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.
Wednesday, October 29, 2008
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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