Blogger going downhill (scenes from Laguna Beach)....







More Misbehavin'

Worth a bit of pain. I fucking love, LOVE my new tatt (an enlargement of the old tatt)....the fire and sun is burning bigger, better and bolder - hmmm, I think it means something, eh ?



 

 

.....so I was being nice and mellow at home waiting to check out the adorable Seann William Scott (damn that boy is looking fine - please tell me he was bending JT over backstage) when one of my friends decides to go off on me (actually let's call him "ex" friend) - I can't even remember the last time I've ever had a friend get mad at me - I think I was 28 or something - and unlike this - that was merited. So T. and C. call and want me to meet for drinks and I cancel the night at home since I start bouncing off walls when my ire is up. Well a very good time indeed later. I get home - and crash.

But oops - I forgot something.

Upon waking this morning I noticed I had stripped down in front of my computer last night - boots, FCUK jeans, "Soul Rebel" t-shirt, a box of half-eaten Snyder Hard Pretzels laying on the floor - and then like Donkey Kong with a hammer - it hits me.

I sent a drunken email.

Not just any email.

Not just to any person.

To the Ex.

Shit. Shit. Shit. Shit. Shit. Shit. Shit. Shit. Shit. Shit.

He had been at my gym last night. We didn't speak. I held my cool and did my full work-out. I maintained the same distance I have for over three months of silence.

I'm not even really sure what I said - but I guarantee that spelling, grammar and punctuation were not present.

The jist. Oh damn - this is weak. I swear I have done nothing psycho like this the whole time - and well it wasn't psycho - it was human.

It went something like this:

It hurt like hell to see you at the gym tonight. I fucking hate you sometimes, but the reality is - you'd be a fool not to know I will always fucking love you.

I'm think it went like that.

I probably used the "F" bomb a lot more though.

"Maybe"
- Allison Krauss and Union Station
(Gordon Kennedy/Phil Madeira)

Yesterday the odds were stacked
In favor of my expectations
Flyin' above the rest
Never fallin' from the nest
Tuesday came and went and now
I'm in a little situation
Maybe it's for the best
I can live alone, I guess

Maybe I can stand alone
Maybe I'm strong as stone
Even though the bird has flown
Maybe he'll fly on home

Forgive me if I'm keeping you
Apart from better conversation
Hung up on all my doubt
Trying to sort the whole thing out
Tell me that I'm smart enough
To deal with all the information
Spinning inside my head
Every word he ever said

Maybe I can stand alone
Maybe I'm strong as stone
Even though the bird has flown
Maybe he'll fly on home

Maybe I can stand alone
Maybe I'm strong as stone
Even though the bird has flown
Maybe he'll fly on home

I keep mullling these words over:

Be careful what you ask for

I would say "wish" but I gave up wishing a long time ago. The weekend was wonderful at the moments it wasn't meant to be and soul searching at all the wrong times. ASA (aka "The Brazilian") proved that nothing is what you hope it to be - he'll be gone by the next phone call. My wonderful, wonderful friends showed up in Laguna and made Saturday the night to remember. Not even sure where the Brazilian was half the night - but my friends - not even supposed to be there - were there. When I mentioned to C. how wonderful it was to be out of town and there with he and T. and M. - he smiled that smile that breaks all the other boys hearts (seriously) and said

"Baby - we all only came here to be with you"

- and you know what, he meant it.

The capper was when three other Phoenix boys ended up at the same exclusive (I know - whatever) birthday party at the Boom-Boom Room. One - never close to me - but knowing me for years made a statement earlier on the balcony of my friends hotel room -

"This is the nicest I've ever seen you"

- I was pretty pissed at the time. I called him on it later and he looked at me and said

"You misunderstood me - I wasn't slamming you - I think it's great this is the happiest I've ever seen you, the most accessible - it's like some dark cloud that's been over you - some weight or burden - was lifted and you can just tell how much better you feel - you can physically see it".

Funny. I never saw this comment coming - and once again, I believe he meant it. Suddenly whatever I am putting out is bringing back such honesty from people. I know I don't want to date, not at all, I needed to before - something was driving me - some sense that I had to have people after me so Lucky knew what he lost. In my heart I had the misconception that if I could truly make him feel - feel the way I did all that time, that he was my great love - for just one moment - I could take that from him and use it to cancel out my feelings - use it to put us on equal footing.

But you know what ?

Lucky never knew what he had. How am i after three and half years gonna teach him something he couldn't learn waking up next to me every morning. I'm still living for him, I'm still wondering and worse - caring - what he thinks of me, of us. I got it all wrong. The only one who needs to know he's on the short end of the stick is me.

I can't shake the feeling that something is happening: evolution, growth, healing.

Can you feel it to ?

uh - you so know you're sexually-harrassing me while I'm at work...

please don't stop.

Heeeeeerrrrrrrrrrrreeeeeeee, Piggy-Piggy - here.........................

Life is an endless series of kicks in the ass.

It seems nary a week goes by (did I just the word "nary" ??) that there doesn't seem to be something that makes you stop and think:

"It's just not supposed to make sense is it ?"

Exchanging emails with you today - I felt a subtle deflation of some of the idea's I had breathed air into.

Then I had a conversation with a close friend (Tp).

We had met three years ago at Crowbar- he didn't know me yet, but knew Lucky from the gym. He obviously had a crush and didn't realize when he came up to give Lucky too friendly a hug. That he was next gonna meet me - the boyfriend. I was quick to move to protective boyfriend mode and I'm gonna bash your head in if you lay a paw on him again buddy veneer. He spent the night - not approaching Lucky, but approaching me. Apologetic, and respectful of how much I cared for my boyfriend. A week later - I let him work in on a couple chest sets with me at the gym. We talked : about film (Lynch, Almodovar, Besson, Cronenberg), we talked about art and poetry, architecture and form, we talked about advertising and design, sports and enthusiasms - we talked. He was several years younger and so amazingly unique. Almost ashamed to be attractive he hid behind a shaved head and black framed glasses. He exuded eccentricity and charm in a single breath. In short we became friends - and mutual admirers. In the end - my boyfriend made it clear that the boy who used to have a crush on him - had become too uncomfortably fond of me for his tastes.

Slowly I pushed Tp out of my circle and distanced myself from him - and lost him pretty much altogether. So for the past year there have been a few uncomfortable hello's at parties - Lucky staring him down, me shuffling me feet. I handled this wrong, but we do that - sometimes the one's we brag about we handle effortlessly, and then there are the other ones - we just let slip away. So Sunday night I run into Tp - me giddy and drunk and flirting and having a blast (repeatedly using conjunctions) with my friends and I smack right into Tp. The thing about true friendship - even when it's be severed, soiled or stalled - if it's real, you still know how to read each other. Tp - a huge outdoor enthusiast had been rock climbing the day before with 3 others when his rock-climbing partner had fallen 100 feet. He was in a coma. Everything brushed off of us - any hurt, any confusion - and I held him in the middle of the bar as other patrons shuffled around us - he crying in my arms. Monday, Tp called - they had declared his friend brain dead - he told me he needed me, how much it meant to him that I had been there at that exact moment that he needed me. Tuesday, they pulled the plug. He was only 29. Tonight after the gym Tp and I are going to talk, and though it doesn't need to be said I'm going to apologize that I let him down.

And I think I'll reflect on how much I've lived between 29 and 33, and no matter how rough some of the parts were and how great some of the others were - I lived them.

Life's such a kick in the ass.

"Oh darling" she cajoled, "but you look wonderful in drama".

My head is kinda all over the place this past weekend. Maybe it's the heat, both outside - and unfortunately due to a fried compressor, inside my house.
I think - especially for those of us who have been through a plentitude of scorching, southwest summers - that we develop our own version of winter's S.A.D (Seasonal Attitude Disorder - or is it "Depression") - anyway, your patience grows thin in these summer months and your energy level falls to nil.

I want out of here. I want to forget about the house, my career and leave my memories of Lucky behind.

I've worked alot on myself over the past 9 months (yes, "therapy" dears) - I had been walking around with a lot of anger, even more self-loathing and an even less healthy contol over my vices. I'm no perfect angel - and I wasn't out to change into one. I like that I'm a bit of a pig, that I'm sexually-charged, that I like to have fun, that I like to tear my guts out and put them on paper to learn more about myself - that's just part of who I am. But who I have also always been is a "conditional" - I'm creating this label so bear with me. Children who experience mental, physical and sexual abuse (general statement) learn to survey, judge and react to "conditions" - we are conditional. When I saw my drunken mother walk in the room clenching her hands, screaming obscenities - I watched for clues on what was going to happen to me next - and more importantly what I would need to do to survive the moment, when my father would go to strike me - I weighed my chances, I weighed the conditions - was I big enough yet to strike back - and if I failed - could I escape ? When I was alone in a car with a man as old as my father, and he took my 12 year-old dick in his hands - I considered my options - how far am I from help, what will he do when he's done, am I here because I deserved it ?

I had it imprinted, embossed, engraved, tattoed, seared in to my mind and flesh, my soul and instinct - I must read the conditions that others present, react and judge - to survive. In the end - I changed too often, tried to many times to predict the outcome and always waited for the other shoe to drop. I fall for the people who are hard for me to read and give few clues to how they feel about me. Why ? I don't really know. Perhaps, I feel more challenged. Perhaps, I feel more at home with them. Perhaps, I didn't (there's and optimal word here folks - watch, not I "DO" - but "I didn't") think I deserved to be with someone who could express their love to me in a healthy and everyday fashion. I no longer accept "scraps" for love - in the next relationship I will "expect" a filet - and perhaps a nice cabernet as well.

I have been to this point - "conditional".

It's served me well dodging slings and arrows professionally - but I've waited on pins and needles for changes in others - waiting to react - and I've learned that others rarely change. There's so much more thinking that goes in to the foundation of my thoughts on this - but let's face it - your neither being paid to listen to me ramble or looking to read a disertation - based on gut instincts.

I went to the movies with Chris (formerly of Encorswish fame) on Saturday to see Matrix. How, HOW ? do you make fight scenes so long that the viewer aches for more dreadful dialogue about causality, choice and cock (ok, I threw the last one in - but I had to think about something during the boring parts). When we came out to my car there was a simple yellow post-it note placed underneath my windshield wiper. it read:

"Hi ! - Lucky"

Though feet away, heading to his own car - Chris saw me lock up.

I then noticed Lucky's SUV sitting next to my car. Can staring at a car actually hurt? I haven't seen his face since the infamous "Day of the Dog" - what has it been two, almost three months ? I wondered who he was attending a movie with ? Which movie ? Was it a date ? Would they hold hands and brush knees ? Would they go home and make love and nap the Sunday afternoon away - as we used to do ? It was truly maddening. Each day my heart makes baby-steps back to normalcy - and then these moments come. But the worst part of this moment was - as I drove home, I felt love for him, I felt how much I missed him, I felt how much loss there had been. I cringed - this was worse then the hate - it was remorse. I don't want him back, but I do understand his hold over me. After two break-ups, I know given time - I'll miss him, I'll believe he can change and bam - there goes another year til the next break-up. Am I really this fucking stupid ? I'm still not ready to see him - I've decided to cancel P-Town. It makes no sense. I can't fly a five hour flight alone with a man I can't even look at - I can't spend 8 days in P-Town with my ex by my side - no matter how many other friends are going.

I'm not ready.

And that's ok. I know how to react to this one - I've read and reread the conditions before.

Time is the only healer, and I still need more.

the weekend of warmth - heat's up.

I can now say with all honesty and C. as a witness that I have flirted with and been flirted with by a MLB Player. Ddidn't hurt that our seats for the game DBacks/Padres (pathetic game to boot) were lower level dugout seats (think home plate, crotch level, front row) - cute, cute, cute. Something about playing smiles, eye-hockey and playful banter with a guy and then hearing the crack of the bat as he sends it to left field and gets to second. Shame he was on the opposing team. And no for reasons of defammation lawsuits, etc. I think I'll not mention names.

Went out to Roscoes with C. and K. Ohhhh K. (formerly know as "I think I've met the hottest man I've ever met") - makes my heart do sommersalts. Immediately came up and laid a deep kiss and a bear hug on me - which made me feel pretty good considering how many men were ooogling him. C. 's new beau W. showed up and - damn - no wonder he says he makes him shake when he looks at him. Anyway one of those vapid, high school feelings - but as we all stood together horsing around and K. kept grabbing kisses from me and telling me sweet things - you couldn't help but enjoy a moment of being - I don't know, caught up in it all.

Came home to a very, very warm house - alone. K. had to work early and C. & W. had magic to make before C. passed out from all the drinking he had done. ASA called at 3am, I think I promised to call last night and forgot. I was actually in bed by midnight with only 4 beers in my belly and feeling a lil confused and giddy by all the attention from K. and some of the things he said. Next weekend I'll be seeing ASA and maybe that will give me more clarity to whatever there is between us. Oh and to keep this complicated ramble going J of the EE left a card on my door on Thursday night that he needed to go his own way since it had become honest that my feelings weren't the same for him. The card actually meant a lot to me and I thought it took total balls to write it. I left him a message saying such and that if he needed or wanted my friendship I would feel lucky to offer it to him.

Oh and there's been other interesting things happening as well that a few of you clever detectives know about.

What a weird - yet exciting summer this is starting out to be.

...so how's your holiday weekend goin' ??

Good, Good.

Mine ??

Oh - well let's see it's about 157 degrees outside and my air conditioning blew last night while I was sleeping.

That's cool - they can have someone here by Tuesday.

Ice cubes anyone ??

...the thing you DON'T have to know about me is ....

( see I hate that other phrase - "the thing you HAVE to know about me is ..." , I mean HEY - I don't have to know ANYTHING about you, and I mean if I want to - really, really mean to - then you should say - "the thing it would be nice if you wanted to learn about me is" - anyway, end of internal discussion...)

...when I'm quiet, somethings up.

And something is up and I don't really think I should talk about it til at least - I - understand what it means better.

Things here at HCL are good, but very stressful due to a mound of hospital/doctor bills. Hope to have insurance by the start of June - and yes - I am quite aware that I can't believe I let this (they let this) happen. Consider me the case book example for the insurance salesman to generate fear in would be customers why never NEVER let your health insurance lapse no matter how healthy you are.

I'm actually staying in AZ for Memorial Weekend. I have tons of work to do and financials need to be to the CPA by next week and then to the bank by the first. It's gonna be tricky, and the boss is off for a week and half on the east coast.

Long Beach was really wonderful. And I can't say enough how much I enjoyed meeting and hanging for the third time - the Bear-Bait Dream Boat. Honestly one of these times I would love to lose the crowd and actually just talk to you. I spied another blogger as well - but he was lip-locked and I hate to interrupt someone when their getting some lovely. I only went to two of the parties since I wasn't really partying, and for the most part I was conservative in my behavior.

Next trip Laguna Beach the weekend after this - I know, I know.

On my way to Long Beach Pride. It's topping 100 degrees here today - so good time to get out of town. Looking to terrorize Silverlake tonight with one of my longest standing buddies - M. The Adorable South American (ASA) is going to be in LB as well this weekend. Looks like he'll have dinner with me and my friends on Saturday and then we're all going to do the Tony Moran party on the Queen Mary - neath the stars. Last weekend of fun for a month, need to get back and start thinking life/health/mental plans for the long term.

Have a terrific weekend.

Oh and BTW - I spaced on saying that today this lil blog of mine turned TWO years old. I'm a bad dad.

Happy Birthday. See how it started. I was kinda lame.

Matters of the Heart

For all the times I've wondered if I even still have a heart - at least the $4,000 or so in testing I've had in the past week proves I have one - though it appears to be a little troubled. The good news is I'm good, I'm fine - the bad news is (and really in the right light it's good news because now I know) something did come up in all the testing.

What came up is called "Bicuspid Aortic Valve" - an irregularity to the valve that pumps blood out of the heart to the aorta. Normal people have three cuts in their valve at the opening that allow the entire opening to press open as blood flows out of the heart. I have a single cut that divides the smaller opening into two leaflets. This heart condition affects 1 - 2 percent of the population. It's not gonna kill me - but as I grow older it may lead to difficulties that may result in my needing heart surgery. As for now the biggest inconviences are dental visits and surgery - apparently this condition leaves me at a high risk for a bacteria infection called "endocartis" - the risk of this infection is that it can go undetected until it causes one of several fairly severe even deadly results from blod clot to heart failure. For now on I need to take antibiotics before and after a dentist visit or any other invasive procedure. In the meanwhile I have to start reconsidering the way I lead my life: booze, drugs/stimulants, caffine, over-exercising and supplements are all no-no's. Will I go cold turkey ??? Come on - it's me here, but once again I can't shake the feeling I'm being warned and given a chance to shape up a bit. Of course - I really, really could have dealt without this warning considering I don't have health coverage right now - yesterday's visit alone cost me $1,200 and the cardiologist wants a follow-up exam in 30 days. Suppose I'll save alot of money on booze, drugs and supplements - guess I can use that to cover the ER bill when that shows up.

Oh well - I'm oddly like - "ok, well deal with it - it's way better then it is worse"

As for the other matters of the heart. I'm not sure what to say about Lucky's call. It hurt. He was happy and sweet and cheerful and concerned - he wanted me to know he wouldn't want to be in this space with me if something really bad had happened and would want me to know he's in a good space and wishes me well and cares for me and understands if I don't call him back (ok I know this is a run-on sentence, but so was the message he left).

I'm not sure how to feel. I used to love his happy voice chiming over a message checking in on me - but this left me cold, flushed and sick to my stomach. "It takes something horrible" I thought, "for him to see what he had and lost". I remembered last summer - three months into the break-up, like now, when Mike died - it brought Lucky and I back together. He wanted so badly to be back in my life - he was at a good place and realized my worth in it and his in mine. All I could think is "why can't he ever see these things when he's with me and now that there really is no going back, not now, not ever". Second to this I realized I was dealing with good old Catholic guilt - he couldn't have this on his conscience any guilt he may feel, he wanted to feel clean, redeemed - so he made the call to make himself feel better. That thought hurt even worse - stinging harshly of the truth.

I weighed my reaction and in the end purchased a card. On it, it said:

To find the way out, we must go through

On the inside I wrote: "Thank you for your call. Please understand that I just can't"

Will he understand any of it ???

That the only way out of this relationship, this cycle, this heartache, this pain, this sadness is to just feel it without drugs or booze or sex (and without HIM) - to just crawl through it til I'm on the other side feeling every cut, bruise and rip in my heart along the way. And that when I say "I just can't" it's just the beginning of a sentence that shouldn't need to be finished to be understood.

I just can't love you anymore without hurting,
I just can't be your friend and not feel betrayed,
I just can't look at you without stirring up old feelings,
I just can't leave this space to make you happy,

I just can't.

I suppose it will have to be enough that I know.

no real time to blog, so random toughts:

• You just rock. Cool, cute, laid back. You made more than one of my friends (at THE HOLE nonetheless) swoon - do bears/cubs swoon ? Anyway - our second meeting was even more enjoyable then the first. Hope ya got home safe.
  
• I could have done without starting my weekend by getting a call from Lucky (the Ex) as I came off the plane. That's gonna be a whole other entry.
  
• Met an adorable South American guy from Rio De Janario - who convinced me to extend my trip a day (well, I mean blow off my flight while we made out in a dark corner of Rich's and then go enjoy some majorly fun cuddling.
  
• Drank more than I promised to - but over a larger time frame then expected (they start really early and go really late in SD)
  
• My house looks like a tornado hit it, and now I have to get ready for Long Beach Pride this weekend.
  
• I need to write more later when I can actually write.
  

...it seems I've spent my whole week receiving amazing emails from amazing people - I'm behind in getting back with everyone and I apologize. Hopping a flight in a couple hours to San Diego. Hope to do some thinking and deep talking with two of the most important people in my life, V. - my best friend since college and C. - my gay proxi-dad.

I may see this lovable rogue. Thank god I'll be on my best behavior - well kinda.

It's been a week. Thanks for caring about this rough little irish/norwegian misfit - your luving feels good.

With trepidition I feel myself coming clean with it.

I've been hiding. Not for days, not for weeks, for months. Many, many months.

I thought it all had started the day I broke up with Lucky - but I had been traveling that winding road for months before that. Did I start on that path last summer - the second time Lucky and I had broken up, or was it earlier - maybe when I was laid off from my job as as advertising exec, maybe when I broke up with Lucky the first time (fucking have to have the first strike to get to the third - "play ball!"), maybe it was the DUI sixth months into what I used to think was the best relationship of my life (a story I still haven't told)- maybe it was when I decided to start doing drugs again and go to my first circuit party at 30, and then my second and then my third (and so on) ??

I've been hiding behind any thing that would medicate me, soothe away my fears of not being lovable, being wrong in some deep, irrevokable way. I drank alot when I was a kid, drugs, booze, sex - I started young. It became an integral make-up of who I was - the load-bearing beam of my dysfunctionality. I learned that sex with strangers would make them like me, feel closer to me - give me control over others, that drugs made life more interesting, and booze - oh booze made me fucking sexy and funny as all get out - even if I couldn't remember your name or the punch line 20 minutes after you had come in my mouth and the joke had come out of it.

Don't let me paint the wrong 'Movie of the Week' picture here (could John Stahmos play me though - he needs a job - Rebecca's carry his dead weight) - I have had many periods of control, or abstinence. My Senior year of college - I didn't drink or do drugs for a year. But I fucked around, man did I fuck around. I would bore of a guy after a month - usually because it meant if I kept seeing him I couldn't (in good conscience) go to the bookstore. See if it wasn't booze, or drugs, or sex, or shopping, or a person, or working out - it would be something. I just kept shifting the blame. I blew out both tires on my truck hitting that median - because of the booze, I wasn't to blame. I let that guy and his roomate bareback me - I was higher then a kite on drugs, I wasn't to blame. I would spend $500 bucks on shirts in the days when I was only making $21,000 - I really needed those clothes, I wasn't to blame.

I fall back into these behaviors - not because I have a problem with booze, or drugs, or shopping, or sex, or working out - but because I have a problem with - me.

I just use everything else to mask it. I am an amazingly funtional - self-hater. I can bump up before work, drink at lunch and get through the day impressing them all. I am the typical Leo - playing "life of the party", never really remembering how many drinks I had - but able to count the phone numbers, the conquests, the laughs. I can mix my K with my E with my T (but not G, at least that one I know is a one way trip to an early grave - the only thing I seem to have a wake-up call on) and seem pretty normal.

I need to take a good long look and figure out how I want to proceed with this life. I've done a great job faking it - but I think the cracks are starting to show through.

Leo:
Robust individuals are feeling slightly fragile. There's no harm in taking refuge for a while until you feel up to speed. And when you decide to step outside, be advised that people are playing rough out there. Maybe your old sense of adventure will return once you get a taste of it. The surging and colliding of different types of energies could be exciting if you feel like taking the risk. You already have a good feeling about this.

Thanks