Ok - I have a HUGE CRUSH on you and you and you.

You'all made Out-toberfest so much fun and uh, well Ryan and Sam made it "extra" interesting.

A Letter to The Little Boy Left Inside Me (or "How I Abandoned a Child to Fight on His Own")

Dear Young Me:

This letter must seem a surprise to you, probably - if not completely - a little unwelcome.

How have you been all these many years ?
It's been what - 20 years, 25 years since I've thought of you. I'd be lying if I said there weren't flickers of you in my subconcious - crap let's be honest here - you fucking haunt me. Sometimes when I awake early in the morning - in those moments before dawn takes into my darkened bedroom, I almost feel like your there - afraid of what the day may bring. So I know, I know you have things to do - roll in autumn leaves, watch "Land of The Lost" on you and your older brother's 13 inch B&W TV, your chores and then climbing that tree on 2 Fairhill Road... busy, busy aren't you ?

But listen, we need to talk and in all fairness this isn't easy for me.

I so remember you, running off to Sabold Elementary in the morning , that messy head of chestnut brown hair - always a mop, that huge beaming smile ever present, almost as large as your gigantic brown eyes - you saw everything with those didn't you little big man ?? Huh - funny - I just realized that you did see everything with those big brown eyes - that must not always have been fun for you.

You know I can look back now and since I'm older and wiser and - well your still so young - I can see some things better than you.

Where do I start to say what I need to say to you - how do I find the words to say...

It wasn't your fault - your Mother drank and screamed and swore because she didn't know any better - you weren't the cause - it was like a cancer that had set up camp in her so many years before you were born.

It wasn't your fault - that you disgusted him, he couldn't understand - he wanted you pitching for the Phillies in the bottom of the ninth, no men on base with two outs and two strikes and the trophy almost in hand - but you wanted to be an artist, a writer or maybe just a human. His anger was his fuel, you were kindling in the fire without even trying - you cried because you were human - he hit you because he wasn't.

And then there was me.

It wasn't your fault - I left you

I'm sorry - there it's done. I'm sorry. I miss you.

See I was a coward, when things got tough I abandoned you - I went my own way. I couldn't stand to see you cry, I couldn't continue to make you laugh, I couldn't protect you from them - what they would do to someone like you - someone so good, so kind, so sweet and gentle. I didn't pull away all at once - there were many moments - our parents and their back-n-forth "for the sake of the kids" marriage-seperation-divorce-whatever, the violence, the drinking, the dirty old men pawing you, the bullies in school, and when we moved to Arizona I had to close up shop move on without you...by then I was 10 and things couldn't stay the same. You weren't tough enough for life at the house back in '79, you would cry and it was embarrassing and girly, you were letting them get to you - so see there had to be a split. I had to go my own way. I was able to not care - about anything. I was able to not love - anyone, and they couldn't hurt me - these were my super human powers. And you weren't ready to let men touch you - not the way I was. And you see I didn't like myself anyway - so they couldn't hurt me when they touched me even if things got scary - I had stopped feeling.

So let's face it I didnt even look back.

It's so hard to look at you now - to know what I've done. To know I left you when you needed me most.

Wow - funny I never realized what a tough little fella you were for just being all the things you were - just how tough you were to go on feeling anyway. All these years later - somehow we both survived.

I want you to know I'm here for you - I won't let "anyone" hurt you and I won't use my old ways to protect me or you.

We can do this.
I'm alive with you in me.
We can learn to feel,
it's ok to be in love,
we can reinvent ourselves,
we can make our own family - the two of us together.

A good chuckle

....what ???

You think I look really cute in these jeans....awwwww...get out of here.

...what ???

The shirt - your loving the t-shirt are you, why yes I have been working out quite a bit... *blush*

...what ???

Oh I couldn't - I just couldn't, well if you insist.....*smooch*

(hee-hee, hee-hee - I just tickled my funny bone)

Stringing Together Words on a Strand of Metaphor, Irony and Whimsy
(or in other words "A List")

• When I feel obligated to a person in that monogamous sense - I feel terrible for lusting after others. And damn O'damn do I feel lust everytime I see him at the gym. Shit - it would be so hot to take him home all sweaty and ripped and play "My Lil Pony" (and no I wouldn't - but it is kinda of sexy to think about doing it)
  
• I can't get a pulse on how well this reconcilliation is going. How can we know each other better than anyone - yet seem like such complete strangers?
  
• I can be terribly obnoxious when I'm on a humor roll when I'm drunk. I was frigging cracking myself up on Sunday at our little Phoenix Gay Festival of being Gay -er - something. It's just fuel to the fire when I making people laugh - I just keep going and going.
  
• I really don't think the previous is bad - as long as I'm not offending anyone - ok it is kinda fun if I'm offending someone - I think I meant hurting anyones feelings.
  
• Crap - put up some dirty pics and your seeing over 300 visitors a day (well I mean everyday of your life is like that - but here at HCL we swim in calmer waters). YOU ALL so better have read the story too.
  
• Oh please let this not be addressed to me - I'm the worst.
  
• No I will NOT send anyone the original pictures, I mean if you really want them hunt down the magazine - one resourceful blogger (yeah, yeah, yeah) figured this out months before I talked about it.
  
• I have my girl-buddy Les temping for me at work this week, I forgot how much fun it was to actually "leave for lunch" it seems almost decadant.
  
• I know some of the stuff in this blog hasn't been - shall we say - light as meringue pie, but it really is helping me shed my skin and let go of a past that is limiting me from being more to myself and to others.
  
• I just have to admit that "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" keeps getting better - I give it at least two more years before it starts jumping the shark.
  
• Tucson bloggers beware - I will be attending the Pride events on Saturday - I will be drinking beer and I will be fashioning a diaper out of old Dead Kennedy t-shirts to wear around the grounds.
  
• It's such a warm dizzy feeling - like being Jane Pauley - to be loved by him again.
  
• I need to go whack off now. nite.
  

"Live a fulifilling life instead of just surviving"

Survive vb. 1 SYN , See OUTLIVE

2. To continue to exist or function in spite of an unsually adverse condition or development.
Outlast, Endure, Persist, Live Down, Recover....Continue

"The dance of recovery is owning and honring the emotional wounds so that we can release the grief, energy - the pain, rage, terror and shame that is driving us"


What are "your" rules of survival ? How do any of us become survivors - and what is it we think we are surviving?

Where did I perfect my game face - did I do it because I "had" to - is there a theory of "cause & effect" ?

• Cause: My Mother an orphan - seriously left on a door step in a basket, no kidding - never knew the love, the unity of a family growing up - in turn, lacking in experience and education she loved her children with a tumultuous vehemance bordering on desperate that became for me both empowering (professionally) and suffocating (emotionally). We were taught there were no promises - the parent could leave at anytime, for any reason, you were being judged, a single mistake could end everything.
  
  
• Cause: My Father saw his physicality and athleticism as his only control over his wife and his children, he was misguided in thinking that backhanding me accross a room for poor manners or pulling me - dragging - by my reddened wrists from a poorly played little league game would have the desired effect. That his barbaric competitiveness would make me a winner. That one day he wouldn't be a little intimidated when "I" walked in the room - stronger , bigger and tougher than he ever imagined a 'pansy' could be.
  
  
• Cause: My Mother was a drunk - this acted as if a treble and bass control on the volume and frequency of her feelings - often vascillating abruptly - unexpectantly - between love and contempt. Love was a ripple on the surface - something hateful brewed beneath - turn your eye away and it would take you whole into it's dark, murky depths.
  
  
• Cause: My brother, sister and I learned at an early age to fend only for yourself, trust no one, survival alone was easier - less casualties, less liabilities, less betrayal.
  
  

  
  The "Effect": I've wasted so much energy over the past 33 years trying to survive, forgetting to live.
  
  But how does a survivor give up the one thing that has kept him alive - kept him passing the open windows ?
  
  Maybe by learning the causes - by witnessing the effects.
  
  Boozing, fist fights, drug habits, casual sex, failed relationships and a fear of letting people get close.
  
  If I'm willing to look in the closet - are the shadows as scary ?
  If I take inventory of my eccentricities, can I stop calling them faults ?
  If I stop punishing myself for my parents unhappiness - can I find my own ?
  
  
  I guess I wouldn't write it unless I was willing to find out.

Blogging in it's essence is the two-sided knife.

One side - shiny and useful allows us to see ourselves, to cut open things (wounds, packages, cakes - yum... icing) and explore them - see them closer in all their detail ( and gore) for what they are and maybe more importantly what they were.

Other side - catches the light in such a way that it blinds us - we can not only not see ourselves in it's reflection we cut ourselves in our handling of it. And some cuts even when they are superficial can feel like wounds made with a hatchet.

My blogging started almost a year and a half ago with merely a desire to be as clever and witty and insightful as Jonno or Sturtle or Encorswish or Blogstalker. And then times changed, my life changed and you changed and people came into the scene (or I came across them latently) who changed the way I saw writing like Art is For Losers or Dog Poet or Bent Kid - they combined life and incredibly gritty wit with some very real and sometimes painful writing.

More recently people have come to know me more clearly (good and bad) - I have been even less cut off - my real name tied up in secrecy before seems to have leaked into so many blogs and I've grown a little less leary of that - I am who I am, if you read my blog you will figure that out. I do keep this site secret from co-workers and friends and family and yes those worlds could collide - but I don't write anything on these pages I couldn't say to a persons face (and if you've ever met me ITRW I think you would agree).

So which side of the knife are you holding today?

Anyone for cake ????