My love letter to Barry

Senator Obama:

I'm not voting this election and I am writing to tell you why. You say that marriage is for one man one woman. Why? Where do you get off with all this "Change we can Believe in" crap and then go out and spout the same old shit everyone else does.

Now, you'll probably be President, unless you do something completely stupid and make your candidacy self-destruct. Or unless the Republicans march out enough bigots who can't stand the thought of a genetically African-American man in the White House and they make John McCain President. Then of course I'll be really pissed at you. But you'll likely end up President of the United States.

I should say I'm not a huge marriage proponent, I frankly could care less from a personal standpoint whether I am able to get married or not. I believe we should celebrate the difference and not homogenize ourselves to be like you heterosexual asses anyway, but that's just me.

So, know that I am not voting for your manipulating self, Senator. Because just like many many before you, you've chosen to use me, lie to me to get my vote, and then throw me under the bus just to get what you were after in the first place.

So Fuck You Senator, get the Presidency without my help.

Order of the week

Congratulations to all those who got married in California this week. Seriously, I think it's great. I'm not a huge marriage proponent, but it's here and I'm glad we've made yet another step in the right direction.

My feeling is that love doesn't need validation from outsiders. That the single most important thing in a relationship is loyalty. That though it is said that love is blind it really isn't, it just develops selective vision. That staying, especially when it's tough to do, is something you're going to do whether there's a piece of paper or not.

I'm managing to get nothing done though I'm still behind from taking the extra day this weekend. It's a fine art.

I brought everything I need to ride this afternoon at lunch and then realized that I have an appt and can't ride at all until at least this evening, and that's a maybe, it's supposed to rain. I swear I live in the tropics, and to quote Bette Midler in "Jinxed" "I hate the fuckin' tropics!" Maybe tomorrow.

Love

Reality Orientation

Taking a day off is great while the day is actually happening. I got a lot of things done including quite a bit of packing. I rode 35 miles and renewed the car registration. Which I COULD have done online, had I been able to remember where I put the form. It's done now at any rate. The weather yesterday was glorious and I simply could not stop riding once I started. The packing is going famously.

Looking at new Cities to live in. And new jobs to be employed at. Still undecided. Maybe I need two. That would be fun. Work between two places and two different jobs. I think I might like that. Well the twins (I'm a gemini) would certainly be endlessly entertained and less likely to cause me trouble.

Unfortunately, I came back to a pile of stuff that not only constitutes a busy Tuesday, but what wold have been a busy Monday as well. It's catch up day I guess.

Oh I found this while reading headlines this morning and I laughed out loud. You'll know why if you waste your money and go see "The Happening" Dear God what a POS.

"Mark Wahlberg disses Clooney’s ‘Ocean’s’ films"

THAT takes true grit.

The Ocean films were no particular height of the art, but if you're gonna diss somebody, at least wipe your shoes from the last film you made before you do it.

This from the guy who felt compelled to tell the world that he passed on Brokeback Mountain (thank god) because the whole spitting in the hand thing wasn't for him.

I can respect that Marky, but what exactly is for you? Four Brothers,(or should I say Oh Brother!) The Shooter, The Planet of the Apes, The Truth about Charlie, The Italian (hand) Job? Let's face it, Boogie Nights, your only worthwhile movie so far, owed far less of it's success to you than Julianne Moore, John Reilly, William Macy, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Luis Guzman, Thomas Jane, Don Cheadle, and Burt Reynolds. Were you even IN that movie?

So, move out of that glass house Marky and then start dissing other peoples bad movies. Cause I do NOT value your opinion based on your body of work so far.

Oh! catch up day...right.

Love

It seems LIke Hot Guy Friday was a long time coming.

So without much adieu here's Christian Bale.






Finally they figured out what to do with Batman.

I want to lick that spot on his neck while listening to his speech impediment.

Or maybe it's his speech impediment that makes me want to lick his neck, I can't tell which.

Last night I felt pretty good after sleeping off all the allergy meds and so I decided I needed to grab the bike and head out.

I kept finding myself going, "I can go ten minutes more." Of course, this was thinking that the approaching storm would hold off on its arrival until I got back to the car.

At 12 miles out I decided I'd tempted fate long enough and turned back. Things were going swimmingly until the tornado sirens began to wail...and the lightning began to strike...and I still had three miles to go.

Normally these things wouldn't bother me, but last night the storm actually decided to try to produce a tornado, and there I was, on a bicycle, racing for the car, with a green wall cloud approaching over my left shoulder.

I made it to the car before the rain, the tornado fizzled out and I rode too fast too late in the day so going to sleep was, shall we say, a bitch.

I did however feel a lot like---



But I've lived to see another Hot Guy Friday so Batman it is.

I can't wait for The Dark Knight!

That's drive-in fodder if ever I saw it.

Love

Water Water everywhere!

...and plenty to drink. It's raining...AGAIN!!! I seldom think about the fact that I live at the top of a hill. But right now I see it as a lucky thing. There is a creek at the bottom of said hill (turkey, for those of you in the know) and it's at the edges of its banks. I'm waiting for it to start spilling into the street any minute.

Unfortunately, all this rain is making mold grow like crazy. And my body does not like mold. So after I managed to drag myself through the morning yesterday I went to the pharmacy and stocked up on anything that relieves allergies and went home and took some of all of it. This, of course, resulted in an inability to not only move but to stay awake. Benadryl is the shit when it comes to allergy relief, it's that lack of consciousness part that I hate. Even my upstairs neighbor (may he be tortured to death) couldn't wake me up yesterday afternoon, and God knows he tried.

So today, though I'm a little less allergic all that medication has made me nauseous, so I'm ducking out of here at the first opportunity again today.

But tomorrow! Tomorrow is Hot Guy Friday!!!! That always cheers me for some reason. I'm looking for this weeks object er subject. We'll see. The fog has lifted a little, but until we reach the drier part of summer I may not be much good to anyone.

Love

In the midst

I think of these times we live in as troubled. There are people quietly going about the business of trying to make my life considerably more difficult because of who I love and their moral and or religious perceptions of it.

There are people quietly suffering because their government won't allow any help to reach them after a devastating natural disaster.

There are people quietly trying to get from day to day because others are motivated by greed and are literally taking the food out of their mouths by hiking the price of the fuel necessary to run our society. Making those who barely get by that much more separated by class.


Then I run across an article like this one that I found on Salon.com this morning:

My Paulina, my country
During the making of a film about my exile from Chile, I finally met the anonymous woman who saved my life during Pinochet's murderous reign.
By Ariel Dorfman

Peter Raymont

Ariel Dorfman in Plaza Italia, Santiago, Chile.

June 11, 2008 |

It was the end of September 1973 and the city was Santiago de Chile and I was running for my life.
Waiting to go into an exile from which I couldn't be sure I would ever return.
That's when I met that woman.

She drove up to the chalet where I had been hiding, one of the many houses where I had sought sanctuary after the coup that had toppled the democratically elected socialist government of Salvador Allende. I had never met her before and did not know her name. Only that she was part of a vast, clandestine network of men and women dedicated to saving the lives of Allendistas, only that she had found somebody willing to secretly give me refuge, only that if we were caught we would both be killed.

As we crossed the city infected with soldiers and guns and fear, I can remember, in the midst of the wild dread, a bizarre thought flashing into my mind: Hey, this would make a great flick. I couldn't help myself. I had always been a child of the movies, used to filtering my experiences through the celluloid screen of life -- humming a soundtrack even in the most perilous, the most intimate, moments. But in this case a more prudent voice inside added: A great flick, sure, if you survive to tell the tale, that is.

I did survive and I did tell the tale and now, almost 35 years later, a film has been made ["A Promise to the Dead"] recounting the story of those days and how it led to a life of indefinite wandering. At the end of 2006, the great Canadian filmmaker Peter Raymont followed me back to Chile to revisit the joys of the Allende revolution and the murderous aftermath of Augusto Pinochet's military takeover, and one of the rewards of that journey into the past was that I finally got to track down and thank the woman who had saved my life.

I had often thought of her during the 17 years of exile, and when a precarious, still endangered democracy was restored in 1990, I paid homage to her by making Paulina, the protagonist of "Death and the Maiden," someone who had salvaged victims from the flood after a coup d'état in a country similar to Chile. And I could only hope that, unlike Paulina, my anonymous rescuer had been saved from the fate of arrest, torture or exile.

But no, she was safe and she was sane -- and, as she drove me down the same avenues from long ago, retracing our itinerary, I learned her real name and the fascinating story of her life.

And yet, that story, that name, that woman, are not in the documentary.
True, the streets of a now democratic Santiago were no longer filled with soldiers, but the old fear still malingered in the air, and still continues to contaminate far too many lives. My "Paulina" did not want to be filmed, she said, because right-wing members of her family -- one of her sons, one of her daughters -- haven't the slightest inkling of her secret heroism, how she risked everything to save people like me. If her identity surfaced on a screen, she added, there would be drastic consequences to pay.

This was not how I had pictured our glorious reunion. Somewhat naively, I had anticipated that, just as she had offered me redemption from death, now the documentary crew trailing me around Chile would redeem her from an underserved oblivion.

But if the camera inhibited her advent into our film, that same camera facilitated, on the other hand, a series of other encounters that I would never have had if there had been no one present to register them -- no director persistently demanding that I face some of the pain in the forbidden zones of my past which I had until then been reluctant to acknowledge.

Unfinished business I had kept putting off.

The last time I had seen Salvador Allende alive he had been on a balcony at the Presidential Palace waving to a crowd of a million marching enthusiasts -- so enthusiastic, in fact, that my friends and I had passed by a second time, as if to say goodbye. And now the making of the film allowed me to stand at that same balcony, looking down onto an empty plaza, and measure what it meant that Allende was a mound of ashes and all those men and women were no longer down there defying injustice.
I had written at length about the invasion of our private lives, and the violation of our bodies, during the dictatorship. But nothing prepared me for the basement I stumbled upon: Where Pinochet's Gestapo had spied on Chileans, listening in on their conversations and leaving behind a warp of twisted, tangled wires arrayed in a multitude of bright colors that made them all the more perverse. An experience that sickens me right now, as I remember it, returning me to the nights when we were on the verge of extinction, when we did not yet allow ourselves to recognize what this sort of repression does to your soul, to your land.

The film also forced me to confront more personal demons. Rodrigo, my son and frequent collaborator on film projects and associate producer of this documentary, insisted that one of my obligations was to journey to the Buenos Aires of my birth and find the grave of my favorite grandmother, whose funeral I had been unable to attend when she had died in 1976. The reason then had been that it was too perilous to travel to an Argentina ruled by the military, intoxicated with roaming death squads. But why, during many later returns to Buenos Aires, had I put off paying my respects to the woman who had nourished me as a child and comforted me as an adolescent? When you are gripped by so much loss that's how you survive: by postponing every possible sorrow.

That deferral of grief comes, however, with a price. When Rodrigo and I visited the cemetery where my Baba Pizzi had been laid to rest, we discovered to our consternation that her tomb had not been paid for in decades and hands that were not ours had therefore cast my grandparents into the common ground of paupers and orphans and outcasts, the nameless territory where -- as the administrator of that memorial park wisely told me -- "we all end up anyway." And all I could pray for was that my grandmother would understand, would have understood, would forgive me for having failed her, for mourning her so belatedly.

It was not the only lesson I was to learn on this trip. Another death awaited me in Chile, one that would more sorely test me.

One morning in Santiago, smack in the middle of the film shoot, the radio brought the news that my nemesis, General Augusto Pinochet, had suffered a stroke -- from which, one week later, he would die.

We rushed to the hospital.

Exile may be full of distress, but at least it spares you the unpleasantness of having to cohabit with the minions and accomplices of the dictator. There they were, outside the gates of the medical facilities, a group of women, crying out for their dying leader, led by a small, chubby woman, lips thick with lipstick, fingers clutching a portrait of her hero, a litany of tears streaming from behind incongruous dark glasses. There she was, making a pathetic spectacle of herself for all the world to see, defending a man who had been indicted by courts abroad and in Santiago as a torturer, a murderer, a liar and a thief. That was what Chile had become: a country where this woman who had celebrated the demise of democracy -- who had rejoiced while I was being hunted down and my friends were being killed -- that woman was being transmitted and feted by dozens of cameras and hundreds of microphones, while my Paulina was still invisible, still in hiding, still suffering the terror inflicted by the general being so lavishly praised.

And yet, I was paradoxically, inexplicably, uncontrollably moved by her misery. And so, unable to stop myself, I approached the woman and told her how I had mourned Allende and therefore understood that it was now her turn to mourn her leader -- but that I also wanted her to realize how much pain there was on our side.

She seemed dumbfounded by my words, and managed to mutter something like "thanks" -- whether sincere or perplexed or both, I still cannot say. But for one illusory, transitory instant I felt that we shared a territory, perhaps pointed in the direction of a possibly different land.

Did I do the right thing?

In my plays and novels I had meditated extensively on the walls that separate us from those who have done us grievous harm. I had forced my characters to deal with their enemies and ask themselves how to avoid the sweet trap of victimhood and retribution. And I had suggested that repentance was essential for any dialogue to transpire. But when it came to real life I could not wait eternally for that repentance. In real life, I felt compelled, if only for a minute, to break down those walls myself, leap across the divide, imagine a different sort of world.

That interlude of compassion forms, I believe, the gentle core of the film. It is the sort of moment that fiction can only enviously dream of, a moment that only a documentary can ultimately capture.

I dedicate that moment to my Paulina.

May she someday emerge from the shadows.

"A Promise to the Dead: The Exile Journey of Ariel Dorfman" opens the Human Rights Watch International Film Festival, at the Walter Reade Theater in New York City, on June 13.



And I have to wonder if our trials are ever over. Do we ever stop persecuting one another? Is there ever a point where we finally see that it accomplishes nothing to force others to live in a manner contrary to their beliefs, their upbringing...their nature? Do the haves always take from the have-nots without regret?

Seriously what's the point in all this?

We chase health, wealth, marriage, retirement, education, love, happiness, and there's always a new carrot being dangled in our faces, just out of our reach. And then there's a moment, something that makes you just stop and wonder why all these things are considered so important when life is at the core of what is meaningful. just life, nothing more. Like Gay Langlan said in the Misfits: "Well, you start by going to sleep. You get up when you feel like it. You scratch yourself. You fry yourself some eggs. You see what kind of a day it is; throw stones at a can, whistle."

You do these things because you can. They are what should be celebrated. Not world travel nor degrees, nor bank accounts, nor conquering heroes...living.

Because your bones could be tossed haphazardly in the pauper's grave heap, and your fortune could disappear overnight, and your health can deteriorate without warning, and your accomplishments can come to naught, and people can pursue and kill you over politics and ideology that, in the end will matter only to those who are gone.

Katharine Hepburn, as Eleanor of Aquitane in The Lion in Winter said: "There is everything in life but hope." I don't think she was right. I think that's the only thing that gets us out of bed in the morning.

I'm more of a Robert Browning man myself:
"A man's reach should exceed his grasp."

That's what hope is built on.

You can get so confused
that you'll start in to race
down long wiggled roads at a break-necking pace
and grind on for miles across weirdish wild space,
headed, I fear, toward a most useless place.
The Waiting Place...

...for people just waiting.
Waiting for a train to go
or a bus to come, or a plane to go
or the mail to come, or the rain to go
or the phone to ring, or the snow to snow
or waiting around for a Yes or a No
or waiting for their hair to grow.
Everyone is just waiting.

Waiting for the fish to bite
or waiting for wind to fly a kite
or waiting around for Friday night
or waiting, perhaps, for their Uncle Jake
or a pot to boil, or a Better Break
or a sting of pearls, or a pair of pants
or a wig with curls, or Another Chance.

-Suess

Pay Attention Boy!

Read This:

Saudi Arabia will call for a summit between oil producing countries and consumer states to discuss soaring energy prices, Information and Culture Minister Iyad Madani said Monday.

The kingdom will also work with OPEC to "guarantee the availability of oil supplies now and in the future," the minister said following the weekly Cabinet meeting, held in the seaport city of Jiddah.

Madani said that the kingdom has informed "all oil companies it deals with as well as countries that consume oil that (the kingdom) is ready to provide them with any additional oil they need."

"The Saudi Cabinet has instructed Oil Minister Ali al-Naimi to call for a meeting in the near future that will include representatives of oil-producing countries, consumers and companies that work in extracting, exporting and selling oil to look into the price hike, its causes and how to deal with it," said Madani.

The Saudi announcement comes just three days after the biggest single-day price leap ever, when oil surged more than $11 to surpass $139 per barrel.

Retail gas prices rose further above $4 Monday in the United States, the world's largest oil consumer, following the unprecedented price rally.

The kingdom will work to ensure there will be no "unwarranted and unnatural oil price hikes that could affect international economies, especially those of developing countries," said Madani.

"There is no justification for the current rise in prices," he said.

On Monday, light, sweet crude for July delivery fell $4.18 to $134.36 a barrel in volatile trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange.

"It's not a situation that's going to move the market today," said Phil Flynn at Alaron Trading Corp. in Chicago, suggesting that there it might have a more long term effect. "I do think a conference is warranted, we need to sit down."

Jim Ritterbusch, president of the U.S.-based energy consultancy Ritterbusch and Associates cautioned that such meetings have taken place in the past and could be more an effort to calm the market without taking concrete measures.

"It's not anywhere near as significant as if they called an emergency OPEC meeting," he said. "It seems to me to be more political than anything ... They're reaching their worry threshold."

The Saudis are concerned that sustained high oil prices will eventually slacken the world's appetite for oil, affecting them in the long run.

Investors last month shrugged off news that Saudi Arabia had increased production by 300,000 barrels a day after a visit from President Bush, who sought a major production increase.

Energy experts say most producers have little ability to expand output. The exception is Saudi Arabia, which is producing about 9.4 million barrels a day and has the ability to increase production by about 2 million barrels a day, but has not done so.

"In the current circumstances, every barrel that can be used is being used," said Addison Armstrong, director of market research at Tradition Energy. "Unless the Saudis and OPEC suddenly produce some oil that nobody has heretofore known about, then this meeting is likely to produce no meaningful outcomes."

The current president of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries, Chakib Khelil, has said that the cartel will make no new decision on production levels until its Sept. 9 meeting in Vienna.


So, do you get it now?

We're not getting screwed by OPEC, nor are we getting screwed by the Saudi's. We're getting screwed by our very own speculators on Wall Street.

Let me reiterate: "There IS NO JUSTIFICATION for the current rise in prices."

Which means that someone is hiking the price artificially, and no one is doing a thing to stop it.

What are YOU going to do?

Am I BEING Monday?

OK my horoscope told me I was going to be a bit disagreeable today, but DAMN! It did not tell me that I was going to be offended by the knowledge of people's existence.

It appears I am.

So far I've had words with the cleaning lady at my apt who had stuff strewn all over the hall this morning when I tried to pass.

I've had enough with the guy upstairs who wouldn't let me sleep Saturday night when I was trying to hold off a cold. So he's spending the day trying to sleep while listening to a looped recording of "Heavy Snoring." That qualifies as an argument in my book. I may just let it play continuously until I move on the 30th, THAT would do me good I can tell you that.

I was crossing the street after parking outdoors since they cut us loose on Friday when they closed the garage, and while I was doing so,this guy pulled into the crosswalk. There were words.

I got into it with the Bilerico project website, which is entirely too difficult to signup to comment on. The site told me my own url is invalid. Then it told me my display name was taken. Which is wholly unlikely. Then it told me the name it did accept was invalid. Needless to say I had words with their webmaster.

See!?!?

I'm just too mean to live today.

Oh! and I also discovered that someone (in Portugal) felt the need to review this website, and as with most reviewers they totally don't get it.

For some unexplainable reason this fool thinks I'm doing this for approval. That I not only want it, but that it's important and that I'm trying to be original here at the same time.

I'd suggest this person look back and read the whole blog from the beginning and they'd discover that all I'm trying to be is me. Don't like it? Too fucking bad. I spent the first 50 years of my life looking for approval and kissing everyone's ass to get it. (and I never did btw) I'm not about to start sucking up to ANYONE at this late date.

I'm writing here for me, for my own edification. To keep a record of the formation of what is probably the last few decades of my existence on this plane and my feeble attempts to understand what is going on and how I got here. Some of it will be diary, some sincere reflection, and some bullshit filler. It is not in any way an attempt to hold myself forth as some original freethinker who happens to write a blog that people are drawn to.

Should there be a few people who find some of what I have to say interesting that's great. But please don't think I am writing here to fill some egotistical need to be public about my life, and my thoughts. The communion with others I get from this is a huge bonus, but it's not really what I am here for.

I'm just trying to figure it all out like everybody else.

You'll never guess...

Casey Affleck is soo cute! Unfortunately he's married to a Phoenix. (as in Joaquin's sister.) The original hippie family. My friend K knew them when he lived in Sonoma County many moons ago.

So here's Casey. His brother has that magic that the camera loves, but Casey is the actor in the family.









Nice ass Casey! Wouldn't you just die if your mother came in the bathroom when you were naked in the tub and started hugging you? ...freak!

I also have to include this photo I just found on Towleroad.com It's a school of Stingrays.



Cool, NO?

I rode just short of 20 miles last night. I would have gone all the way, but there was a storm coming and I didn't want to tempt the lightning Gods any further. I love this new bike more and more, I was flying, and at the end of the first hour all I wanted was more, more, more. So I made a good choice apparently. I'm going out this weekend, maybe both days, to get in another 40 or 50 miles.

For reasons passing understanding my adoptive father has given my brother the mantel clock I was to get in his will. So my brother wants to give me that this weekend. It's great, strange but great. My brother says all Daddy dearest wants is rid of all the stuff he's not taking with him to the new condo. I told my brother that I went through that when our Stepmother died and about three months after he moves the bitching will start about not having anything in the house because "you kids took everything I had." That old man is nothing if not predictable. I am however getting the rest of the dynamat that he never had put in his car. I bought a huge box of the stuff and did the floors and trunk of his new car so it'd be quiet and then he did me dirty and simply "can't understand" why I never came back and took his doors apart and put dynamat in them too. What an asshole. To borrow a phrase from one of my favorite movies, Nobody's Fool with Paul Newman "Fuck him eternally."

The LCD TV is developing some kind of problem and I'm not one fucking bit happy about it. I'm pretty sure the power supply is going out. I'm also pretty sure that there are none, or at least very few available. So I figure I'll spend the better part of the weekend replacing capacitors in the existing one. Which sucks, especially since I'm 60 days out of warranty. Maybe this is why God gave me a Bestbuy credit card. hmmm.

Of course if I'm trying to buy a house, running up the credit cards isn't the best idea I've ever had. I guess I need to cuss more on this blog, my cuss-o-meter numbers are dropping like fucking crazy. Let's hope that helps


Well Happy Hot Guy Friday! Have a good weekend.

Crises Concurrences Curiosities and Cuties

I'm feeling alliterative today.

I still need to get the hell out of here and go back to New Mexico where I want to be. I think about it everyday and dream about it every night. (Isn't that a song lyric?)

Ok, here it is.

What I want is a place I can live from now on, where I can have a horse that I can actually ride, and make pots and become a better potter and travel a little, and where there is at least the possibility that I could teach at least part time. And where I feel free. New Mexico is the only place I've ever felt that and I suspect that's the big attraction.

I've found a house. It's new, yet very affordable. Away from everything, yet not isolated. Endowed with a location I couldn't dream up if I tried. And it's very near an artistic conclave. Oh by the way, the 4 acres it sits on border a national forest FILLED with horseback riding trails all the way to Colorado and beyond.

I could do it. I could buy it while I'm still here, and even if I only used it as a vacation home for a couple of years until I got a job there I could actually make it work. It seems perfect at least on paper, or should I say cyberspace.

I already have the horse,well, essentially. I could get my stables to sell me one of the many they already own and arrive with that part settled.

I'm already furnished cause the house isn't that big, and I just bought new stuff.

I've always planned to have two residences anyway. This would meet all the needs and do it now instead of that waiting game I've been playing for five years. Meaning my life will have finally started instead of being on hold until I find that dream job.

Maybe it really is time to start having some of the things I dream of and stop living for "one day."

I'll let you know what my real estate agent says.

I'm also wondering if I'm not being party to a scam of sorts. There is a blog that I really love and that I have read for a while. But I'm starting to wonder if there was just recently one too many coincidences. I'll still read, and I still want to believe but the seeds of doubt have been planted. Now I read with a skeptical eye. I think I still love the whole bunch of them though. They're scoundrels after my own heart.

And remember tomorrow! Hot Guy Friday! Guess I better go decide who it is.


Love

In Dogged Pursuit

I've been putting this off for months, and today I just decided I was going to get it done with.

I sent the letter to Mommie Dearest demanding she tell me Daddy's name.

Now, mind you I was nice. well...I didn't threaten her with legalities...at least until the end of the letter, anyway.

But I didn't exactly threaten I just let it be known that I was aware that there are remedies available to me like DNA tests and such, that I don't want, nor I am certain does any of the other parties concerned. Especially since one of the parties has never told their current husband about me...at all! I thought that might expedite the issue so I threw it in. Not the husband part, but the DNA.

So, if Mommie Dearest is smart and really wants to put all this behind her forever she'll get with the program and send me back that stamped self-addressed postcard I enclosed with the letter, on which she'll write Daddy's last name so she can be safely shed of me forever.

Or she can keep getting letters that make her heart race whenever she opens them. It's up to her I guess.

I'm sure the whole court, DNA thing would never happen since it would open up a whole sticky wicket for parents who've put children up for adoption all over the country, but it's a fun idea.

In other news, it's rained here almost every day this week. Killing any chance that I'll get to ride this weekend. The trails are swamped so I'll be doing other stuff instead. Packing would be smart since I'm moving in three weeks and I haven't packed a thing.

I'm gettin' a jones to ride horses and bikes both, this weather isn't helping me at all in that area.

I have a request from one of the schools I applied to for some more info on my CV, so I guess a trip to the post office is in order. It's a silly request, the info is right there on my CV, but they want it again, in yet another form. I can't decide if it's because they're simple, or if they're checking to see if I'll fill out 50 fucking forms and send them back. Hard to tell.

Oh! The 59fifty (I'm such a dork, I get excited over a hat)is here! I don't have a picture but you can bet there'll be one of the new lid when I get a chance.

I'm getting a little concerned that Someone is confusing their role in a relationship we have. I saw Someone the other day and then later got this gushy little email.

Huh?

Gushy ain't exactly what we're about, so this confused and concerned me. We work so well together I'd hate to see this get complicated. Hopefully it was just a passing thing.

I'm trying to muscle my way into a webmaster position here at work. We'll see just how much political capital I have built up. I'm willing to compromise, but are they? That's the question.

Cross your fingers on that and the latest with Mommie Dearest. Let's hope the most recent white trash drama passes without too many hitches.

it happens to all of us...

What does it stand for? This flag we're so proud of.

I think I'm just getting old. Because the world makes so little sense anymore. Somehow I am expected to want to get married, have a little cottage with a picket fence and a couple of kids and a dog.

Now here's where this post is gonna get tricky. I'm risking offending a whole segment of society, but what the hell.

I have no notion of what it's like to be transgendered. I don't! I'm as ignorant of it as John McCain is about the unpopularity of the war in Iraq. I don't know what a transgendered person goes through either emotionally or socially, and I doubt that I ever will have a good understanding of it.

I also have no notion of what it's like to be married, to have children, to be assimilated, and I don't want to know. Unfortunately, I find that I am once again on the unpopular side of a cultural shift that's (as usual) going against me.

I want to celebrate the difference. I want to know that I don't have to be like everyone else to be identified as acceptable. I would prefer to fight for rights that match my life, not rights that make my life like someone else's so that THEN I'm not different, and not scary.

I see all this struggle to establish this citizenry that is ALL THE FUCKING SAME, and I wonder why we look at ourselves and think WE have to change.

Of course, Gay "Pride" month doesn't do much for my mood anymore either.

Yes, I've stood up. Yes, I've gone to Washington and marched. Yes I've stood in front of the White House with my voice raised and my fist in the air. Yes I've marched in Pride parades. I've even gone so far as to protest in front of a Wal-Mart in Blue Springs Missouri, no mean feat, that.

But I would not march in a Pride parade today. The purpose it lost.

Long, long, ago in 1987, I went to Washington as a member of ACTUP/KC. We were a small group who believed that grass roots meant you started at the bottom and made noise for change, for what was right. I left there feeling more a part of a community than ever before, or since.

Then came 1993. I went back, and it was a huge party. I stayed one day, marched...perfunctorily, and left the next day for San Francisco where I was to bury yet another lost friend. I didn't feel the community that week, I can tell you that.

Pride has meant less and less to me in the ensuing years. I find no reason to feel pride in being assimilated. In fact I find it yet another moment in history when "they" tell me I'm not ok, and that I need to be more like them to be accepted. More like them, just not equal. Cause marriage is for men and women, not me.

Well, frankly that's ok with me. I think we're struggling for the wrong issue, for the wrong ideal, for a futile goal that will drain resources and occupy lobbyists and never really address the inequality we've all lived with all our lives. It'll mean that some people, who choose to use this newfound "right" might (and I use that term loosely) find some acceptance, and some access to benefits they wouldn't otherwise have had. Talk about serving the few!

I suppose it's human to want to keep up with the Joneses, to think the grass is greener on the "straight" side of our culture, to want to be like every one else. But the fact is that we're not! We're different, very different, and that should be something that makes us stand taller and hold our heads up. Instead it inspires us to celebrate young men in very small bathing suits wearing roller skates. It makes us the joke we've always been to the culture at large. It helps them not to take us seriously.

Insisting on being taken seriously is the only way we're ever going to make them listen. And we're not serious, at least not yet.

Don't assimilate, infiltrate! Move to the suburbs and make some noise. Get their attention and then get something done. A Pride parade in the middle of the city is easy to avoid. A pride parade in the suburbs isn't. And yes sometimes you gotta break a few eggs to make an omelet. I didn't say this was going to be easy.

In 2001 I WAS the gay Pride parade in Fayetteville, Arkansas. I went to the area where most people hang out in that college town, and discovered that although there is quite a large population of gay men and women there, Pride celebrations were not had. I proceeded to the local novelty card shop, (where else would one find a gag gift?) and purchased a rainbow flag on a stick.

I then went out in the middle of Dickson Street and marched it's length waving the flag at all passersby. I was different that day, I can tell you that.

But I walked taller for it.

More calendar fun. We've got six more months of this to go folks, so you may as well enjoy this calendar as much as I do, cause it ain't stopping.


Nice weekend! It started off a little strange but turned out ok.

I got a call Thursday from K, one of my oldest friends. He was trying to guilt me into doing something he didn't think I'd do, which was to go to birthday dinner with him, his partner, and partner's best friend. Partner's best friend happens to be my ex. Mind you, we sorta kinda dated 5 years ago for about 6 months, four of which I lived 250 miles away. So when things went sour it seemed odd that ex would give me attitude when we ran into each other, but there it was, so I declined to be around him. Seriously, who needs that junior high crap? (we're 50 years old! I have no energy for that!)

So I threw caution to the wind and went to dinner Friday. Ex behaved perfectly, and everything was fine. We ate at this great seafood place, the waitress told me that the seabass melts in your mouth. She wasn't exaggerating. It was one of those orgasmic food experiences.

Saturday I rode horses early and then went home to collapse on the couch. It was hot later in the day so I was glad I got it out of the way early.

Friends came over for dinner and cards and I grilled shrimp and corn on the cob and made pesto pasta. For dessert I was bad, I stuffed cannoli with a ricotta, cream, and cinnamon mixture and made a raspberry glaze to pour over them. It was pretty fuckin good.

Sunday I rode the bike 25 miles, just no time to make the whole 30 so far. Then I did the car wash and wax thing, and put together a load of pots to take to a shop here in town for sale.

I also fought, and won, my battle with Chase, sweet talked my housekeeper into coming with me to the new place, bought chairs for the new deck, made the appt with the movers for the 30th, and had breakfast Sunday with my friend C.

But! It's monday and I'm back to the daily. HAD to share the calendar though.

Have a good week.

Love

It's Hot Guy Friday!

Jensen Ackles is this week's subject-
He's a hottie.

I've seen him interviewed a couple of times. I think maybe he should stick to scripts cause he doesn't come off as too bright. I doubt he's as dumb as all that but interviews...not his thing.

I don't watch much television, but I try to see Supernatural every week. The show is "eh", but his character is such a little tough guy I can't resist. Not that he's little IMDB says he's something like 6ft, but still. I'd make a complete fool of myself over him, were I 20 years younger.

Now for my rant-

Surely I can't be the only person to have noticed a dramatic change in their credit card bills lately. Yesterday I got my statement and there was an increase in my monthly payment. OF $62.00 A MONTH!!!! Chase attributed it to the new credit card legislation that recently went into effect.

This gives me pause, as it should all of you. Is this the fruit of the last eight years? Is this the kind of thing we can expect to reap from having our current legislative team? What else is in store for us?

I mean, we already have people who can't afford gas for their cars, yet Venezuelans are paying .12 a gallon for the stuff. We're just now beginning to see the price increases that are going to result from the fuel debacle, surely we all understand that the increases have just begun. We're going to be paying for everyone's fuel costs just so THEY can make a living. Everything is going up in price, and soon.

I had to ask myself, what do people who make very little do about stuff like this? I am in the fortunate position that I make enough to pay this extra amount and though I'll bitch about it, and it'll be a slight inconvenience for me, I planned such emergencies into my budget and I won't suffer catastrophic-ally as a result.

Now if the other credit card companies follow suit I will see disaster. I can only do so much. But honestly, what do people who make, oh, say, 20k do when shit like this happens? What if they have kids? What if they get sick? What happens then?

The recent changes to federal bankruptcy law make it almost impossible for them to file for that relief. What's next debtor's prison? Seriously? What are we supposed to do with all this financial bad news? It's proven time and again that money is the biggest stressor in most people's lives, and our own representatives are helping people screw us.

I'd ask what's wrong with them, but it's obvious. I do however, have to ask what the fuck is wrong with us? How can we keep putting up with such nonsense. And nonsense is exactly what it is, it cannot be made sense of. No one with ANY explanation can make this sensible. No one. And those to whom we should be able to turn simply do not care.

So I ask you this? What are you going to do for your country? Are you going to just stand there and take it? Are you going to just continue to be a lemming and allow them to herd you off the cliff? It really is way past time we stood up and did SOMETHING to save our country, it's being decimated and we are not powerless.

The inmates are running the asylum

Well, he's done it. George W Bush has finally made everyone afraid. And they like it.

They're afraid of a scarf.

Apparently the completely innocuous Rachel Ray, irritating, yet innocuous though she may well be, wore a scarf reminiscent of those worn by the late Yassar Arafat.

Now what, you may ask, could this possibly have to do with fear?

Well, some idiots thought, as though they were capable of such high function, that the scarf was intended to promote terrorism. Thus, Dunkin' Donuts, in their infinite wisdom pulled the ad.

These, I'm certain of it, are the selfsame people who hear satanic messages when they play Beatles records backwards. Which, I'm also sure, they do ALL THE FUCKING TIME!!!

The constant screaming in our ears for almost a decade has paid off! Everyone is afraid. They're not, apparently, afraid of being unable to get to their jobs because they can't afford to buy fuel for their cars. Nor are they, apparently, afraid of an inability to feed themselves and their families because they can't afford the price of food. Nor do they fear two people campaigning for the Presidency, both of whom refuse to look at the reality of our lives and address the immediate and vital concerns we truly have. Nah!

Yet a scarf around the neck of a cook peddling donuts and coffee...that's their undoing.

Why, oh why can't I drink Gin at 9am???

UPDATE: Is this true? "Mariah Carey is the best-selling female singer in history..."

If so how is this possible? I hate Mariah Carey! Always have always will. Just proves what sheep people are. Mariah Carey! Ick.

Rain Rain go away!

It started raining Friday morning early and did so off and on until yesterday. I got a great deal of reading done. Outdoors activities were out of the question most of the time.

The one thing I was able to accomplish was my 35 mile ride, I had decent weather yesterday afternoon, albeit a little humid, but the ride was completed. It's nice on weekdays, everyone's at work so there's little traffic to worry about.

I did not, however, get to ride a horse at all. I was pissed!

The trails were simply too wet to get out on. It would have been no fun at all, so I didn't even try.

I did finish the Christopher Shinn collection of plays I was working on. He is definitely disturbed. I now know I love him for sure. I have to find someplace to let me direct one of them. Of course, that's right after I find a place to let me direct The Late Henry Moss. I assume that one was Shepard getting Daddy out of his system once and for all.(well he killed him in this one, let's hope it's done.) But that one is first, then a Shinn play.

My dept. head keeps mentioning things I could direct. He's likely the best place to start. I'll start working on him when he gets back from vacation I think. Maybe he can work me in to the schedule next fall. Shepard with 18 years olds, it'll be like building Frankenstein's monster. Sounds like fun to me!

I'm digging out of the ruins of my office today. I've been gone since Friday afternoon and no one even thought to give it a rest in my absence. So there's plenty to keep me busy the rest of the week.

Oh the nicest thing that happened was that I was invited to put some wares in a little gallery here in town. So I picked a few pots and made up a price list. They'll likely go in this weekend.

The birfday was nice. Got ecards from everyone and lunches and dinners all over the place. Oldflame wouldn't go to the steakhouse with me so he made lunch for us. He's taken the notion to start cooking the last three or four years. He's getting pretty good. Though he's at that stage we all go through. Spices?!?!? What the fuck do I do with them? At least he wants to try, that alone is miraculous. He never went near the kitchen before he was 40. He's a bit of a crock-pot nut. I've never understood the attraction, but WTF. It was birfday lunch made for me. I cleaned up in the present dept, and as always got my gin supply stocked for months, (I got like three bottles! Thank God it doesn't spoil. That's enough for the rest of 2008 and possibly the first quarter of '09!)

I'm thinking I need a 59fifty Royals cap.
I found one on a website and it's pretty fucking cool. Who needs food when my hat is so cool?

That's all for today folks, I can't see over the stacks of shit in this office. Gotta clear it out before it makes me nuts.

Love

Birfday presents

My friend K in Hawaii had a birfday yesterday, and though I acknowledged it I feel that since it came so close to Hot Guy Friday that we should honor K today with one of his favorites.

So here you go K!

I remember once you said something to the effect that Andrew Shue was the most handsome guy on Television. Can't say I disagree.







Sadly Melrose Place was almost always a disappointment. They teased you with the notion that these guys would at least be shirtless and then...nada. I gave up long before they blew the joint up.

Well happy Birthday K! I know you worked, but I hope you plan to have some fun this weekend. I do.

Since MY birfday is Monday I'm going to spend Saturday morning at the stables riding as much as I can. Then it's lunch with my brother and dinner with J and K. Sunday it's brunch with C and Dinner is my treat to me. I'm going to my favorite steak house in all the world and eating like a pig. Monday is lunch with oldflame and then my annual first 35 mile bike ride of the season. Tuesday I'm taking a vacation day to just hang out. I am 51 after all, we need to rest after activity occasionally.

But today I'm dealing with parking garage issues. The garage we park in is on the verge of falling down, so in order to avoid any more detritus landing on us the city in it's infinite wisdom has decided to tear it down instead of repairing it. According to the cryptic email we got from our director yesterday we're pretty much on our own when it comes to solving the resulting parking dilemma.

Another caring gesture from our fearless leaders. I feel all warm and runny inside.

Happy Hot Guy Friday!

Puzzling huh?

Did you ever notice how much George Michael Looks like Peter Cushing?


George and his current concubine I assume.


Cushing and Christopher Lee

See what I mean?

I was relegated to watching tv last night, (kill me now) and as I was flipping through the channels for the nine-hundredth time I ran across George Michael on American Idol. He was doing something that I really hated, to a song I really liked, and while I was trying to figure out why all the hand gestures and grimaces were necessary I realized I was thinking of vampires and it was because of this visage of Peter Cushing on my wall. Very disturbing.

I signed the lease on the new place yesterday. I got to choose my parking space, which was nice of her. She's also handling all the utility change stuff, which is great.

The full moon has passed so things seem to be settling down here in schizo-land. At least they've chosen to leave me alone, which is all I ever want anyway.

It's raining so I'll have a bike jones by lunch. I'm hoping it stops soon and dries out a little so I can at least satisfy the monster a little.

And there was, in the end, lively curiosity from this dead cat. I ended up watching the last four minutes of AI just to see the announcement. Herd mentality, there's no justification for it. But I did it anyway.



He's like, 12! But he is kinda cute in that pasty,vanilla, bland, kinda way. Oh well, another idol we'll never hear from again just like most of the last 6. They need an idol for all us old farts who don't get a break too. Nah! It'd turn into AI-the surreal life, I can see it now.

One of the blogs I read regularly is Guyfromchicago hosted by a young man named Justin who,to me reflects an interesting outlook. I particularly like the fact that he likes cars, baseball, and, from what I've heard, some pretty good music too. Today he posted about a car he's loving at the moment, which inspired me to post about the dream I'm lusting after right now as well.



I so want one of these things. Cause this-



just ain't cuttin' it. However, it HAS to cut it for at least two more years, the duration of my commitment to it.

I'm boring today. Sorry. Tomorrow is hot Guy Friday, maybe researching that will perk me up.

Let's hope so.

I am weary!

Weary of insipid David's on my television ALL THE FUCKING TIME!

Weary of non-stop increases in gas prices.

Weary of inconsiderate assholes who blame me for their complete and total lack of social skills.

Weary of people shoving their own morals or fears, or whatever the fuck it is that motivates people to hate me because of who I love.(which btw is none of their fucking business) Who would prevent me from living a happy and full life with the person I choose because they want to own marriage exclusively.

Weary of looking for a teaching job I am certain I will never find.

Weary of keeping my life on hold while I wait for that job.

Weary of being in this town.

Weary of thinking things will be different...this time.

Weary of waiting for this miserably long and tedious Presidential election to be finally and mercifully, fucking, over.

Weary of social networking sites whose existence I simply do not understand.

Weary of logging on to MSNBC and finding out that Charlie Sheen and his ex-wife (at least he can have one)are still fighting in public and we're STILL being told about it!

Sounds like someone woke up in the wrong side of the bed this morning huh?


Now THIS I could never be weary of-



This neither-




I can only hope his t-shirt is correct.

I'm cheered already.

OH! And read this. I'd love to be the actor who said those lines. I can't imagine why someone wouldn't want to.

Hive mind (i love wikipedia)

Ever noticed that there are times at work when absolutely everyone loses their fucking minds simultaneously?

I've seen it as a supervisor over the years, and now without any subordinates I can somewhat enjoy the show as long as I'm not a part of it.

It appears that for some unknown reason, people get into this group think mode and when one of them loses it, they all go over the edge about their own issues en masse.

I'm living that exact scenario here at work this week.

I cannot tell you how much fun it is.

Everyone demands your undivided attention simultaneously and when you don't accomplish their goal you are a selfish aloof snobbish bastard.

ok

I have no problem with that...

AS LONG AS IT MEANS THAT YOU LEAVE ME THE FUCK ALONE!!!!

Today's imagined insult happened when I was sitting at a conference table waiting for a meeting to start and noticed a woman standing in the hall looking puzzled because the guy in the office next door to me wasn't in.

I said,"M, are those books for J?" She nodded her ascent, and I said, "If you like you can just leave them in my office and I'll give them to him tomorrow, he's off on vacation today." "You want me to leave the whole cart?" she asked. "If you need the cart just stack them on the table in my office, I'm not using it today." was my response. She proceeded to do just that and I mistakenly thought all was well.

I turned my attention to some conversation that was taking place on my right and turned away from the door. This was my fatal mistake. "M" reappeared at the conference room door to tell me she had left the books on the table. Without waiting to be sure she had my attention, and without even knowing if I was aware of her presence, she spoke and left. I only became aware of her presence when she left and someone else acknowledged her as she did.

Here we are again. Is it really xenophobia on my part when I expect someone to be sure I'm aware of their presence before talking AT me? Before assuming I'm aware of their presence, when I'm not even looking in their direction?

After the meeting I was met at the door by this woman's supervisor who for some reason passing human understanding, expected that I would entertain the notion of apologizing to this woman for whatever slight she imagines I committed. Needless to say I respectfully declined.

We're currently in an old-fashioned standoff on the issue. Lots of supervisory man hours are being wasted on the negotiations and I'm certain at one point they'll either demand one of us do something, or they'll suddenly develop some intelligence,(ahem) and just drop the whole stupid thing.

People!

Ya know I love 'em!

UPDATE: Apparently they DID get smart. I haven't heard a word for over an hour now.
Seriously, I should have stayed on that damn horse Saturday and kept going.

SLUT?!??! SLUT???!!?

I have all but been accused of being xenophobic. I find it ironic-al.

Please explain to me how I am xenophobic when I ask that people, of every culture, knock before entering my office. I seem to have offended most people here on staff at the very suggestion that they should.

I don't consider it foreign, nor culturally backwards that people should respect my workspace as I respect theirs. Even if they have a cubicle, I do not pass the threshold until I have knocked and acquired permission to enter. Why is this xenophobic?

Why is it xenophobic to ask that people,of every culture knock to see if I am inside instead of leaving things outside my door for me to trip over later? I realize I am perceived as a guy who would like to sit in his office and just do his job. I fail to see why this is regarded as a bad thing.

I do have to say that I feel I owe my employer work that is as good as I can do at any given moment for the compensation and consideration they give in return. Beyond that I do not feel obliged to anyone within the organization for any social activity beyond work related discussion.

In other words work is work and home is home. Now, the guy I work with in the office next door said that very thing last week when I was approached to donate toward a baby shower gift which I declined to do. His feelings on the subject are reflected in his statement. I concur with them.

I don't really know the guy who the baby shower was for, I certainly don't know his wife. I will never have a baby shower, or a wedding, or any of the other thousand things they try to hit me up for, so that's just money I'm pouring down the drain. Cause culture aside I guarantee you no one will think to say "Hey there S! I hear you finished your PhD last month, here's a gift certificate to Amazon from all of us!" Not gonna happen! It unequivocally never occurs to them that us single people are getting screwed on this deal.

But back to the xenophobia, which has obviously got me bugged. The two people with whom I work most closely are located in offices next to and across the hall from mine. We're a good match, we're all democrats, we're all pretty quiet, and we all live in our heads. I have been here the least amount of time at just under 4 years. They have been here a minimum of ten.

Neither of them attends the "parties" here at work. Neither of them engages in the gift exchanges. Neither of them is even asked to contribute to gifts for others! I follow their lead because I think they're right. How is this xenophobic?

I get the very distinct feeling that the issue is being clouded by those who are trying to bully me into doing what they want. And it ain't in my job description.

So, if you're inclined to do so, please tell me your feelings on the subject. I really don't want to be a xenophobe, and if I need to correct that I will. But if I'm just getting pushed around I want to know that too. It's a little hard to tell with all this guilt pumping through the air ducts.

I should have stayed on that damn horse.

Weekend Update

Well, I said I hoped I'd have a good weekend but I had no idea it was going to be as much fun as it turned out to be.

I suppose it actually started on Thursday when I ran into my own HB, (I'm co-opting the acronym, I hope you don't mind Bigg. for those of you who don't know what it means you'll just have to go to Bigg's blog, My Confessions and find out.) at the liquor store and we spent the rest of the evening together. He's one of those people I find fun in small doses, so a few hours once in a while is PLENTY!

I wrote all about Friday afternoon at work already. Everyone was gone, so I made quick work of my necessary stuff and played all afternoon.

I met up with my friends K and J, after work and we had a few drinks and then went to the Power and Light District for a concert. Man those people were old! And I'm referring to the audience. The bands were even older than we are. The lead singer for Dr. Hook was smoking a cigarette while he was singing. It looked to me like he has COPD pretty bad. I was amazed he could sing at all. The sound system BTW sucked. He couldn't hear himself and we were treated to the results. Mostly it went fine, but once in a while it sounded like me up there. And it wasn't cigarettes or age that caused it. It was obvious they couldn't hear themselves.

The headliners were Three Dog Night. I'd forgotten how many hits they actually had! There were quite a few songs I hadn't heard in years. I also was under the mistaken impression forever, that Goldie Hawn was married to one of them. I can't remember where I heard it or how long I've thought it, but I did and after the concert when I looked them up online I realized I was totally wrong. The Hudson Brothers were never associated with Three Dog night. Mea Culpa K, my bad. But we had a great vantage point pretty close to the stage so we saw everything. Great crowd, and a great show. I hadn't been downtown since the district was under construction and I had no idea where I was for a little bit. It was amazing when I looked up and saw the roof of the Empire theatre to my right and suddenly realized my surroundings. They've changed it a lot! Some of it for the better, I could do without the variation on a Mall theme, and $27.00 for three gin and tonics is a little steep, and would someone please tell me why a restaurant would close at it's normal time (10pm) when a concert with thousands of drinking people is literally outside your door? All that aside we had a great evening and we piled back into hoodad (J's 1983 BMW 733i) and headed for home. By the time we ate and I got to my place and to bed it was almost 1am. MUCH later than I'd planned.

So 7am came frightfully early for me, particularly since I chose to sleep in the apartment (I'll talk more about that later) and my neighbors were pounding and stomping at 4am. I'll miss them so when I move next month. Anyway I got up and managed to get out of the house around 9 and headed to the stables. I ran into S, the guy who owns the place, and he told me to take Little Boy out for a ride, that he needed someone to take him in hand and he also needed hours on the trail. So I saddled up an unfamiliar horse and headed out.

This horse was sah-weet! I hadn't been on a guy like this in a long time. He loves to go go go, and we were fast friends. Literally. He does have a few bad habits that I need to address, but time will take care of most of that I think. I'd been out about half an hour and we'd made a few turns onto a section of the trail that I don't know that well and suddenly I realized we were headed back to the stables LONG before I'd planned to, so I turned to head another direction. Little Boy had other ideas and the fight was on. Fortunately for me he didn't fight too long once he got the idea I intended to have my way and we got headed the right way. His response was to have me wear a few trees occasionally, but once he got over it we were friends again.

No sooner did I take him back than S stopped me and asked if I wanted to go out again in a bit. Without any plans for the rest of the day I quickly said yes. He had a ride scheduled with some guy and his daughter and her friend for a kids birthday. I quickly realized that Little Boy was not going to be a good mix on a walking ride with kids so I saddled up Rosie and when they got there I found out they had horses of their own and rode dressage regularly. This was at least going to be fun instead of a mind-numbing experience in the woods with large animals and oblivious parents.

So I took them out for a couple hours, they'd only paid for one hour, but I wasn't getting anything but riding time out of the deal and I figured why not give them their money's worth. Rosie was her usual reliable self and we had a nice time.

After I got back I put the horses away and headed back into the city. It was carwash, store, post office, cleaners, farmer's market time, and when I was done I went home to shower and headed to my favorite blues jam on Saturday afternoons for a couple more moderately priced glasses of gin than I'd had the day before, along with some great blues.

They took a break at a perfect time and I watched the Preakness. Big Brown was like, "Seeya!" and left the rest of the field standing there in the dust like they weren't even moving, it was amazing.

I ran into a friend there and we headed out to dinner around the corner where we watched the less than thrilling Royals game, (read team wal-mart.)

Those guys were actually running into each other! It never ceases to amaze me how bad they actually are. It's proof positive that you get what you pay for. But we had fun anyway and then I went home and watched Atonement.

(***SPOILER***) I loved the movie right up until I realized that Briony was a complete bitch and never did really do the right thing. After that I had trouble with the whole thing. I brought it back this morning glad to be rid of it.

Sunday was no less fun. I planted all the herbs that I got at the farmers market Saturday and did my morning Tai Chi, and meditated for a long while before heading out on my bike. I have no idea how many miles I rode but I was out almost 4 hours. It was a beautiful day and I just couldn't resist. I did realize however, that I will not be ready for the Cottonwood 200 next week. With the cold weather extending way into May and then being sick I simply didn't get to train enough to go 200 miles in 3 days. Maybe next spring if I'm still here.

Then I came home took a nap and read for a few hours. I came across this amazing article on Joemygod by this guy who went to Iraq and interviewed gay people who have to live totally closeted lives and meet secretly and hookup on manhunt or some such thing. It makes you realize that though things have a long way to go, we've got it pretty good. These people would be executed if they were caught.

I ended the weekend by having a few fiends over for dinner and canasta and then watching In the Valley of Elah. I'd brought all these movies home, it seemed foolish to just go out and see one when I had those sitting on the dvd player. Tommy Lee Jones was amazing, it was obvious he was totally into that part. Now I know why he wanted that Oscar so bad. I made some killer salmon on the grill and we tore up some card playing. I did not win, however. I talk too much and don't watch what's being played. C'est la Vie!

Today it's back to the grind and perhaps implementing a procedure to torment my neighbors when I'm out of the apartment. I have some ideas, I just need to commit to using the energy on an issue I only care about at 4am. I hate to waste energy on them. In fact I've found out in the process of getting the new place that my current complex is only recommended by 22 percent of the residents. Also I noticed a new sign this week that they're offering $399 Studios. Now we all know that $399 studios only attract the mentally deficient and crack ho's, so it should be an interesting month at chez falls.

It's amazing to have watched that place go downhill so quickly. Last year when I got there the courtyard was filled every weekend with hot young shirtless guys playing football,playing fetch with their dogs, and frolicking in the pool while the girls (and a few of us guys) watched. This year there hasn't been one person out in that courtyard. It's so obvious that they're trying to fill it up so they can then sell it to developers and go condo. They started construction on more garages and storage units last week. One does not build new garages for mentally deficient tenants and crack ho's. One builds new garages to make the place more attractive to potential buyers when they start selling these places. But the mentally deficient and the crack ho's don't know that.

No longer my problem, I just have to sit it out for another month...I can do that.

I recently started checking visitors reports on this blog. I find that I have hits from all over the world, which is soo cool I can't tell you. Thanks for reading everyone, I appreciate it.

I'm particularly enthralled by the number of Canadians who stop by regularly. Up until recently I had one in a place called Fort Nelson B.C. I think. How cool is that? To have a reader who's almost in the Arctic Circle! I also have hits from Thailand, Africa, and South America. St. Petersburg Russia is way high on my list of favorites. As I said thanks for reading. It makes me feel more connected somehow. I hope you enjoy it here.

200 posts AND Hot guys! Plus Marriage! What a Friday!

This is my 200th post. Yeah!

It's really no surprise to me, I'm pretty long-winded, so I expect to be talking well into four figures. Number of posts mind you, not dollars.

So on to the wingnuts-

“The court has interjected itself into national politics and made same-sex marriage a major issue in the upcoming national election,” said Brian S. Brown, the executive director of the National Organization for Marriage in California, which opposes same-sex marriage.-NYT

First of all the courts don't go around looking to get into other people's business, they're invited. Someone asks them to weigh the facts and render a decision. They don't make the law, they don't change the law, they read what our representatives (such as they are) enact and they render decisions based on the application of the facts of the case to the current law! Why is this so difficult for wingnuts to understand? Or is it that since they didn't get their way they have to find someone to blame? If that's the case,they must be related to my adoptive father.

Wisely, the Presidential candidates want to stay the hell out of it all. They want our votes, well, Obama and Clinton do. McCain is so crazy he doesn't know whose vote he wants. He just wants to be George Bush. So there will be some debate and a lot of smoke and mirrors and in the end there will be a law that makes sense and finally does not make a certain segment of society second-class citizens. Though I say we never were, we only gave that power away to those who sought to use their religious moralizing to oppress us. I went to Catholic Grade School, High School, and College, I know whereof I speak. As long as the Catholics and their ilk are allowed to run amok and rule with intimidation, as they have for centuries, things will never actually change. So, as I've always said, "Fuck Them!"

But as I said yesterday WOOT!

Should I ever meet Prince Charming I can run off to California and get married!

I'm going with a bunch of friends to a free Three Dog Night/Dr. John concert tonight, and then out to dinner. The weather is supposed to be wonderful so it's horses, and bikes all weekend. I suppose I should do a little packing, but hey moving day isn't for six weeks, what's the rush?

The good news is that the new housekeeper is coming today!(not a moment too soon) so I'm taking a long lunch and getting the car washed and picking up the laundry so I can use it as an excuse to stop by the apt and check on her progress. I love her already and she hasn't done a thing, it's just the very idea that she will, I guess.

After that I'm suiting up for a nice quick bike ride on my work loop. Thankfully, everyone is out today doing...stuff...and I can play as long as I quit talking to you and...OMG! I completely forgot!

It's Hot Guy Friday!

Justin Long is a living example of that straight nerd I always fall for. ALWAYS!

I now have to go edit the title of this post! Well as long as I remembered I guess that's what matters.

Have a wonderful weekend!

Love

Will you marry me?

Very cool! or Woot! As the kids say.

Yes, it's good news.

Yes it's incredible news.

In fact it's fucking amazing!

Yes, I am dancing for joy that we won one!

I still wonder if we need to be that assimilated. I suppose I'd be singing a different tune if I had a boyfriend, but I still say we should celebrate the differences instead of becoming just like our oppressors.

However, for today. CELEBRATE THE INCREDIBLE FUCKING NEWS!!!

Here's a little Martha and the Vandellas to help you get there. I'd love to be in the Castro tonight!

get it now???

What kind of a moronic redneck dirt-floor cracker would one have to be to think that this was even remotely a good idea?

This is exactly the shit I was talking about this morning.