type of thing.
Scarecrow came on.
I always feel like I have had a "special bond" with Melissa's celebrity-see how I so casually referred to her by first name there?
I saw her at a little Long Beach bar called Que Sera in the-gosh-early 90's? Well before she was famous.
When Somebody Bring Me Some Water broke her out, I saw an early BIG venue show of hers at the Roxy. The guy I was dating at the time didn't want to go. I had to make a choice...this was important. I had to really think about it. I thought, "Petur or Melissa Etheridge...Petur or Melissa Etheridge" the answer seemed to be all about me. A bond was formed-completely one sided, I assure you-between me and Melissa.
So when she writes a song that is so broadly appealing and relevant, it makes that song all the more powerful to me.
See also: I Run For Life about her battle with breast cancer and Tuesday Morning about Marc Bingham. I feel guilty for not remembering if he's a "c" Marc or a "k" Mark. Marc with a "c" is hotter to me, so let's go with that one for the purpose of this blog.
Those songs just kill me. I lose it inside everytime I hear them...but they also serve as a great grounding element for me. They really put things in perspective for me.
Scarecrow is about Matthew Sheppard. The song is so powerful-I'll probably use that word a lot in this post. It has particular resonance with me because of my own gay-bashing incident in college-a moment when I was not powerful but powerless. At the mercy of two strangers exorcising some demons on me.
Clearly, my outcome was different than Matthew's, but I still find myself running into that emotional wall every now and then.
When I was in SoCal visiting my parents in late October, the campaigning on Prop 8 was in full swing. My mother and I were driving somewhere and at an intersection we stopped at there was a group of "Yes on 8" folks on one corner and opposite them "No on 8" had taken up residence. I was just waiting for the other shoe to drop...for chaos to ensue. I must have said something because my mom started talking about how she kind of came undone that night I was bashed in college. My room mate, Cindy, had called my parents in the middle of the night to tell them. They had piled the whole fam damily in the car the next morning and came to make sure I was ok. My mom described a vivid memory of the terror she felt walking past my room mate's car, it's trunk covered in my blood.
I was terrified. The images of the prior night still fresh in my mind, replaying out of control. Not just the rednecks who assaulted me, but also the cop who responded. The way he looked at me like I had gotten what I deserved...how he challenged me to declare I was worth medical attention when he asked if I wanted him to call for an ambulance. How his look judged me. Cindy was a brick house and she was about to have a moment with this old bastard cop. My other room mates had to pull her out of the room.
And I did feel like I had gotten what I deserved. I didn't feel like I was worthy of medical attention for my wounds. So I sat there, wide awake all night. Face swollen. Oozing and blackening. Nose unset. Gravel in my ass and imbedded in the skin of my genitals.
But I lived. At the time, I could have died of shame. Unable to acknowledge my own homosexuality or protect myself. I never did tell my family the true nature of that assault. If they ever put two and two together, we are too Catholic to discuss it openly. Maybe mom was trying her best to reach out to me that day...I just couldn't risk being wrong about it and causing her any unintentional guilt or pain over that episode. I know I have an ally in every member of my family, I don't need to personalize this fight by dredging up decades-old events to solidify that. But I wonder if my experience has any merit for demonstrating the length of this battle for equality. Surely, people don't consider this a "current event"?
This is why the underdog will always appeal to me. It's why, I think, I like some of the guys I like, including my ex although we never discussed it civily. I think I see that same fear and vulnerability in them and want to heal it just by accepting them for who they are. Of course, I know that I can't make it better. After 20 years, I know that they have to make it better for themselves and find their own way, just as I did. But I can be that mentor for them, that safety net if they want it. These men make up a large part of the group of men I like to call "The Prodigal Gays" because they come back to me-for whatever reason-and that is a great satisfaction for me, personally.
When I think of the victims who paid the highest possible price...I feel ashamed. Not by comparison. Rather because everyday that I bitch about my life, I diminish their death. Everytime our efforts at achieving equal rights are defeated, our civilization erodes and dishonors their memory.
Marc Bingham died a hero on Flight 93, his partner was not legally entitled to assume his personal effects. If Marc's family had been petty, there would have been zero legal recourse for the surviving partner.
Gays cannot marry in California. They are legally banned from formally celebrating their relationship as a heterosexual couple would.
It's a word.
Marriage.
It has been given uneven political currency because our country's founding fathers never thought to formally outline marriage in our country-one based on freedom from religious persecution-by making marriage a government function over a religious rite. Further, the government has molly-coddled the churches to the point that they basically let them copyright the word and enable their fight to protect it.
It's a word.
It no more belongs exclusively to the church than the word "Heaven".
No more so than the word "Girl" belongs to the gays.
Or the word "Aks" belongs to blacks. (That oughta take the serious edge off this blog)
The thing that concerns me the most about Prop 8 passing in New Utah is that California was the state with the clout to bring about marriage equality for interracial couples. That action spwned the phrase "So goes California, so goes the nation". That's what concerns me.
Matthew Sheppard was tied to a fence rail, beaten, burned and left to die of exposure. He didn't die. He clung to life for days before finally losing his life.
This October marked the 10th year since his assault and murder.
Ten years later our legislators are still trying to pass the Matthew Sheppard Hate Crimes Legislation and define equality in the work place and determine who is protected under the Employment Non Discrimination Act.
The hold up with ENDA? Bigotry. Some people still can't get their arms and mind around what a sexual minority is. They are trying to determine whether gays and lesbians are "people" while transexual and transgender people may simply be "freaks".
Well, folks...I accidentally answered that question with my careless use of the word "people". People are people. The rest is all adjectives.
When people forget that, I feel that rock in my ass (figuratively, in case it wasn't obvious) and wonder how long it will be that society will make me live with it there. Not society, that's not fair. The government.
At the same time, I realize that without people like Matthew, Marc, Milk and even Melissa we wouldn't be this close. We wouldn't be the political wedge we are today and sadly, we need to be a wedge issue before we can be equals in this country.
It's a step on the path to the equality that should never have been questioned in the first place.
I just hope we don't have to suffer too many more acts of heroism as a people before we make it there.
Saturday, November 8, 2008
Lazy Day Funny
A friend of mine sent this to me about a year ago. I'm cleaning out my email in box on a lazy Saturday off, so I thought I would put this here in case I need it later.
Three things to ponder:
1. Cows
2. The Constitution
3. The Ten Commandments
C O W S ...
Is it just me, or does anyone else find it amazing that during the mad cow epidemic our government could track a single cow, born in Canada almost three years ago, right to the stall where she slept in the state of Washington? And, they tracked her calves to their stalls. But they are unable to locate 11 million illegal aliens wandering around our country. Maybe we should give each of them a cow.
T H E C O N S T I T U T I O N ...
They keep talking about drafting a Constitution for Iraq . Why don't we just give them ours? It was written by a lot of really smart guys, it has worked for over 200 years, and we're not using it anymore.
T H E 1 0 C O M M A N D M E N T S ...
The real reason that we can't have the Ten Commandments posted in a courthouse is this: You cannot post 'Thou Shalt Not Steal,' 'Thou Shalt Not Commit Adultery,' and 'Thou Shall Not Lie' in a building full of lawyers, judges and politicians...It creates a hostile work environment.
Aaah, stolen funnies.
Three things to ponder:
1. Cows
2. The Constitution
3. The Ten Commandments
C O W S ...
Is it just me, or does anyone else find it amazing that during the mad cow epidemic our government could track a single cow, born in Canada almost three years ago, right to the stall where she slept in the state of Washington? And, they tracked her calves to their stalls. But they are unable to locate 11 million illegal aliens wandering around our country. Maybe we should give each of them a cow.
T H E C O N S T I T U T I O N ...
They keep talking about drafting a Constitution for Iraq . Why don't we just give them ours? It was written by a lot of really smart guys, it has worked for over 200 years, and we're not using it anymore.
T H E 1 0 C O M M A N D M E N T S ...
The real reason that we can't have the Ten Commandments posted in a courthouse is this: You cannot post 'Thou Shalt Not Steal,' 'Thou Shalt Not Commit Adultery,' and 'Thou Shall Not Lie' in a building full of lawyers, judges and politicians...It creates a hostile work environment.
Aaah, stolen funnies.
Impulse Control
I've begun this stage in my life where I simply feel overwhelmed by urges. (Again)
Food.
Sex.
Drink.
Opinions.
And sometimes, thank god, overwhelmed by apathy and therefore ill-prepared to act on those urges.
Going to the grocer. It's rainy season here in Seattle, after all.
Picking someone up. Which usually involves going from the couch to the computer.
Ditto, grocer. Which has on occasion fostered my urge for sex, too.
Waiting for the right moment to tell someone they are an idiot or a boob. Which has sometimes fostered sex as well. What is it with people being turned on by being told off?
This morning, I awoke with a fairly ambivalent mood hanging over me. The generic surprise at having woke up yet again wearing off fairly quickly. I seem to be getting comfortable with my persistent existence. Plodding to the can. Brushing my teeth while thinking about whether to simply hop in the shower and get clean. Somehow ending up in pants with a toothbrush still in my mouth.
Decision made. God bless auto-pilot. Sometimes I get all the way to work's door in this mode!
I pull on a t-shirt and consider a jacket, with just enough ambivalence left over to end up with a sweatshirt and jacket.
My latest impulse control seems to be running for the elevator.
I can hear it coming. I live right next to the shaft. I like to imagine who's coming or going at night as I tick off the floors it passes. It's a wonderful use of insomnia, since I don't know what floor the damn thing originated on.
But when it hits my floor, I want to run for it.
Which is what I did this morning. Simply gave in to the urge.
There I was, jacket on yet unaware I was actually preparing to go anywhere, as the elevator ascended toward my floor. I had heard one of my neighbor's doors close, so I knew a ride was nigh.
So, I bolted.
Wherever the hell I was going, it needed to be now, damn it!
But my phone did not make the jump with me. Which is kind of fine, I have been hating my phone lately as it impulsively shuts off in the middle of conversations two or three times a day as it gives into it's own impulses-call it engineered obsolesence. I can't finish a call on it on my own time frame without being tethered to an outlet. Very frustrating.
Thank god I at least had my wallet.
No umbrella either. Hopefully the rain into which I emerged was part of "showers with sunbreaks" and not a downpour for the day, as recent days have been.
So I end up walking into Sugar for some coffee. How the hell I managed to have a magazine, wallet, ball cap and no idea where I was going...it's a miracle I have made it this far.
My favorite barista and young friend, JZ-squared says to me as I walk in, "You got my text!"
Negatory, good buddy. Just ended up here. Left the phone at home.
My impulse control issues must be destiny, though. There I was, overcome by the urge to be somewhere to the degree that I end up there practically before I even realize that I have left home. Pleasing a friend with my mere appearance. The conversation we had was one of my favorites in recent days. Just about nothing...the magazine I had managed to grab, my disheveled appearance, pie baking, sleep, music, art, travel and assorted whatnot.
Here's to not asking questions and just going with the flow.
And now it's sunny.
Food.
Sex.
Drink.
Opinions.
And sometimes, thank god, overwhelmed by apathy and therefore ill-prepared to act on those urges.
Going to the grocer. It's rainy season here in Seattle, after all.
Picking someone up. Which usually involves going from the couch to the computer.
Ditto, grocer. Which has on occasion fostered my urge for sex, too.
Waiting for the right moment to tell someone they are an idiot or a boob. Which has sometimes fostered sex as well. What is it with people being turned on by being told off?
This morning, I awoke with a fairly ambivalent mood hanging over me. The generic surprise at having woke up yet again wearing off fairly quickly. I seem to be getting comfortable with my persistent existence. Plodding to the can. Brushing my teeth while thinking about whether to simply hop in the shower and get clean. Somehow ending up in pants with a toothbrush still in my mouth.
Decision made. God bless auto-pilot. Sometimes I get all the way to work's door in this mode!
I pull on a t-shirt and consider a jacket, with just enough ambivalence left over to end up with a sweatshirt and jacket.
My latest impulse control seems to be running for the elevator.
I can hear it coming. I live right next to the shaft. I like to imagine who's coming or going at night as I tick off the floors it passes. It's a wonderful use of insomnia, since I don't know what floor the damn thing originated on.
But when it hits my floor, I want to run for it.
Which is what I did this morning. Simply gave in to the urge.
There I was, jacket on yet unaware I was actually preparing to go anywhere, as the elevator ascended toward my floor. I had heard one of my neighbor's doors close, so I knew a ride was nigh.
So, I bolted.
Wherever the hell I was going, it needed to be now, damn it!
But my phone did not make the jump with me. Which is kind of fine, I have been hating my phone lately as it impulsively shuts off in the middle of conversations two or three times a day as it gives into it's own impulses-call it engineered obsolesence. I can't finish a call on it on my own time frame without being tethered to an outlet. Very frustrating.
Thank god I at least had my wallet.
No umbrella either. Hopefully the rain into which I emerged was part of "showers with sunbreaks" and not a downpour for the day, as recent days have been.
So I end up walking into Sugar for some coffee. How the hell I managed to have a magazine, wallet, ball cap and no idea where I was going...it's a miracle I have made it this far.
My favorite barista and young friend, JZ-squared says to me as I walk in, "You got my text!"
Negatory, good buddy. Just ended up here. Left the phone at home.
My impulse control issues must be destiny, though. There I was, overcome by the urge to be somewhere to the degree that I end up there practically before I even realize that I have left home. Pleasing a friend with my mere appearance. The conversation we had was one of my favorites in recent days. Just about nothing...the magazine I had managed to grab, my disheveled appearance, pie baking, sleep, music, art, travel and assorted whatnot.
Here's to not asking questions and just going with the flow.
And now it's sunny.
Thursday, November 6, 2008
I kinda love this guy...
He has been president-elect for two days and he is already a pop icon. In addition to being a beacon of hope for our country and probably the world.
You have go to check out these sites, if you already haven't.
www.barackaspresident.com began as www.palinaspresident.com weeks before the election. It was awesome, Palin sitting in the Oval Office and everything in there was clickable to reveal something funny. On November 4, the site converted to the Barack incarnation. It contains a song, set to one of Barack's speeches, with folk music style guitar and famous folks speaking or singing his words, "Yes We Can".
It is so powerful.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=jjXyqcx-mYY is the actual video of the speech/song. Hopefully it will be available for some time.
And because I am crushing pretty hard on our newly elected hero, here are the words of the speech. Printed totally without permission...
It was a creed written into the founding documents that declared the destiny of a nation.
Yes we can.
It was whispered by slaves and abolitionists as they blazed a trail toward freedom.
Yes we can.
It was sung by immigrants as they struck out from distant shores and pioneers who pushed westward against an unforgiving wilderness.
Yes we can.
It was the call of workers who organized; women who reached for the ballots; a President who chose the moon as our new frontier; and a King who took us to the mountaintop and pointed the way to the Promised Land.
Yes we can to justice and equality.
Yes we can to opportunity and prosperity.
Yes we can heal this nation.
Yes we can repair this world.
Yes we can.
We know the battle ahead will be long, but always remember that no matter what obstacles stand in our way, nothing can stand in the way of the power of millions of voices calling for change.
We have been told we cannot do this by a chorus of cynics...they will only grow louder and more dissonant ........... We've been asked to pause for a reality check. We've been warned against offering the people of this nation false hope.
But in the unlikely story that is America, there has never been anything false about hope.
Now the hopes of the little girl who goes to a crumbling school in Dillon are the same as the dreams of the boy who learns on the streets of LA; we will remember that there is something happening in America; that we are not as divided as our politics suggests; that we are one people; we are one nation; and together, we will begin the next great chapter in the American story with three words that will ring from coast to coast; from sea to shining sea --
Yes. We. Can.
The color was my creative little tweak...it's nothing compared to the genius and inspiration of this speech, it's writers, speaker and the team of musicians and actors who set it to music and created the video.
Someone has a dream, and I hope everyone, across all religions, races, ethnicities, political parties and throughout this nation shares it.
You have go to check out these sites, if you already haven't.
www.barackaspresident.com began as www.palinaspresident.com weeks before the election. It was awesome, Palin sitting in the Oval Office and everything in there was clickable to reveal something funny. On November 4, the site converted to the Barack incarnation. It contains a song, set to one of Barack's speeches, with folk music style guitar and famous folks speaking or singing his words, "Yes We Can".
It is so powerful.
www.youtube.com/wat
And because I am crushing pretty hard on our newly elected hero, here are the words of the speech. Printed totally without permission...
It was a creed written into the founding documents that declared the destiny of a nation.
Yes we can.
It was whispered by slaves and abolitionists as they blazed a trail toward freedom.
Yes we can.
It was sung by immigrants as they struck out from distant shores and pioneers who pushed westward against an unforgiving wilderness.
Yes we can.
It was the call of workers who organized; women who reached for the ballots; a President who chose the moon as our new frontier; and a King who took us to the mountaintop and pointed the way to the Promised Land.
Yes we can to justice and equality.
Yes we can to opportunity and prosperity.
Yes we can heal this nation.
Yes we can repair this world.
Yes we can.
We know the battle ahead will be long, but always remember that no matter what obstacles stand in our way, nothing can stand in the way of the power of millions of voices calling for change.
We have been told we cannot do this by a chorus of cynics...they will only grow louder and more dissonant ........... We've been asked to pause for a reality check. We've been warned against offering the people of this nation false hope.
But in the unlikely story that is America, there has never been anything false about hope.
Now the hopes of the little girl who goes to a crumbling school in Dillon are the same as the dreams of the boy who learns on the streets of LA; we will remember that there is something happening in America; that we are not as divided as our politics suggests; that we are one people; we are one nation; and together, we will begin the next great chapter in the American story with three words that will ring from coast to coast; from sea to shining sea --
Yes. We. Can.
The color was my creative little tweak...it's nothing compared to the genius and inspiration of this speech, it's writers, speaker and the team of musicians and actors who set it to music and created the video.
Someone has a dream, and I hope everyone, across all religions, races, ethnicities, political parties and throughout this nation shares it.
Wednesday, November 5, 2008
Three-fifths a President?
I am-like many Americans this morning-both excited and devastated by last night's election and the results that continue to unfold.
Excited that we have elected a man whose vision for our country's government will be like getting CPR from someone with really fresh breath. And I don't think many would disagree that our country is definitely in a flat line right now and in need of some CPR.
Bring us the Obama crash cart!
Devastated, because three states seem to have passed or are well on the way to passing legislation banning gay marriage.
Now, a word of encouragement...California (which I will call New Utah if this amendment passes) is only 95% reported and the "Yes" result is in the typical margin of error of + or - 4% , so there is math for hope. Still.
A fourth state, Arkansas of all places, has passed a law banning gay adoption. Now, I don't believe Arkansas actually has any gay citizens. Rather, I think the good folks down there in the Redneck Riviera (sorry DDV, you know it's true or you'd still live there!) are simply laying the ground work needed to stave off the flood of hedonistic homosexuals that will be fleeing New Utah, Arizona and Florida in reaction to those states' rolling up their welcome mat to the gays by denying them the right to marry. Just to let us know we aren't welcome there in Arkansas with our adopted Himalayan whistle children, either.
Good move, Joe-Bob. You sure saw us coming there! Yup, saw exactly what we were gonna do. Bullet point numero uno at the last big gay meeting.
Psych!
Also, my devastation stems from what I am sure to be future events...things I don't even think anyone has realized yet.
Now that the Mormons have spanked the evil-doing homosexuals and put us in our place, here are the new laws I see them funneling their tithe into:
~ Legalizing polygamy. Face it...with all the unrepentant and uncurable gay men out there, there are many unattended women-folk. They need a husband and there simply aren't enough god-fearing men to go around. Polygamy is the only answer.
~ A ban on blacks being president. The Mormons grudgingly allowed blacks to join their church...in the '80's? Someone correct me if I am wrong on that, but it was recently. File that move under "Keeping your friends close but your enemies closer". Now, they will fight to defend our country's government with the same fervor-I mean deep pockets-with which they fought to protect marriage. Namely, all men-not women, and certainly not them blacks-are created equal. There ya go...who even let Mac pick a woman as his running mate? And it is clearly laid out that a black man is equal to 3/5 a white man, so how can we elect 3/5 a president? Would we have to also ensure we had a 7/5 veep to balance that ticket?
You heard it here first, and yeah...it sounds crazy, right? But doesn't it seem like only a short time ago that it sounded crazy for a state like the former California to amend it's constitution to include discrimination?
To end on a high note (no, I am not high): Even applying "black math" to the presidential election, with two states still uncounted, 3/5 of Obama's electoral votes still put him at 209. Ahead of McCain and outside the reach of defeat if Mac carries the two undecided states.
Take that Joseph Smith.
Excited that we have elected a man whose vision for our country's government will be like getting CPR from someone with really fresh breath. And I don't think many would disagree that our country is definitely in a flat line right now and in need of some CPR.
Bring us the Obama crash cart!
Devastated, because three states seem to have passed or are well on the way to passing legislation banning gay marriage.
Now, a word of encouragement...California (which I will call New Utah if this amendment passes) is only 95% reported and the "Yes" result is in the typical margin of error of + or - 4% , so there is math for hope. Still.
A fourth state, Arkansas of all places, has passed a law banning gay adoption. Now, I don't believe Arkansas actually has any gay citizens. Rather, I think the good folks down there in the Redneck Riviera (sorry DDV, you know it's true or you'd still live there!) are simply laying the ground work needed to stave off the flood of hedonistic homosexuals that will be fleeing New Utah, Arizona and Florida in reaction to those states' rolling up their welcome mat to the gays by denying them the right to marry. Just to let us know we aren't welcome there in Arkansas with our adopted Himalayan whistle children, either.
Good move, Joe-Bob. You sure saw us coming there! Yup, saw exactly what we were gonna do. Bullet point numero uno at the last big gay meeting.
Psych!
Also, my devastation stems from what I am sure to be future events...things I don't even think anyone has realized yet.
Now that the Mormons have spanked the evil-doing homosexuals and put us in our place, here are the new laws I see them funneling their tithe into:
~ Legalizing polygamy. Face it...with all the unrepentant and uncurable gay men out there, there are many unattended women-folk. They need a husband and there simply aren't enough god-fearing men to go around. Polygamy is the only answer.
~ A ban on blacks being president. The Mormons grudgingly allowed blacks to join their church...in the '80's? Someone correct me if I am wrong on that, but it was recently. File that move under "Keeping your friends close but your enemies closer". Now, they will fight to defend our country's government with the same fervor-I mean deep pockets-with which they fought to protect marriage. Namely, all men-not women, and certainly not them blacks-are created equal. There ya go...who even let Mac pick a woman as his running mate? And it is clearly laid out that a black man is equal to 3/5 a white man, so how can we elect 3/5 a president? Would we have to also ensure we had a 7/5 veep to balance that ticket?
You heard it here first, and yeah...it sounds crazy, right? But doesn't it seem like only a short time ago that it sounded crazy for a state like the former California to amend it's constitution to include discrimination?
To end on a high note (no, I am not high): Even applying "black math" to the presidential election, with two states still uncounted, 3/5 of Obama's electoral votes still put him at 209. Ahead of McCain and outside the reach of defeat if Mac carries the two undecided states.
Take that Joseph Smith.
Monday, November 3, 2008
Blind as a...?
It's a beautiful fall day in Seattle. I decided to enjoy the day by sleeping through most of it-embrace your depression, people-and then take myself to breakfast at Zeena's, a neighborhood diner, before they closed at 3:00 as a rebound maneuver. Since it is fall-but beautifully done in a post Indian Summer kinda way-I went sans jacket, but kept on the shamefully unfashionable deep V tee shirt I slept in covered by an old Russell sweatshirt, my oldest and holiest, we're talking ass-showing-when-worn-without-underwear-and-damn-I feel-cool-just-for-owning-them-jeans and my favorite flip-flops.
To further offset the beauty of the day, I was unshowered, which means I had on one of my Nike ball caps, too.
I looked cool. My appearance was that of a dirty millionaire, belying my current financial holocaust.
I enjoyed breakfast-salami and eggs with about a pot of coffee-while reading the latest issue of the Advocate and enjoying their in version of one of my favorite games, "What If?". I inherited the love of this game from my mother, "What if you'd been in an accident?", "What if something had happened?" as she broadcast a parent's largest concern for their children-namely, all that they can't protect us from. My version-and the Advocate's in this case-is more positively speculative versus fear based love and concern. I was reading an article about what would have happened if Harvey Milk hadn't been murdered.
The restaurant closes and I am forced out on the street.
I am kicking my flip-flops through the damp leaves of First Hill's fall sidewalks as a fine mist falls. I am enjoying the wetness on my toes and the pleasant smell decaying leaves create hitting my nostrils as I walk home.
I look up, from the casual patrol my eyes are doing of the sidewalk to ensure I don't kick a raised portion of First Hill's lovely sidewalks and bloody myself or kick a dog poo a pet owner has failed to retrieve (an odd yet still practical pass-time for this afternoon considering Harvey Milk wrote and got passed into city ordinance San Francisco's Pooper Scooper law)-to see a man about a half a block away coming toward me. He is carrying a child...a toddler boy and my heart just filled with these pesky and overwhelming feelings of warmth, joy, love. My brain registered an attraction to the guy. I thought he was a hottie. A DILF.
As I passed by them, I realized the guy was a barker.
I made a mental note to get my eyes checked-or start wearing my glasses more regularly.
Still, I was amused to find myself laughing about how my eyes have betrayed me in my older years, but my ego refuses to submit to the proof before me and wear those damned glasses.
Then I thought about how bad my eyesight actually was and thought perhaps I was overreacting. My eyesight was relatively good for a person my age, right? To support this, I devised a scale for eyesight within the animal kingdom:
On the outermost left end of the scale, with excellent sight: Owls.
On the furthest right end of the scale, completely sightless: Helen Keller.
I began at the right end of the scale, pulling back to where I thought my level of ocular degeneration resided and then on toward the left end of the scale:
Helen Keller-blind, deaf and, possibly, dumb depending on whom you speak to but I disbelieve that last part, she learned sign language when hardly anyone knew it.
Naked Mole Rats-google these ugly mothers, they look like a buck toothed penis.
Bats-SONAR gives them sight-like qualities.
Snakes-increased sense of smell helps them "see".
New York governor David Paterson-legally blind.
Drunks-Beer Goggles, my only argument for this placement on the scale.
Me-given to bad attractions based on looks from across a distance, but a little more common sense at my disposal than a drunk.
Rabbits-I forget, has it been disproved that carrots are good for your eyesight?
Eagles-eagle eyes are a positive attribute, but overall, Owls are considered to have better vision than the regal eagle.
Owls.
Well, now I feel quite a bit better about my eyesight. As long as I don't look too closely at the space between myself and owls, I won't feel too bad. If I looked closely at the gap between me and owls, I might accidentally-even with my poor eyesight-notice the shorter gap between myself and the legally blind David Paterson and that would shake my rationalization.
Can't have that...
Then I started pondering how an animal's other senses make up for poor-or no-eyesight. You know: bats and their SONAR, snakes and their tongues, Helen Keller and her ability to sign R-E-S-P-E-C-T into the hand of her caretaking miracle worker, that type of thing. I wondered if I had a heightened sense that was compensation for my poor eyesight.
I stumbled, mentally, back to that overwhelming feeling of love I felt from that man toward his son. Was I able to see or sense what was in a person's heart because I was nearly blind as a common drunk? Is that what initially made me look up from my dog poo patrol to see that man and his child?
God knows, it wasn't gaydar. That's hardly my heightened sense.
To further offset the beauty of the day, I was unshowered, which means I had on one of my Nike ball caps, too.
I looked cool. My appearance was that of a dirty millionaire, belying my current financial holocaust.
I enjoyed breakfast-salami and eggs with about a pot of coffee-while reading the latest issue of the Advocate and enjoying their in version of one of my favorite games, "What If?". I inherited the love of this game from my mother, "What if you'd been in an accident?", "What if something had happened?" as she broadcast a parent's largest concern for their children-namely, all that they can't protect us from. My version-and the Advocate's in this case-is more positively speculative versus fear based love and concern. I was reading an article about what would have happened if Harvey Milk hadn't been murdered.
The restaurant closes and I am forced out on the street.
I am kicking my flip-flops through the damp leaves of First Hill's fall sidewalks as a fine mist falls. I am enjoying the wetness on my toes and the pleasant smell decaying leaves create hitting my nostrils as I walk home.
I look up, from the casual patrol my eyes are doing of the sidewalk to ensure I don't kick a raised portion of First Hill's lovely sidewalks and bloody myself or kick a dog poo a pet owner has failed to retrieve (an odd yet still practical pass-time for this afternoon considering Harvey Milk wrote and got passed into city ordinance San Francisco's Pooper Scooper law)-to see a man about a half a block away coming toward me. He is carrying a child...a toddler boy and my heart just filled with these pesky and overwhelming feelings of warmth, joy, love. My brain registered an attraction to the guy. I thought he was a hottie. A DILF.
As I passed by them, I realized the guy was a barker.
I made a mental note to get my eyes checked-or start wearing my glasses more regularly.
Still, I was amused to find myself laughing about how my eyes have betrayed me in my older years, but my ego refuses to submit to the proof before me and wear those damned glasses.
Then I thought about how bad my eyesight actually was and thought perhaps I was overreacting. My eyesight was relatively good for a person my age, right? To support this, I devised a scale for eyesight within the animal kingdom:
On the outermost left end of the scale, with excellent sight: Owls.
On the furthest right end of the scale, completely sightless: Helen Keller.
I began at the right end of the scale, pulling back to where I thought my level of ocular degeneration resided and then on toward the left end of the scale:
Helen Keller-blind, deaf and, possibly, dumb depending on whom you speak to but I disbelieve that last part, she learned sign language when hardly anyone knew it.
Naked Mole Rats-google these ugly mothers, they look like a buck toothed penis.
Bats-SONAR gives them sight-like qualities.
Snakes-increased sense of smell helps them "see".
New York governor David Paterson-legally blind.
Drunks-Beer Goggles, my only argument for this placement on the scale.
Me-given to bad attractions based on looks from across a distance, but a little more common sense at my disposal than a drunk.
Rabbits-I forget, has it been disproved that carrots are good for your eyesight?
Eagles-eagle eyes are a positive attribute, but overall, Owls are considered to have better vision than the regal eagle.
Owls.
Well, now I feel quite a bit better about my eyesight. As long as I don't look too closely at the space between myself and owls, I won't feel too bad. If I looked closely at the gap between me and owls, I might accidentally-even with my poor eyesight-notice the shorter gap between myself and the legally blind David Paterson and that would shake my rationalization.
Can't have that...
Then I started pondering how an animal's other senses make up for poor-or no-eyesight. You know: bats and their SONAR, snakes and their tongues, Helen Keller and her ability to sign R-E-S-P-E-C-T into the hand of her caretaking miracle worker, that type of thing. I wondered if I had a heightened sense that was compensation for my poor eyesight.
I stumbled, mentally, back to that overwhelming feeling of love I felt from that man toward his son. Was I able to see or sense what was in a person's heart because I was nearly blind as a common drunk? Is that what initially made me look up from my dog poo patrol to see that man and his child?
God knows, it wasn't gaydar. That's hardly my heightened sense.
My new word
Shituational.
Yup. That's it. I decided that, for me-for us all, really, the word situational needed to evolve. This is simply what needed to happen. Just like fish evolved to have legs and be able to move about on land, "situational" evolved to have an "H" in order to remove the implied or inferred positive connotation from situations whose outcomes may vary depending on a variety of factors, but never really work out in the speaker's favor when put under a microscope. When you look at it, you think it's your good behavior or hard work or diligence-or, best yet...Karma is paying off.
But if you look at it objectively, it's just luck.
You dodged a bullet, you lucky bastard. I mean, you well-behaved, hard-working, diligent and Karmically-blessed individual.
This evolution in vocabulary came about because a friend of mine mentioned she was hating her Clearwire internet service. Another friend of hers concurred that using Clearwire was the worst mistake of his life, and I (while wishing I had the good fortune of her other friend) disagreed, saying that my experience with Clearwire was a positive one.
Now, to say it is exclusively positive would be generous, I have had a couple of service outages over the last two years and the automatic billing overdrew my account once (not their fault that the bill date fell on a Saturday or Sunday...but likewise, not my fault I have a shit memory, right?) but by and large the experience for me has been far greater than with other internet service providers I have used. The icing on the cake-what tips it to shituational-for this case is cost. Does it really cost $1.50 per day to provide a receiver to catch the signal that Clearwire has beamed randomly throughout the skies of the United States? Because I am paying about $45 a month to receive this service. The answer? Probably not. As a matter of fact, $1.50 is probably more than they paid the poor Chinese bastard for the entire day that he worked the assembly line to manufacture this receiver; a day in which his quota was likely to manufacture a few thousand of these receivers.
Hence, the application of the word shituational. Overall, I have no real complaints-I expect service to be there, it generally is. It is a necessary evil. Realistically, even though I am "happy" with the situation, I'm pretty much still getting screwed.
Like banks, or politics or relationships. These are all other things in your life that are only shituational. They may be working for you now...but they aren't working for 100% of the people now and there is no guarantee that your experience will continue to be positive into the future.
But for an example, let's look at banks.
They provide a place for you to keep and manage your money and you pay them a monthly service fee. What? You have Free Checking? Of course you do. But you're special. the rest of us have a checking account that on average only creates $75 per year in revenue for those poor banks. No wonder they fail. $75 a year is two accidental overdrafts.
Those poor, poor banks.
When I worked at US Bank I heard this sorrowful tale many times.
Then I looked at the poor folks who kept their money at my branch alone. Running hundreds of dollars a month in overdraft fees and I would get grief for refunding a few overdraft fees for a customer on a monthly basis. There was a handful-a handful, we're talking a couple dozen-of accounts that would generate my generate my annual salary alone in their fees out of the 5,000 accounts that were opened at my branch.
Those poor, poor banks.
Let us not forget the "foreign ATM fees" you incur when you cannot find one of the thousands of ATMs your bank operates. $3.00 to gain access to your money because your bank doesn't actually provide the convenience they promise you? Plus many other "convenience fees" you may not even realize. Plus, the bank that owns the ATM you did use, well...they also get a couple bucks, right?
Then there are the backside fees. Fees that you generate simply by conducting business through your bank. You may not ever see these fees, but they are there.
Fees for using your ATM card as a Debit Card at a business. It costs the business around $.25 to accept that payment. Even small businesses run a few hundred of these transactions per day. A business that only runs 200 transactions a day generates $25 in revenue for the bank that they do their business with.
$150 a month.
$1800 a year.
24 times what your measly little checking account earns that poor, poor bank a year just to hold your money safely for you.
Times all of the small businesses you deal with on a daily basis.
Your dry cleaner.
Your neighborhood grocer or convenience store.
Your coffee place.
OMG, these coffee places are the true poor, poor bastards. My Americano costs $2.50, a price I tell the owner is too low. She should charge at least $.10 more, but that's another story. If I use my Debit Card, it costs her 10% of that cup of coffee just to accept my payment. I have actually left the bakery-and my coffee-to cross the street and get cash for my transaction to avoid making her pay this exorbitant fee.
So I will use my Credit Card to help out those small businesses and avoid making the banks money, right?
Nope. 2.5-6% of the transaction goes to the bank just to process it. Then you are generally paying interest, too. Or an annual fee.
And don't even let me get going on using Debit Cards as Credit Cards to earn cash back on the purchases you make.
Ok, I started.
The difference between what a bank earns on a debit transaction versus what they earn on a credit transaction can be HUGE. You can't look at it in terms of your cup of coffee, because that becomes an upside down transaction for the bank if you use your Debit Card as credit-they lose money. But, look at the couple of customers I personally ring up at work daily (this is not a plug for Bed, Bath & Beyond) where customers ask to use their Debit Card as a Credit Card. These are $500 transactions, what would be the cost of that $500 debit transaction? $.25, depending on the agreement a national retailer can wrangle with their bank versus your neighborhood small businesses-so probably less than a dime in reality, but I'm trying to factor out a few of the confusing variables so we'll stick with $.25 here. The cost to BBB for running those two transactions I process as credit? $4-6...and this is only two transactions a day by someone whose primary job function is not to work at a register.
And why does the consumer ask for these transactions to be handled like this? Because the bank gives them 1% of their purchases back annually as a reward for doing that. You get 1% and the bank keeps 1.5-5% of your purchases. This is called spread and it is how banks make their money. Spread also occurs in interest rates, between prime-or what the banks pay the government to buy money-and what they charge you in interest to borrow it from them. For example, the prime rate today is 4%. For some reason (to stimulate growth by reducing the risk banks expose themselves to by lending money to their clients, I'm sure) there is a Federal Discount that banks receive. Today this is 1.25%, so banks are paying 2.75% to buy money. The interest rate-or cost-of a 30 year fixed mortgage today is 6.41%. So the bank is netting 3.66% on a 30 year fixed mortgage that they generate today, or $3.66 for every $100 they lend.
Those poor, poor banks.
And earlier in this post you probably-oh so proudly-thought, "I don't create $75 in annual revenue for my bank because I never bounce checks."
A: Bullshit. Everyone bounces checks, and
B: Sucker. Your money creates thousands of dollars for banks a year on your purchases alone.
Don't even get me started on what I like to call the "It's A Wonderful Life phenomenon". But I'll give you a hint: The bank is not required to keep cash on hand for all monies deposited with them. Of course, they couldn't because of multiple branches...it would be logistically impossible. And catastrophic...remember what happened in IAWL when all the customers crowded the bank and demanded their money? Poor George faced having to close his family business because he didn't have it. Oops. Today, banks don't have to have it. Only a percentage of it. As an organization. What do they do with the rest? Keep it in a master vault the bank owns somewhere, right? Like a really, really secure U-Store It. Sure they don't. They invest it. Maybe not in stocks (Ok, maybe they do, but I don't know that) but by lending it back to other customers instead of buying it from the government. That means their spread just got bigger by 2.75 points, right?
But how can they do that? How can they avoid the IAWLP if they give my money to someone else?
Well,
A: They don't have to tell you that, and
B: The government doesn't require them to keep your money laying around, and
C: Because they provide motivation for you not to ask for it back.
Namely, Savings Accounts. A Passbook Savings Account earns you about 1.5% interest-unless you fall below $300 and then it costs you $3 a month, but that's not the point-and the bank uses that money to help avoid paying 2.75% to buy money from the government to do it's lending business. A net increase on the bank's spread of 1.25 points.
Those poor, poor banks.
So, this is all Chrisenese for describing my new word: shituational. You may never have an issue with your bank. You may think it's truly Free Checking and be happy as a clam with it. But, really, your experience with your bank-which you may even recommend to friends and family, or use to start your youngster's first bank accounts-is only shituational.
Basically, you got lucky. But, remember, luck runs out.
You dodged a bullet. But there are probably around five more bullets in the gun...and just hope it's not a semi-automatic weapon!
Aren't you glad I didn't use politics or relationships as my example?
Yup. That's it. I decided that, for me-for us all, really, the word situational needed to evolve. This is simply what needed to happen. Just like fish evolved to have legs and be able to move about on land, "situational" evolved to have an "H" in order to remove the implied or inferred positive connotation from situations whose outcomes may vary depending on a variety of factors, but never really work out in the speaker's favor when put under a microscope. When you look at it, you think it's your good behavior or hard work or diligence-or, best yet...Karma is paying off.
But if you look at it objectively, it's just luck.
You dodged a bullet, you lucky bastard. I mean, you well-behaved, hard-working, diligent and Karmically-blessed individual.
This evolution in vocabulary came about because a friend of mine mentioned she was hating her Clearwire internet service. Another friend of hers concurred that using Clearwire was the worst mistake of his life, and I (while wishing I had the good fortune of her other friend) disagreed, saying that my experience with Clearwire was a positive one.
Now, to say it is exclusively positive would be generous, I have had a couple of service outages over the last two years and the automatic billing overdrew my account once (not their fault that the bill date fell on a Saturday or Sunday...but likewise, not my fault I have a shit memory, right?) but by and large the experience for me has been far greater than with other internet service providers I have used. The icing on the cake-what tips it to shituational-for this case is cost. Does it really cost $1.50 per day to provide a receiver to catch the signal that Clearwire has beamed randomly throughout the skies of the United States? Because I am paying about $45 a month to receive this service. The answer? Probably not. As a matter of fact, $1.50 is probably more than they paid the poor Chinese bastard for the entire day that he worked the assembly line to manufacture this receiver; a day in which his quota was likely to manufacture a few thousand of these receivers.
Hence, the application of the word shituational. Overall, I have no real complaints-I expect service to be there, it generally is. It is a necessary evil. Realistically, even though I am "happy" with the situation, I'm pretty much still getting screwed.
Like banks, or politics or relationships. These are all other things in your life that are only shituational. They may be working for you now...but they aren't working for 100% of the people now and there is no guarantee that your experience will continue to be positive into the future.
But for an example, let's look at banks.
They provide a place for you to keep and manage your money and you pay them a monthly service fee. What? You have Free Checking? Of course you do. But you're special. the rest of us have a checking account that on average only creates $75 per year in revenue for those poor banks. No wonder they fail. $75 a year is two accidental overdrafts.
Those poor, poor banks.
When I worked at US Bank I heard this sorrowful tale many times.
Then I looked at the poor folks who kept their money at my branch alone. Running hundreds of dollars a month in overdraft fees and I would get grief for refunding a few overdraft fees for a customer on a monthly basis. There was a handful-a handful, we're talking a couple dozen-of accounts that would generate my generate my annual salary alone in their fees out of the 5,000 accounts that were opened at my branch.
Those poor, poor banks.
Let us not forget the "foreign ATM fees" you incur when you cannot find one of the thousands of ATMs your bank operates. $3.00 to gain access to your money because your bank doesn't actually provide the convenience they promise you? Plus many other "convenience fees" you may not even realize. Plus, the bank that owns the ATM you did use, well...they also get a couple bucks, right?
Then there are the backside fees. Fees that you generate simply by conducting business through your bank. You may not ever see these fees, but they are there.
Fees for using your ATM card as a Debit Card at a business. It costs the business around $.25 to accept that payment. Even small businesses run a few hundred of these transactions per day. A business that only runs 200 transactions a day generates $25 in revenue for the bank that they do their business with.
$150 a month.
$1800 a year.
24 times what your measly little checking account earns that poor, poor bank a year just to hold your money safely for you.
Times all of the small businesses you deal with on a daily basis.
Your dry cleaner.
Your neighborhood grocer or convenience store.
Your coffee place.
OMG, these coffee places are the true poor, poor bastards. My Americano costs $2.50, a price I tell the owner is too low. She should charge at least $.10 more, but that's another story. If I use my Debit Card, it costs her 10% of that cup of coffee just to accept my payment. I have actually left the bakery-and my coffee-to cross the street and get cash for my transaction to avoid making her pay this exorbitant fee.
So I will use my Credit Card to help out those small businesses and avoid making the banks money, right?
Nope. 2.5-6% of the transaction goes to the bank just to process it. Then you are generally paying interest, too. Or an annual fee.
And don't even let me get going on using Debit Cards as Credit Cards to earn cash back on the purchases you make.
Ok, I started.
The difference between what a bank earns on a debit transaction versus what they earn on a credit transaction can be HUGE. You can't look at it in terms of your cup of coffee, because that becomes an upside down transaction for the bank if you use your Debit Card as credit-they lose money. But, look at the couple of customers I personally ring up at work daily (this is not a plug for Bed, Bath & Beyond) where customers ask to use their Debit Card as a Credit Card. These are $500 transactions, what would be the cost of that $500 debit transaction? $.25, depending on the agreement a national retailer can wrangle with their bank versus your neighborhood small businesses-so probably less than a dime in reality, but I'm trying to factor out a few of the confusing variables so we'll stick with $.25 here. The cost to BBB for running those two transactions I process as credit? $4-6...and this is only two transactions a day by someone whose primary job function is not to work at a register.
And why does the consumer ask for these transactions to be handled like this? Because the bank gives them 1% of their purchases back annually as a reward for doing that. You get 1% and the bank keeps 1.5-5% of your purchases. This is called spread and it is how banks make their money. Spread also occurs in interest rates, between prime-or what the banks pay the government to buy money-and what they charge you in interest to borrow it from them. For example, the prime rate today is 4%. For some reason (to stimulate growth by reducing the risk banks expose themselves to by lending money to their clients, I'm sure) there is a Federal Discount that banks receive. Today this is 1.25%, so banks are paying 2.75% to buy money. The interest rate-or cost-of a 30 year fixed mortgage today is 6.41%. So the bank is netting 3.66% on a 30 year fixed mortgage that they generate today, or $3.66 for every $100 they lend.
Those poor, poor banks.
And earlier in this post you probably-oh so proudly-thought, "I don't create $75 in annual revenue for my bank because I never bounce checks."
A: Bullshit. Everyone bounces checks, and
B: Sucker. Your money creates thousands of dollars for banks a year on your purchases alone.
Don't even get me started on what I like to call the "It's A Wonderful Life phenomenon". But I'll give you a hint: The bank is not required to keep cash on hand for all monies deposited with them. Of course, they couldn't because of multiple branches...it would be logistically impossible. And catastrophic...remember what happened in IAWL when all the customers crowded the bank and demanded their money? Poor George faced having to close his family business because he didn't have it. Oops. Today, banks don't have to have it. Only a percentage of it. As an organization. What do they do with the rest? Keep it in a master vault the bank owns somewhere, right? Like a really, really secure U-Store It. Sure they don't. They invest it. Maybe not in stocks (Ok, maybe they do, but I don't know that) but by lending it back to other customers instead of buying it from the government. That means their spread just got bigger by 2.75 points, right?
But how can they do that? How can they avoid the IAWLP if they give my money to someone else?
Well,
A: They don't have to tell you that, and
B: The government doesn't require them to keep your money laying around, and
C: Because they provide motivation for you not to ask for it back.
Namely, Savings Accounts. A Passbook Savings Account earns you about 1.5% interest-unless you fall below $300 and then it costs you $3 a month, but that's not the point-and the bank uses that money to help avoid paying 2.75% to buy money from the government to do it's lending business. A net increase on the bank's spread of 1.25 points.
Those poor, poor banks.
So, this is all Chrisenese for describing my new word: shituational. You may never have an issue with your bank. You may think it's truly Free Checking and be happy as a clam with it. But, really, your experience with your bank-which you may even recommend to friends and family, or use to start your youngster's first bank accounts-is only shituational.
Basically, you got lucky. But, remember, luck runs out.
You dodged a bullet. But there are probably around five more bullets in the gun...and just hope it's not a semi-automatic weapon!
Aren't you glad I didn't use politics or relationships as my example?
Wednesday, October 29, 2008
The Chicken, perhaps
I watched Sex in the City: The Movie tonight. When I heard that it was out (via Netflix, natch) I immediately added it to my queue and moved it to the top. All this happened within about a three day period.
While watching it, I realized that this was the type of movie that-several years ago-friends of mine would have never have let me view (see also: Closer, which I finally saw and loved. Actually, I bought it). Excuses ran the gamut of, "We're seeing it opening night, if you want to join" which is nice, but I work Wednesday nights was perfunctory at best to, "I saw it opening night, sorry!". It seemed none of my friends wanted to be the ones to let me see this relationship heavy movie.
It was five years ago all over again-except I was not a shut in likely never to expect a friend to offer an invite to a cinema outing like I was then.
Can you believe that Closer has been out that long? What ever happened to Damian Rice after that movie?
I was just overwhelmed again at the complexities of relationships. Is the work involved the chicken or the egg of my desire? This was my thought. My amazing deep thought during these movies.
I haven't a clue.
Yet, as I watched this movie, I was filled with a sense of...hope? That doesn't seem like the right word, but it's along those lines. Watching Candy Bergen tell Carrie that she was going to be Vogue's "40 Woman" made me realize that the hope for success in the realm of relationships that I seek is normal and not the aberration I sometimes feel it is when my friends make their statements of support for my romantic side, no matter how much my looking for love may resemble the Bush Administration's search for WMD in Iraq. Yeah, yeah...we're both sure we've found it. Doesn't make either of us right, right?
Nonetheless, here I drink my 7th beer of the night thinking about this.
Tonight aside, since I know that it's not the first beer or the seventh of the night that makes my mind wander to the topic of love...I think it's hardwired into my heart...I find myself in varying depths of reflection on the matter.
Something has been bugging me on this issue for some time.
Was it awakened by an article I read in Out magazine a few months ago about Phil and Dean, the mildly celebrated gay couple married in Palm Springs shortly after the California Supreme Court legalized gay marriage?
*BTW, please...if you are a California registered voter, vote no on Prop 8!
Was it my pending trip to Long Beach, CA to visit my parents and my parents' remarriage earlier this year that demonstrated the strength of true love to endure nearly two decades of "worse"? If this wasn't a clear demonstration of the power of wedding vows, please, someone show me what is. Neither had remarried, nor embarked on a relationship that would be considered serious by both principles in the situation. Does the heart's want for what the heart wants supersede anything the mind might tell us is good for us?
Was it my random attendance at an informal family reunion in August where four generations found themselves gathered at my sister's family home and I found myself standing in the middle of the night on the landing of her home in front of a family portrait (her, her husband and their 9 year old child) thinking, "This is a family. Not the man, the woman or their offspring, but rather the love that broadcast out from that photograph that makes the family"? Good god, that love fairly beamed out of the photo. I didn't see so much the stress that I knew existed in getting the family to the photo studio looking "just right" in that photo as much as I saw the inherent love that made the photo itself important.
Who is to say, definitively?
As I watched the relationship scales tip back and forth in the Sex and the City movie this evening, I knew on an intellectual level that the results were formulaic. Still, I admired that the writers had been true to the characters.
Instead of taking the easy way out and letting Samantha resume her sex-indulgent ways and let her rekindle her single gal/sex positive happiness, there was a conversation where she stated to her lover, the formerly-sexy-as-hell-cum-I'm-looking-like-I-stole-Kevin-Bacon's-look Jason Lewis, that the relationship wasn't working for her and that she would always remember him...even if the "fondly" had to be inferred by the viewer.
Instead of giving Miranda the perfect suburban woman that has it all storyline, they gave her the frigid working wife dealing with a husband's infidelity storyline to play out. I'm glad they ended up together instead of bitterly separated.
Even on the side of girlfriends, they created a wrinkle. Miranda and Carrie having to work through Miranda's careless remark to Big the day before his marriage to Carrie that caused him enough distress to make him second-guess his nuptials and leave Carrie standing at the altar. But the message of honesty above all else...having that respect for the other in the relationship...carrying the day-and the heart-had me misty on more than one occasion during the movie and wondering if I would send this movie back tomorrow or wait and watch it again when I returned from my trip to SoCal to see the 'rents before I sent it back or even just pick up my own copy when it was part of the never ending 2 for $20 sale at Blockbuster.
Could this be my new Under the Tuscan Sun? The new When Harry Met Sally? It seems nothing will ever replace those movies and their message of hope for the ever romantic.
At the same time, I wonder if the message I should take away from this movie is along the lines of "40 is not an age where lasting love is impossible".
Sure, after 40 I could never wear a wedding dress without irony, but I never wanted to wear one anyway. What was, and always will be, important to me is the message my potential relationship sends out to the rest of the world. A message that brooks no disrespect from the jaded masses, but one that must simply must be acknowledged and respected for it's purity of intent: two hearts, joined as one unit, for a lifetime.
Barf, I know. Still, there it is: a big lump of hope where the lump of coal representing my heart should be.
God help me-and all the poor bastards that intent is misfired at.
While watching it, I realized that this was the type of movie that-several years ago-friends of mine would have never have let me view (see also: Closer, which I finally saw and loved. Actually, I bought it). Excuses ran the gamut of, "We're seeing it opening night, if you want to join" which is nice, but I work Wednesday nights was perfunctory at best to, "I saw it opening night, sorry!". It seemed none of my friends wanted to be the ones to let me see this relationship heavy movie.
It was five years ago all over again-except I was not a shut in likely never to expect a friend to offer an invite to a cinema outing like I was then.
Can you believe that Closer has been out that long? What ever happened to Damian Rice after that movie?
I was just overwhelmed again at the complexities of relationships. Is the work involved the chicken or the egg of my desire? This was my thought. My amazing deep thought during these movies.
I haven't a clue.
Yet, as I watched this movie, I was filled with a sense of...hope? That doesn't seem like the right word, but it's along those lines. Watching Candy Bergen tell Carrie that she was going to be Vogue's "40 Woman" made me realize that the hope for success in the realm of relationships that I seek is normal and not the aberration I sometimes feel it is when my friends make their statements of support for my romantic side, no matter how much my looking for love may resemble the Bush Administration's search for WMD in Iraq. Yeah, yeah...we're both sure we've found it. Doesn't make either of us right, right?
Nonetheless, here I drink my 7th beer of the night thinking about this.
Tonight aside, since I know that it's not the first beer or the seventh of the night that makes my mind wander to the topic of love...I think it's hardwired into my heart...I find myself in varying depths of reflection on the matter.
Something has been bugging me on this issue for some time.
Was it awakened by an article I read in Out magazine a few months ago about Phil and Dean, the mildly celebrated gay couple married in Palm Springs shortly after the California Supreme Court legalized gay marriage?
*BTW, please...if you are a California registered voter, vote no on Prop 8!
Was it my pending trip to Long Beach, CA to visit my parents and my parents' remarriage earlier this year that demonstrated the strength of true love to endure nearly two decades of "worse"? If this wasn't a clear demonstration of the power of wedding vows, please, someone show me what is. Neither had remarried, nor embarked on a relationship that would be considered serious by both principles in the situation. Does the heart's want for what the heart wants supersede anything the mind might tell us is good for us?
Was it my random attendance at an informal family reunion in August where four generations found themselves gathered at my sister's family home and I found myself standing in the middle of the night on the landing of her home in front of a family portrait (her, her husband and their 9 year old child) thinking, "This is a family. Not the man, the woman or their offspring, but rather the love that broadcast out from that photograph that makes the family"? Good god, that love fairly beamed out of the photo. I didn't see so much the stress that I knew existed in getting the family to the photo studio looking "just right" in that photo as much as I saw the inherent love that made the photo itself important.
Who is to say, definitively?
As I watched the relationship scales tip back and forth in the Sex and the City movie this evening, I knew on an intellectual level that the results were formulaic. Still, I admired that the writers had been true to the characters.
Instead of taking the easy way out and letting Samantha resume her sex-indulgent ways and let her rekindle her single gal/sex positive happiness, there was a conversation where she stated to her lover, the formerly-sexy-as-hell-cum-I'm-looking-like-I-stole-Kevin-Bacon's-look Jason Lewis, that the relationship wasn't working for her and that she would always remember him...even if the "fondly" had to be inferred by the viewer.
Instead of giving Miranda the perfect suburban woman that has it all storyline, they gave her the frigid working wife dealing with a husband's infidelity storyline to play out. I'm glad they ended up together instead of bitterly separated.
Even on the side of girlfriends, they created a wrinkle. Miranda and Carrie having to work through Miranda's careless remark to Big the day before his marriage to Carrie that caused him enough distress to make him second-guess his nuptials and leave Carrie standing at the altar. But the message of honesty above all else...having that respect for the other in the relationship...carrying the day-and the heart-had me misty on more than one occasion during the movie and wondering if I would send this movie back tomorrow or wait and watch it again when I returned from my trip to SoCal to see the 'rents before I sent it back or even just pick up my own copy when it was part of the never ending 2 for $20 sale at Blockbuster.
Could this be my new Under the Tuscan Sun? The new When Harry Met Sally? It seems nothing will ever replace those movies and their message of hope for the ever romantic.
At the same time, I wonder if the message I should take away from this movie is along the lines of "40 is not an age where lasting love is impossible".
Sure, after 40 I could never wear a wedding dress without irony, but I never wanted to wear one anyway. What was, and always will be, important to me is the message my potential relationship sends out to the rest of the world. A message that brooks no disrespect from the jaded masses, but one that must simply must be acknowledged and respected for it's purity of intent: two hearts, joined as one unit, for a lifetime.
Barf, I know. Still, there it is: a big lump of hope where the lump of coal representing my heart should be.
God help me-and all the poor bastards that intent is misfired at.
Monday, October 27, 2008
It wasn't a heart attack...
So I have that going for me, which is nice. So sayeth the prophet Bill Murray.
This happened back in August, and I am just getting around to writing about it. I've been busy nearly dying, after all.
Friday.
I was working out with a friend at the gym. A trainer-type. A natural athlete. You know, someone exactly my opposite. Why I thought this was a good idea? No clue. So, he's putting me through these jack ass exercises, like his personal guinea pig and I kind of go along with him cuz he's hot, right?
I should have know better from the time we were doing preacher's curls and something ripped in my elbow, which prompted his eyes to make like saucers and him to say, "Are you ok?" Sure, it does that all the time, just ignore it. But nooooo, not me. I mentioned he was hot, right?
So this time, it's just a little pinch in my neck while doing the roman chair. Of course, since I am his guinea pig, it's a modified roman chair. "Put your arms out in front of you like Superman"...my inner voice translated that to "Flail your arms around you like someone free-falling off a cliff". But I buck up and keep going through the work out. What's that called now? Manning up? That's what I did.
Saturday.
I wake up a little stiff-in all the wrong places. A little sore. I pay it no mind, a pulled muscle does that. Later in the day when I am running a little 5k, my arm starts hurting. This is about halfway through, 12 or so minutes in. Then my arm goes completely numb from the shoulder to the finger tips. Next comes tingling in the finger tips.
So here I am thinking, heart attack-wouldn't you? My mind, inhabiting my body as it does, thinks, "Keep going or stop and get help?". I keep going. I'm sure as hell not leaving the gym on a gurney while I have a pulse. I'm going out like Douglas Adams. Google it.
I try shaking it off while I finish my run. But I can't tell where my arm ends so I end up just thrashing is about, occasionally bonking the treadmill with my senseless wrist.
That night I can't sleep because I normally sleep on my left side but can't because it's too painful and uncomfortable. Although I cannot feel my arm, my neck aches like crazy, too. There's another random pain just to the left of my sternum that migrates from front to back, depending on where I am laying.
Awesome!
Now the best part, I really think I am dying. But I won't go to the emergency room because I don't have enough cash to pay the $75 co-pay. Rough year. And frankly, aside from the darned inconvenience of, y'know, dying this seems like about where my year would end up. so I wait for the end. I'm actually sort of mad. There's been plenty of time for my life to "flash" before my eyes, but nothing.
Sunday.
Thank god I am off work. I lay in bed most of the day. Then I hang out with a few friends. I'm doped up on some expired Advil I found in my linen closet. Seems mildly effective, but not 100%. My friend Silver Fox in Portland tells me that I'm not having a heart attack after taking me through several motions on the phone. He has a PhD, so that's a comfort. I still don't sleep Sunday night.
Monday.
I go to work. Seriously. But I do call my doctor and make an appointment for that afternoon. All I have to do is make it through the day til 2:45, then I am off to the doctor's office and hopefully the hospital after that. I tell my boss, he asks me to come back after my appointment! Now, I am a little pissed. I think I tell him "No problem", thinking "Like hell, buddy". At this point I am the only manager he has that hadn't taken a bunch of sick days in the first half of the year. Besides, in my mind, I'm going to the hospital. I'll just call from there, won't he feel bad then? Maturity is one of my finer qualities.
I get to the doctor's office and he asks me what the problem is. I can practically see him warming up a needle of penicillin wondering what I've done this time.
I'm pretty sure I'm not having a heart attack, I tell him. I'd just feel better if someone with a medical degree would tell me that.
You're not having a heart attack, he says from behind a smirk in his seat across the room.
Any desire to earn your $120 and come over here and say that after-oh, I don't know-listening to my heart? That's like $10 per step, y'know.
He assures me he will listen to my heart but tells me to stop worrying because he can tell from where he's sitting that I am fine. I'd be sweating profusely and unable to lift or move my arm if I was having a heart attack.
Again, I translate this to something flecked with names like "wussy" and nearly overrun with barely contained laughter at my discomfort.
You just pulled a muscle. Probably pinched a nerve from the sounds of it.
But the pain...putting on my best relieved expression even though I am not sure I want to give up dying so easily. My rational mind knew after the first day or so that I wasn't dying, but there was still some niggling doubt as to my guaranteed survival.
Trust me, he tells me while listening to my heart. I wanted to drop dead in his office just to wipe that grin off his face but my body wouldn't cooperate. To make me feel better he assures me this will be the worst day for pain-day three always is for a muscle pull, he says.
Great. Pain. Can I get that with some mushrooms and eggnog, just all the stuff I hate at once to get it over with?
The pinched nerve should heal in about six to eight weeks.
W-w-wh-whud? Six to eight weeks? What am I supposed to do until then?
He's laughing-compassionately, I assure you-telling me not to worry, just take it easy with that side of my body. No gym. No lifting at work, under five pounds is fine.
The reason he's laughing is cuz he knows I'm right handed...for most things. Why did I think I could tell him what I use my left hand for? I mean it was a year and a half ago, who knew the little perv would remember?
Now he's leaving the room, talking about something else. Himself. Look, just because I worry doesn't automatically make me a hypochondriac, sure, I'm a bit of a wussy, but I don't want to talk about you expanding your practice. Yet. I mean, maybe there will be a cute doctor joining the practice, but I need a few minutes here to grieve for my continued persistent survival.
I can't live yet, I'm not ready!
When I come to, I'm back at work. WTF? And I'm wet. Was it raining? All the rest of the management teams seems to be heading for the door. I have enough of my wits about me after my brush with not-death to realize they are all leaving early but not enough to be mad about it.
Well, inside I am raging about it. I have to come back so you clowns can leave early? No, not a chance. I'm a little too busy not dying to work. But they don't hear my internal raging over the woosh of the automatic doors.
Thankfully-or not, in retrospect-my right arm is my drinking arm. And I like really fattening beer. No PBR for this boy. Naughty Nellie's, Prohibition, Redhook ESB...that's how I roll. And that's exactly what I drank myself into-a roll around my middle. Sure, it took me from a 32" waist to a 33" (barely, but I am not admitting to anything larger) but this is one place no man wants an extra inch!
Four weeks later, follow up.
I can't feel my fingers. I think I'm going to puncture my eardrum scratching my ear or poke my eye out with these dead fingers.
Yeah, yeah...really funny. I'm going back to the gym, I'm bored.
Five pound weights? You can't be serious? I can feel the right side of my body just fine, five pounds won't do jack for me. Fine, fine, fine...let me out of here, I tell him intending to do whatever I please once I get to the gym.
As it turns out, five pounds was just about right. The 25's I was using while "taking it easy" on the dumb bell presses almost ended up twisting my shoulder out of it's socket as the weight in my left hand went careening toward the ground. Fine...my doctor went to medical school and I didn't. I'll do it his way.
In talking to the membership manager at the gym about my gimpy arm I discovered that this particular injury was called a "stinger". How appropriate, since I couldn't really feel anything.
Well, that's not true. Here I was feeling proud that I had a jocky sounding sports related injury. 'Bout friggin time, I'm 40 here!
Two months later.
My left index and middle finger still go numb now and then. Like when I am commiting run on sentences to the internet on this here blog. I'm fully released to be back at the gym. My obstacle to getting back? My body feels depressed from not working out and not eating right. I am managing to get there twice a week, but I feel weak and worn out after about 45 minutes. My spirit is depressed cuz I haven't been blogging like I used to to clear my head and indulge my-limited-creative side. Double whammy.
Gonna have to work on that.
I had pretty much forgotten about putting this mildly amusing episode to this virtual paper until yesterday when I got a voicemail from my friend Big-Word-Ben in Portland. My old neighbor had been hospitalized and undergone surgery for a heart attack. He's only 50, maybe 51 now. The good news is that the damage had been repaired and any lingering damage could be controlled with medication. That's actually great news. His partner had had a heart attack about ten years prior to this and never really recovered, in spirit anyway. They corrected the heart muscle witha pace maker, but he was constantly aware of it's presence, and it basically haunted him until he shot himself a couple of years later. It was devastating.
But here, we had good news. All would be well, we are told.
The only bad part? He'd been having what his doctor called a "rolling heart attack" for about a week.
WTF? My doctor told me a heart attack that lasted three days would be unbearable!
OMG, I could have died!
This happened back in August, and I am just getting around to writing about it. I've been busy nearly dying, after all.
Friday.
I was working out with a friend at the gym. A trainer-type. A natural athlete. You know, someone exactly my opposite. Why I thought this was a good idea? No clue. So, he's putting me through these jack ass exercises, like his personal guinea pig and I kind of go along with him cuz he's hot, right?
I should have know better from the time we were doing preacher's curls and something ripped in my elbow, which prompted his eyes to make like saucers and him to say, "Are you ok?" Sure, it does that all the time, just ignore it. But nooooo, not me. I mentioned he was hot, right?
So this time, it's just a little pinch in my neck while doing the roman chair. Of course, since I am his guinea pig, it's a modified roman chair. "Put your arms out in front of you like Superman"...my inner voice translated that to "Flail your arms around you like someone free-falling off a cliff". But I buck up and keep going through the work out. What's that called now? Manning up? That's what I did.
Saturday.
I wake up a little stiff-in all the wrong places. A little sore. I pay it no mind, a pulled muscle does that. Later in the day when I am running a little 5k, my arm starts hurting. This is about halfway through, 12 or so minutes in. Then my arm goes completely numb from the shoulder to the finger tips. Next comes tingling in the finger tips.
So here I am thinking, heart attack-wouldn't you? My mind, inhabiting my body as it does, thinks, "Keep going or stop and get help?". I keep going. I'm sure as hell not leaving the gym on a gurney while I have a pulse. I'm going out like Douglas Adams. Google it.
I try shaking it off while I finish my run. But I can't tell where my arm ends so I end up just thrashing is about, occasionally bonking the treadmill with my senseless wrist.
That night I can't sleep because I normally sleep on my left side but can't because it's too painful and uncomfortable. Although I cannot feel my arm, my neck aches like crazy, too. There's another random pain just to the left of my sternum that migrates from front to back, depending on where I am laying.
Awesome!
Now the best part, I really think I am dying. But I won't go to the emergency room because I don't have enough cash to pay the $75 co-pay. Rough year. And frankly, aside from the darned inconvenience of, y'know, dying this seems like about where my year would end up. so I wait for the end. I'm actually sort of mad. There's been plenty of time for my life to "flash" before my eyes, but nothing.
Sunday.
Thank god I am off work. I lay in bed most of the day. Then I hang out with a few friends. I'm doped up on some expired Advil I found in my linen closet. Seems mildly effective, but not 100%. My friend Silver Fox in Portland tells me that I'm not having a heart attack after taking me through several motions on the phone. He has a PhD, so that's a comfort. I still don't sleep Sunday night.
Monday.
I go to work. Seriously. But I do call my doctor and make an appointment for that afternoon. All I have to do is make it through the day til 2:45, then I am off to the doctor's office and hopefully the hospital after that. I tell my boss, he asks me to come back after my appointment! Now, I am a little pissed. I think I tell him "No problem", thinking "Like hell, buddy". At this point I am the only manager he has that hadn't taken a bunch of sick days in the first half of the year. Besides, in my mind, I'm going to the hospital. I'll just call from there, won't he feel bad then? Maturity is one of my finer qualities.
I get to the doctor's office and he asks me what the problem is. I can practically see him warming up a needle of penicillin wondering what I've done this time.
I'm pretty sure I'm not having a heart attack, I tell him. I'd just feel better if someone with a medical degree would tell me that.
You're not having a heart attack, he says from behind a smirk in his seat across the room.
Any desire to earn your $120 and come over here and say that after-oh, I don't know-listening to my heart? That's like $10 per step, y'know.
He assures me he will listen to my heart but tells me to stop worrying because he can tell from where he's sitting that I am fine. I'd be sweating profusely and unable to lift or move my arm if I was having a heart attack.
Again, I translate this to something flecked with names like "wussy" and nearly overrun with barely contained laughter at my discomfort.
You just pulled a muscle. Probably pinched a nerve from the sounds of it.
But the pain...putting on my best relieved expression even though I am not sure I want to give up dying so easily. My rational mind knew after the first day or so that I wasn't dying, but there was still some niggling doubt as to my guaranteed survival.
Trust me, he tells me while listening to my heart. I wanted to drop dead in his office just to wipe that grin off his face but my body wouldn't cooperate. To make me feel better he assures me this will be the worst day for pain-day three always is for a muscle pull, he says.
Great. Pain. Can I get that with some mushrooms and eggnog, just all the stuff I hate at once to get it over with?
The pinched nerve should heal in about six to eight weeks.
W-w-wh-whud? Six to eight weeks? What am I supposed to do until then?
He's laughing-compassionately, I assure you-telling me not to worry, just take it easy with that side of my body. No gym. No lifting at work, under five pounds is fine.
The reason he's laughing is cuz he knows I'm right handed...for most things. Why did I think I could tell him what I use my left hand for? I mean it was a year and a half ago, who knew the little perv would remember?
Now he's leaving the room, talking about something else. Himself. Look, just because I worry doesn't automatically make me a hypochondriac, sure, I'm a bit of a wussy, but I don't want to talk about you expanding your practice. Yet. I mean, maybe there will be a cute doctor joining the practice, but I need a few minutes here to grieve for my continued persistent survival.
I can't live yet, I'm not ready!
When I come to, I'm back at work. WTF? And I'm wet. Was it raining? All the rest of the management teams seems to be heading for the door. I have enough of my wits about me after my brush with not-death to realize they are all leaving early but not enough to be mad about it.
Well, inside I am raging about it. I have to come back so you clowns can leave early? No, not a chance. I'm a little too busy not dying to work. But they don't hear my internal raging over the woosh of the automatic doors.
Thankfully-or not, in retrospect-my right arm is my drinking arm. And I like really fattening beer. No PBR for this boy. Naughty Nellie's, Prohibition, Redhook ESB...that's how I roll. And that's exactly what I drank myself into-a roll around my middle. Sure, it took me from a 32" waist to a 33" (barely, but I am not admitting to anything larger) but this is one place no man wants an extra inch!
Four weeks later, follow up.
I can't feel my fingers. I think I'm going to puncture my eardrum scratching my ear or poke my eye out with these dead fingers.
Yeah, yeah...really funny. I'm going back to the gym, I'm bored.
Five pound weights? You can't be serious? I can feel the right side of my body just fine, five pounds won't do jack for me. Fine, fine, fine...let me out of here, I tell him intending to do whatever I please once I get to the gym.
As it turns out, five pounds was just about right. The 25's I was using while "taking it easy" on the dumb bell presses almost ended up twisting my shoulder out of it's socket as the weight in my left hand went careening toward the ground. Fine...my doctor went to medical school and I didn't. I'll do it his way.
In talking to the membership manager at the gym about my gimpy arm I discovered that this particular injury was called a "stinger". How appropriate, since I couldn't really feel anything.
Well, that's not true. Here I was feeling proud that I had a jocky sounding sports related injury. 'Bout friggin time, I'm 40 here!
Two months later.
My left index and middle finger still go numb now and then. Like when I am commiting run on sentences to the internet on this here blog. I'm fully released to be back at the gym. My obstacle to getting back? My body feels depressed from not working out and not eating right. I am managing to get there twice a week, but I feel weak and worn out after about 45 minutes. My spirit is depressed cuz I haven't been blogging like I used to to clear my head and indulge my-limited-creative side. Double whammy.
Gonna have to work on that.
I had pretty much forgotten about putting this mildly amusing episode to this virtual paper until yesterday when I got a voicemail from my friend Big-Word-Ben in Portland. My old neighbor had been hospitalized and undergone surgery for a heart attack. He's only 50, maybe 51 now. The good news is that the damage had been repaired and any lingering damage could be controlled with medication. That's actually great news. His partner had had a heart attack about ten years prior to this and never really recovered, in spirit anyway. They corrected the heart muscle witha pace maker, but he was constantly aware of it's presence, and it basically haunted him until he shot himself a couple of years later. It was devastating.
But here, we had good news. All would be well, we are told.
The only bad part? He'd been having what his doctor called a "rolling heart attack" for about a week.
WTF? My doctor told me a heart attack that lasted three days would be unbearable!
OMG, I could have died!
Sunday, October 26, 2008
Elvira!
The invite was both pleasantly unexpected and not entirely understood.
I know that camp has ruled many a day in the lives of gays and lesbians since the word "camp" was bastardized into it's current meaning in the sub culture lexicon. A few examples:
and:
God bless the folks at urbandictionary.com! That second one is my favorite. But only because I have dressed-on more than one gay Christmas, I mean Halloween-in a Freudian Slip, an idea stolen from Meg Ryan in DOA.
So the reason the invite was unexpected was that it was to the closing night of the Seattle Gay and Lesbian Film Festival. Or is it Lesbian and Gay? Regardless...the crux of the issue is that it was to watch the closing night movie: Elvira, Mistress of the Dark. Nary a Gay or Lesbian character in the film.
Now, I had seen this movie when it came out, then again at a party or some other function. But to sit down in a theater and expect to see one of my slightly post college year faves on the big screen again-priceless. To be in a theater to see the aforementioned movie and find out that the movie has been remastered for it's 20th anniversary-painful.
Nonetheless, my people excel at overcoming adversity, so there I sat with my favorite in person lesbian couple (sorry, Ellen and Portia might steal your thunder in a different reality, and Melissa Etheridge or the Indigo Girls in any reality...I'm only human) anxiously awaiting the remastered version amidst the Rocky Horror drop outs dressed for the occasion.
As smart as I think I am most of the time, I have to say that I got so much more of the movie this time. Time, time, time, look what's become of me...indeed. My most gratifying moment of the evening-scratch that, the second most gratifying moment-was when my friend Lisa kicked me as she realized one of my favorite movie quotes had just played out. Elvira hits her head and her attentive love interest asks her-so concerned-how her head is. Her response: I haven't had any complaints yet. Imagine my chagrin as I realized I had quoted the line correctly for 20 years but set the scene incorrectly. I may have to stay inside for a couple of hours until everyone forgets!
My favorite part of the evening? The autographed picture of Hers Truly and a totally unplanned photo op with the Mistress of the Dark.
I am no photographer, neither was this complete stranger that got roped into taking this pic, but imagine how awesome Elvira must look in person at 5-friggin-9 if you factor in this pic was taken on a camera phone. Then again, I look pretty good too...so take my word for it, she looked awesome!
I know that camp has ruled many a day in the lives of gays and lesbians since the word "camp" was bastardized into it's current meaning in the sub culture lexicon. A few examples:
| As Defined by John Schmor, PhD: Camp is Failed Seriousness. To the extremes on both sides usually defines certain aspects of camp. It is not ONLY in relation to Gay Sensibilities, but it plays a heavy part in what camp is recognized as. Mind you, not only Gays can create camp nor are they the only ones who recognize it, it is merely an easy way for Gay sensibilities to be defined because we must hide ourselves from society to the length that we can only bring out those innermost feelings in a "campy" scenario. Camp is cross dressing in a Freudian slip. Camp is Laughing at The Importance of Being Earnest and not knowing why. Camp is laughing at the Importance of Being Earnest and knowing why. | ||
and:
| 1. the tragically ludicrous; or 2. the ludicrously tragic. Camp is like when a clown dies. | ||
God bless the folks at urbandictionary.com! That second one is my favorite. But only because I have dressed-on more than one gay Christmas, I mean Halloween-in a Freudian Slip, an idea stolen from Meg Ryan in DOA.
So the reason the invite was unexpected was that it was to the closing night of the Seattle Gay and Lesbian Film Festival. Or is it Lesbian and Gay? Regardless...the crux of the issue is that it was to watch the closing night movie: Elvira, Mistress of the Dark. Nary a Gay or Lesbian character in the film.
Now, I had seen this movie when it came out, then again at a party or some other function. But to sit down in a theater and expect to see one of my slightly post college year faves on the big screen again-priceless. To be in a theater to see the aforementioned movie and find out that the movie has been remastered for it's 20th anniversary-painful.
Nonetheless, my people excel at overcoming adversity, so there I sat with my favorite in person lesbian couple (sorry, Ellen and Portia might steal your thunder in a different reality, and Melissa Etheridge or the Indigo Girls in any reality...I'm only human) anxiously awaiting the remastered version amidst the Rocky Horror drop outs dressed for the occasion.
As smart as I think I am most of the time, I have to say that I got so much more of the movie this time. Time, time, time, look what's become of me...indeed. My most gratifying moment of the evening-scratch that, the second most gratifying moment-was when my friend Lisa kicked me as she realized one of my favorite movie quotes had just played out. Elvira hits her head and her attentive love interest asks her-so concerned-how her head is. Her response: I haven't had any complaints yet. Imagine my chagrin as I realized I had quoted the line correctly for 20 years but set the scene incorrectly. I may have to stay inside for a couple of hours until everyone forgets!
My favorite part of the evening? The autographed picture of Hers Truly and a totally unplanned photo op with the Mistress of the Dark.
I am no photographer, neither was this complete stranger that got roped into taking this pic, but imagine how awesome Elvira must look in person at 5-friggin-9 if you factor in this pic was taken on a camera phone. Then again, I look pretty good too...so take my word for it, she looked awesome!
The prodigal gay...
How is it that some of the most important people in my life have drifted out of it while others who have worked so hard to make themselves unimportant come back in with every bad tide?
The answer in both instances is likely apathy. But I think I will at least complain about it since it's tangentally related to my dating life, and that's always amusing. Plus, I just totally got to make up a word!
I've really scaled back on my visits with the DEA at their local watering hole, Purr. Since I am usually broke these days and they seem unable to keep from truly pissing me off through incomprehensibly random acts of theirs and then shrugging them off with a "Well, that's your problem" attitude. Aaah, frenemies! But, Thursday, I finished work too late to go to the gym so I figured I would go see what was what in their "world".
We are sitting there on my third beer when this little hottie walks up and hugs LCR (Log Cabin Republican) rather enthusiastically. Now, I am not surprised, I have known these guys for a couple of years and they have many friends who also seem to drift in and out of their existence, much as I do. This was not remarkable in and of itself, so I just sat there and passed the interruption by observing the rise of this hot guy's shirt tail so I could admire his tramp stamp tattoo. Chip comes back from somewhere and joins in his husband's reunion with this new comer.
Then I realize that it's BB, and they seem oblivious to the fact that we "know" each other, which is awesome since they sorta facilitated our meeting inthe first place. The flash memory of the good drunk saves them again! I fire off a little "Holy Christ!" text to them both for distraction and continue being ignored as only I can do. I'm thinking, "Wow, I conjured another fag out of thin air!" since I had recently been thinking about the odds of running into BB in his new hometown of Long Beach when I visit my parents there next week. Poof! He shows up in the Emerald City. I am musing at my own power.
Which is when they both whip out their phones to add BB's new phone number.
Which is when I realize he has moved back to Seattle.
Which is when he realizes who I am.
So much realization for such a barely sober crowd.
He moves into hug me. This action always confuses me, I grew up a little coolish on the touchy feelies of the world and have even only recently begun to tell my parents I love them when closing a phone conversation with them. I accept hugging as a greeting within this gay subculture of mine, but some people take it a step further and add a kiss-then it's all about placement. Pre-emptively, I plant one on his cheek as we embrace.
I notice LCR looking at me with a raised eyebrow as, I assume, he reads my text.
BB begins catching up, enthusiastically. "What's new? How's work? Who's cutting your hair?!" This last as he runs his fingers through my locks. I return the requisite answers and enjoy the light attention while peppering him with my own polite conversation...and then I realize he's building his client book again.
Yeah, he cut my hair, how did you think I met him? You know I have a thing for barbers. And other men.
Well, I'm not interested in going back down this road, so I deflect his advice to come see him with a "I'm not getting on a bus for a haircut" comment. Then he buys a round of shots.
For the record, I only had two shots and three more beers this evening, but somehow I had already finished paying. Free booze and I go waaaaay back.
Someone next to me leaves and he tries to steal the seat, only to realize they have only just stepped out to smoke. He is not enjoying being short and unseated in this now crowded bar. He is also not enjoying me not offering him my seat. Read between the lines, BB.
He moves in and out of conversation a few times.
The last time he moves in, he is all about getting my number. Which I see him type in his phone without entering a name. Then my phone rings. Well, I'm not answering it here I tell him.
To which he replies, "Now you have my new number".
Then I decide it's time to go upstairs and chat with the doctor's group that is assembled there for a little fun, thinking as I leave that I need that passive bs that BB just gave me in my life about as much as I need someone who admits that they aren't very good at dating. Oh, wait...those both came from the same person. I mean, seriously...can you not put your ego at risk enough to say, "I'm gonna give you my new number. Call me."?
This town sucks at the dating. I have all but given up on it and just begun to enjoy the scenery. Prettier than trees, but just as dumb. And not as useful...
Soon, though, I will tell you what I have been doing to keep from giving completely up on dating in the last few months. It's a story that I should probably never tell and one that might be mistaken-correctly so- for bragging.
And the guy cutting my hair now? He does a way better job than BB.
The answer in both instances is likely apathy. But I think I will at least complain about it since it's tangentally related to my dating life, and that's always amusing. Plus, I just totally got to make up a word!
I've really scaled back on my visits with the DEA at their local watering hole, Purr. Since I am usually broke these days and they seem unable to keep from truly pissing me off through incomprehensibly random acts of theirs and then shrugging them off with a "Well, that's your problem" attitude. Aaah, frenemies! But, Thursday, I finished work too late to go to the gym so I figured I would go see what was what in their "world".
We are sitting there on my third beer when this little hottie walks up and hugs LCR (Log Cabin Republican) rather enthusiastically. Now, I am not surprised, I have known these guys for a couple of years and they have many friends who also seem to drift in and out of their existence, much as I do. This was not remarkable in and of itself, so I just sat there and passed the interruption by observing the rise of this hot guy's shirt tail so I could admire his tramp stamp tattoo. Chip comes back from somewhere and joins in his husband's reunion with this new comer.
Then I realize that it's BB, and they seem oblivious to the fact that we "know" each other, which is awesome since they sorta facilitated our meeting inthe first place. The flash memory of the good drunk saves them again! I fire off a little "Holy Christ!" text to them both for distraction and continue being ignored as only I can do. I'm thinking, "Wow, I conjured another fag out of thin air!" since I had recently been thinking about the odds of running into BB in his new hometown of Long Beach when I visit my parents there next week. Poof! He shows up in the Emerald City. I am musing at my own power.
Which is when they both whip out their phones to add BB's new phone number.
Which is when I realize he has moved back to Seattle.
Which is when he realizes who I am.
So much realization for such a barely sober crowd.
He moves into hug me. This action always confuses me, I grew up a little coolish on the touchy feelies of the world and have even only recently begun to tell my parents I love them when closing a phone conversation with them. I accept hugging as a greeting within this gay subculture of mine, but some people take it a step further and add a kiss-then it's all about placement. Pre-emptively, I plant one on his cheek as we embrace.
I notice LCR looking at me with a raised eyebrow as, I assume, he reads my text.
BB begins catching up, enthusiastically. "What's new? How's work? Who's cutting your hair?!" This last as he runs his fingers through my locks. I return the requisite answers and enjoy the light attention while peppering him with my own polite conversation...and then I realize he's building his client book again.
Yeah, he cut my hair, how did you think I met him? You know I have a thing for barbers. And other men.
Well, I'm not interested in going back down this road, so I deflect his advice to come see him with a "I'm not getting on a bus for a haircut" comment. Then he buys a round of shots.
For the record, I only had two shots and three more beers this evening, but somehow I had already finished paying. Free booze and I go waaaaay back.
Someone next to me leaves and he tries to steal the seat, only to realize they have only just stepped out to smoke. He is not enjoying being short and unseated in this now crowded bar. He is also not enjoying me not offering him my seat. Read between the lines, BB.
He moves in and out of conversation a few times.
The last time he moves in, he is all about getting my number. Which I see him type in his phone without entering a name. Then my phone rings. Well, I'm not answering it here I tell him.
To which he replies, "Now you have my new number".
Then I decide it's time to go upstairs and chat with the doctor's group that is assembled there for a little fun, thinking as I leave that I need that passive bs that BB just gave me in my life about as much as I need someone who admits that they aren't very good at dating. Oh, wait...those both came from the same person. I mean, seriously...can you not put your ego at risk enough to say, "I'm gonna give you my new number. Call me."?
This town sucks at the dating. I have all but given up on it and just begun to enjoy the scenery. Prettier than trees, but just as dumb. And not as useful...
Soon, though, I will tell you what I have been doing to keep from giving completely up on dating in the last few months. It's a story that I should probably never tell and one that might be mistaken-correctly so- for bragging.
And the guy cutting my hair now? He does a way better job than BB.
Saturday, October 25, 2008
This is for BB...you'll understand soon enough.
Here are a couple of the myspace blogs I have a need to move over so you can understand my evening the other day. Bad timing has nothing on me. The first is from early March of this year. The following one was posted a few weeks later.
Something I suck at...
I was returning from a breakfast with neighbors on this fine Sunday morning when we ran into another of our neighbors at the building's door. What makes this neighbor remarkable is that she is the connection that provided the material for my "This Guy" blogs.
She's really pretty nice, aside from that...but then a gay man's relationships with another gay man have always been more disposable that his relationships with his Fruit Flies so I am sure her experience with This Guy has been completely different than mine.
Anyhoo...on the advice of a friend who I am sure is convinced I never listen to him, I have been trying to look at a person's actions and not their words.
I suck at this skill.
I swear I used to be good at it, though!
I have tried-as an adult-to make my words (outside of my crummy humor) match my actions. Or is it vice versa? Actually, I don't need to ask because most of the time my words and actions fall pretty well into line with one another.
Plus, fuck me, but I am a romantic. Hopeful of the happy ending-not the massage-type, either.
This didn't come into play so strongly back in the days of This Guy-but it was there. It came a few weeks later when BB came on the scene and couldn't open his mouth without proving what a flake he was striving to be.
So, This Guy's friend and my neighbor and I end up riding alone in the elevator for a few floors and she invites me over to her place to watch the season premiere of Dirt-which I have seen online and print ads for and kinda want to see. She says it's just her and the boys.
At which point, I feel conflicted about declining (after I have just expressed my interest) for some bogus reason or telling the truth.
Me, I tell the truth. It's probably not a good idea, I say. Which is close enough to the truth without vilifying her friend.
Which gets me the pitiful "Oh, you're not over him" look.
I take a second swing at it. I'll be damned if I'm getting a pity look for someone who'd be lucky to have me as a boyfriend!
Actually, This Guy gave me the "I'll call you" bit over a month ago and I never heard from him again. I quit expecting him to call, but figured if he'd really wanted to maintain a friendship, he'd have figured out the phone.
She apologizes for her friend-because those are the types of people you want to surround yourself with, the ones who you need to make excuses for-and gets off the elevator at her floor and as I tell her I would've really like to have joined her, she laughs and says "I'll call you!".
That cracked my shit up. That's also why I would want to be her friend-that acerbic wit.
Anyway, I was proud of myself for not degrading myself by allowing myself to get involved in a situation where I am in the presence of someone who, basically, hurt me with a lie. And that's what it is-it may not have been intentional, it may have been that I also suck at speaking "Hint", but this person did not end up being true to his word.
That's a lie. Break it down like in algebra (my sister won't get this part, bless her heart, she took college algebra three times): X=Y and Y=Z, so X=Z. Ergo, "I'll call you"="I won't call you", "I won't call you"="Fuck you, you ugly fuck" or something like that, so "I'll call you"="Fuck you, you ugly fuck" or something like that.
Got it? It's really very simple in the scheme of drinking Seattle water too long.
Again, fuck me, I had a great education, but none of the school's I attended offered "Hint" as a second language course, so frequently I tend to not get the hints people drop-I do much better assuming people say what they mean.
Plus, it's just irritating to need a Rosetta Stone to understand that some fag's words and actions revolve around the fact that he wants you to objectify him and treat him like a common whore.
It's like people go out of their way to treat themselves like they are worthless. Maybe it's just my Catholic rearing, but I was always taught better values about my behavior toward others and about the sacred nature of sex (Ok, we know I don't stick too much to that last part, but I definitely respect the people I sleep with...that has to count for something!)
While I tend to classify all gay Seattlites as typical Cap Hill fags when they indulge this behavior of mutual disrespect, again, I get hell from my friends for being bitter and judging everyone as a group and not an individual. Still, there tends to be a typical end result: people say one thing and don't follow through on it. Flakey? Yes. Is it simply one thing that creates this behavior? Certainly not. Nonetheless, stereotypes exist for a reason and I think it is the responsibility of all people within that group to exist at a higher standard and hold others to that same standard to erase the stereotype.
You owe it to the gay community to not be a flake.
You owe it to the Asian community to not be a bad driver.
You owe it to the Jewish community to not be rich and cheap.
You owe it to the African-American community to not be unemployed and steal things.
You owe it to Southerners to not give your child a hyphenated first name and not drive a car with a Union Jack on the window.
And so on...
BB said something to me that I found interesting (while probably meaning something else entirely). He said he wasn't good at dating. A simple statement and while being able to vouch for that, I had to think when he said it that it's more a factor of simple math to me (what's with me and the math today?). He's 25 and has lived in Seattle for eight years. Having moved here as a gay lad at 17, he has only had the dating experiences I complain about as examples of how to conduct oneself when getting to know and perhaps even date someone. He's learned it well, but having experienced different outcomes in romance in different areas of the country, I have to say that I would hope for more positive experiences for anyone.
So, while I feel like I am returning to the man I was before having my emotional world turned upside down by my ex-the guy who bitched about work weekly for six years, only to get my supportive response of "take some time and find a job where you're appreciated and fulfilled" (paraphrased that bit) and have him come home one day and say, "You know how I've always said I was unhappy at work? Well, I think I'm actually unhappy at home" and-poof-it's over for us without explanation past that. Him, I held accountable for his actions. Specifically, for his words not matching his actions when I rejected his effort to be my friend afterward. Still not friends, and he still doesn't get it-and now it's too late. Four years later, quit trying, pal.
So, for the This Guys and BBs of my life? We won't be friends without some major mea culpas from you. Major. Yeah, you sorta hurt sorta me. Maybe to spare yourself some tough conversations or realizations, but I'm not too keen on being friends with someone who would consider my feelings "collateral damage" in an effort to not have to be the bad guy.
Which is exactly what I told my ex all those years ago.
But do I keep trying? Against common sense and the advice of friends? I do.
Call it the Lottery of Love. If I keep buying tickets, one day I will win, right?
Ok, that was a fairly depressing analogy.
Whenever I write a blog, I am asked to express my current mood from a drop down box and select an activity from another that I am engaged in while writing. Well, aside from the fact that I think writing takes a little bit of focus so I tend to not Read, Watch TV or Play Video Games while doing it (the choices myspace offers on it's blog page), the one activity that has been dividing my attention for this little exercise in therapy I call a blog is not listed in this drop down menu.
I have been watching the guy on the 12th floor of the building next to mine clean his windows-inside and out. He's really rather resourceful at it. Particularly the outside bit having no balcony to use for support. But then again, since he made the same efforts yesterday I would expect him to have a few tricks up his sleeve to improve the process today.
Obsess much?
Go for it, buddy.
Here's the second one...feeling blinded yet?
I promise to post a new blog explaining-to a degree-why these blogs were my first myspace imports for my new blog. For tonight, my hangover from this morning is gone-and it is 10:15 at night. You do the math and figure out how it went away! Hehehehe.
Something I suck at...
I was returning from a breakfast with neighbors on this fine Sunday morning when we ran into another of our neighbors at the building's door. What makes this neighbor remarkable is that she is the connection that provided the material for my "This Guy" blogs.
She's really pretty nice, aside from that...but then a gay man's relationships with another gay man have always been more disposable that his relationships with his Fruit Flies so I am sure her experience with This Guy has been completely different than mine.
Anyhoo...on the advice of a friend who I am sure is convinced I never listen to him, I have been trying to look at a person's actions and not their words.
I suck at this skill.
I swear I used to be good at it, though!
I have tried-as an adult-to make my words (outside of my crummy humor) match my actions. Or is it vice versa? Actually, I don't need to ask because most of the time my words and actions fall pretty well into line with one another.
Plus, fuck me, but I am a romantic. Hopeful of the happy ending-not the massage-type, either.
This didn't come into play so strongly back in the days of This Guy-but it was there. It came a few weeks later when BB came on the scene and couldn't open his mouth without proving what a flake he was striving to be.
So, This Guy's friend and my neighbor and I end up riding alone in the elevator for a few floors and she invites me over to her place to watch the season premiere of Dirt-which I have seen online and print ads for and kinda want to see. She says it's just her and the boys.
At which point, I feel conflicted about declining (after I have just expressed my interest) for some bogus reason or telling the truth.
Me, I tell the truth. It's probably not a good idea, I say. Which is close enough to the truth without vilifying her friend.
Which gets me the pitiful "Oh, you're not over him" look.
I take a second swing at it. I'll be damned if I'm getting a pity look for someone who'd be lucky to have me as a boyfriend!
Actually, This Guy gave me the "I'll call you" bit over a month ago and I never heard from him again. I quit expecting him to call, but figured if he'd really wanted to maintain a friendship, he'd have figured out the phone.
She apologizes for her friend-because those are the types of people you want to surround yourself with, the ones who you need to make excuses for-and gets off the elevator at her floor and as I tell her I would've really like to have joined her, she laughs and says "I'll call you!".
That cracked my shit up. That's also why I would want to be her friend-that acerbic wit.
Anyway, I was proud of myself for not degrading myself by allowing myself to get involved in a situation where I am in the presence of someone who, basically, hurt me with a lie. And that's what it is-it may not have been intentional, it may have been that I also suck at speaking "Hint", but this person did not end up being true to his word.
That's a lie. Break it down like in algebra (my sister won't get this part, bless her heart, she took college algebra three times): X=Y and Y=Z, so X=Z. Ergo, "I'll call you"="I won't call you", "I won't call you"="Fuck you, you ugly fuck" or something like that, so "I'll call you"="Fuck you, you ugly fuck" or something like that.
Got it? It's really very simple in the scheme of drinking Seattle water too long.
Again, fuck me, I had a great education, but none of the school's I attended offered "Hint" as a second language course, so frequently I tend to not get the hints people drop-I do much better assuming people say what they mean.
Plus, it's just irritating to need a Rosetta Stone to understand that some fag's words and actions revolve around the fact that he wants you to objectify him and treat him like a common whore.
It's like people go out of their way to treat themselves like they are worthless. Maybe it's just my Catholic rearing, but I was always taught better values about my behavior toward others and about the sacred nature of sex (Ok, we know I don't stick too much to that last part, but I definitely respect the people I sleep with...that has to count for something!)
While I tend to classify all gay Seattlites as typical Cap Hill fags when they indulge this behavior of mutual disrespect, again, I get hell from my friends for being bitter and judging everyone as a group and not an individual. Still, there tends to be a typical end result: people say one thing and don't follow through on it. Flakey? Yes. Is it simply one thing that creates this behavior? Certainly not. Nonetheless, stereotypes exist for a reason and I think it is the responsibility of all people within that group to exist at a higher standard and hold others to that same standard to erase the stereotype.
You owe it to the gay community to not be a flake.
You owe it to the Asian community to not be a bad driver.
You owe it to the Jewish community to not be rich and cheap.
You owe it to the African-American community to not be unemployed and steal things.
You owe it to Southerners to not give your child a hyphenated first name and not drive a car with a Union Jack on the window.
And so on...
BB said something to me that I found interesting (while probably meaning something else entirely). He said he wasn't good at dating. A simple statement and while being able to vouch for that, I had to think when he said it that it's more a factor of simple math to me (what's with me and the math today?). He's 25 and has lived in Seattle for eight years. Having moved here as a gay lad at 17, he has only had the dating experiences I complain about as examples of how to conduct oneself when getting to know and perhaps even date someone. He's learned it well, but having experienced different outcomes in romance in different areas of the country, I have to say that I would hope for more positive experiences for anyone.
So, while I feel like I am returning to the man I was before having my emotional world turned upside down by my ex-the guy who bitched about work weekly for six years, only to get my supportive response of "take some time and find a job where you're appreciated and fulfilled" (paraphrased that bit) and have him come home one day and say, "You know how I've always said I was unhappy at work? Well, I think I'm actually unhappy at home" and-poof-it's over for us without explanation past that. Him, I held accountable for his actions. Specifically, for his words not matching his actions when I rejected his effort to be my friend afterward. Still not friends, and he still doesn't get it-and now it's too late. Four years later, quit trying, pal.
So, for the This Guys and BBs of my life? We won't be friends without some major mea culpas from you. Major. Yeah, you sorta hurt sorta me. Maybe to spare yourself some tough conversations or realizations, but I'm not too keen on being friends with someone who would consider my feelings "collateral damage" in an effort to not have to be the bad guy.
Which is exactly what I told my ex all those years ago.
But do I keep trying? Against common sense and the advice of friends? I do.
Call it the Lottery of Love. If I keep buying tickets, one day I will win, right?
Ok, that was a fairly depressing analogy.
Whenever I write a blog, I am asked to express my current mood from a drop down box and select an activity from another that I am engaged in while writing. Well, aside from the fact that I think writing takes a little bit of focus so I tend to not Read, Watch TV or Play Video Games while doing it (the choices myspace offers on it's blog page), the one activity that has been dividing my attention for this little exercise in therapy I call a blog is not listed in this drop down menu.
I have been watching the guy on the 12th floor of the building next to mine clean his windows-inside and out. He's really rather resourceful at it. Particularly the outside bit having no balcony to use for support. But then again, since he made the same efforts yesterday I would expect him to have a few tricks up his sleeve to improve the process today.
Obsess much?
Go for it, buddy.
Here's the second one...feeling blinded yet?
I totally stole this concept from my ex. The Jettison Project was an idea he had for removing people from the planet-post haste, so to speak. His idea was basically to have a button you could push that would basically open a pinpoint spot in the atmosphere directly over someone, essentially sucking them into space.
Nice, huh?
Even better was my hostile improvement on this idea-The Instant Death Button. No explanation needed, right?
It’s amazing how I feel I have somewhat mellowed since the days I thought TIDB was a good idea. Mellowed to the point where I feel TJP is adequate, yet still hostile enough that I seem to be using a scaled down version of it way too frequently lately.
Seriously, I used to be so easy going. If I had been any more relaxed, I would have slipped into a coma. Now I feel like that grouchy old codger that lived next door to my house in Portland when I was growing up-the one that always yelled at us when our balls would go into his yard. He kept ’em, too. I think it’s his fault I’m gay. He stifled my need as a boy to play with balls, thereby stifling my interest in sports and creating a need to play with balls and men as an adult...yeah, that’s it.
Naturally, I realize I have taken off on a tangent.
So, I was easy going-and where did it get me? Nowhere of note, particularly. Yet these days I find myself being a little less easy going. This has created a lot less tolerance for people who fail to measure up to my meager expectations.
And, honestly, has anyone else noticed how irritable and indignant people get these days to find there are expectations from their friends? I sure have.
They were the first victims of The Jettison Project.
The worst part is that my expectations are so small. Honesty, Integrity, Follow-Through. Hardly difficult objectives to achieve, right?
Yet, here I am...figuratively de-populating the Seattle area.
Fire One:
The other day I had a "text argument" with a friend of mine. I always knew our friendship would come to a ridiculous end...he’s a gay republican. The worst part is that not only did he feel the confidence to say the most heinously rude things to me-which I think he really meant-he later called me and we ended up talking. I was hitting "ignore" but accidentally answered. He was all "We both said things we didn’t mean" and so forth. I told him that I didn’t say anything I didn’t mean, as I was able to stick to making factual statements, even if they were truths about himself he didn’t want to hear, and I had anecdotal info to back them up. He was sounding miserable about fighting with me just before his birthday and said he didn’t want to go into his 40th year fighting with his friend like a three year old. Too bad...you should have thought about that before you started telling me why all my friends don’t like me and trying to make me feel lucky to have a friend like you. He went back to the "I said some things I didn’t mean" mode (meaning he said things that were very likely untrue) and I unsympathetically told him that I can appreciate that but can’t respect myself if I let people treat me like that and then tell them it’s ok by validating that behavior with my friendship.
Fire Two:
Then there’s "This Guy". I ended up having a couple of conversations with some of his friends a couple weeks ago. One of them invited me to her house to watch TV with her and "her boys" and I passed since "This Guy" was going to be there. She gave me this pitying look that suggested I wasn’t over him which I immediately corrected by saying that I didn’t think that "TG" wanted to be my friend since he had told me he would call me six weeks before and then I never heard from him. Suddenly, he calls. Imagine that. The thing about these guys in Seattle is that a great deal of them don’t know how to behave socially. They find a group of friends that accept or tolerate them and stay in that safe environment. I’m not saying that they all do that, just a curiously high percentage of the guys I have met. So, I call "TG" back and fire off one of my rambling emails. But, like many of my rambling essays, there was a point. A very clear one, that no matter what I tried, I just couldn’t nice up. It wasn’t overtly cruel (well, perhaps the part where I suggested his actions were more "typical Seattle fag" than I had expected from him) but it pointedly said that I had gotten a pretty clear message from his actions that he did not want to be my friend. He apparently didn’t disagree, I haven’t heard from him since.
Fire Three:
I need a haircut. Trying to date my barber ended poorly for me when he couldn’t follow through with his statement that "He wanted to actually date me, not just sleep with me". Now I need to find another barber, although I am tempted to go back to the guy at his shop who was cutting my hair before "BB" because he did a rockin’ job with my cowlicks. But that would look punitive, wouldn’t it? Of course, I say it ended poorly for me, but "BB" lost me as a potential boyfriend-which probably doesn’t break him up as much as it should-but also as a damn fine income stream...I tip really well!
Fire Four:
Starbucks on 194th. Despite the presence of a very cute member of the crew, there seems to be no way of saving the only SBUX close to my current employer from being jettisoned. It’s a drive through, but they just can’t get it together enough to get the cars through the window and the coffee in people’s hands fast enough. I was so excited about the drive through option, too. But...after pulling out of the line twice last week, it became clear to me that they’re gonna have to go. Sad.
Sometimes I feel like I need to get control of my latent anger-as in the case of those poor joe’s at SBUX. Other times I feel pretty justified in my desire to be rid of people who’s habits surpass being a nuisance and begin to encroach on what I consider to be the civil rights of others-namely the pursuit of happiness without the constant need to read between the lines of conversation or actions of the people in your life.
The upshot is that I feel a lot better about the people who I continue to call my friends. So I have that going for me...which is nice.
I promise to post a new blog explaining-to a degree-why these blogs were my first myspace imports for my new blog. For tonight, my hangover from this morning is gone-and it is 10:15 at night. You do the math and figure out how it went away! Hehehehe.
Friday, October 24, 2008
Well, here I am
Greetings all.
Yes, I am relocated and back in commission after what seems like an eternity of keeping my thoughts to myself. I think that posed a serious threat to my mental well-being, so I will try to limit the amount of time I take on my future "vacations".
Thanks to the many people who-inexplicably-are fans of my blog on myspace. Those who pestered me to get back out there and write something again. Without your support, I'd still be me. Albeit a me that was pouting around my home in a foul mood, full of pent up well-aged teen angst. So, to all of you...allow me to introduce my new blog: at least I have a friggin' glass... The title of my blog comes from the old idiom about how one sees the world either through a pessimistic or optimistic filter; while I may spend time looking through both, I try to remain cognizant of the fact that my glass may be situationally half full or half empty, at least I have a friggin' glass, right? When I can no longer say that, hopefully I will still at least have a bottle.
Yes, I am relocated and back in commission after what seems like an eternity of keeping my thoughts to myself. I think that posed a serious threat to my mental well-being, so I will try to limit the amount of time I take on my future "vacations".
Thanks to the many people who-inexplicably-are fans of my blog on myspace. Those who pestered me to get back out there and write something again. Without your support, I'd still be me. Albeit a me that was pouting around my home in a foul mood, full of pent up well-aged teen angst. So, to all of you...allow me to introduce my new blog: at least I have a friggin' glass... The title of my blog comes from the old idiom about how one sees the world either through a pessimistic or optimistic filter; while I may spend time looking through both, I try to remain cognizant of the fact that my glass may be situationally half full or half empty, at least I have a friggin' glass, right? When I can no longer say that, hopefully I will still at least have a bottle.
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