Confessions of a Would-be Porn Star (or How to be Treated Like a Piece of Trash by Strangers)

    

What is your self-worth - worth ? Did you ever do an odd job in college, one that was completely (in your mind) beneath you - desperate for any infusion of cash that it may bring. I put my self through college on a variety of student loans that to date have been absorbed and consolidated and reconsolidated so many times that my eyes blur everytime I attempt to remember which one started when. I waited tables at some of the better restaurants in the "Valley of the Sun" and paid my dues as a "Cater Waiter" - which to this day still makes my shoudler ache just thinking about it. I did the grunt work for a landscaper - swinging a pick, mixing cement, digging holes, building walls in the scorching Arizona sun (often on the same days that I would have 16 credit hours and then be off to my waiter job that night)...I will never ever have a good back. But in the end money often ran tight and I swear I sold more clothing at Buffalo Exchange then they did. How often I walked into a bar to see someone wearing my favorite "Mr. Bubble" shirt or Lucky jeans - but a boy had to do what a boy had to do...

...this is where the pictures come in (bet I made those of you at work scramble to minimize the window!)

In the late Spring of 1996, with the Spring semester coming to a close - my GP at 4.00 and two classes left to graduate, I found out my loan elibility was saturated. My parents were scraping by helping my divorced sister - apparently battling third stage pancreatic cancer that had metastasized to other organs in her body - and my then 4 year old nephew get by since my sister couldn't work and the deadbeat ex-Brother-in-Law didn't pay child support. I didn't believe in "Sugar Daddies" and I had no guardian angels - just me trying to scrape by. I'm not stroking the "Hallmark Movie of the Week" emotion paint brush over this story - these were just the simplier facts - and suffice to say I was really shitty with whatever money I had in my pocket anyway. So then came the chance.

My roomate was successful and older and I lived in his big huge house that we rented from an even wealthier gentleman that lived in Moscow. This roomate wasn't the type you would even consider going to for money out of fear of what type of expectations that may arise. But he was friends with a very well known photographer out of the west coast and whose model boyfriend had barely missed out being Playgirls man of the year (sidenote: this guy was my fluffer for the shoot, that was a perk in this story) and is actually quite a photographer himself these days. So in my mid 20's and in fairly good repair (though crap do I ever look like "anything" but a daddy then) I "tested" to be photographed for Advocate Freshman (I was WAY, WAY to skinny and shaved to be considered for Advocate Men - though a mere 4 years later I was approached to pose for Honcho). Being "tested" means that the free-lance photographer wants to make sure you have what it takes in front of the camera and that the magazine will pick-up the costs of the shoot and he'll make his cash too. So I agreed to meet him at a friends house when he was in town for another shoot. He warned me not to over think it - just go business as usual, stop by and take your clothes off. Now at this stage in my life I didn't drink, didn't do drugs and wasn't sleeping around - so excluding the privacy of my bedroom or a boyfriend - I wasn't taking my clothes off much in front of strangers. I showed up at the appointed time after hitting the gym for an hour or so of anxiety weight-lifting wearing Umbro soccer shorts, sneaks, my favorite ASU sweat shirt and a very nervous smile. He took me in the garage and had me strip off piece after piece until I was down to a jock strap. I will be the first to tell you I look like shit in a jock-strap - it pushes and lifts me in all the wrong ways (it's like when you shove a pillow in to a pillow case and it sticks out in all the wrong places). So I was actually relieved to remove it. But so then there i was trying to be sexy next to this Jeep Wrangler in a cold cement-floored garage, hoping my dick looked big enough, my ass tight enough and oh yeah - your supposed to smile and look like it "really, really" turns you on to strip next to a Jeep Wrangler in a cold cement-floored garage, hoping your dick looks big enough, your ass looks tight enough and your smile -real.

I forget how many weeks went by (crap, are you still reading this or did you get bored and scroll back up to the pictures ?), maybe one, maybe two. The photographer called and said "Freshman" was really happy with the shoot but there was one problem - I didn't look very happy and I looked older then my age. To have someone mistake your age is one thing - but to have a national skin magazine that looks at boy after boy after boy stop and say you look old is well - not personally reassuring. So he flew back and took pictures of "just" my face, concentrating on better "natural" lighting and a little make-up (oh how this must be what it's like to be Liza Minelli - though NO lighting would make that muppet woman look natural). So the pictures went well and a shoot was approved which occurred on a fairly brisk May afternoon in the backyard of the home I was renting in. I begged my roomate to stay far - far away - i watched several porns stroking my cock, but not coming - hoping it would give me that healthy flacid girth. I did sit up after sit up, push up after push up, squats, a facial, a mud mask, a steamed rag - it was embarrasingly akward. I tried on speedo after speedo finally feeling best in a little black one I tanned in. When they arrived - the were pleasant but harried - it was getting late in the day and we only had so much sun - and oh that speedo I was wearing just wouldn't do -

HIM : "Here we brought you a red and yellow one to match the yellow swim cap your going to wear"
ME: "Oh - I didn't know I was going to wear a swim cap?"
HIM : "Well your hairs kinda thinning in the front - we're going for a boyish look here"
ME: *whimper*

I pulled the swim cap on which immediately put a red crease in my forehead - so when I pulled it off trying to look drop dead sexy - I looked ok sexy with a huge red line across my forehead...

HIM: "Ok we're gonna have to keep the cap on - go ahead and jump in the pool"
ME: "Um - it's like 40 degrees?"
HIM: "Ok - we'll hose you down"
ME: *yikes-shake-brrrrrr*

And so it went - me lavishing my shivering body in strange poses (like the "throw your head over your shoulder while your on all fours like an animal, then grabbing and pulling on your butt cheeks - which animals constantly do - all the while feeling "very natural" and did I mention "Drop Dead Sexy"?) around the pool as we began to lose daylight - and after a couple of hours - it was done.

Months went by and nothing. I would keep hearing it was going to be in the next magazine and then the next magazine and I would run to the local gay book store full of trepidation to find some well known porn star - far more attractive and exotic looking on the cover. So slowly it faded from my mind - the money spent on summer school, my graduating, my first job in marketing, my first love all moving it further and further from the list of "Important Things to Think About Today".

It was over a year later. Late July and I was attending a friends, a couples, anniversary party with my boyfriend. At one point in what was a charming evening I found myself standing with a group of six or more party goers chatting about our jobs, our common interests, our boyfriends - when a casual and not terribly liked aquaintance weasled his way into the group:

HIM: "I saw some pictures of you today"
ME: honestly, innocently - "Really - where?"
HIM: silence, instead opting for a incredibly classy "jerking off" hand motion
ME: "Pardon me ??!"
HIM: "Advocate Classifieds"
ME: "Classifieds ??"
HIM: "Yeah - it's one of the Advocate magazines - but it doesn't have alot of articles - just a lot of hook-up ads and stuff...your on the cover and the centerfold"
ME: *gulp*

So with jaws wide open and all eyes upon me - I began my fifteen minutes (or one month) of fame. When I snuck in to purchase a few copies with my boyfriend at the local Obelisk, the guy behind the counter told me "Yeah these have been selling like hot cakes - apparently he's a local guy" - since I wasn't wearing a tight yellow swim cap I didn't have the heart to tell him it was me. So then it began - those wide open jaws began to be flapping jaws. I was now a "Porn Star", some heard I was a "Male Prostitute", people would stop me at bars and in public to tell me "they had enjoyed jerking off to me', even close friends would inquire "your not really doing movies too are you??", my picture was thrown on party invitations, scanned into computers and used as chat room bait with someone else professing to actually be "me", and suddenly many people I had never even batted a drunken eyelash at were confiding to their friends "yeah - they had slept with me and I wasn't all that". Even years in to the future it would creep back into my life - when a prospective boyfriend would hear from someone about my "sordid" past, or even more alarming - when a gal from my HR department in my first Marketing Manager job told me at work that she had seen the naked pic of me in the "Ladies Room" at Pinkies Pool Hall.

So the lesson in this tale (and I know you may not have even made it this far) is that every action begets reaction - not always at that moment - but over every moment in time there after.

You'll be surprised when and where that moment will find you.

So I'm putzing with the design....

you like - you like...

Chaos - Control
Chaos - Control

A little buzzed off Mandarin & Tonics, several glasses of Latour Chardonnay and the amazing view and trendy atmosphere of ELEMENTS at the SANCTUARY - I'm a basket case, but I've earned a couple of dollars to rub together, n'est-pas ??? Time for bed (joiners??) - after a good whack-off courtesy of this fine fellow and his bright imagination keeping me company into the last hour or so of my workday.

oh lover, our children won't stand a dysfunctional chance in hell, but what are they but pawns in out tawrdy game of popularity anyway.

An Open Letter to Donald

Oh how I've sat by watching you traspe around town with the likes of him and him and yes him. I didn't bat an eyelash when I was dropped from the "DONALD LOVES ME MOST - I'M 4-EVER HIS INTERNET BITCH" side-bar, but when your letters, each smelling of your signature cologne: "Brut 44 and half" - those 10-205 page notes written in your favorite grape passion purple ink (that really smells like grape jam!), where you would dot every "i" with a heart - some filled in and some just outlined to keep it from getting monotonous - and draw sexual explicited pictures in the borders of the 10 things you would most like to do with me involving a DiGornio X-tra Cheese Pizza, an Ostrich Feather and a recent isssue of 'Simple Living' - when that stop Donald ...so did my heart.

How I've spoken of heartache and pain on these pages - how I've wrung out my heart before the peering eyes of all of america - YES DONALD - "All of America" - my ratings make Anna Nicole Smith want to drink and do something horribly embarrassing to get viewers (...hold it - that is a bit redundant isn't it now)...but how much more can a boy take - how many more pretty faces will I be forced to color mustaches on - my computer screen is nearly black for Christ sake!

This - my darling - is my final plea...take me back - oh for the love that all that is good and Banana Republic - take me back.

So - how green is my garden :

How I Lost Trust Part II (or "The Wacky and Delightful Olsen Twins Make Me Want To Suck Dick")


Another venture. Nothing gained?

When I was 16 I was many things. Foremost was stupid. I lived outside myself - thinking by hovering somewhere beyond the realm of mediocrity, ornamental fruit trees and small single-family ranch homes in Mesa, Arizona - that I would evolve into Jack Kerouac, JD Salinger, Kurt Vonnegut - in short - brilliant and tortured by my own exceptional mind. I craved experiences - I romanced danger. I looked for trouble.

This is a story, I don't brag to my friends.

I met him at a party. He was strong, athletic, Hispanic boy of 17 - a compact muscular frame of 180 lbs and Five Foot Ten. He was a 2nd string QB on our high school team. He had grown a mustache because he could, he dropped out because he didn't know better and he was in many ways everything other boys envied: tough, intimidating and reckless. How odd it seems all these years later I can't even guess at his name. I stood waiting, leaning against an unopening bathroom door for what seemed like an eternity, I had never met him or even known of him, as he stood behind me - watching me intently. I grew weary of the wait and my bladder begged for release as I hurried out back and began to pee under a stair well of the back-side-of-the-tracks apartment complex. I became aware of someone standing behind me - I stiffened - they came closer and flanked my side. He stood next to me and pulled out his thick, uncut cock. My heart raced and my palms sweated - he slowly pulled his head up - his smile catching in a sliver of light coming from a neighboring window.

"Feels good doesn't it?", he questioned.

"Pissing ??" , I asked, feeling embarrassed and akward.

"Yeah, pissing, holding your dick in the air", he laughed. I quickly realized he was several beers past fine.

As I began to close up shop, he quickly reached over and grabbed my dick - embarrassingly a bit of pee releasing in his hand. My body jerked - forcing his hand to drop away. He spoke:

"Hey, hey - don't sweat it - I like dick too"

"Too ??", I stammered - too defensively, infused by terror and teenage horniness.

"Yeah - Melissa told me you suck dick" He continued, "So how gay are you?"

I can't remember my words at that point - I started phrases and dropped off - I neither denied or comfirmed. My mind was reeling. Was I being set up ? Was this being watched ? Fuck - no way this guy is gay ! Is he gonna beat the crap out of me ?

He started buttoning up his pants and started to walk away. I felt lost, desperate - standing there in the darkness, the unexpected, my dick still hanging out of my trousers - somehow feeling that it was a moment I had hoped for - but felt so uncomfortable now that it was here.

"Hey - wait up", I choked out. Somehow wanting to find a way to keep the moment alive.

He turned and held his index finger to his soft lips in a gesture requesting silence.

"My girlfriends inside", he whispered "I'll get your number and we can meet up tomorrow night"

My heart pumped at the rate of a speeding Ferrari. I barely slept that night - eaten alive by hope and excitement.

The next night we met at the local community college and wandered around the grounds. I gushed about my hopes for a life filled with fame and money, I spoke about how different I felt from the kids at my high school, I rambled on and on wanting desperately to make a connection to another man/boy. He lead me to the stadium, dark and ominuous at night without lights on the field and fans in the stand. He took me to a stairwell, not visible from the street and pulled me close to him. His lips and mustache brushed my neck, his arms larger and more powerful ensnared me, he pressed against me - into me - with force. He pulled my shirt aboove my head and rubbed his hands over my stomach and ass, he turned me around and ran his lips down my boyishly smooth back. He pushed against me as he undid my pants and let them slide to the concrete. I felt intoxicated, alive, sexy. His pressing and pushing strengthened, his hands slipped from my naked hips and pushed my arms over my head as he slowly pulled the crook of one arm against my neck. I felt a sharp pain as he hit my head against the wall, I felt quickly aware of how much bigger he was then me. My 140lbs at a 40lb loss to his strength - his fury. Suddenly it wasn't sexy - it was terrifying. I felt my larnyx bruising, I could hear myself gasping, tears welling in my eyes. His cock stiffened as he forced it between my legs - sloppily he jabbed left and right as he tried to force it in. I struggled, I screamed to let go of me. A second flash of pain as my head hit the wall.

"FUcKing SHUt UP, FaGgoT!!" he menancingly breathed into my ear. All traces of charm evaporated.

This time he found his target. A tearing feeling, a horrible burning pain, a moment filled with humiliation - as his rock hard cocked ripped into my flesh - opening up a place I had never let anyone go. I cried, I tried to fight - crap, CRAP - no, no, no, no, no, please GOD no...don't do this to me - please, oh, please, don't do this to me....what have I done - am I that bad, am I that unforgiveable - not like this, no, no, no, no, no, no...........

Suddenly there were white, blinding headlights. A car - other teenagers looking for a space to 'park' - flashing upon us, this horrific spectacle. He jumped off me - his cock ripping out of me more feircely then he had forced it in. He had barely pulled his pants up as he began to run, I had barely hit the ground before the people in the car began to scream:

"FAGGOTS - SICKO, FUCKING FAGGOTS!!!" as they drove away.

Devastated.
Crushed.
Ashamed.

I touched the pain, the burning heat and found I was bleeding. I started bawling, sobbing uncontrollably - shrinking away into the stairwell corner - wishing, praying, believing I was dead. Waiting for silence to offer my escape.

Later, as I crept into the quiet shoebox house, my sister was the only one still awake.

"Why are your crying?", she asked in a mixture of sibling suspicion and concern.

"Nothing, just a bad date", I numbly responded.

"Must of been - are you sure your ok ?" she asked

"Sure.", I said - not sure at all.

I went and hid in the bathroom for what must have been an hour, unable to clean the blood and shit off my underwear - I took them out to the garbage, ashamed to explain to anyone - especially my parents, what happened. I crawled into bed and cried some more - I had lost something I couldn't put my finger on...

hope,
innocence,
trust.

Finally after a session of tossing and turning, staring into space, I fell into a deep, deep sleep.

Beginning, trying, hoping to forget.

A redundant, verbose, illogical, crude, accumulation of thoughts (prepared in list format for your viewing pleasure):

• I'm a little embarrassed to say how involved I've become in my newest hobbie - is there a butcher term then "gardening" and is it really gardening if I have kept all of my flowering plants (up to 20) in pots? I really find some sort of quiet peace when I work on keeping these things alive.
  
• The reconcilliation is going well - not perfect, still some bumps and such - but well. I'm trying to listen more and so is he. It's amazing how much you don't hear that your boyfriend says.
  
• I've been very good about the gym - my work-outs have become very intense - and I'm becoming less and less patient with 'Squatters' - do NOT and I repeat DO NOT use the equipment to conduct personal voyages of the soul and mind between sets - WORK THE FUCK OUT.
  
• Started to sniff around for a playmate for Baby. My only fear is that I already have such a perfect and lovable dog - how will I ever find one of her eqaul ;)
  
• People seem to be getting arrested left and right around here for drugs - things are very tense on the circuit. Thank god I've been seen most frequently at Home Depot and the Great Indoors and not Boom or Arena.
  
• I think I need to start another blog dedicated to just my dreams and nightmares - I could fill a book with that weird shit.
  
• This bitch thinks he's gonna move away - I'm gonna go Kathy Bates on his ass and "hobble" him if he tries and moves away.
  
• I'm sure by now - the whole world knows of the return of the special one, but needless to say "Hi Aaron!"
  
• Game 1 - Divisional Playoffs - we're down three key players - but we are a ball club....The D-Backs are gonna hold the World Series trophy again this year.
  
• I'm gonna be late to work.
  

I squealed with joy and delight to see the following keywords brought you to my page:

Sissy Whore

Yes, yes I am.

The Ever Popular 4 Truths and One Lie

I learned to shave my balls, from two gay friends at twenty-one, who were so horrified at how "au natural" I had allowed 'the boys' to get that they made me pull my clothes off get in the shower with them naked and shaved them for me.

I called my father 'Ice Man' until late into my teens - when after a very physical altercation - and one of the first where I punched back, he began to cry and asked why I hated him so much.

I hated my father so much because I watched him pummel my mother like a rag doll one night sending her flying into a wall size book case which tumbled on top of her at the age of six.

From two years of age - to six, it was common to find me asleep in the smelly laundry of myself, my brother and my sister - piled in the hallway closet upstairs - in the middle of the night. Upon waking I would explain that I was chasing fairy dust through the house to where the fairies lived - but never found the elusive fairy.

From the age of two to the age of fourteen I did not have one dream or one nightmare that I could remember upon waking the following morning.

ok, ok, where the fuck have I been eh ?
Let myself get distracted again - wanted to write some meaningful stuff and then would spend too much time distracted on what to write instead of just writing. A lot of weird moments over the last few days - not necessarily bad moments - some oddly pleasant, but surreal.
Lots of bad dreams lately - not sleeping well - though generally in a much better state mentally then I was most of June, July and August.
I need summer to end, the heat is oppressive - leaving me holed up inside. I want to enjoy my backyard - bought a new gas grill - nice - grilled chicken every night.
Went to Manny Lehman/Mike Durreto at Freedom/Arena on Saturday night. Bumped up a little before I went - but laid off the drugs while I was there - just some beer and Ripped Fuel. Lucky showed up seperately an hour after I got there. We turned alot of heads as we crossed the room holding hands - so many people were truly supportive - coming up to us individually or together to tell us how happy the were to see us together. Some a little confused. And some a little saddened or miffed - those who had been flittered with over the last few months.
Funny how a few hours earlier at the gym - pushing through and amazing set - my heart racing - blood demanding it's attention as it jetison through - pumping and pounding - the old crush came up and began chatting me up - the third time this week - this time he asked for my phone number. Too funny - god how bad I've wanted a bedroom rematch with this boy since giving him up 3 years ago to be with Lucky. I chuckled light heartedly and made some lame excuse for why it wasn't really great timing to be giving out my phone number - he leaves without saying goodbye.
Not so funny how hours later from that moment Lucky and I start going down the road of conversations we always failed to have well. This one about "the boy" - a meaningless encounter the night before we broke up - a reckless flirtation on my part - that never had anything to do with the break-up but somehow has become this fixation of Lucky's - something he won't let go of. He's drunk - he fights shitty when he's drunk. He loses control. Freaks out. I get out of the car, walk away and lock the door. He's hurting, he leaves, he comes back - he gets destructive - throwing plants on my patio, breaking a landscaping light - oh what the neighbors must think.
In three years he's never done this.
I dreamt of Mike (the one who died last month), Lucky and I are arguing - he comes from out of nowhere - so pale, so unreal. He gently seperates us - pushing between us the palm of his hands at our stomachs. He seems to glow - but he says nothing. He places his hands on the lower part of our backs and pulls us in - as if to hug him between us - and then he's gone and we're hugging each other. I cry when I wake. I feel erriely like it wasn't a dream - almost as if it was something stronger.
I close all the blinds and watch movies in the dark. "Dark City", "Mimic" - I even consider placing a sheet over the window as the sun starts creeping around it's perimeter - for some reason I want to pretend it's not morning...
6 hours later - it's 1pm. I should be watching football, doing laundry. I shower - let the sunshine back in. I call Lucky and tell him it's forgotten, he's forgiven. We need to let go off the old hurts and concentrate on what everyone else see's. We need to stop the disrespect, rehashing the same fight.
Later I make him dinner, drink some wine - we watch the Emmy's, our dog at our feet...content to be the object of both our affections.

Ok Fast Pants...here are your answers:

1. I can assure you - I would "never" be a McDonald's character
   
2. Coming to 6 hours after going down on ‘G’ at a bar in Chicago, strangers carried me out unconcious - took me home - stuck me in a shower and then explained to me when I finally came to (and they had been up all night watching over me) that I had stopped breathing several times.
   
3. Prefer a rhythmic combination of both – starting slow and steady and ending fast and furious.
   
4. Chicago
   
5. Movie Critic or Club Scene Reporter for Rolling Stone or a Fluffer before the invention of Viagra.
   
6. Suck – then Lick down the shaft – back up to the head – down the shaft, the balls, under the balls. Repeat as necessary.
   
7. Atari – 10th Birthday. The made it a treasure hunt to find it and the wrapped it in a crappy box. It was more the lead-up and the surprise – hey sounds like sex!
   
8. Oral – 12 yrs old, Anal – 23 yrs old.
   
9. Memorize (and constantly forget)
   
10. Issey Miyake ‘Pour Homme’
    

grrrrrrrrrrrooooowwwwwwwlll.

CHEST: 42.5 inches
BICEPS: 15.5 inches

...come here baby - let daddy give you a bear hug!

Top Ten Reasons It's OK To Be From A Dysfunctional Family

1. With a plethora of divorces and seperations in your family tree your sure to get more presents at X-mas.
   
2. You have way more of a chance of appearing on Sally, Jenny or Judge Judy than those silly, vanilla nuclear families.
   
3. It's not only not controversial to be in therapy - you get the "family discount"
   
4. Two words: Prescription Drugs
   
5. More likely to "run into someone you know" at an AA, NA, or AAA (kidding) meeting.
   
6. You never actually "had" to go on family vacations.
   
7. You'll never write a blog about your coffee cup.
   
8. Four words: Movie Of The Week
   
9. Which is more intriguing cocktail chatter : "I hit my brother in the face with a golf club when I was 8" or "A story about earning a merit badge in boy scouts"
   
10. Even Dr. Phil steers clear of you.
    

...tell me - what does it take to trust ?
The first time out.
or
when you've already been around the bend.
Why is it I find it so hard - to believe, to incline myself to the way of thinking that says "No - you don't want to fuck me over - you don't wish to hurt me first"
Obviously and tirelessly I am reflective of late. I'm sorry - it must seem droll to listen to me excavating my past, memories supressed and some slung over my shoulder like a huge bag of cement mix. But - then again this blog is for me.

So today we dig.

When did I stop trusting others - or did I ever ?

A story comes to mind.

A 10 year old boy lays awake in his room. It's late. His eyes should be closed and his dreams fanciful - an X-Men adventure in which he is the star, a Hardy Boys mystery that he would solve or a Richie Rich cartoon where wealth is without question - instead he listens to his breath his little chest heaves slowly - up then down - then up again. It's a hot night for Arizona and his first year living in the state. The modest, ranch home, a generic shoebox in suburbia, is anything but quiet.

They are screaming again - things break, but his brother and sister lay quiet in their beds as well - are there eyes open - are they scared too, he thinks? Beyond the four walls and the closed bedroom door - plastered with his crayon drawings of super heros and imaginary friends - their is shoving, a scuffle.
It's bad this time.
Normally the father doesn't cry.

She's leaving again.

Too much booze all day long - the boy came home to find her drunk again - she yelled at him, confused and eractic, accused him of being a liar, a thief - a horrible little boy. She would shake him - slap him for being bad - for not telling the truth. When his father would get home - he would make the son apologize - for upsetting his Mother - for making her cry. She didn't mean the things she said - he couldn't take those things seriously. He hated coming home first - to find her crying, to find her sleeping, to find her yelling. How many steps was it from the school yard to his front door and how slowly could he make them last?

When she got like this - this other person she was - so unlike the beautiful and kind woman he cherished and who called him tiger and played with his hair while they watched 'Happy Days' - she always said she was leaving. Some nights she would pull he and his brother and sister into the kitchen. There they would sit on a school night - the clock hitting 2am - little solemn statues sitting erect in the glaring flourescent light. Holding herself up by the orange kitchen counters - she would say "I'm a horrible Mother - a failure - and you children hate me - your father doesn't love me anymore" - she would point to her haphazardly packed bags:

"I'm leaving".

She had done this before, but every time - everytime - it hurt. They would sit tears streaming over their reddened cheeks - their father would scold them not to cry - not to encourage her nonsense. She would tell them she tried to love them, tried to be a good mother, but she couldn't do it.

But this night the bedroom door wasn't flung open.
This night his father was sick of stopping her.

And the boy prayed to a god he didn't believe in - to give him her pain, to give him every ounce of her hurt, every wrong doing, every horrible thing - to fill every inch of his slight 70lb frame - with blackness. He clenched his fists and he gritted his teeth - he wouldn't cry - he wouldn't think - he wouldn't dream - he wouldn't hope - he needed room for her pain - he HAD to take it all - if he did this - this one thing - she wouldn't leave him.

He woke the next morning.
A fever was raging through his body, he coughed and coughed and coughed, his throat swelled and he found it hard to swallow.
Chills traveled his small spine and tripped over his pajama bottoms to reach his toes.

He had valley fever and spent most of the summer in bed.

...and she stayed.

Can I just tell you how shitty I'm doing with my week 2 picks - ugh. I loathe the Cowboys.

Good Enough For Here

I've laid waste to thoughts of my wasted, forgotten, though sometimes enjoyed youth - dispersing the painful, embracing the cheerful and pondering the meaningful.

Lately I find myself looking at myself as if a ancient building, the one on the corner made of well-worn faded red brick. You've passed every day on the way to work for as long as you could remember. But then one day comes and calls upon you - for whatever reason - to know the details of that building - it's heighth, it's age, it's character - and much like that I now often stop and stare at my reflection in the mirror and wonder :

what are you built from ?
what constitutes your foundation?
how strong do you stand?
who lives inside?

I look back on my youth - at 33 I recognize I have so many years ahead of me - but they are the years that will be guided with agressively-gained experience and not with a more innocent and sexual yearning to be broken in.

I look back on the times of my "firsts", always somehow intermingled with the times of heartache - not the kind a man feels, but a boy feels.

So tonight I find myself reflecting on a man named "Sam". He always lead me by at least 8 years of life - and the funny thing with age , you can never catch up. Sam was all things - many of them my idea of perfection - from the smile, to the hair, to the walk, to the cock - and he fell into my life again and again from 17 - 23. To me Sam was the unobtainable - to Sam - I was the "sure thing". An odd mixture - my youthful yearning for what I considered to better than me - and for him, a pup-tent's erection and a few beers south of drunk - I was "good enough for here". He never took me on a date, asked me out to dinner, brought me flowers, or gave me a valentine...but in those five years, I found his mouth on mine, his ass riding my cock, his smile carefully aimed - to win my affection. Book stores, public parks - he would seek me out, fire alive, desire unrequited...but at dinner parties and dance clubs I was the guy against the wall - propped up by his friends. To him I had my time and place and only when I was "good enough for here".

I see him now and then - aging less well, than better.
And I wonder if he knows how much a call the next day might have meant,
a night at the movies could have been magic
and when he smiles at me from across the bar - that smile - I wonder if he knows

....I'm thinking he might not just be "good enough for here".

oh BTW - Hi Fast Pants !

...coming to the end of another day and another week in the land of grueling personal sacrifice....of course I do really like the new Dolce & Gabbana jeans I bought last night - so, ok I'm a sell out, I deserve the empty professional experience. Took my boss and my ex out to dinner last night at "Eleve". It was nice.

....what, oh yeah I mentioned my ex without swearing or crying or ranting or raving, um - when did that come about - well I have been awful quiet now haven't I.

...yes there are details and events and such to explain - but I feel I'll jinx it if I talk about it.

Let's just say this:

I had a date for my brothers wedding in Vegas.
I flew the date up the day of the wedding when I realized I couldn't imagine any other human being in the world standing next to me.
I may have discussed - elements of a subject some people call "reconcilliation" (and I may have even mispelled it) with the date over the next few days.
I am intending to move very slowly - think dating but the person already knows what you like in bed.
I do honestly believe as much as I believed before that I was meant to share my life with this person.

Ok - maybe I could have picked a better day than Friday the 13th to break this news anyway.

Great - bet my readership just flew out the window
;)

funny...the more active my mind is - often the less likely I am to come forth with the words I need to evoke the rapid relay of sizzling synapses popping in my brain.

the following things - I can safely declare - have not happened in any particular order.

• I have not come to realize my greater gift to give, or place on this earth.
  
• I have not shed the bothersome 10lbs that hangs out with me all summer long - daring, mocking and haranguing me - each time I wish to pull my shirt off.
  
• For said reason - I have not sat indian style shirtless in front of anyone for as long as I can remember.
  
• I have not made love to a stripper (at least female) while in Vegas, no matter how hot and flirtatious they were.
  
• I have not done drugs since the night after Mikes memorial.
  
• I have not quit my job and I have not admitted to myself that I can't forsake it for fear of being poor.
  
• I have not lost my ability to take everything too personally and feel deeply hurt by the simpliest of actions.
  
• I have not fully embraced my mantra "On a High" - though at some moments I feel closer to it than others.
  
• I have not spoken of many things in my past that might shock you.
  
• I have not spoken of certain things in my now that will surprise you.
  
• I have not become any more clever or unique in the preparation of these lists.
  

...Vegas BABY, Vegas ......

dammit...all this and YOU dump for that latin house boy !!!!

...I would love to tell you I've been dancing the salsa of good humor and chesire cat grins all day
...I would love to tell you I slayed some dragons, enhanced my self-esteem and made hot passionate love today
...I would love to tell you I cured cancer with a simple combination of chocolate, Merchant-Ivory films and back-rubs

but, I didn't.

Instead I had the most insanely horrific conversation/arguement/verbal haranguing with the owner of the retail side of the house. His pathetic paranoia, his overly inflated ego, his cruel and abrupt method of conducting conversations through personal assaults, his ability to take a meaningless phrase and begin a diatribe on the wrongs of everyone around him. I have never - ever had a person speak to me in this manner - ending with a backhanded side ways comment about my sexuality. I had to bring forth every fiber of my human condition to not rip his fucking head from his body and shove it up his conceited, myoptic, lunatic Mormon ass. I endured threats to my career, to my future and to my livelihood from a man who is neither my boss, my coworker or my friend. What a time to be giving up drugs, easing back on booze and avoiding casual sex...I want to destroy something - I want to hear something - someone - snap in my strong deliberate hands. I willing want to quit my job and walk back in there and shove my 6 figure salary down his throat - I have grown weary of working for others - I have grown sick of being a sponge for bull-shit - I want to quit this 3 ring circus and be a god damn monk without a dime to his name.

deep breath...whooooooooooooooo.

oh - and by the way -someone is new on the block - go sick em!

Great work-out.

It's stupid but I know I push harder when there are boys there that trip my switch and tonight there were three. I hate it though - you come back home and the adrenelin is coarsing through your veins at the speed of the raging white water rapids - and all my blood is racing away from my brain and thumping up and down some place else.

So I sit here thinking maybe I should do a stags leap over to a local watering hole. Throw on some jeans and a tight T while the muscles still feel all pumped - feel that thrill of eye-contact, the first sip of a cold beer trickling down my throat, possibility of a little back seat action.

Maybe I should throw on some shorts and a tank top - not even shower and hit the bookstore - listen to a crisp dollar pulled in to the machine - whirrrrr - watch a dirty movie and feel my heart racing waiting for something to happen - an anonymous encounter - a furious fuck and suck session - shoot my load in his face and don't even bother to ask his name.

Maybe I should call the Ex - whisper about loneliness - hint about horniness - what ?? am I naked ? yeah - just step out of the shower -why - pause - what are you doing - he could come racing over, eager, hungry to taste me to be at home with me inside him - passion erupting, friction and fire each of us pounding our anger, our sadness, our emptiness away.

Or maybe I'll play with the dog and write out some bills and jack-off again and watch the Daily Show - then crawl into the bed - without him, without whoever I used to be, without the skin I've grown so comfortable wearing all this time. Will the sheets seem smoother or will I wake up shivering in the middle of the night, confused from a terrible nightmare about a life gone wrong ?

...so, are there any Vegas bloggers out there ? I'll be in your shimmery city Thursday - Sunday for my big brothers wedding. Think I'll hit the bars in search of fun and frivolity on Friday night (well not to much of either - I'm trying to play it a bit low key this weekend)...if so, or you have advice on where to go - let me know.

Another List of Implications, Contradictions and Inspirations:

• My dog is soooo frigging fantastic it hurts.
  
• I can't believe someone who called me had the balls to call me after me explaining to them for an hour why they need professional counseling and then find out this morning they've been spending quite a bit of time chasing after my ex as well.
  
• Gay men are bitches in heat and horny dogs looking for the next leg - at the exact same time
  
• I survived the bathing suit experiences and felt pretty good about myself doing it - but somehow managed to shift the neurosis to my growing bald spot instead.
  
• I am hornier then shit - jacking off 5 times a day - and managed to turn down each prospect I had at easy sex this weekend. I guess I really need to decide which side of the street I want to drive on.
  
• I started reading again - but embarrased to say I had to start with a collection of short stories since my attention span is shorter than my sideburns.
  
• From the reactions of people to seeing me in person at two different parties this weekend - I guess I successfully have become one helluva hermit.
  
• I'm not sure I know how to let go of the people I love.
  
• I only have one ex-boyfriend who hates me - and he hates me with such a deep-seated loathing - that it can be felt from across the bar, even when I'm still standing in the parking lot. I feel sorry for him that after 10 years he still can't let that hate go.
  
• I ran into someone I dated 3 years ago and really enjoyed talking to him - so much so I think I had a raging boner for the next couple of hours while seeing the movie "1 Hour Photo" - do you know how disturbing it is to think someone might see you with a hard-on at a movie like that ?
  
• No matter how many list snippets I do - I just can't get myself to sit down and do the 100 list one.

Who thought up "Pool Parties" ??

I find nothing more unnerving then standing around a pool in an ill-fitting square cut (if it looks great on your ass - it's mashing down your dick and balls, if it's pronouncing your package with flourish and fancy - it's flattening your ass...so I chicken out and feel too neurotic and end up wearing "jams") - I thought we no longer called them that - but my West Coast friends claim indeed we do.

It will all be less upsetting if I only had to survive this retail queens Marque de Swimsuit weekend doing this yesterday - but I have a scant 5 hours to dream up more scantily-clad attire for another pool party today and one tomorrow. I have 4 swim trunks left to choose from:

• The Dark Blue Robin Piccone square cut - which is meant to cut on the legs to show glorious bulging hamstrings and raging muscles pushing my buttucks high in the air - for Christ Sakes I'm 33 - I've got good legs and a nice ass - but this bathing suit seemed a lot sexier on me in the store then in bright sunlight.
  
• The Khaki, Olive and Blue Plaid Whittall & Shon - trunks at a square cut length - no lycra....really, really flattering - simple, kinda sweet preppy boy showing some skin - 'cept one problem...no mesh thing to hold everything in place underneath - I hope in the water everything is gonna come floating out like passengers off the Titanic.
  
• The Orange, Red and White Plaid J Crew with the velcro fly - I comment - their liars - someone switched the tag - it says 32 and they all say 32 - but I squeeze into this thing as gracefully as Anna Nicole Smith eats food. I can't even try it on or I'll never leave the house again.
  
• The Red, Green and Blue Plaid Sauvage swimsuit - well - it fits well - no love handles, ass and legs look nice - waistline cuts right at my tan line which kinda works - a bit too tight in the crotch - but if I start to get hard it won't stick straight out - but I know the pressure on my balls is gonna have me "adjusting and readjusting" myself constantly and the other pool party guest are gonna complain I keep touching myself (well maybe not todays pool party - um, I'm worried some people may not keep their bathing suits on - well I mean - I wouldn't mind if some of them didn't but I mean really then you have to deal with the ones who you wouldn't want to see do that and then suddenly you realize that your just rambling on and on and on....)

...sigh.
What are the lines to "Serenity Prayer" again ?

if she EVEN thinks she's (?) gonna "bitch slap" you - sorry diesel muther-fucker - is gonna get the FAG (me the fag)-BASHING of a life time (that's ok freak, throw together your Burger Closet-Queen salary of $5.25/hr to come to Phoenix and threaten my fucking ass)....Trinity - you frigging rock.

In Heavy Rotation: Gym, Car, Shower, Whenever....

• Coldplay - Rush of Blood to the Head. My Take: Frigging amazing from start to finish, I loved their first album months before it gained any popular, I hope I have the same private time to worship this album before airplay ruins it.
  
  
• Aimee Mann - Lost In Space . My Take: One can never be disappointed with Ms. Mann (actually Mrs Micheal Penn) - the standouts are Moth and It's Not (I wil listen to "It's Not", again and again and again)
  
  
• Duncan Sheik - Daylight. My Take: Lil fucker looks so cute in the hot, urban, artsy nerd way - I know I would tear him up. Mark my words the happy-go-lucky-stomp-on-your-blues-and-let-go-of-your-pain-and-sing-along-with-this-catchy-tune: "On A High", will bring this guy back on the charts with jet propolsion. I won't force the lyrics down your throat - but they are my new mantra.

A One Act Play Performed by Heart and Soul

Setting:
Time - The present.
Place - A single room painted white, each wall with one door and two windows, sunlight frames each window - a light breeze tickling the curtains.

Characters:
Heart (Kind, gentle, wearing traces of age and a seeming knowledge of loves lost and won) and Soul (Worldy, much older than Heart, somehow troubled and peaceful at the same instant - the more attractive of the two)

Heart: Soul - what is that you hold in your hand ?

Soul: Oh look - do you like it it's a leaf ?

Heart: A leaf, but it's so shiny and perfect - where ever did you find it?

Soul: It's so strange - it's been with me all this time, I can't believe I overlooked it.

Heart: Well it does look new.

Soul: Here take a closer look. (Soul hands Heart the leaf, Heart playfully flips it over)

Heart: WOW! Look Soul...look. It's completely different on this side - there are brillant colors and amazing patterns - I like it even more.

Soul: (smiling) I thought you would.

The curtain closes as the two continue to fuss over all the new things that they will discover.

...and so it begins
A LIST
of no Consequence:

• I make mistakes, daily. emotionally. physically.
  
• I'm not as good a friend as I used to be - too many - but I am still wonderful to a smaller few.
  
• I've finally realized that the smaller few - have never left me - despite the previous two points.
  
• I have no idea how to be a Best Man, throw a Bachelor Party and I suck at golf - can I just get points for showing up?
  
• I am finally able to admit that learning to give great head at 12 - may have done a little self esteem damage to me at 33.
  
• I have forsaken the gym for the past 16 days - I WILL go back tomorrow. I really am a better and happier person for going.
  
• I want to honestly laugh and fell happy - things have been so damn depressing lately - I'm changing theme parks and looking for one in PEPPERMINT.
  
• One of the seven signs of the Apocolypse is YOU getting a job.
  
• I'm going to start saying a lot of goodbyes.
  
• I love X & K & G and many other misused letters of the alphabet - but they just aren't making me a better person - so I'm gonna try and make them less a part of my life.
  
• I need to stop spending every single penny I have in my checking account - right after I buy the new Aimee Mann CD (it's on SALE at Virgin starting tomorrow!)
  
• I'm just like Sprite - "Don't believe the Hype"
  
• I'm all cried out.
  
• I forsee a lot less circuit parties and tea dances in my future
  
• I would love to be part of a reading club or a dinner party group.
  
• I love to giggle under the covers with my dog in the middle of the night.
  
• Random is better, often more strange and always less committal.
  
• I will attempt to grow at least one new friendship this week.
  
• I'm already bored - and you soooooo skipped ahead - so I'm stopping now.

I rolled over in bed to find it was 4AM - where am I ? Nope - it's my comfortable bed, my sleeping dog, I'm all in one piece - then why do I have this horrible feeling...

Oh yeah.
I got drunk.
Not a little.
A lot.
Shouldn't have been driving drunk.
Your smarter than that drunk.
Oh my God what did you say drunk.
fuck,
Fuck,
FUCK.

I left the memorial and drove to my parents, I sped down their street like a maniac actually causing a neighbor to run into the street cursing me - I thought about egging him on - come fuck with me - see what you get - the misconstrued notion of a a "fag bashing" - this fag - beating the living crap out of some mormon father on his high horse. Pretty, huh?

I burst into my parents house - the remnants of a gentleman - my favorite tie pulled apart - my crisp white dress shirt splattered with red wine...my eyes swollen, red, tears spilling forth. Pretty, huh?

I watched the little league championships with my parents, tears streaming down my cheeks - I broke down repeatedly - sobbing. I lost it. Was I crying for Mike, was I crying for Lucky, was I crying for me? It was all blurring together. How much wine had I drunk anyway? ( I was nervous - I remember standing at Noah's - people looking at pictures of Mike - friends crying - why don't I do that? Why can't I feel that? I think I nailed back 2 bottles by myself - there was food - I should eat - but I think I did just want to be drunk - numb.) My parents were kind - they hugged me, they consoled me - their toughest kid, the one who never let's them see what he's feeling - somehow confusing lack of emotion with being butch - somehow convinced that if he acts tough he seems less gay to them (am I suddenly realizing this about myself?). My father notices that I might be just a little bit inebreatiated. He wonders if the one beer I have had since getting to my parents - has had an effect on me. Kinda funny. Kentucky wins the game...I leave. I drive slower this time.

I go back to Noah's - the people staying the night there have switched to pajamas.
Where did you disappear to?
Where did you go?
I think they were watching movies. I can't sit still. I'm fucked up. Their bumping. Not what I need - so I go ahead and do it.
I end up having a very heavy conversation with the one I adore - but wants more than I can offer. The tension between us is terrible. He's really fucked up. Me booze - him K. Two different worlds - doubt the conversation even made sense. I remember feeling moral - emotional - drunk - damn, I'm dreading what I said. And then I think I came on to cute little Bryan - or did I think about what it would be like to come on to cute little Bryan ? Sad - I'm not sure of which. I left - snuck out again. Too fucking messy - can't do this - can't be here. Took off and went home. Pretty, huh?

A long lost friend called from Milwaukee - he'll be in town tomorrow - crap - what did I say - I'm pretty sure I told him I wanted to fuck him while I was here. I'm sure he was as surprised as his boyfriend sitting next to him. I'll apologize tomorrow - to him, to my parents, to the neighbors, to God, to everyone.

I stumbled into bed - pulling my Baby close to me.

ghosts
formed from remembrances
and moments lived
pain denied
joy exploding
and unforgettable acts of tenderness.
apparitions
appear fully
to disappear, fade away
precious moments later
before
I comprehend what they
offered
what they
said
what they
wished
for me

...his hand brushed slowly - deliberately against the nape of my neck...it was odd how he even found his way next to me on the couch - placed between Noah, tears still framing his eyes, and I. In my mind's eye he was still just walking through the front door, it felt like it had been years since I had seen him and with the weight of the day pushing heavily down on both my shoulders and my spirit - he was such a comforting sight.
My hand worked it's way to his knee - a hybrid of touch and accidental resting place - as we talked of Mike there was some shared anger and resentment, there was sadness and melancholy, and intermingled amongst it all were these three friends - side-by-side for the first time in so many months. Walls created, though not always visible - from the break-up and the break-down of communication.

... I didn't cry. I was offering my strength - a life time of knowing how to hold back my tears til I was alone - broadsided only once when Noah held up a teddy bear Mike had given him. He pressed the button on it's furry black paw - filled with some polyester or fiber, wrapping around the wires and tiny recorder beneath - Mike's voice, so fucking surreal - a prerecorded message "Goodnight Sweetheart". A chill climbed easily to my shoulder - when was the last time I had heard Mike's voice while he was alive ? Suddenly the realization that that last time - was the "last" time.

There were other visitors - some there for the same reason - some not. Smiles, jokes to break the tension. I can hold melancholy like a marathon dancing companion when I'm alone - but in front of others - I tell jokes, I laugh things off - I do anything but show what's going on inside. There was flirting, we watched movies and the hours passed. Should I go now ? What about now ? Do I go home and look through photo's, find the one's I'll bring to the memorial. Can I handle that - alone in my house - 3x5 ghosts slipping through my fingers. Where are the photo albums and boxes and pictures - at his house or mine?

Back on the couch - more bravely - I offer my reassurance by tracing patterns on the back of his head - my fingers dancing lighly across his shoulders - how many times had I been here before ?
No malice.
No tension.
We were here in unified sadness.

What if had been he or I ? What if I really lost him - could I live with that, could he?
Was there a message in Mike's death? No note - so what was your message - what would you say about the way we were conducting ourselves at this moment if you could ?

I received the rather unsettling and depressing news this morning that my friend Mike took his life.

This news took over a week to get to our circle since Mike moved to Orlando a few months back - odd, you never think in this day and age - that news this grave wouldn't be just a quick call/email/IM away.

So what now?

My mind races...when was our last conversation - last month, right??
Did I make you laugh?
Did I make you smile?
Did I remind you that I loved you?

I remember your going away party - was it three months ago - a couple of weeks before this break-up consumed me. I was so happy for you - I thought the change would be good for you. You didn't want the going away party but it was so nice to see the people who showed up. You insisted on leaving immediately the next day - no Sunday BBQ - you were severing some ties - I could see that - funny how blind I still must have been though, uh? Well, not too funny.

You called Lucky and I after hearing we broke up. You were so geniunely upset by it - crap - did I even ask about you - the last time we spoke - did I even look beyond my own problems during the conversation. I always tried to treat you extra-special, with kid gloves, you always seemed to feel the odd man out : in our circle, at the gym, at the parties...how often would I find you alone in the corner, quiet, a gentle waning smile, those huge brown eyes, something about you seemed so fragile - a remember refering to you as a "sad puppy dog" one time - what a fucking ass I am.

Did I make you feel that way? I swear I thought I gave you love - I remember offering my friendship - a message I left you on your answering machine: "Ya know buddy - you could just come to the movies or the bar with me sometimes - you aren't just Noah's friend/boyfriend/ex-boyfriend?" - you were cute about it afterwards. At the gym - you just wanted to be part of it - so four of us would try and get through a routine, I doubt I even hid how much that drove me up the wall and added on to our work-out time. You were at a different end of the lifting spectrum. I tried to spot and encourage you - you always tried too hard - I just worried that you were gonna blow a muscle. Dammit - you stopped working out with us - felt you were slowing us down - did I make you feel that way Mike? Did I make you think it wasn't worth it to have a hug and a smile from you?

I remember your birthday party and double dates and circuit parties and tea dances - you always went home early. I remember the night I pulled up in my shiny new car - we had the windows down - it was a Spring night, Lucky across from me, you and Noah in the back - the four of us drove around, my first passengers in my shiny new car. I wish I could remember what the CD was that was playing - I thought it was Chicane - which ironically enough I bought for the Bryan Adams induced vocals on "Don't Give Up". Is that what happened buddy, you just gave up - sick of feeling sick, sick of feeling tired, were you sick of it all - were you sick of us ? You thanked me afterward for letting you be the first passenger - you hugged me and you told me how much I deserved this and my new found success, you said you knew how hard I had worked - at first I thought you were just in a k-hole, but you really meant it. I remember dropping you guys off and then driving off with Lucky - the love of my life by my side and those words - your words still echoing in my ears as I got home.

My God - did the world turn upside down since that sweet, warm Spring night?

You fucker. You absolute fucker.

I can't say goodbye. I can't say don't do it. I can't ask to help. I can't offer to hug you and tell you to hold on. There were more chapters in the book - there was so much more to read, there even blank pages - pages we could have all written on together: about parties, and barbeques, and boys, and movies, and jokes, and friends...but now they'll just go blank.

You took that chance away from us all.

I'll miss you.

Love

Me

I believe that if stranded on a desert island with John Madden that:

First - he would bore me to death with his never-had-but often thought about love affair with Joe Montana

Second - he would then proceed to tie my limbs together like his freakish Super Bowl Turkey, throw me on a fire and then devour me with 1 bite - 1 gulp - 1 burp

Third - he would then proceed to bore himself to death - but on his final death bed - confuse himself in near-death dementia with the fucked-up Super Bowl Turkey sitting on a bed of greens - and devour himself.

Yeah !!! Monday Night Football - DIE JOHN MADDEN.

sweetness.
falling backwards - gentle swooping somersaults
deftly performed
by your smile.

I hope today (Monday) is a lovely day for you - perform some aerobatics - curl those lips - perform...a smile.

..gingerly...as if walking on black ice in downtown Milwaukee after one, two, seven Mandarin & Tonics at Elsa's in the dead of winter (flashback!) I approach the subject of sudden departing, disappearing and reappearing bloggers.

It's times like these that the "real world" with it's face-to-face, tactile, man-handling, hugs and kisses on the cheek, seeing what I look like at 8am on a Saturday morning fresh from bed (well - actually skanky from bed) or drunk at 1am searching the bar for self-assurance, self-recognition and self-confidence, wins out. The friendships I build in that world still come with those wonderful red velvet museum ropes - you know the ones that keep you from ever getting to close to the art - allowing you to see the beauty of the painting (whether it suits your personal taste or not is a different matter) - but not every brush stroke, every color, every detail. I can be guarded and I have some control.

In that "real" world I still risk building friendships with people who may find jobs in other cities, move across town to a bigger house with their new beau or even reach the expiration point of their lives (thank god we don't come with those damn freshness date stamps they now have on beer - wouldn't that freak me out - I EXPIRE when ???!!!!)...but if they do - I still am giving a chance to say goodbye, go to the going-away party, or drive across town (because I would) for the housewarming party or come to the wake and look down at you, tears filling my eyes, but a gentle smile curling across my lips as I think of a private joke.

You see in the real world - even if there is not always warning there is still more time to say goodbye. I don't flip through my links one day to realize that some people went away one day and never came back. I don't just show up at a web page to be confused by a cryptic message or a goodbye note. Leaving me somewhat wounded - a little hurt - and saddened at your loss.

I'm not slamming anyone here. Writing these things is an extremely personal issue for most - and for many it needs to serve a cathartic purpose and just like therapy of any form - sooner or later - it may not be needed. One day all of my jigsaw pieces: Work, Home, Family, Love and Sex may fall effortlessly, perfectly and wonderfully into place...and if they do I hope to write about them...and maybe at that point I may go away. But for me this blog has journaled over a year and a quarter of my life - I have walked back through every entry (some clever, some depressing, some lame, some wonderful) and been enlightened to the good, the bad and the ugly of who I am - and it is the people who have read me, and written me, and cared for me - that have made me feel so very alive - so incredibly connected to something so much bigger than I - the WORLD.

But it is easier in the real world and that's where I think I'll spend the rest of today - with my dog, with my friends, with my thoughts...

...though I promise you I'll be back.

As an ex-Marketing Director, I appreciate the brand extension of a product line just like the next guy - but "Garlic" Triscuits are PLAIN WRONG. I thought I was eating a clove. Sick, just plain sick about it.
Ok - you can resume what you were doing now.

A few brief images (which are probably gonna slow down the loading of this page - sorry) and thoughts from the weekend:

• You took a piece of my tattered heart back to NYC with you - I fucking adore your smile, your honesty and your vunerability
  
• What a COMPLETE treat - ALDO (So talented - damn - i hope I didnt freak you out) and Scott & Jay (Beautiful Bears with honey pots to tempt!)
  
• Chicago boys are different - they are better - they love you for who you are - they don't ask what you do, or what you drive, or who you know - they just walk up and say : "Your fucking cute - ya wanna FUCK ??"
  
• There really is something awesome of being part of that "brotherhood", a big group of guys who look out for you, love you, respect you and treat you like blood, even when your not.
  
• It really is an awesome feeling meeting other bloggers face-to-face and finally really knowing them.
  
• I loved the hotel, downtown, Boystown, room service, the weather - but NOTHING beats waking up next to my dog in the morning.
  
• I think I'm ready to start loving myself again
  
• This is something special - that you BETTER check out
  

OK - and now a few picks:

interesting.

Leo Horoscope for August 15th, from Free Will Astrology


My acquaintance Renata is a sculptor who creates animals from marble and limestone. She likes to say that her art consists of liberating the figures that are buried inside the stone. She doesn't build a statue, then, as much as she carves away the stuff that's obscuring it. I recommend that you borrow Renata's approach, Leo. The thing you love and need and deserve already exists, whole and complete. All you have to do is eliminate the inessential elements that are keeping it unavailable to you.


Anyone got a chisel and a hammer I could use ??

update:

I laid low today - very low (think Anne Frank & the attic), but I did alot of thinking and when the Ex came by to drop of the dog - I said my goodbyes - I stood my ground that I can only move forward and couldn't do so processing all the "coulds" and "shoulds" of where I/ He/ We went wrong.

I cried in front of him - sobbed in his arms - but they were tears for me - not him, and it didnt give him power over me to see me this way. I'm not sure where we'll proceed from here - no matter how painful it was - I offered him Baby - to help sever that last tie - he asked me to hold on that decision for now til I'm thinking clearly. I know that he still cares for me as deeply as I care for him - and I can see the hurt in his every action. Getting my distance - letting the healing start - isn't telling him I don't love him, it's telling him I love us both.

So - the 32nd year and it's pains and it's sadness have ended - 33 has begun - and bathed in emotion - I proceed forward feeling somehow cleansed and more alert. I have changes to make - my home, my life, my job, my friends, my spirit - maybe one maybe all - but the cogs of change are in motion - I will stop looking over my shoulder to see what I'm leaving behind...

thank you for the wishes and the words and the love today.

...so here it is the big 33. Uh, doesn't feel like much of a change - if anything I guess my biggest hope for it is it offers me a smoother ride than the last three years did - I would give up the volume of meteorotic highs if if would dull down the amount of devastating lows I had to experience.

A poorly timed hour long call with the "X" - while I was at work wrapping up my day - who hasn't spoken to me for 3 weeks - sent be spiralling down a staircase of despair, regret, sadness and heartbreak last night. Could I possibly want him back - could I possibly believe 2.5 months into this that maybe I/He/We had made a mistake. Did I really pull the trigger - or does it matter if he loaded the gun and handed it to me ? How it stung to hear him admit the words it was over - did he ever even try to get me back? And how it stung worse when he said after 2.5 months that he was already seeing someone. But I should feel comforted that it wasnt going well and no one liked the new guy and he still loved me. And how I know that I still love him and how did I believe that I wasn't partly still in love with him.

It was the worst of the three breakdowns/crying fits/whatever since the breakup - it was the darkest, most dangerous and scariest - like the first time your alone in a house as a young boy. I couldnt call anyone - I thought about asking someone to get over immediate before something terrible happened - but I rode it out like a herion junkie through his first days of recovery - locked in a padded room as he bounces of the walls - the human pinball machine with gears made of emotions. I read everyone of his cards - 14 in 3 years including the post-breakup ("I will always be your best friend, I will always love you") card and holiday cards, two of the cards came at the same time - so over 3 years I averaged one card every 3 months - a quarterly thing like a "bonus". Funny - I thought love was more like a salary - the stuff you lived on to get by. I'm being petty and I know he would be angry and see this as thus - but come on - it's symbolic of something more. Could you build the greatest skyscraper your ever saw on the Chicago skyline - if you wanted to just stop in now and then and work on it ?? Could you tend to the most beautiful garden - rows of gardienia, irises, lilies, snapdragons - you had ever seen - if you chose to water it on "just the holidays" or when you were drunk ?? Could you maintin a lover - no matter how much he loved you and prayed it would be forever if you never found time among your hobbies and personal interests and work and home to have him feel he was loved and part of your life too ?? But since it was apparently me who uttered the break-up words - I was the one who gave up, didnt work hard enough and didnt believe in forever...I was to blame.

I hate this - there is no win - either way I am without the person I love, who I called my best friend, who I wished to be my forever...and now I judge my whole life against this failure. I rethink the past years and the lows and what part I played in them, my head swims trying to figure out for how much I am to blame - how high do I really set the bar ?? How much do I really demand in return ??

And it sucks - at 33 - on this day - to have it begin this way...

...setback.
never really makes much sense does it where love comes from and where it goes.
I met a wonderful man this weekend who acted - actually that's not fair, genuinely behaved as if - the world revolved around me and made me feel safe...then my ex calls and i fall apart........

I'm back and want to post about everything and (cough-cough) everyone (and NAMES will be mentioned, PICTURES were taken and PEOPLE will be exposed - or was it that I exposed myself to people, denied my name and begged them to take pictures)...edging off of a really hellish "black tuesday" that showed up on monday - leaving Chicago - a place I just feel more at home and honestly a little more appreciated...was amazingly depressing. Oh well. Will catch up on the details later tonight.

Random List for Idle Thoughts:

• If I were Louie I'd lick your face (shit - I wouldn't stop there, but it's a start) til you smiled again
  
• How will I come off to you and you this weekend: Stud, Dork, or Friend.
  
• How much it sucked seeing the 'X' today.
  
• Veered from the anger and sadness and marched my ass to the gym.
  
• Haven't let my gym trips control me before this trip - if they like me, they like all of me including the love handles
  
• You have become a true and very cherished friend.
  
• The house has this uneasiness, this melancholy - without Baby here.
  
• I've laid out all the clothes, yet still yet to pack - something about this trip has that "bigger-than-it-is" feeling - like an epiphany or something is awaiting me in Chicago
  
• I am very, very excited to see the "L-Train", "Blue Eyes" and my whore-ish "Brother/Sister" this weekend...it will feel so good to be with these old friends again.
  
• I gotta get packing - sorry...think warm thoughts of yourself, someone should besides just me.

"The Great Dog Exchange" occurs tonight with the 'X'.

It hasn't for 2 weeks sinced he's been on back-to-back weekend vacations and Baby has been with me the whole time. For me this has been pure delight - waking in the middle of the night to find her pressed against me, having her to come home to, playing soccer in the back yard - it's weird, but I guess she's where all of my love was redirected to after the break-up. For the most part since the break-up Baby has been with me - I think this will only be the second time I will have gone an entire week without seeing her. Luckily I planned my Chicago weekend with this in mind and it makes it easier to be without my dog knowing I will be out of town for 4 of those 7 days anyway.

I'm pretty much sick to my stomach and have been since yesterday at the thought of seeing the 'X', we last spoke 2 weeks ago and since he has asked that we cut ties all together while he works through his anger and grieving - it makes it all the more uncomfortable to have to spend even a second, face-to-face with him today.

I honestly feel on the verge of throwing up.

It's these moments you just think - was it all worth it - was three years worth all of this bull-shit. I have to admit I'll turn a cold eye at any future relationships - I'm just wiped out with opening up a vein, a heart, my mind, my bed, (my ass), my wallet, my home, my family's home, my history, my circle of friends, whatever...

It's one of the things I hate about having come out so young (12)...I have had "many" boyfriends (though I have only 'loved' two) - not because I can't keep a relationship, but imagine if the majority (21 YEARS!!!) of your dating experience occurred between your teens and your twenties - OF COURSE you would have had a lot of boyfriends. So I have placed my heart on the blacksmiths anvil again and again, and again, and the marks of the scalding, burning, disfiguring, branding iron have left so many tracks, burns, scars and marks, that sometimes it's hard to find what's left of my heart.

...but somehow the fucker is always there
- beating lightly, but strong and steady - my whole damn life.

So I'll look at the 'X' today and despite any feeling, any hatred and any sensation that rifles through my body and mind - I still love him and a part of that heart will beat for and because of him.

....hmmm, this Chicago trip is shaping up interestingly....never really 'fearful' of traveling alone, especially in a city where I already call so many people friends...but with the wide collection of events and wide range of interests I want to hit circuit parties, leather bars, the regular bars, some downtown sites and time with friends from both Milwaukee and Chicago - I was a little worried that not everything will come together. And there's nothing worse then standing alone at a circuit party thinking, um, uh If the drugs kick in I guess I'll have the guts to just get lost in the crowd and make friends...but friends, old and new, seem to be pouring out of the woodwork and it looks like I'll have time alone and not alone.

See what happens when you mention out loud how bad you need to get laid.

Not In This Life

Lately I've been walking all alone through the wind and through the rain,
been walking through the streets and finding sweet relief in knowing it won't be that long,
Lately it's occured to me that I've had enough of that and lately I've been satisfied by simple things like breathing in and out.

Never again, not in this life, will I be taken twice.
Never again no, never on your life, will I make the same mistake.
I can't make it twice.

Oh lately it's occured to me exactly what went wrong.
I realized I comprimised.
I sacrificed far too much far too long.

Never again, not in this life, will I be taken twice.
Never again, not on your life, will I make the same mistake twice.
Starting out from here today, swear I'm gonna change my ways.
Once mistaken in this life - but never twice...

Never again, not in this life, will I be taken twice will I be taken twice.
Never again, not on your life , will I make the same mistake .
Never again, never on your life, will I make the smame mistake,
I can't make it twice.
Starting out from here today....

FROM: Ms Natalie Merchant

ALBUM: Motherland, Track 11.

SONG: Not In This Life

Don't worry if you scroll the dirty pics are still there....

...surreal weekend.

Running into a lot of faces from the not-so-distant past, not-so-distant future, soon to be shelved friendships and some being dusted off and put back on the shelf. It's odd how far reaching this break-up has been in my life - what people have attempted to take advantage of it, what people have offered more than they've asked and what people just can't be trusted. Sometimes you fell the person questioning and you can feel them leading - they want 'dirt', they crave 'gossip' - pulling, yanking, fucking with your emotional condition hoping to get something juicy to discuss over breakfast in the morning.

I saw "him" last night - not the 'Ex', the one I never talk about, the one who for some reason made my heart skip when I was in love with another man - the one who set the wheels in motion - how unhappy I had become in the relationship. I felt stupid - but glad that I had put extra thought and care in to what I was wearing - I had wanted to look good last night - sexy - but not sleazy, Intelligent but not unapproachable - did he get the nerd glasses with the wife-beater - the 'conflict' I was suggesting to my nature. Maybe an outfit shouldn't such deep-meaning, eh?

My younger companion - all of 20 - made it confusing to him - had I taken a younger lover to replace my 'Ex' ?? Maybe he didn't wonder at all. He hemmed and hawed - I made him nervous, he shifted from foot-to-foot...why is he boyish fear of me all the more compelling - but there was no time to find out and the bar was swimming with people and the 20 year old really wanted to be where everyone else was going - the one place - I knew I didn't and couldn't be...this single thing was becoming complicated...the 'date' from the other night would be there and so would the friend who I adored - who wants more from me, and now has laid it on the line to speak my mind on what that means to me - my cornered answer not being what he wanted to hear - my decision unsound - but based firmly in the unshakeable feeling that I'm just not ready - embarrassingly uneasy.

Once I was free from that first bar and I had convinced the 20 year old to go to Amsterdam and Boom instead - some of the tension moved away. He's a good kid and I think I'll probably take him under the wing and protect him in my paternal way, I tried to make it clear from the get go what this is - and what this is not. More familiar, strange and strangely familiar faces at Boom.

I drank, I bumped, I dropped - how did I used to be able to do this 3 nights in a row ??

I didnt even waste time going through the body concious crisis of image and just pulled of the shirts and looped them through my belt loops and created my world on the dance floor nestled between people I had known for 14 years and 14 minutes...I lost myself there til 4am, and declined the after-hour invitations, "But Everyones Going..." "You have to go - you can't go home yet?" "Here I'll drive with you"....No, No, and No thank you.

I just wanted to be with my dog, on my bed lying next to each other - the sound of her breath lazily spilling out as her black fur, her little body rises than falls...

It felt so unreal and then real last night - my old life, the relationship, the group of friends, the gym at 530pm, dinner at 7pm, then 'Everybody Loves Raymond' (his show, not mine) by 930pm, the structure of my days and the pattern of my nights, the sense of familiarity, normalcy and security - are all gone...

I fell sleeping into a small corner of my bed, almost taking up no room at all ...the bed neatly made this morning with ease - and excluding the space taken up by my dog - back to mine - curled in a ball at the small of my back...'his' side (in a bed he's never slept) remained unfilled - a reminder to the fact that I am still slowly moving on.

ok....so Chris and I started talking about how I cant take sexy pics of myself unless I'm a little buzzed, and this whole nipple pic thing and then the pics on this dear boys site - set me in motion to go maybe a step above or a side so, um , yeah, here ya go - me bored on a Friday night:







Begin the water-cooler chit-chat.....uh, now.

ok - not one to be left out, but not wanting my head cut off - sorry Greg, it's part of the package. :)

I give you my nipples:

5 Truths and 1 Lie : Revisited

• I once dated a US Olympic Speed Skating Coach. His legs and ass are still among the most amazing I've ever seen.
  
• Two of the guys I have dated have ended up in multiple porns and 1 in Playgirl.
  
• I was taught how to make a martini when I was 6.
  
• I am an agnostic.
  
• I have dent in my head from when I was struck in the head with a baseball bat when I was two.
  
• Even though I managed a 4.0 in every class I took in college, I flunked Calculus three times, getting me so worked up that I would either cry or vomit before exams - because I just couldn't get it.
  

...so this may seem shocking and I'm not giving any details yet, but I went on my first date last night - a simple dinner at a good restaurant - an incredibly deep and intellectual conversation and then a drink a Merc - afterwards. No sex, I didn't promise a second, it wasn't hell, I didn't open a wound a the wrist.

That's all I'm saying.

and by the way Chicago-area Bloggers be warned - I just confirmed my flights for 'Market Days' and my big 33rd Bday.....1 week and counting til I start having cheap, 1 night stand sex again...woo-hoo.

Advice 101 : A good buddy, one who has always been a touch stone in my life - told me today that his distance over the past few months is because he found out he tested positive. What is the ettiquite of the reaction to the statement ?? I didnt and dont know. I wanted to cry. But I just let him talk til he seemed like he didn't need to talk anymore. Then I just said "Hey - I love you". And then he turned the subject to my break-up and we moved on, but I feel like I fumbled the ball somehow - there was something missing in my reaction...but what?

...do you ever go to "expose" yourself to one of your friends or a new "interest" - I mean heart/soul/intellect here gutter-minded boyz (you know who you are *smirk*), and you fumble and stumble and tumble...and then your just kinda staring each other and there's this painful stabbing sensation in your head that says:

"I'm pretty sure by my explanation that this person thinks that I am a Satanist, masturbate to swedish kiddie porn, have had sex with livestock, yarn and the Ziegfried Follies and run naked covered in yams at midnight to find myself"

...uh, this was not the "self" I was hoping to expose.

Maybe I just sound better on paper.

ok - is it me, or my computer, but everytime I post lately I get "one chance" spell-checking, grammar be damned - every time I use the Blogger 'Edit' function and correct typographical errors the screen goes blank - anyone elses having this problem ?

I've become waaaaaaaaaay too much of a movie addict lately, but with the combination of a 65 inch TV (Yes, sometimes, size does matter) and the 6.1 surround sound I just can't get enough of my little "Movie Mayhem" get-away nights lately....though I admit I really need to lay off the kitty vision - I'm starting to lose touch with reality and my dog is looking at me funny, or maybe I'm starting to look funny and the dog is losing touch with reality - whatever ? But in all of the movies I have digested this weekend and weeknights I can't tell you how blown away I was by The Devils Backbone by Gullerimo Del Toro y Pedro Almodovar....storytelling at it's best for sure. And I love a good ghost story to boot (and I didnt mind the hot sexy latin bad guy either)....I also rewatched and re-fell-in-love-with "The Ice Storm" by Ang Lee (really cant get how one goes from this haunting and amazing look at the complexities of life, growing up, becoming and staying sexual to the 'The Hulk' but oh well - god knows I'm pretty scattered!)...I cried and cried and cried after wtaching this one, took a good half-hour of cuddling with my dog and then of course the whole LOVE BOMB experience the next day, to get over it.

To those who bombed me you know who you are....the feeling is more then mutual...and as for YOU, well I'll pondering the way to bring this love back to you as well...

....Damn, I gave new meaning to the lyrics of the old Lyold Cole ong "Lost Weekend"....fianlly went to bed arouns 2pm today - cat napped til six and then made soup. (It's good for the soul)....I was the offensive party boy this weeekend Connie, Kitty, Elaine, Valium.....enough numbing to pull off my shirt and shake my ass to the groovy beatys at BOOM... the tattoo is like a beacons amazing how well people have received it. I know the drugs helped my comfort level - but you know what - I WAS ME this weekend, raw, flirtatious, sexual, primal, funny - ME. I turned heads that had seen me a thousand times before - why now I wonder - why now to you fidnsome mystique to me. How hard to be the "Single Friend" - there werre smiles and touches and possibilities, but in a million years I couldn't even consider bedding someone down - ironic - my dick wants to play.plow.prod.poke. sooooooooo bad, but intstead I give hugs, amybe a peck on the cheek and mheart skips a beat wonder what the first time will be like. I was reckless and wrong, a force to be wreackoned with - a quiet storm building off the eastern front - I held an air of melancholy that may - or may not have made me more alluring....it's all so odd ya know. this new place.... singledom.

I thought about correcting all the grmmatical/seplling errors - but hey - what the fuck, right?

...it would be hard to say I've been anything but a bit of a downer lately...I really, truly am sorry. The irony is the past couple of days "in the real world", I've been this bouncy shiny happy being...it's oddly bi-polar. My pain is ebbing (pushed away by anger) and I've been spending time pushing through some hellish morning work-outs at the gym, walks then cuddling with the dog and hanging with friends who make me feel safe. If I've been remiss in writing, sharing, calling - it'll pass, I'll make you smile again soon, I want to hug you, tell you a dirty joke, mess with your hair, kiss you on your forehead, sucker-punch you in the arm - I want to make you not worry about me, and feel safe that I'll get through this, but needless to say - I know your there and I feel "sure" of you and that's all this queer lil boy trapped in a man's body could ever hope.

I used to rever you...
I'm trying hard to ignore you...
But now I resent you...
I wish that I could forget you...


You have nothing to offer...
You see there is no second chance here...
Theres no looking back now...
You know theres nothing to work out...


It shouldn't be so hard for you to understand....
Why should I wait for you to come around......
there's no way out...theres no way out....theres no way out...


There's no way out


It shouldn't be so hard for you to understand....
there's no way out...theres no way out....theres no way out...
Why should I have to wait for you to come around......
there's no way out...theres no way out....theres no way out...
Can't you see I want my own part of love...
there's no way out...theres no way out....theres no way out...

(From Side 1, Track 11 - just wait a minute til it kicks in - "No Way Out" by Highland from Paul Oakenfeld "Perfecto Presents Another World")

remember that movie "Fargo" by the Coen Brothers - remember the scene where the one guy stuffs the other guy into the wood chipper - tonight I felt like that "other guy" - wood chip anyone? Thanks sweetheart.

Meeting with the "X" for dinner tonight. Not sure why I'm doing this to myself - lately as he works himself through the anger stage he shows little more for me then contempt. It's a funny feeling to be hated by someone who once thought the world began and ended with you - now he can barely speak to me as if I was another human. At times I find myself just tired - mentally and physically exhausted of trying to be understanding, trying to appreciate why he feels this way and needs to be so cold to me. I guess I just wonder why I don't just start going this direction myself - feeding off of all the shitty things he said and did that motivate me to finally say goodbye. I'm trying to be bigger then this - I'm not perfect - far from it - at the end of the relationship I began to chill towards him as well, I shuddered everytime he went to touch me, I dreaded time alone with him, I fought the urges to bite off his head every time he commented on another man.

Embarassingly I have purchased 8 shirts to choose from - hoping to be handsome, but not look like I'm trying. I bought a new pair of Steve Maddens hoping to look cool, trendy, but not like I'm trying. I'll leave work early to have a nice haircut - high and tight - to look clean and younger, but not like I'm trying. My nerves so raw my face keeps breaking out, I'll try to clear or conceal, but not look like I'm trying. It seems so sad, so embarassing how hard I am ... not trying.

I keep sketching out plans for the "Heartbreak Time Machine" - this savior vessel that will teleport me to a future where our hearts have both mended, we've blocked out the arguments and sadness that began to bleed into everyday of our existance. But I can't seem to find all the parts that make the machine work - I can make it fly on paper - I can envision it taking away the pain and whisking it all away to a place that's better...but beyond that all I have to show for the labor is pieces of paper ripped, torn and crumpled - vagrants hanging desolately around a garbage can.

So here I go again stepping into traffic on a busy highway, hoping I'll side-step the semi's, jostle my way around the winnebagos and jump over the convertibles. Know that at some time tonight I'll be in tears, shoulders shaking, head in my hands and I'll be wondering when the time machine will come pick me up - maybe think a good thought for me - wish me through this - even, sketch your own time machine...and pass your thoughtful hand - ever so gently across my cheek to catch the tears before they drop to the ground.

ouch! Had one of my teeth pulled/extracted/yanked/stolen - whatever today - total blood fest....doped to the gils on Vicodien & Valium...need to catch up on email but I'm zoning hard.....be back soon I swear - with a much nicer smile (and NO I'm not getting rid of the gap between my front teeth - I was kinda offended they asked me if I wanted to fix that - I'd lose my rough trade/white trash status!)

Thanks sweetheart for sheperding me back and forth from the dentist - I know you just wanted to see my drooling John Merrick/Elephant Man impersonation... too embarrasing how I always let you see me at my worst - I just must totally fucking adore you or something.