It's A Sunshine Day!

Misty Water Coloured Memories

2006-06-14T05:52:00.000-07:00

In reading Denise's blog yesterday about an ill-fated trip to a local dairy, I suffered a blackout and lost consciousness. When I came to, I found myself curled into the fetal position on the floor in a corner of my office. "What happened?" "How did I get like this?" I wondered to myself as I brushed the dust bunnies from my Armani suit. "Where did I get an Armani suit from?" I was perplexed! Slowly I made my way back to the computer and there it was, on the monitor, the reason for my fugue state. The memories came flooding back like a tidal wave...a big, bloody tidal wave of terror overtaking me with it's murky, sticky warmth. I fought to maintain an upright position! Yes, Denise had single handedly brought back a long suppressed memory. One so horrific that I had long ago forgotten it had ever even taken place. One so vile and disgusting that you too may feel the need for a cleansing shower once this story is finished. Let me take you back, way back to a time when public schools could get away with beating children and teachers were still allowed to lock unruly kids in dog cages. Yes...a simpler time. The year was 1974. I was in the fourth grade at Stroud Elementary School...an institution who's walls hold secrets so shocking that it deserved to be burned to the ground...the earth beneath it sown with salt. Instead, they turned it into a senior citizen's rest home. But I've digressed. We were to take a daylong field trip into the big city...Cleveland. What exciting, educational facility was to be our destination you might wonder? Would it be the world reknowned Cleveland Museum of Art? Perhaps the Children's Health Museum or quite possibly even a trip to Severance Hall to see the famous Cleveland Orchestra perform? No. There woulde be no lasting cultural imprint on our impressionable young minds. Not on this trip at least. No, what we were going to see defies explanation. An incredible genius somewhere within that particular school system had decided to take all of the fourth grade classes to a more seamy side of town, The Stockyards. We were to tour a Slaughterhouse!!! Yes, you read that correctly, a gaggle of 9-10 year olds were to be given The Grande Tour of a slaughterhouse and meat packing facility. To this day I have not allowed certain parts of that tour to remain in my memory. For this reason, I can't relay the entire tour step by step and it's probably for the best if I didn't. But there are bits and pieces that are still there...seared into my memory as if with a branding iron! I remember seeing the pens outside the back of the plant. Cows by seemingly the hundreds, herded into these pens, oblivious to their fate which lay just on the opposite side of that brick wall. We were allowed to walk up to the fence and put our hands out, touch and pet the cows, gaze into their sad eyes. "This is going to be a great field trip!!!" was probably the thought going through the mind of more than one child that sunny Spring morning. Could we have ever been more wrong? I truly believe that we were spared having to watch the cows actually being slaughtered. I suppose for that I am grateful. Nevertheless, there were other horrors to witness. At one point we were all herded (like the cows!) into a huge room filled with giant mechanical devices. High above our heads was a conveyor line equipped with large, nasty looking hooks. As the conveyor began to move, from through the wall came the beheaded carcasses of the cows we had only been cooing over moments earlier out in the yard. They were now attached to those hooks just below where their heads had once been! I remember a shocked silence. Suddenly the conveyor came to a stop with the first carcass positioned in front of what appeared to be a giant claw. Dear God!!! What was about to happen here???!!! I was filled with a sense of impending doom. Suddenly the claw reached out to what was left of the cow and in one swift manuever, completely ripped the hide from the carcass, then turned and released the skin into a huge dumpster-like container. Screams from the kids filled the room, echoing off the white tile walls. I felt sick to my stomach. Other children were ushered quickly from the room. Of course there were the few budding serial-killers, mouths hanging open in awe as a long "coooooolllll!" escaped their lips. After the shock had set in, our group was led into what coulde only be described as The Saw Room. In those four walls, we were to witness the carcass be cut into what seemed like a million pieces. The buzzy whine of the mammoth saws as they came down from above and sliced into fat, muscle and bone is a sound I shall never forget. Over and over, the pieces becoming smaller and more manageable for packing purposes. The blood running everywhere in thick red rivers. We only thought our punishment was over when we toured the packing rooms and saw how the meat was sealed with clear wrap and readied for shipment to a supermarket near us! Oh how wrong we all were! When the tour was finished, we were sent out the back door into an area that was clearly set aside for waste. Surrounding us in huge vats were the bloody meat and fat trimmings, some red, some white, some with sickly green tinges covering them. Swarms of flies filled the still air as did an acrid stench. It is quite possible that some children vomited. This story is true. If you have ever read this blog in the past and asked yourself, "What the hell ever happend to make this guy such a psycho?", well, you now have the answer. Although it is a somewhat hazy recollection, I honestly believe that after the slaughterhouse tour was over, we were brought to Brookside Park where we were to enjoy a picnic lunch packed by the roommothers. This was a standard procedure with all field trips so I see no reason why this one would have been any different. To this day, I still enjoy a good hamburger!

Bloody Tuesday

2006-06-13T07:05:00.000-07:00

I had to go over to Occupational Health this morning and have blood drawn for gawd only knows what reason. Considering I'm in an overwhelmingly Republican southern state, I imagine that DNA samples are being collected from all of the non-republicans, non-christians and homosexuals so that the Bush administration can find a way of eradicating these segments of society. Maybe unleash some sort of deadly virus that Christian Republicans will somehow conveniently be immune to. Just a thought. Ooooh, or maybe they only told me that they were drawing blood but they were really injecting me with something to make me vote Republican in 08!!! I put nothing past this evil administration! I'll tell you this much, that needle hurt! I continue to wear the big cotton patch and bandage they put on it for the dramatic effect. I am all about the drama. Yesterday afternoon I was of the belief that the Rapture had come and, of course, I would be swept up. I even emailed Teddy and Pixie to let them know this was probably the last they'd be hearing from me. I've seen a lot of storms and even some hurricanes while I've been here but I had never seen the sky as black, evil and wicked looking as it was yesterday afternoon at 3 p.m. I even found religion but only for about 15 or 20 minutes. Once that nasty mother blew through here and I was still alive and my car undamaged, I went back to being my usual rotten self. Tomorrow we will welcome what's left of T.S. Alberto as he is projected to pass directly over us. How exciting! We need the rain. In keeping with this now being a big-time Sex Blog, I've decided to feature a Blogger with whom I have not had sex. Today's Blogger would be.....drumroll please! JackieSue over at Yellowdog Granny!!! Congratulations Jackiesue on your not having had me! Why haven't we had sex? Well, I guess the main reason would be that she is a woman. ummm...I guess that's the only reason really. Wasn't that a delight? This is going to be another short post today. Just too much going on around here lately. I got heaps of stuff done yesterday and also spent a good amount of time crawling around my office on my hands and knees (it's carpeted) trying to find a dead man who has seemingly disappeared. I HATE when that happens! I never did find him but hopefully he'll turn up. Inspirational thought for the day: En un boca cerrada, no entran moscas.

Sex Blog, Isn't it Nice! Luring Disco Dollys to a Life of Vice!

2006-06-12T06:36:00.000-07:00

So I decided to turn this into a Sex Blog on Saturday. I can see from the comments that some of you twisted pervs out there really got off on my first authentic, published Sex Story. For those of you out there whose hands are poised at their crotches, anxious to go to work on yourselves, all I can tell you is keep your eyes peeled for more racey stories like we had on Saturday! I got HEAT baby! (But it's a different kind of heat than Crystal's...a prize to whoever knows where THAT is from!). I had a nice enough weekend. I have no idea what we did Friday evening. I imagine we were at the pool. Actually I don't even think we drank that night so that goes to show how exciting it was. Saturday I finally got both vans vacuumed out and washed one of them. After that, we went up to the pool around 2 p.m. and stayed till almost 9:30 p.m. They had a big community cookout at the clubhouse next door and afterwards the crowd spilled over to the pool. It was a festive, social atmosphere and we had about 15 party folks sitting with us. The libations flowed freely and I ate waaaaay too much food! We got to talking with Pam, the wife of neighborhood hot-guy Don. He wasn't able to attend since he had to work (sad face!). Pam had her niece for the weekend who is also Ro's age so Ro ended up going over there for a sleepover last night which was really nice. She doesn't get a lot of little girls to play with around here. I sent her with the digital camera and instructions on how to sneak into the master bath when "Mr. Don" was in the shower. And if you believe that, I have a house to sell you in North Carolina. Oh wait! I actually DO have a house to sell you! Anyway, Saturday night was the highlight of the weekend. It's fun to live in a place where people actually know and talk to one another and they are surprisingly fun-loving folks who see right past the whole "gay" thing (as they should). Sunday was another pool day. Judy and her gang of grandkids were up there with us and then Patsy showed up with frozen margaritas. Yummy! I did not get sunburned this time but wow, I'm very tan. I don't even try to get this way, it just happens. I tried another new recipe for dinner and it was a big hit. R told me it was one of his favorite things I've made. Right after dinner the thunderstorms rolled in...BIG ones! The kind the South is famous for with the torrential rains and zillions of lightning bolts. They were still going strong by the time I went to bed at 10:30. This is kind of a short nothing post today. Sorry about that. I decided I was actually going to put forth a concerted effort to catch up here at work today. My new responsibilities are starting to become more obvious in the amount of work I have to do each day. Yikes! Right now though, I hear a fax machine seductively cooing my name, calling for me to lovingly run my fingers over it's keypad. Sex Blog Baby!

Saturday

2006-06-10T11:05:00.000-07:00

I did NOT have sex last night. Please feel free to use this information anyway that you please. For those furiously masturbating in front of the screen over this sex story, please have tissues handy.

Blogger Falls Apart

2006-06-09T06:53:00.000-07:00

And in so doing, apparently ate my blog too! I came into work this morning only to find a paniced email from Denise, informing me that my blog was completely gone! I figured that explained why I never received any more emailed comment notices after the whole thing crashed yesterday afternoon, yet AGAIN! To be completely honest with you, I wasn't that upset. I kind of looked at it as a "sign" that maybe it was time to just hang it up and be done with the whole thing. I knew that when Bab's had her blog disappear a few months back, she went through Hell before it was finally restored. In the meantime she was able to set up a substitute blog that held the place of her former blog until they could find it. I have NO IDEA how to do ANY of that kind of stuff and just the thought of it sounds overwhelming and exhausting to me! Well, I guess fate had other plans for me because I'm back here making a blog post again. Damn it! Sorry. I know some of you really enjoy my blog and all but I have to tell you, sometimes it's a real chore to come up with something to write about, or trying not to sound maudlin and depressed which is how I seem to be feeling again (and there you have the update on the job hunt) and knowing nobody wants to hear that stuff. I know, I know, write what YOU want and all that rigamaroll but as soon as I do, everyone scatters. Depression is a sure way to kill your readership. But nevermind all of that.... May I just take a moment to say what many of you have been saying and feeling for the past week? Blogger SUCKS! The last two days have been absolutely horrible. Yesterday, I actually made it to my regular reads but if you didn't see a comment from me, it's because I was unable to. Then by mid-afternoon, the entire thing was kaput! I was particularly livid when at Simon's blog, after composing a rather lengthy comment full of deep meaning and insight, I hit the submit button and the entire thing disappeared, never to be seen or heard from again. Grrrrrr! Now onto brighter days. Last night was a blast! Five years ago, the idea of NOT living in a big city would have filled me with fear and dread. Last night was a perfect example of why the idea of having to move back to a big city is filling me with fear and dread. We went to the "After 5" music series that they do here in the town I work in. It's held on a Thurs. night about every 3 weeks during the summer and fall months and they have a live band come and play music on the big lawn at the college that is here. In addition, there are food and drink vendors, beer and wine vendors or you can bring your own cooler with whatever you want. Just bring your lawn chairs or a blanket and sit outside and listen to the music. The music isn't particularly my style but it's completely non-offensive for the wide range of ages that go to these. Locally in this area, it's called "Beach Music" but it's not the kind of beach music I would tend to think of (Jan & Dean, the Beach Boys, etc.) but rather a cross of that style with more of a 60's soul sound thrown in. Kind of "bluesy" too but still upbeat and catchy...toe-tapping music. I found myself keeping the beat on more than one occasion. I manned the Jumper House with a bunch of the other girls from Hospice. We made a lot of money for the Cancer Society so I think we may do it again for the next one. I loved sitting there and people-watching. First of all, it's fun to sit and watch authentic "Shaggers". That's not the English version of shagging either, here "Shagging" is a style of dancing that is popular in the South. Up North, I NEVER saw anyone Shag. It looks pretty easy and the ones who are good at it really add a personal flair to their Shag but I'm a klutz so I don't see myself doing it anytime soon. Secondly, Sharon, Bunny and I all sat there and ogled the men. I'm surprised by the amount of Tim McGraw Hot wannabes in this little town. Yes Teddy, I guess I am here for the rednecks! Some of them are pretty damn fine but OY! Once they open their mouths and you hear them start to talk...please shove something in there to make it stop (and I have just the "something")! I like a Southern accent but I HATE a redneck accent. There IS a difference! There was also a particularly gorgeous man of Lumbee descent who had the most exquisite facial bone structure, especially those high, angular cheekbones and exotic wide-set green eyes. sigh.... Some of those Lumbee's are so beautiful..."Greg" will serve as evidence to that since he is Lumbee too. FYI: Lumbee is the only Native American tribe that is not officially recognized by the govt. as being Native...go figure! They are mainly in this area and you rarely find them outside of a 75 mile radius from here. Anyway, we people watched and I drank beer. It must have been really cheap beer too because I wasn't drunk by any means but I have a slight hangover today. Oh, my head!!! We were also treated to a "floor show" by a particularly unattractive white-trash girl with more Junk in the Trunk than anyone should ever have! In addition to the problem in the rear, she was wearing denim hotpants that were FAAAAR too tight and served to accent her cameltoe in the front. She had to have been drunk because she was out there dancing her ample ass off and you could just tell that she thought she really had it ALL goin' on! It was like bad-stripper dancing, lots of grinding and stuff like that but without the pole. Being the catty, brutal bunch of bitches that we are here, we were merciless in our commentary! Overall, we had a great time, sitting, drinking, laughing, watching the kids dance as well as others, socializing with lots of familiar faces. Just great all around. Can't wait for the next one. It's Friday and that means..."Lurker Look-Out!" Today's featured lurker comes to us from Medina, Ohio! Hello Medina! Here is your Dating Game Kiss....MmmmmWAH! Now, if you are one of my relatives, I know you are out there reading this. I love you but could you go away now? This is my public "private" space... I don't know any of these people so I can say what I want but if you're here, I can't. If you are not a relative...feel free to keep on keepin' on and lurk to your heart's content! Looks like it's going to be getting pretty hot here in the next few days. It will be a pool weekend for us again. This time I'm spending more time under the umbrella at the table! What will you be doing? Have a great weekend everyone!

The War Will Not Be Televised.

2006-06-08T06:04:00.000-07:00

Mainly because it's over. O. V. E. R. Over. It actually ended yesterday afternoon but Blogger went ballistic and then crashed so I wasn't able to get back on until this morning. Joe contacted me by email and apologized...about three times. I sat here scratching my head over why he suddenly felt so contrite but I'm just a big softy at heart and I felt bad about everything too so I accepted his apology and promised him that I would take the post down. My suspicious and distrustful side - born of those trusty "Midwestern Sensibilities" - still has me wondering if this is all some sort of cruel joke on me though. I mean, why the sudden change of heart? That was never explained and it still nags at me but, well, whatever. You have to choose your battles in life and honestly, when it comes to a blog, it's just not all that important. I think my impending doom is enough stress to deal with for the time being. Besides, I don't like fighting. Don't get me wrong, I can defend myself if I have to, but yesterday...inside, my stomach is in knots, my heart is pounding, I just want to pull the covers up over my head and make it all stop. I guess that comes from being woken up at midnight and all ungodly hours of the morning by my parents screaming at one another prior to the divorce. That feeling never really goes away, does it? So there you have it. It's over. Will I go back to that blog? Mmmm...I don't know...probably not. He never told me I wasn't still banned from commenting after all, he only apologized. Anyway, I don't need to be hit over the head with a frying pan (the Martha Stewart brand ones are particularly good for this! Lots of heft to those babies! I have my set, trust me!) to know that I'm not welcome anymore. I mean DUH! The accusations that I "relentlessly" comment off-topic is an apparent source of distress to Joe and I don't need to make anyone else's life difficult. I'll say this though, I absolutely LOVE the idea of going to other blogs now and just making comments that have absolutely nothing to do with anything written about whatsoever! It sounds like it would be not only fun, but funny too! Definitely something I could see myself doing. The fact is, and I will stand by this, that I do not just randomly go to anyone's blog and if they're talking about, say...the weather, then I go and leave a comment saying, "How about that George Bush? Huh? Great guy, isn't he?" Of all the blogs I comment on, feel free to point out instances where I have "relentlessly" done this! Not you though Babs! You and I have a special understanding...it's one of the benefits of being insane. You know me, I love doughnuts....I love to laugh! Why...I'm like the New Katie Holmes! What else...what else did I want to address before I put this all to rest....Well, I NEVER bashed Joe on Teddy or anyone else's blog. I have disagreed with him on that blog but I have made a point of not bashing him. I'm not even saying anymore on that subject as Teddy already vociferously vouched for my wide-eyed innocence in that matter. Oh, I remember now...the accusation that I was cunningly attempting to direct readers to my blog by commenting on Joe's. Will all the readers who came here via Joe.My.God. please stand up and make your presence known? (insert sound of crickets chirping) I'd be surprised if there was even one. Aaron is about the only person from that crowd who comments here (that I know of) and even with him, I discovered his blog on my own, NOT through Joe. The logic behind that seems to be that it is now forbidden to click on a commenters link if you are at certain blogs? I don't get it but hey, your blog is your blog. Make your own kind of music, sing your own special song. Just please be sure to post the rules somewhere. Lastly I just want to say to Joe, I'm sorry that it ever came to any of this. You're an okay guy and I harbor no ill-will toward you. The consensus among those who actually know you is that you're a sweetheart. Sometimes you come off sounding pompous and arrogant on your blog but I can readily admit that I have made myself sound like a jackass on more than one occasion right here as well. Anyway, you are always welcome here whether you choose to exercise that option or not. Now back to the mundane....Last night...pool, cocktails, majorly HOT men at the pool! Okay well, there were only 2 really good ones and one of them was that Don guy that I was swooning over at the Egg hunt. Mmmm-mmmm! The other guy is new, not sure who he is but it's nice to have eye candy at the pool. We sat and talked to our friend Craig who was there and pretty sloshed. He's a fun drunk though so I was howling with laughter most of the evening. Tonight I will be making a rare public appearance here at the local After 5:00 music series they do every summer. I told Pauline I would man the Jumper House for an hour. She's setting it up as a fundraiser for the Relay for Life Cancer thingy they do in Aug. Ugh! I hate kids and now I have to spend an hour with other people's! Before you say anything, I LOVE my kids, I just don't like other peoples. That's allowed!!! R and the kids will keep me company and Patsy may come too...plus they sell alcohol at this shindig so perhaps it won't be all bad. It's going to be hot though, they're saying 90 by 5:00. Lovely. Plus the chance for severe storms. Great! Bring it on! Oy, I have got to get some work done here today!!!

666

2006-06-06T06:16:00.000-07:00

Muwahahahaha!!!! I'm sorry but if you actually cling to the belief that because today is the sixth day of the sixth month of the sixth year and something "bad" is going to happen because of some ridiculous notion that 666 is a satanic number, I would be more than happy to supply you with the phone numbers and addresses of several good therapists in your area. I am willing to do the legwork of finding these therapists for you since I don't believe that idiots like you should be out walking our streets! Clearly you have spent far too much of your life watching silly horror movies that capitalize on fools like you. Now...with that said and out of the way, I should state that I have not read anyone elses blog yet today so if you have a post up and are fretting about this trivial and mundane insignificance and I have just now insulted you, well, you asked for it I guess! There are few things in life I won't apologize for and this is one of them, the other is bashing hateful Republicans and Christina zealots but I guess those two are basically the same thing these days. Lock your doors and hide yourselves away folks!!! The scary married gays are coming to get you!!!! Assholes! Phewww, I'm feeling rather pissy today if I do say so myself. Not sure why really other than I am about as red as satan himself due to this sunburn I got on Sunday while hanging out at the pool. I tell you, no matter how careful I try to be, I still get burned. I'm not even what you would call "fair skinned" but BAM, put me out there for 20 minutes and I'm done. What can I bitch about next. How about how much Blogger has reached a level of Supreme-Suckage over the last 4 or 5 days! Friday was bad but yesterday was abominably bad! I read all of my regular blogs but if I didn't leave a comment for you, it's because Blogger wouldn't let me! Just know I was there. And also know that I went through Hell to get there because it was running so sloooooooowwwww. Things in my life have been rather uneventful as of late. This past weekend was a rather blah one after the previous two. We just stuck around the house and the pool for the most part. Yesterday evening I went home and got there just in time for a thunderstorm. Ate dinner, did my workout and then put together my fantabulous meatloaf which has got everything but the kitchen sink in it! Love it!!! The real "secret" ingredients are horseradish and dijon mustard. Lots of both! All the kids, except one, love it as well. Yes, our kids are adventurous eaters. Saturday evening we went up to Southern Pines and I treated everyone to dinner at a Chinese restaurant. Chinese has long been one of my favored cuisines but down here you have to search high and low to try and find one that isn't one of those trashy "All You Can Eat" buffets. Eegads! I do so hate those trough food places. Well, guess what? Yep, that's where we went. This one was actually pretty good though, I'd say it's a step above some of the other ones I've been to and, well, they did have a sushi bar and I am simply mad for sushi, so it was okay I suppose. Anyway, this was the first time that 3 of the 4 kids had ever eaten Chinese and they were all eager and willing to try just about anything. I'm so relieved to not have picky eaters. Well that's it for todays blase' post. I'm ridiculously busy here at work again. This is really beginning to get old, the "being busy" I mean, not the the blogging.

My Debutante Ball

2006-06-05T05:56:00.000-07:00

I've never really blogged about my "Coming Out" story on here and it was for a reason. To be completely honest with you, it was only remarkable in the fact of how Unremarkable it all was! I am well aware that this can be a long, painful, drawn-out process for a lot of people but come on now, when have I ever been like "a lot of people"? I have known I was gay since as far back as I can remember. Of course in kindergarten you don't have any clue what "gay" means, well let me correct that, back then you didn't have any clue what "gay" meant. Nevertheless, by third grade I can distinctly remember a major crush I had...on another boy in my class. Hmmm...kinda funny when I think about it because he was Korean. I don't find myself particularly attracted to men of Asian descent though nowadays. Oh who am I kidding? I don't find myself attracted to just about ANYBODY these days! My impossibly high standards and all...you know how that goes. Where was I? Oh yes, anyway I came from a family that NEVER talked about sex or sexuality, just your typical All-American repressed family unit. So I never dared speak of my lusting for boys and men. That would be my secret. As an aside, my "sex talk" with my mom amounted to an evening where we were watching "Eight is Enough" and Tommy Bradford was offering to marry guest star Rosanna Arquette's character after she had gotten knocked up by another guy. My mom, the poor thing, had probably dreaded this moment since my dad was long gone by then. Anyway she broached the subject during a commercial by saying something to the effect of "We're going to have to sit down and have a talk about this kind of 'stuff' one of these days pretty soon." I was mortified so my reply was, "Ummm...they teach that in school now." Her relief was written all over her face! That was it, the subject was never brought up again. But I digress.... During the summer between my junior and senior year in high school, I met a group of older, college kids through my friend Jean. The two that had the most influence on me were Tom, a completely Out (yes, with a capital "O") gay guy who was a sophomore in college, and his best friend Mary, a college junior who was the quintessential "Fag Hag", so much so that I believe the term may have even been invented for her! I found them to be the most intriguing people I knew and I clicked almost immediately with them. I wasn't sexually attracted to Tom despite the fact that he was a gorgeous, dark, Italian guy. He was waaaay too much of a slut for my tastes. He was one of nine kids though, the son of a prominent surgeon and oh my gawd, his brothers were another story. I was in lust with each and every one of them! His sisters were knock-outs too! That summer, Tom, Mary and I did everything together. It was with them that I went to my first gay bar (yeah I was underage, those places never checked ID's back then), an absolute dump in downtown Cleveland called "Isis". It turned out to be one of "Isis"'s off nights so there were maybe only about 5 people in the entire club besides us. So my first gay bar and it was just nothing special whatsoever. Oh Zephyr winds that blow on high, lift me now that I may fly! Oh mighty Isis, isis, isis, isis.... We spent most of that summer and any other time that Mary and Tom were home from college for a weekend or a vacation at another club downtown called "Chaps", short for "Chapter 2". That place was awesome! First of all, it was the early 80's, the music was fantastic, disco anthems mixed in with the encroaching "new wave"/techno that was just becoming fashionable. Chaps was a pretty cool place for Cleveland back then. Housed in an old warehouse, the place seemed rather small early in the evening. However, as it filled up, usually around midnight or 1 a.m., the entire back wall would raise up and the club was suddenly gargantuan in size, the dance floor doubled in capacity, another bar area opened up, more seating, the sleazy "backroom" area with it's porno videos playing on a big screen opened up. This was the "Golden Age" of gay clubbing in Cleveland. Chaps was only one of many huge clubs of it's time, each one having it's own "big night" of the week where it was THE place to go. But that one was my favorite, despite the fact it was in a part of downtown that only the foolhardy ventured into, long before gentrification. I always worried my mom's car would get stolen. Tom and Mary were the first people I actually "Came Out" to. It was a complete non-event as both of them said, "well....yeah....we kinda just figured that since you're going to the bars with us and all..." From there on, it was easy. You just sort of told people in a rather non-chalant manner and it was no big deal, to them or to me. I think a lot of people just knew already. Maybe it was that phase I went through where I was emulating the makeup and fashions of Boy George, I don't know.... Just kidding! I NEVER did that! I swear!!!!! No, if anything I was in my punk phase at that time, my hair was bizarre, I wore solid black, black boots. Most people were afraid of me if they didn't know me. Even the day that I came out to my family was unspectacular. There were no fireworks, no drama, no "Get out! I don't ever want to see you again! You aren't my son!" In fact, I think I came out to them to spite my ex because we were having some sort of dumb tiff over something or other. I had to prove to him that he wouldn't be there when I needed him most. Turns out I didn't need him then or after that either! But I will say that I kind of like the idea of coming out as a way to spite someone you're angry at! Someone who already knew you were gay and wasn't even there to be involved. Oh yes, I do love me some warped logic! So there you have it, the unremarkable tale of my Coming Out. As bland as Velveeta! There was only one aspect of coming out in that era that put the fear of gawd into me and that was AIDS. By the time I came out and became sexually active, HIV/AIDS had been identified but very, very little was known about it. The belief that it was sexually transmitted was starting to get around though because condoms were everywhere. The bars used to have bowls full set out on the bar or at the door. It was amazing how fast the gay community acted upon the epidemic considering how widely ignored it was by the rest of society. I always used to fear for Tom because, well, he was a whore. He knew it too! He'd been out and active at a time pre-1981, when freewheeling, anonymous sex and bathouse activity was still de riguer. Happily, he never contracted it and is out there somewhere to this day. For me, it was never an overwhelming concern for a bunch of reasons. First of all, I was "weird" by gay standards. Even when I first came out, I wasn't out screwing everything that moved. I knew even then that I wanted Love, comittment, the white picket fence. I was never into the anonymous sex, the cruising, I have never been to a bathouse in my life. That just wasn't important to me. There was definitely a lot of fear involved though, a lot of unknowns. And seeing friends contract it and then die from it was sobering to say the least. But personally, I came through relatively unscathed. Yes, I know I'm weird. So there you have it! My Coming Out story...My Debutante Ball. About the only interesting thing about it was that the Grim Reaper was present in the form of HIV/AIDS. Other than that, no big whoop!

Racking my Brain and a Tiny Tribute

2006-06-02T07:30:00.000-07:00

I've been racking my brain trying to come up with something, anything to write about today and I have to just concede defeat I guess. I'm at a total loss. Yesterday I was feeling rather inspired by Teddy's post about bad music. After all, I have a certain fondness for 1970's Junk Culture. No decade did the trash better than that one! I believe that my exposure to it is what made me the warped individual that I am today! God Bless the Partridge Family! But today, eh...I just don't feel like it. Yesterday I had some sandwiches for lunch. Four of them to be exact. Yep, you read that correctly, FOUR. Four creamy, cold and delicious Ice Cream Sandwiches. For dessert I followed up my healthy meal with a Nutty Buddy. Pauline and I got a craving for ice cream and she treated if Bunny would run up the store and get some. Why am I not fat? I don't get it. This morning, I decided to put together a plate of fruit since the refrigerator is overflowing with leftover food from the event they sponsored here last evening. Of course my fruit plate also contains a large, okay EXTRA large, dollop of whipped cream for dipping purposes. As well as three mini-cheesecakes. This is just my breakfast. For lunch I shall be sampling the pineapple chicken and there were some other things in there that looked pretty tasty as well. I may end up living in a crate but at least I'll still be eating well here. Interesting development in the "Greg" department...Bunny told me yesterday that his teeth are beautiful! I said, "Are you sure? I saw them once and they looked rotted and decayed!" She insists I saw wrong. So now I'm going to have to find a way to get him back here and get his mouth open. I had been telling a couple of the girls about my lusting for him when he came in my office. They were laughing quite hard so I printed out the 1st paragraph of my story yesterday and performed a dramatic reading for them. Pauline had tears in her eyes...realizing that she had new competition! She told me that "Greg" had been at Bike Week 2 weekends ago. I asked "In leather hotpants?" She replied, "I didn't actually see him there but he told me he went. I don't know about the hotpants but in my mind, he's in leather! Very little." I guess it's time for my "Lurker Look-Out" again. I should reiterate once more, being my featured Lurker is not something you need to be afraid of. My lurkers are as loved as my commenters. Perhaps just a little bit less but hey, that's YOUR fault, not mine! This week, let's head back out west and send a big greeting and a Dating Game Kiss to Sunnyvale, California! Hello Sunnyvale! MmmmmWAH! I debated whether or not to actually feature Sunny because they used to spend an extraordinary amount of time here but suddenly POOF, they just disappeared. But I had my list of featured lurkers made out in advance and baby, you were on it, so thanks for lurking anyway and come on back! Who could be next? Could it be you? Or you? Or maybe even YOU over there in France??? Stay tuned to find out! And now to be serious for a moment. This week I watched most of the Frontline special about HIV/AIDS on PBS. June 5 marks the 25th Anniversary of this disease first being recognized...not necessarily identified, but recognized in the print media. On Monday, I plan to blog about my experience as a gay man who first came out at the height of the epidemic, the fear, all of the unknowns. I think it played a major part in shaping the way that I am today. I have most definitely been touched by HIV/AIDS. The funny thing is that today, I don't have any friends in my "real life" that have it. Those who did...all died. Happily though, here in the blog-world, I have become friends with quite a few HIV+ people. To them I would just like to say that I love you guys and I REMEMBER! Okay, sorry to be so maudlin. I'll save that for Monday. Now, go out there and booze it up party babies! Happy Weekend!

My heart just skipped a beat!

2006-06-01T06:58:00.000-07:00

He's back! And better than just being back, he TALKED to me!!! He came right into this very office and spoke the most beautiful words I have ever heard spew forth from the oral cavity of such stunning manflesh..."You're phone is working, right?" I couldn't speak! Frozen in lustful thoughts, struck mute by his presence, I simply stared into his eyes and nodded my head slowly up and down. He smiled. Yes, He SMILED at me!!! And then he turned to leave. "NO!!!!" I screamed...but it was only in my mind. "Don't leave! Please, I...I...I don't know if it's working! Perhaps if you come back and wrap those meaty arms around my body and just hold me and gently rock me until these vapors pass....maybe then we can find out the status of the phone! You and me...The two of us...Together!" But none of that came out. As he turned to leave, I felt the moment of our connection severed, the panic set in...suddenly I was able to blurt the words "As far as I know it is!" He chuckled...and exited the room. Who am I talking about you may be asking yourself? Only the hottest piece of male Grade A beef in all of southeastern North Carolina, that's who! Yes, "Greg" the phone guy is in the building. And damn if he didn't look even 10 times finer than the last time I laid him....I mean laid EYES on him. I only wish!!! He had on his ball cap, covering his nearly bald head, his goatee a bit bushier than the last time we shared our place together in the sun! And speaking of sun...his skin is bronzed to perfection. Not too dark, not pasty white, just right. His powder blue shirt, clinging snugly to his well defined pectorals and straining at the biceps, only served to enhance his otherworldly glow. Even better...I didn't have to see his bad teeth! Even when he spoke to me, that cute, fuzzy goatee served to conceal the rot taking place in his mouth. sigh....come back to me Greg....please...come back! I am so utterly distracted by the sheer magnetism of this beast that I long to have ravage me that I can't think of anything else to say here. I'll just list some thoughts and you can feel free to expand on them if you'd like. 1. "Greg" 2. "Greg's" ample "package" 3. "Greg" naked. 4. Today begins hurricane season. Oh joy. 5. Teddy Pig dedicated a post to me on his blog and in response I (over) analyzed the lyrics to that 70's classic tune, "Wildfire" in order to shed light on a different angle that I believe he overlooked when he bashed it orginally. Check it out here. I think that you will agree with me...if you know what's good for you. 6. Teddy needs to move to NC like he's considering doing so that we can hang out and laugh at people! 7. I just peeked down the hall and "Greg" is in the Communications Room. 8. I am considering walking in there and locking the door behind me. 9. I am currently ensconced in "The LavaLounge" on Live365 internet radio. They are playing "Our Lips are Sealed" by the Go-Go's...such fun! 10. The weekend is almost here and we have no plans at all. After 2 really good ones back to back, this one sounds kind of dull at this point.

Ya Miss One Day...

2006-05-31T06:19:00.000-07:00

and all Hell breaks loose! I swear! I wasn't here on Monday but Hospice remained open for business so to speak anyway. Just missing that one day was enough to send me from "relatively under control" to "HELP! I'm drowning in paperwork, new admits and death charts!!!" I've been in this situation before and I always managed to catch up within a week or so but this time it seems almost hopeless. So that's why I'm writing this post. I've thrown my hands up in the air (kind of like Miss Diana Ross in one of her ultimate Diva poses...one palm face down, one palm face up...it's all very calculated for Diva perfection) and said, "Why bother? Why worry?" and so I'm not! It's been insanely busy for the last week and a half and I was having trouble staying caught up then so this was just the push I needed to make me realize...what's the difference! With that said, yesterday I met with the Director of the Board. In addition to my upcoming raise, they want to give me even more responsibilities. Oy! I may actually have to start doing WORK here now! Can you believe that? Of course I said, "Sure, no problem, bring it on". Hey, I want that raise after all! And the fact is that I CAN do whatever they give me. Turns out that what they're giving me, I've kind of already been doing anyway. Easy. They also told me that I can come up with a new title for my position. I haven't a clue!!! Any ideas? My goodness, I had Simon wondering if R and I were out in the Gamelands doing unmentionable things to one another on that last post. He then proposed laying me on a rock and having his filthy way with me! "Sure, no problem, bring it on!" Oh, wait, that was my response to the job thing. Sorry. Guess it applies either way. Actually, no we did not take advantage of our isolation out there. I've thought about it but the fact is that the military sometimes uses the Gamelands to do marches and manuevers and whatever all their silly little military games are. I've been out there before when a line of military men come marching through the woods in camouflage and scare the living bejesus out of me! They're really quiet, they blend in with the woods, you don't even see them until they're 10 feet from you...I don't think I'd want to be caught in a compromising position by a bunch of homophobes in the middle of the woods, thank you! I'm not much of an exhibitionist I guess. Even the one time I spent a weekend at some dreadful gay/clothing optional campground in Pennsylvania (think "outdoor bathhouse" since that's really all it was), I remained clothed the entire time. Honey, people should PAY to see what I have to offer! Snap! Besides, it was pretty chilly out there and the people who weren't clothed were the LAST ones you ever wanted to see that way. Well, there was that time in Key West...but that was different. Moving on.... Photos were indeed taken of me in my "Hospice Hottie" shirt. I haven't printed them for two reasons. The first being that two of the girls here got in the picture with me and I don't feel at liberty to post their picture on the internet so I'd have to do some editing first. Second, I didn't think I looked very photogenic in either. I'm my own worst critic. And actually, third, I didn't think the shirt really showed up that well unfortunately. I don't know, give me a little time and let me see if I can work some magic on them and they may show up here after all. Last evening I left work, stopped at the pool where R and the kids were and had two glasses of wine, then went home and put together a fantabulous pot roast that I'm cooking in the slow cooker for tonights dinner. Love that Comfort Food! Today is a big day for me! I get to FINALLY have the closet case cut my hair again!!! I'm very overdue for this coiffing. Until that time though, I simply MUST get to work here. TTFN!

Back to the Daily Grind

2006-05-30T06:35:00.000-07:00

Words to sum up this past weekend: Busy, Hectic, Boozy, Hot, Fun!!! I can't believe how fast three days flew by! Last night as I lay on the couch in a semi-fugue state, I thought to myself, "Where the hell did it all go? What the hell did we even do?" Yeah...it was one of those kind of weekends...teehee! The funny thing is that I didn't get even half of what I wanted to accomplish done (cutting the grass, washing my car and vacuuming out the inside, cleaning the garage) simply because we were out enjoying ourselves too much. Friday evening after work, you guessed it, cocktails at the pool. It was freaking 93 degrees and the summer humidity has set in so it was refreshing to say the least. We had to cut things short around 8 pm when the sky started to darken. Got home just in time for a really nasty thunderstorm to blow through. Oy! The yard was a real mess the next morning and we spent about 2 hours picking up all the branches and pinecones that came down. I haven't seen it that bad even when we've had hurricanes come through in the past. Anyway, I ended up baking Ro's b-day cake Fri. evening instead so it was productive. Sat. we cleaned up the yard and it was already broiling hot outside so I said "screw the yardwork, it's pool time!" and we spent the afternoon up there. I'm way more tan than I should be! I don't even try to get all this sun but I just tan too easily I guess. And can someone please tell me when they are going to invent a non-greasy sunscreen for The Face? The last thing I want to do is put oily crap all over my already oily skin that I've been cursed with. Well, it used to be a curse when I was younger, now I consider it a blessing since my skin appears much younger than other people my age. But I digress...After a busy day of drinking at the pool, we went back to the house and hosted Ro's little b-day party which was just having a few of the neighbors over...and drinking again. Do I sound like a lush? I'm not really. It was a nice time and Ro was happy with all of her gifts. 7 yrs. old now. Sunday we went grocery shopping in the morning and kind of went crazy in that place. We bought SO MUCH stuff! I don't know what was up with that but I honestly think we might even get away with not having to shop next weekend! Sunday afternoon we went down to Pauline's for her cookout/party. It was all outside and geez Louise!!! It was so f-ing HOT! I think we hit 94 but at least she had canopys set up and lots of trees in her back yard for shade. Oh and of course it always helps that there was a LOT to drink! We all had a really good time. R and I sat under one of the canopys and blabbed with a bunch of the Hospice people and their husbands and the kids played on the Slip And Slide and Pauline also owns one of those giant Jumper Houses, plus there were a bunch of other kids for them to play with. And the food! She had to have spent a fortune on it, steaks, grilled fish, scallops, bbq chicken, stuffed cabbage, hot dogs, and that was just the main dishes...don't even get me started on the sides and the desserts! I ate way too much and was sent home with even more. Monday, yesterday...well I had taken the day off so that we could spend it at the pool with the kids and socializing with everyone else up there. Except that our kids HAD SCHOOL! Yes, you read that correctly, our kids had to attend school on Memorial Day! I was in such utter disbelief when I found this out on Fri. afternoon that I not only called the school who confirmed it, but I then went and asked Judy if it was true because her boyfriend is a teacher. And yep, he was pissed off about it too! So R and I ended up with a day to ourselves which was actually pretty nice. He got them up and off to school and let me sleep in (if you call 7:45 a.m. "sleeping in"). We had a leisurely morning and then decided to get on the 4-wheeler and take a ride out into the Gamelands. This is something he and I always used to do B.K. (before kids) but I never get to do anymore because someone always has to be here when they are. It was a beautiful day for a ride. I just love it out there. Absolute peace and solitude...you feel like you are the only people on the planet. He took me out to one of the lakes that are back there. This particular lake has a big granite slab there memorializing the 9 parachuters that drowned in it back in 1944 during some sort of night parachute manuever. Yikes! It's very remote and kind of creepy knowing a bunch of people died in there but still, very beautiful. We started heading back and, since I'm more adventurous than R is, I suggested we take some different trails. We got on one that was actually a fire break for the controlled burns and it twisted and turned for miles. And then I realized I had no idea where we were. I used to know those trails like the back of my hand but it's been so long that I got us lost. Eh...I don't panic since I know sooner or later we'll hit a road. We ended up coming out almost where we needed to be but whoops! I had us going north instead of south, I got very discombobulated. Got home in time to meet the bus and then went up to the pool with the kids. That was pretty much my weekend. This is a dull post but I keep looking at the mountain of work I have here and feel like I shouldn't be doing this! Hope everyone else had a good one as well.

Big Duh!

2006-05-26T08:44:00.000-07:00

I almost forgot it was "Lurker Look-Out" Friday here. Todays featured lurker is Washington, DC/Reston, VA!!! Wow! There are a lot of you folks in that vicinity that absolutely refuse to comment here. Now don't think that the thought hasn't crossed my mind that you are working for George Jerk Bush and trying to find ways to get my kids away from me and into the hands of good, Gawd-fearing Christians! I know how your administration operates. Nevertheless, if you aren't a Republican here is a big Hello and your Dating Game Kiss....MWAH!!! If you are a Republican working for the Bush administration, to you I offer a hearty "Fuck off!"

Hospice Hottie!

2006-05-26T06:40:00.000-07:00

My hookers decided to stick around for the weekend. I guess they wanted to check out the pool and all that jazz. Unfortunately they are predicting thunderstorms for this afternoon and evening so I'll have to put them to work around the house if we don't do cocktails. This could actually work in my favor as we have a house showing tomorrow at noon. I don't know, are hookers good at dusting? Running the vacuum? I may even have some yard work for them to put the chainsaws to use with. Even if they just babysit the kids. They're really great with kids you know! In fact, I'd go so far as to say that Hollywood Chainsaw Hookers are the best hookers in the world! They are the ones with that "heart of gold" that we always hear about. God Bless the Hollywood Chainsaw Hookers! So, was there ever such a party or was it all just a dream???!!! The turnout was amazing! Truly, I may have set a record for blog visitors yesterday. Most didn't comment but for those that did, I love you guys! My deepest sympathies and pity go out to each and every one of you as well! Use it for whatever you would like to apply it to...kinda like a gift certificate! The whores only had to carve up a couple of people who refused to leave pity or sympathy. The corpses didn't go to waste though, we used them for some hors' douevres late into the evening and I see that this mornings stragglers were still helping themselves which was fine as well. Le Pixie made a feeble attempt to take a chainsaw to my priceless doilies and then turned it on my balloon bride but she was stopped by a kung fu hooker before she could do any furthter damage. A couple of sedating drinks later and she was up and dancing on the card table...which promptly collapsed. I told you it had a wobbly leg! All in all, Sympathy & Pity Day was a major success and we will all have to do it again soon! Today, I did indeed wear my Hospice Hottie shirt. The Hospice director singled me out in the morning meeting and made me stand up to model it. I think I turned beet red and all these crazy women were laughing and cheering, hooting and hollering. I felt like such a cheap slab of beef! I think I even heard someone shout "Take it off!" Did I miss my calling somewhere? Sheesh! I'll probably come in here on Tuesday to a strobe light, cash bar, a pole and "The Stripper" blaring over the p.a. system! Sadly for all of you that requested it, our Marketing director isn't here today and she had the digital camera. Perhaps I can ask R to take a picture once I get home but don't hold your breath. I can describe it to you though. I have the black t-shirt on, it's too tight since Pauline bought it small in order to accentuate my flawless (cough-sputter-hack) physique. I have on levi's with my black belt and on my feet I have on my black "ass-kickers" steel toed boots. I look like a motorcycle gang member actually and am surprised they haven't asked me to change! Maybe they're afraid of my Hospice Ho's that I have hanging around me? Despite all the crap I'm dealing with, I'm really looking forward to this weekend. First of all, the pool opening will be great. It's supposed to be in the 90's all weekend, perfect pool weather. I'll probably bake Ro's cake this evening for her birthday party tomorrow evening. We're just having 2 of the neighbor couples over for it but she's gotten a bunch of cards and gifts sent to the house by my family that she knows nothing about yet. Sunday will be the picnic/food/booze fest at Pauline's so I know that will be fun. She told me she is making some sort of boozey slush drinks too...sounds good to me. Monday will be our day to hang out at the pool and just chill. Hope everyone else has a great Memorial Day weekend as well. Talk to you all on Tuesday!

Happy Sympathy and Pity Day!!!

2006-05-25T05:43:00.000-07:00

Woo-hoo! It's finally here and the place is adorned in Sympathy and Pity Gaiety! I've put out a few doilies on my little card table and I'm sitting here in my folding chair just waiting for the first of the well-wishers to show up. What is the point of any of this you may be asking? Well, simple, my life is falling apart and you know what? I bet yours might be too! But instead of dwelling on it daily, I think it's much nicer to set aside one day where we can all be sympathetic and/or pathetic and heap a big pity party on ourselves. I'm here to offer you sympathy and pity as well! So bring it on and I'll do my best to give it right back to you! What do you think of the decorations? I really went all out on them in order to make this day unforgettable! See? It's times like this that it pays to live with a former floral event coordinator. I found this clever beauty and just knew she had to be on my little card table with the wobbly leg. Okay so nobody is getting married but still, wouldn't you just kill to attend a wedding or a wedding shower that featured decorations this cheap and cheesey? I know I would! For your added enjoyment, we have Special Guests!!! I have flown in Annette from Dance Party USA to regale us with backstage exploits and perhaps some interpretive dance entertainment! You go Annette! Annette will also perform a Lightning Lipsynch to select Madonna songs for your enjoyment. In addition to her, I had these girls come in to control the crowds. Don't be afraid, they're really very friendly gals...just don't cross me! These bitches know full well who they are here to protect so pony up with the sympathy and pity and nobody gets hurt...punk! Alright, I think everything is in place, it's time to take my seat and have my whores open the doors. WELCOME ALL!

Sympathy and Pity Day Rescheduled!

2006-05-24T08:03:00.000-07:00

I had completely forgotten that yesterday was the day that I was going to be accepting sympathy and pity here on my blog between the hours of 1 and 3 pm! This week has been one of those weird, unbelievably busy ones that come out of nowhere and it completely slipped my mind so I have decided that I am rescheduling this festival for tomorrow instead. Yes, and instead of having a 2 hour window, I have decided to declare the entire day "Sympathy and Pity Day!" I'm going to be setting up a gaily decorated little card table and sitting here, waiting for well wishers to come by and leave me a comment of sympathy and/or pity. It will be fabulous though, trust me! I was thinking of placing some little doilies on the table too, just because I like to use that word...doilies...it's such a stupid word. Anyway I will be accepting large gifts and small tokens of appreciation as well so if you've got some spare money lying around that you've been meaning to get rid of, this would be the place to do so tomorrow. Hmmm...maybe I can do some sort of contest too or have a drawing, something like that. I guess I'd have to be the prize though...oh that will drive them away. I'll think of something between now and then, don't you worry about it! Not too much new and exciting around here really. One of our nurses was bitten by a Copperhead snake yesterday while out watering her plants! Copperheads are most definitely poisonous so she ended up spending the night in the hospital but is back here today and is fine. I pretty much ban the kids from playing in the woods about this time of the year because the snakes come out in full force. There are so many poisonous ones around here too so you just can't be too careful. I think it was a baby Copperhead that the cat brought into the living room in his mouth last summer. That was a real joy! I'm not really afraid of snakes, in fact I think they are kind of fascinating and I love to watch them but I definitely respect them and keep my distance. I can't tell which are poisonous and which aren't but I certainly don't care to be bitten in order to find out. I don't know, I attribute my liking them to growing up across the street from a guy who had about 5 snakes as pets and he would let them out to crawl around in his front lawn and we were allowed to come over and hold them and stuff. I thought they were so cool! Now spiders, there's my downfall...my Kryptonite so to speak. I was invited to a Sunday food and booze fest at Pauline's this weekend. It should be a lot of fun...hey, free food and liquor, how could you go wrong? Plus Julie, the ex-nun, will be there and I just love her to death. I'll have her table dancing if it's the last thing I do! Saturday evening we are having a small group of immediate neighbors over to celebrate Ro's 7th birthday which is actually tomorrow but I won't make the cake till Sat. morning. Or else on Friday night if it rains and we don't go up to the pool for cocktails. I'm going to make my gramma's old world Nut Cake from the recipe that has been passed down in the family from my great-gramma. It's one cake that I make from scratch and it's actually fairly easy. Yummy too! So before Pauline invited me to the picnic on Sunday, she had come into my office to inform me that the Board of Directors has heard so many wonderful things about the job I do here that they have decided to review my position within the next two weeks and will probably be giving me a raise! Yes folks, believe it or not, I actually DO work while I am here during the day! And I'm damn good at it too! I am the dream employee, I kid you not, I can do anything once I'm shown the procedure and I will do it faster and better than anyone before me. I've had former employers literally CRY when I've left them in the past. So with that said, why am I such a loser in the job game? Haven't figured that one out yet. Anyway, she said it is recognized that I do waaaaay more than what my original job description ever outlined and they want to compensate me for that. I suppose I should be more excited about all of this than I feel at the moment. Maybe it's just because I'm more stressed out over R's situation...a raise in my pay isn't really going to solve any of our more pressing financial issues. I mean, I'll take whatever they give me, but the fact is that I KNOW it still won't be enough to make the mortgage payment as well as pay all our other bills. Anyway, it's nice to feel appreciated and my inside sources here are always telling me how I am praised constantly during all of the closed doors meetings that go on. Yesterday I was over at Brian's "Acid Reflux" blog watching a disturbing, yet lovingly made, video of a girl sleeping in a diaper and wetting herself. I'm still not really sure what the point of such a video would be and I'm not really sure I want to know! It brought to mind memories of when R and I went to a Fetish Ball back in Cleveland. Now honestly people, I'm about as vanilla as they come but I'm not really judgemental when it comes to what puts the wind in other people's sails. Mostly, I just kind of look at it as a Freak Show, strangely intriguing in some ways but definitely not for me. So R wanted to go to this one they have called "The Organ Grinders Ball" and I was pretty much dragged against my will knowing I couldn't care less about any of it. The name alone is so cheesy..."organ grinder"...get it? Hardy har har. I just feel like all that time in California, I think I saw it all...I'm jaded. Anyway we go and he not only drags me but insists on wearing a collar and I have him on a leash! This is so not us! LOL! I don't know, maybe that's what he wants us to be though? We're walking around and he's fascinated by all the booths and things going on. I'm just looking at it all like it's nothing, bored, none of it is a turn on to me....oh, there's someone getting whipped....here's someone getting electric shocks....there's a person wrapped in saran wrap - must be pretty hot and uncomfortable in there - doubt I'd want to eat those leftovers!...there's a guy jacking off his boyfriend on the dance floor - my thoughts "Eeew! I don't want to step or dance in THAT!!!" Then I saw it, the sight that stopped me in my tracks, something I'd heard about before but had never actually seen. Before me, in large baby cribs were adults dressed in diapers and crawling around within, some wetting and pooping their diapers. Infantilism...Diaper fetishists...I think there is actually a difference between the two but in my book, they were just some seriously warped freaks in need of intensive therapy! Now like I said, I don't consider myself to be judgemental but this one is so far beyond my comprehension that it's difficult not to be. I mean...come on, what's up with that???!!! I just was dumbstruck by the fact that not only were these people advertising this oddity but it was being celebrated! Eh...it takes all kinds I suppose. I think now though, that I can actually say "I've seen it all" and mean it. Not long after that we were at my mom's and I was telling everyone about the freak show. My younger brother was up from Columbus and he just thought it hilarious. The next time I saw him he presented me with a t-shirt that he bought off the internet from a diaper fetishist site called "Diaper Pail Friends". It has an illustration of a smiling, happy-housewife type carrying a grown man in her arms. The man is wearing a diaper and has a pacifier in his mouth and underneath it says "Diaper Pail Friends". I will admit to having worn the shirt one time...to a party where the theme was to wear clothing you owned that you would never be caught dead in public wearing (come on...we all have something!). I also wore my vintage 2-tone stacked leather platform shoes with it. I still own the shirt and the shoes.

Happy Anniversary to me.

2006-05-23T06:25:00.000-07:00

Yesterday was my one year anniversary here at Hospice. I can't believe how fast the year flew by and how much I have come to love working at this place. In all the years that I've been out in the workforce, I can only think of one place that I worked at that I truly hated with a passion and that would have been the sign shop that I was working at in Pinehurst right before I came here. I didn't like my co-workers, I didn't like the owners, I didn't like the job. The owners were nice enough to your face but every Friday, without fail, they would come in with the worst attitude and in the foulest of moods. Why? Because it was payday and they actually had to pay us, the employees! They were so snippy about it that you almost felt guilty for accepting your check. Almost mind you! I was always sure the thing would bounce but surprisingly it never did. There was one girl who had only been there 2 weeks longer than I had but she, for whatever reason, decided she was my boss! She would assign all the crap work to me...basically whatever she didn't want to do. Then she would sit at the computer and do all the "fun" design work while I slaved away in the un-airconditioned half of the workshop. Yes, you read that correctly, 95 degrees, 95% humidity and NO AIR CONDITIONING! Talk about a sweat shop! It always struck me as funny when I would be sent out to do a window lettering installation and the customers would confide in me how much they disliked that girl and how come I wasn't the one who helped them and designed their sign or lettering? Ha!!! Because the world is run by morons is what I wanted to tell them but I remained professional. Then there was the guy that actually fabricated the signs. Rednecks don't come any redder than that one! I would cringe every time he ever spoke in my direction for the sole reason that I couldn't understand a single word he uttered. It was just a slurred and garbled mess, no annunciation skills, no recognizable words or clues that this was the English language you were hearing. The worst was when he ended whatever it was he was "saying" with a question. Realizing I was expected to answer, I'd be like "Huh?". He'd repeat it. Me: "Whaaaat?" . One more time. No earthly clue! My solution was to just sort of follow him, hoping he would lead me to whatever it was he expected me to do or showed me what he was asking me about or whatever! I can fully comprehend what a person has to go through when they go to a foreign country and can't understand the language. I may as well have been in Uzbekistan! I lasted three months in that hellhole until Judy told me that the position I have here was opening up. I normally would give 2 weeks notice to anyplace I've ever worked but that dump got 2 days notice and I was outta there! I won't even put it on my resume, I'd rather just forget those 3 mos. ever happened. So yesterday I'm sitting here at my desk and I hear Pauline page me overhead to come to her office. I walk down there wondering if there is going to be a big surprise party with cake, ice cream, party horns, the works! I walk into her room and there are about 3 of the other girls standing around already laughing. I said, "What? What's so funny?". Pauline said, "Remember last week when we were talking about Bike Week?" Last week was Bike Week in Myrtle Beach. Apparently it's quite a big deal if you are a motorcycle enthusiast. I am not. Pauline and her hubby are big biker nuts. I was joking with her last week when I told her we were going to the beach that weekend and she asked me if we were going to Bike Week? I said (knowing full well that she was going to be there), "Oh my God no! The last thing I want to do is hobnob with all of that biker trash!" Pauline said, "Hey! I'm going to be down there!" I said, "Oh Pauline, you will look for any excuse to gallavant around in a leather bikini top with leather hotpants that have the words 'Hospice Hottie" emblazoned across the rear end!" Now trust me here, Pauline is NOT someone you would want to see in that outfit. She about fell over laughing. Fast forward to yesterday in her office. She pulls out an article of clothing and says to me, "I brought you a gift from Bike Week that you will be wearing here on our dress down Friday". Immediately I thought, "help me." She unfurls a black t-shirt that she had custom made for me with flames all over the front and the words "HOSPICE HOTTIE" emblazoned across it! I was laughing so hard I practically had tears in my eyes. I said to her, "That looks awfully small for me" and she said, "I purposely bought it too small so that we get to see all of your body underneath." Clearly these women are crazed. Everyone in the office agreed to not say a word so as to surprise all the others when I walk into morning meeting with that shirt on. So on Friday, I will be the Hospice Hottie for the day. I'm hoping that someone has their digital camera and will take a picture for me to post here. I do so love to bring sunshine to the lives of others! Last evening Patsy invited us over for dinner. We had a lovely time sitting on the patio, eating, drinking wine and looking out over the lake. It just made me realize how much I don't want to have to go back to Ohio. Ugh. Yesterday I was thinking about that and realized that if we have to leave, it will most likely mean the end of my blog too. I could never get away with this at my old job that I might have to go back to. They actually made you work there! Imagine!!! Then there is the fact that my mom still uses dial-up. Don't think so! Plus I don't know where I'd find the time or privacy to maintain this there. Who knows? Guess I'll cross that bridge when the time comes. Geez, I need to find some new avatars and I don't even have the time to do that here these days! We learned that the pool was open last weekend so I guess that means we will probably be having cocktails up there this Friday evening and I'm looking forward to it. I've missed the pool social circuit! Care to join us? I may not be had for the price of a cocktail but I will be wearing my Hospice Hottie shirt!

I Wanna Go Back!

2006-05-22T08:09:00.000-07:00

That sums up our wonderful weekend perfectly. We had a great, fantastic time and it flew by way too fast! Isn't that the way it always goes? Friday evening was spent packing, doing last minute cleaning for the open houses and getting the laundry out of the way. I was exhausted by the time 11 rolled around and I was folding that last load of clothes. Is preparing for a trip, no matte how short it is, this stressful for everyone or is it just my borderline OCD kicking in and making it such hell for me? Got up Saturday morning, got the kids fed and rushed around doing all the last minute junk like running the vacuum one more time, etc. We finally got out of the house at 10:56 a.m., almost an hour later than I wanted to leave. Most of it was R's fault, he just waits till the last minute for everything - packing, taking his shower, just everything. I swear he does it to piss me off, I just know it! Anyway we finally got on the road and got down to the beach about 1:30 since we had to stop to eat on the way. It normally wouldn't have taken that long. The house. Oh. My. Stars! Glorious! Judy's house is directly on the Intracoastal Waterway and it was as amazing as I had heard. The first level is an in-law suite with it's own kitchen, living room, bathroom and bedroom. R and I stayed in there with the 2 little ones on the pullout sofa. The other 2 boys stayed in a bedroom upstairs. The house is 3 levels and the whole back is practically all glass so everywhere you go you have this fantastic view of the Intracoastal and then beyond it, across the island, you can see the ocean too. I don't know how she manages to pull herself away from it every Sunday and come back here for work! The relaxing atmosphere is so seductive...I'm afraid if it was mine, I'd never leave. She has a long pier that juts out into the Intracoastal and at the end there are benches and a ramp down to her floating dock. I took the kids out there and they went swimming right off the bat. It was kind of fun sitting on the floating dock because, when the wakes of boats going by hit the dock, it would roll up and down like an amusement park ride. I'm so simple, I know. One of the "bonus" highlights of the weekend was that Judy's 36 yr. old gorgeous, divorced, single son was there as well with his two little boys. It's always a good thing to have in-house eye candy and he most certainly was that! Tousled, spikey sandy-blonde hair, a nice well-maintained beard, drop-dead deep blue eyes, tanned and toned...big sigh.... He had his boat docked at the end of the pier so we all went for a cruise that afternoon. The kids loved it until he took us through the channel and out into the open ocean. Sweet Jesus of Jersey! It was so rough out there that in no time we had 3 of the 6 kids screaming and in tears. I just sat up there on the bow holding onto our little T, trying to calm him down and laughing everytime we crashed through another huge wave and me getting soaked! He knew what he was doing so I wasn't too worried and obviously we made it back safely. It's a good thing I never get seasick! Ro, our 6 year old, is such a daredevil, she loved every second of it, right up there at the very point of the bow, laughing her head off! That girl is fearless! After the cruise we came back and some of the gang went out on the Jet Ski for a bit. I took my shower and helped Judy start dinner. We had pork done out on the grill. Delicious!!! Judy is an excellent cook and there was a ton of food. We spent the evening sitting out on the balcony, overlooking the water, watching the boats go by and drinking and laughing. What a perfect day! I basically passed out so I only remember the last thunderstorm that rolled through around 4 a.m. but R told me that it had stormed all night, one after another. I loved it...well the one that actually woke me from my drunken stupor that is! Sunday morning dawned bright and sunny. We started the morning all going out on the Jet Ski after breakfast. Then we took the kids and drove over to the island and went in the ocean. The water was a little cold still but I got used to it pretty quickly. We stayed a couple hours and went back to the house for lunch. Judy grilled hot dogs, hamburgers and chicken for everyone. After lunch some of the kids wanted to fish off the pier so I sat out there and relaxed. R and Judy's son took K and went out on the boat. They ended up going up past Southport and around Cape Fear...a LOOOOONG ride! I wanted to go but a couple of the kids were still too freaked from our ocean voyage the previous day so I agreed to stay with them at the house. Anyway, they got back a little after 4 and we said our goodbyes and headed home. What a great time! Judy told me today that she wants to do it again soon so that's good. The kids were well behaved the entire time and they had a blast so I think they'll get some good memories out of it. It was nice for them to have TR's kids (Judy's son) there to play with too. For me, it was just nice to have TR there! teehee! We got home and came crashing back to the reality of unemployment and uncertainty about our future but at least we had one hell of a weekend. It ended with us watching the finale of Desperate Housewives. I was disappointed. Nothing really all that earth shattering happened and frankly, aren't we tired of Bree falling for psychos? I mean...really. Enough already.

Party Weekend!

2006-05-19T07:00:00.000-07:00

Hey everybody, PARTY WEEKEND!!! Okay, so it's not actually Memorial Day weekend or anything but nevertheless, it will be a fun one for us. Remember last week when I blogged about my horoscope saying that Beautiful People were seeking me out to extend invitations to join them in exotic locales? Well, today one of them found me!!! Judy, my coworker and neighbor, extended an invitation for all of us to join her at her beach house this weekend down at Holden Beach!!! She wanted us to come down tonight but I think we will leave in the morning. I have to do laundry tonight and a bunch of other little things to prepare for the two open houses. If I'd known yesterday, then I could have gotten more done but that's okay. It will still be a great weekend if we get there around lunch tomorrow. I haven't seen her beach house before but I heard from Patsy that it's amazing so I'm looking forward to it. Now if only the weather is good. Yesterday morning they were saying sunny and 85, this morning it changed to 80 and a chance of thunderstorms. Either way, I'm sure it will be fun and the kids will be so surprised. Still no word on that job that sounded so good. I think it was through a headhunter though so it's likely that they are waiting to see who applies and then weed out the ones who are possible candidates. Still keeping my fingers crossed! Speaking of jobs...as one of my many "Escape Plans" should we lose the house here, I contacted my friend Shirley back at the printing company I used to work for in Cleveland to ask if they needed anyone in case we have to return to my mom's house to live. Oh my stars! The response I got was joyous! She was basically prepared to drive down here and help us pack if it meant I would be coming back there to work. In addition to that, she mentioned that another one of our former co-workers would probably kill to hire me at the place she's at now if I didn't want to go back to the other one. I have to admit that it was rather encouraging to know I have a couple options available but honestly, I really don't want to go back to the print world. I don't know...it was an okay job, I was definitely good at what I did and the pay was good but I feel like it would be such a big step backwards. Not that beggars can be choosers, I know that. It would just be a personal setback but I'm still prepared to do it if that's what it has to be. I guess the biggest stumbling block would be that R's field doesn't exist in Cleveland. If he found something where it didn't really matter where we live (kind of like this last job), then it's no big deal but otherwise, what's he going to do? His field definitely pays the bigger bucks compared to mine. Decisions...decisions.... I hate making decisions. Oh that's right, I already told you that. Yesterday I was reading blogs and came across someone who really seemed to be struggling with some issues that I could, unfortunately, relate to all too well. Anyway, I wrote him a comment and apparently what I had to say was very helpful to him because he wrote the kindest thank you to me on his blog. I just felt so damn good after that! Imagine, stupid old me actually having something to say that was useful to someone else! To be honest, I don't see that I really have much worthwhile to contribute so it was really nice to feel that way for a little while. Faux-cousin called me last night to kill some time. I was going to watch the finale of Will & Grace but I talked to her instead since I knew that would provide me with some real laughs. She was telling me that she had to call people yesterday to find out what people who don't work do with their time. She said she's going stir-crazy and it hadn't even been 2 full days since she lost her job. I told her to clean her house (she's not the best housekeeper)! I told her she is free to come visit us but that she'd have to bring her own food since we can't afford to feed anyone else. But it would be fun to have the company. Now for my new Friday Feature, the "Lurker Look-Out!" Today's special lurker is Washington, Pennsylvania!!! Hello Washington! I've actually driven through your town once. Here's a big blog hug and your Dating Game Kiss from the good people who bring you "It's a Sunshine Day!" Good ole' SW PA. My great grandparents used to live in Uniontown and I have fond memories of going to visit them when we were little. We would be sent outside to play so the adults could visit. The railroad tracks (which were used quite frequently) ran directly behind the house so we would walk the tracks for miles. Aah yes, the good old days when parents couldn't have cared less where their kids were, as long as they weren't bugging them! I'm happy to report that last weeks featured Lurker, Littleton, CO, did briefly return to this blog during the week. Come on folks, I'm not trying to scare you away! I love my readers, including the lurkers...of which there are many. So who will next week's featured Lurker be? Tune in to find out! This is exciting isn't it? Have a delicious weekend everyone!

The World Has Gone Mad

2006-05-18T06:21:00.000-07:00

I'm now officially convinced of that. Or maybe I should just say that it's this country that has gone mad. I've never been more disgusted and embarrassed to be an American than I have been over the last 5 years...since about 5 or 6 months after 9/11 happened. First of all, what is with this insane stock market which has become wildly out of touch with reality? You'd think it was the feel-good Clinton years all over again with the Dow reaching record highs and everyone getting rich and having jobs, a growing economy, everyone feelin' groovy. Except that none of that is really happening! My 401k is just as sucky as it was 6 years ago, the economy is falling apart, the price of everything is going up thanks to greedy oil companies, there are no jobs out there other than low-paying service sector work. And yet look at that stock market go! That was until yesterday when it fell drastically again. I've become such a cynic that I have to wonder if this shitty administration is somehow manipulating that as well in order to brainwash all of us into believing just how GOOD things really are!!! Big smiles everyone! Life is grand! Being an American has never been better! BULLSHIT! With everything that they are guilty of these days, I just can't put anything past them, no matter how "conspiracy theory" nutjob it sounds...I now believe they are capable of it. It's 1984. War is Peace! Big Brother is watching! My guess is that thanks to the Bush Administration, the only ones that the "Good Times" are rolling for are the giant corporations that have bought out the government and don't give a damn about people. What's really depressing is to think how much worse it could get over the next 3 years that we're stuck with these morons! Oh my head hurts! The 90's were a wonderful time for R and I. We weren't rich by any means but we were comfortable and never lived with worries about job security or not having any money to pay the bills. Heck, even the one time I got laid off from a job, I was allowed to collect unemployment for an entire year and it was actually enough to get by on! Those days are certainly gone. Now we live with constant worry about EVERYTHING! We worry about keeping a roof over our heads, we worry about being able to afford basic necessities, we worry about our kids having to grow up in a world with a far more realistic nuclear annihilation threat than I ever had to live with thanks to insane religious fanatics. Yes, it really is a beautiful world we live in! My faux-cousin called me last night to inform me that as of Tuesday night, her job officially went to India and she is now unemployed as well. At this point, she's not too terribly worried because she got a 10 week severance package which we both thought was pretty good but I warned her, 10 weeks will FLY by! It doesn't bode well for me because she and I used to do the exact same thing as far as our jobs went. The printing and graphics field in Cleveland used to be huge but now it's pretty much gone, like everything else. She was working for a large legal printer who had slowly been shifting all their work to India for the last three years. She kind of saw it coming but didn't want to believe it would happen. It just makes me wonder what will happen in this country once we don't actually DO ANYTHING here anymore. We certainly don't manufacture anything here now, those jobs went to China. Now the white collar jobs are heading overseas as well, all for the benefit of the corporate bigwigs. What happens when the people of this country don't have the money to spend on the garbage that we are so fond of consuming here? With no jobs, there isn't going to be any income to blow on X-Box's or any of the other crap that we're told we can't live without. Are we headed for a collapse? Where does this all end? As it stands where I live right now, your only hope is a job in the medical field. That's it. The textile industry used to be huge here but it went overseas. Now all that's left are retail and service jobs unless you can work in healthcare. So all of this begs the question...where exactly is this booming economy we keep hearing so much about? Not to go out on too much of a sour note....R found a job advertised yesterday that was so incredibly perfect for him. I helped him tweak his cover letter to fit the ad and we faxed it and his resume last night. Keep your fingers crossed on this one! It's the most hope I've had in weeks and I know it's dangerous to even get my hopes up but somethings gotta give here. Beach forecast for Saturday, Sunny and 85 degrees!!!

Interlewds

2006-05-17T08:18:00.000-07:00

Well, it's a "sort of" Interlewds I guess.... Yesterday I was sitting here, probably not working as usual, when my phone rang. It was Cheryl calling me from our patient facility out back (just a short walk across the parking lot is our 6 bed house for patients with a >3 mo. life expectancy). Cheryl: Will you look something up for me on the internet? Me: (big dramatic sigh) Do you have ANY idea how busy I am here?! (I still giggle thinking about what a lie that was! teehee!) Cheryl: Just shut up and pull up Google for me and type in "Bifidus Regularis". Me: What? What the Hell is that? Cheryl: That's what we're going to find out. I want to know exactly what it is that I'm putting in my mouth. Me: Okay...this is what I've found... "The human digestive system is naturally inhabited by billions of bacteria called the intestinal microflora. You begin acquiring this internal ecosystem in infancy and by the time you've reached adulthood, there are as many as five hundred bacterial species in the colon alone, including bifidobacteria. Bifidus Regularis™ is a unique and highly beneficial strain of bifidobacteria only available in Activia®." Cheryl: Okay, so it's a bacteria. Me: Yes, but it's a "FRIENDLY" one! Nevertheless, it appears to me that you are basically consuming something that was harvested in someone's colon. Enjoy! Cheryl: click.

My Secret Family

2006-05-16T06:34:00.000-07:00

That is how I see many of my blog-friends on here...as being my Secret Family. You are the people that I can tell anything to and not have to face the repercussions that might come with spilling my guts in real life. It's kind of strange when you think about it really. I am nearing my one year anniversary of blogging (I started in June over at Xanga before moving to Crapster and then coming here) and when I look back, I'm amazed at how well I have gotten to know so many of you people out there. I've come to think of you as a kind of family unit. Sometimes things happen in my life and I actually find myself thinking, "Oh, wait till I tell everyone about this on my blog!" I would go so far as to say that you know more about how I really feel and think than most of the people in my day to day "real" life know. To my knowledge, none of my family or friends know anything about this blog and that is the way I would prefer it. A lot of people that blog do it to keep in touch with their "real" friends or else they all seem to know one another...having met in person on occasion. I couldn't even imagine that being the case. For me, my blog has always been like my diary...my personal space that I can spew nonsense or rant and rave about something that bugs me, or pour out my deepest hopes and fears without having to face anyone afterwards and feel embarrassed or stupid for anything I wrote. That doesn't mean that there haven't been times where I did feel stupid or embarrassed because believe me, there have been a few! But at least I didn't have to actually face anyone! Nevertheless, there are definitely some people I've "met" through blogging that I would love to actually one day meet in person. I can't say that will never happen because I have no idea where we might end up once R finds a new job so who knows? Anyway...what is the point of any of this? I have no idea. My thoughts are kind of scattered this morning. I just thought I would tell you that you are part of my Secret Family. That's all. So the realtor called yesterday and they want to do two open houses this weekend, one on Sat. afternoon and one on Sun. afternoon. The Sat. one is fine because we are still planning on that trip to the beach so we won't be around anyway. The Sun. one, geez, I have no idea where we can disappear to for 3 hours. Movies are too expensive and since we'll be spending money we really shouldn't spend on Sat., well, we just have to pull in the reins at some point. Oy! The very idea of attempting to keep the house immaculate for two whole days is overwhelming to me! The kids are bad enough, especially Ro, she is a total SLOB. But R is no better. In fact, he's worse than the kids are and it sucks that he's home all day now because he's a human tornado...disaster follows in his wake. I'm so glad we steamcleaned the carpeting last weekend though. It made such a difference. Now just watch...since we have absolutely no place to go - this will be the weekend that the house sells! Oh wouldn't that be a hoot! Actually it would alleviate the fear of losing the house altogether but it would raise the issue of where to go? It's expensive to move the contents of an entire house so we don't want to have to do it multiple times. Do we go back to my moms in Ohio and basically live for free but have absolutely no income because I'd have to give up my job? Or do we move into a cheap dump down here, I keep working and we wait it out till something comes up? Did you know I have a fear of making decisions? Probably because I'm certain that the decision I make is always the wrong one. That was something we talked about back in the days that I was in therapy. I just want someone else to make the decision for me. That way I can't hate myself for it being the wrong one. Insecurity...it's a beautiful thing! I do believe that I will be bored here this afternoon! I knew I did too much work yesterday, damn it! Well Sparkle Children, I hear a fax machine seductively whispering my name from down the hall. After that, I shall get comfy and catch up on your blogs. Sunshine kisses to all!

Busy!

2006-05-15T07:14:00.000-07:00

Hello Glitter Babies! Yep, BUSY is the one word to sum up my glorious weekend. But it was "busy" in a good way, not a nuisance kind of way. Friday night we had cocktails around the fireplace outside. Patsy and Andy came over and then Judy and her boyfriend came over with her two grandkids which our kids just loved. Judy works with me here and lives about 5 streets over in our development so she and I were catching up on workplace gossip. Geez, I thought I knew a lot! She knows everything! Patsy brought me a bottle of vodka as a pre-Mother's Day gift which was really sweet! However I was drinking Tropical Rum Punch because I wanted to get the mixer out of the refrigerator to make room for groceries. Always practical, even when it comes to boozin' it! Saturday morning, R and I did a big cleaning of the house. Now that the housekeeper is history, we must actually stoop to menial labor! Oh! If my glamorous friends could only have seen me on Saturday morning! Honestly, good help is so hard to find and despite my few complaints about some of the cleaning the housekeeper did, damn, she was GOOD! Hopefully, if we can stay here, we'll get her back. Otherwise..... We got out the steam cleaner and steam cleaned all of the carpeting in the house except for two bedrooms that didn't really need it. Wow! That was a great investment. The carpets looked practically new again. It sucks having white carpeting with 4 kids but since the ground is primarily sand here, we don't have a big mud problem and they know they aren't allowed to wear shoes in the house. The playroom carpeting (which isn't white) really needed it bad and the difference was amazing. So that was a productive 3 hours! After that, I made lunch which we all ate al-fresco and we taught the kids to say "al-fresco" and know what it means. I did some work around the yard. Transplanted a few black eyed susans that reseeded themselves in a place that was not to my exact specifications. How DARE they! But I'm not anal about it or anything! Let me think here...what else? Oh, yes, I played baseball with K & C for a bit. Well, it wasn't actually baseball, I was just pitching the ball to them and they were batting it. I truly SUCK at throwing a baseball but it couldn't have been too horrible because they were actually hitting it and doing a good job at it too! I couldn't help but think to myself when I was out there, "My dad NEVER did anything even remotely close to this with us when I was younger!" My fear of baseballs is still there though. Everytime one of them would hit the ball, I would immediately turn my head and reflexively shield myself (Not THE FACE!) and recoil. R sat on the lawn laughing his ass off over it. It's not even a "real" baseball, it's actually a T-ball which is much softer but nevertheless, if something comes flying toward me, it's instinctive to duck and cover! After a bit of that, we took the kids down to the beach and let them swim in the lake for about an hour. I laid down on one of the benches and half-dozed. It was such a beautiful day and very relaxing. The lake is still too cold for me but the kids insisted it wasn't bad. Diehards! After that we went back to the house and I cooked dinner. I decided to try an Indian dish with beef, curry, brown rice, tons of veggies and a bunch of other seasonings. It was really delicious! I was so pleased with how well it turned out and everyone else liked it as well. We are adamant about exposing the kids to different foods, flavors, tastes. I think it will only benefit them in the future. Most people hear the word "curry" and say, "Oh I don't like anything with curry in it!" but this was very subtle and not at all overpowering. We'll have that one again for sure. After dinner we went outside again and threw frisbees with the kids and then played baseball with all four this time. Even the two little ones seem to possess some sort of athletic skill so maybe they won't suffer the humiliations I had to endure as a pathetically uncoordinated child. Sunday...Mother's Day. Woke up and got the grocery shopping over with early. Came home and sat outside drinking coffee. Since we are both mothers and fathers to our kids, they presented us with all the Mother's Day cards and crafts that they had made in school for us. I was actually surprised and impressed that this year the teachers were all sensitive to our non-traditional family and helped the kids create cards and letters that were appropriate to their home situation. One of them said "Happy Parents Day", one said "Happy Dad's Day" and another said "Happy Mother's Day" but the note inside said something to the effect of "You are both a mom and a dad to me....". K forgot his at school so he promised we'd get something this evening. Anyway, last year the teachers were just morons when it came to how to handle Mother's Day with our kids. This year, apparently it was better thought out. I decided that Ro and I would spend the afternoon doing "girly" things since she is the only one who has real issues with not having a mom anymore. Before all of that though, we all went up to the playground for a while and then rode our bikes back like maniacs in order to beat an impending thunderstorm (we made it!). We set up chairs inside the garage doors and sat and watched the storm. "Garage-sitting" is an ancient Cleveland ethnic tradition that has long served as a source of amusement to me so the fact that I was actually partaking in this hallowed tradition was not lost on me. It was a great storm though and when the sun came out and it was still raining we all went out to search for a rainbow. Ro and I went in and watched an episode of Project Runway that my sister had taped for me. I already know who wins but it was still fun to watch since our crappy cable company doesn't carry Bravo down here. Then the two of us went in the kitchen and baked White Chocolate Chip Cookies which turned out great. I LOVE white chocolate! She helped me put together dinner as well and then asked if we could go watch one more "fashion show" before we ate so we took in another Project Runway. After dinner I gave her a bath, washed her hair and we played around with different hairstyles before bed. So that was our "girly" day of doing mother/daughter things together. I finally got a chance to sit down and call my own mom and wish her a happy mothers day. She reiterated her offer of a place to live but I told her it will be a last-resort thing. I'm just CERTAIN someone will call this week about a job. I just feel it. I'm sure I've jinxed things now by writing that. Oh well. Positive Attitude!!! We decided that next Saturday we are going to throw outrageous gasoline prices, the fact that we can't afford to do anything and all reason and logic to the wind and take a trip to the ocean so the kids can go swimming. We only went to the beach (at the ocean as opposed to the one two doors down) once last summer and it rained! Anyway, so far the weather report looks really good, low to mid 80's and sunshine so we're keeping our fingers crossed. We are thumbing our noses at the cruelties of joblessness and impending homelessness and just living our lives. Here's to going down in a hail of glitter! NO! Not going down THAT way, you sick perverts! LATE EDIT: I almost forgot...apparently my Lurker Shout-out scared Littleton, Colorado away since they haven't been back. Oh! You missed the point. I wasn't being mean. I was just welcoming you! I have this Friday's all set for a big Dating Game Kiss too! Lookout Lurkers!

Going Down A Flamer!

2006-05-12T09:58:00.000-07:00

Well, okay, not really a "flamer" since I'm not much of a sissy-boy in real life. I don't walk around flapping my hands at the wrist and saying things like "Oh honey!" and calling other guys "girl" or "girlfriend" and I don't wear glittery clothes or dress in drag or anything. So no, not that kind of a flamer. But I've taken a new stance regarding our crashing downfall. I got an email from someone I don't really know all that well but whose blog is among my most favorites. That person told me basically that if they were in a similiar situation, they would want to deal with it with grace and dignity and a smile on their face. And I thought to myself, hey...that sounds like it could be fun! In addition to that suggestion, I've been inspired by Brian's Acid Reflux blog and how he handles his HIV status with such glamour and panache. So I have decided to take this all with a dash of Doris Day "que sera, sera...whatever will be will be" flair and run with it. With that said, as I stand amidst the ruins of my crumbling life, I want to officially announce to all my readers...Let the Festivities Begin! I've had the song, "It's a Beautiful World" by Devo running through my head all day. I suppose that can be my theme song now. "It's a beautiful world we live in/A sweet romantic place/Beautiful people everywhere/the way they show they care/makes me want to say/It's a beautiful world....." I love that song! I was singing that song to Pauline in the kitchen earlier as she prepared the lunch she brought to share with me (Philly cheesesteaks and homemade pierogis!!!) and she said "Why are you singing that?" I told her it was because I'm facing my demise with a sunshiney demeanor, a bright smile and just a hint of sparkle and glitter! Then I did a little happy jig! Yes, I'm really getting into this whole new outlook! It's kind of frightening how surprisingly easy it's been. So last night I spent an ungodly length of time on the phone with faux-cousin Linda. She was telling me all about her excursion to the Big Apple last weekend. She had met her friend from Montreal there and they decided to do some ultra-touristy things like go on the CNN Studios tour with the faint hope of seeing Mr. Anderson Cooper. No such luck. But oh did we laugh! We talked a bit about where good places to be homeless might be. I kept leaning toward warmer climates but she insisted that the homeless people she saw in Manhattan all looked really healthy and were very polite and friendly! I like New York so that could be a possibility! I told her that having witnessed the incredible poverty out here in rural NC, I'd much rather be destitute in an urban area. We'd have to find somewhere that doesn't have panhandling laws though. We figured we could clean up pretty good financially if we have the kids beg for the money being that they're really adorable and all that. Darling I love you but give this homeless family Park Avenue! Another weekend is upon us. We have no plans. I had hoped the pool would open tomorrow but it's not supposed to be all that warm so I doubt that will happen. It's been a cool May so far for down here. We're usually well into the 80's by now and sometimes even the 90's but that was most of April it seems. No, it's only been in the 60's and 70's lately which I don't mind but I want to hang out at the pool and forget my troubles, c'mon get happy! Hellow World! Hear the song that we're singin', c'mon get happy! I want to sip my cocktails poolside as if there is no tomorrow! I want to blast my cd of Miss Deborah Harry singing "I Want That Man (Almighty Mix)" which I ordered off the computer three weeks ago and, because it's not available in the US, I'm STILL waiting for the damn thing to arrive! I'm just hoping it gets here while we still have electricity turned on! Well, I suppose I should do some work here. First I might go into the restroom, look in the mirror and tell myself "I am thin and gorgeous!" a few times in order to get myself motivated. Motivation through Beauty I always say! And as a new feature on Fridays...I would like to do a "Lurker Shout-Out!" So here's a big Hello!!! and a Dating Game Kiss going out to Littleton, Colorado!!! I love you Littleton! Have a sparkling weekend and remember, BIG SMILES everybody!!!

Nothing to say....

2006-05-11T09:51:00.000-07:00

I'm just doing a lot of thinking about things today. I don't really feel like writing about any of it so sorry. I wasn't even going to post but a coworker gave me this picture that she took at the Hospice Easter egg hunt last month or whenever the heck Easter was so I thought I would post that. I think the caption should be "In happier times..." Despite what this picture shows, C (far right) is NOT retarded OR drunk! K (2nd from right) decided to start cutting his own hair so please note the atrocious uneven mess hanging over his forehead. Kids!!! I don't like when I have a closed-mouth smile/smirk. Yikes! I'm also happy to report that my "Farmers Tan" has been evened out. But overall I guess this picture is okay. It's a good picture of Ro though, but she tends to be pretty photogenic. Hmmmm...maybe we could become "stage parents"! She absolutely loves that skirt she has on and you can't see it here but she was wearing her cool new black shoes with the nice, chunky heel on them. Thanks to everyone who has written me or commented here. I should probably stress that I am not suicidal. You know how sometimes you just want to curl up and die? Well, that's how I feel. Anyway, I'm trying to take a new stance with all of this but I don't know. Moving on....we had a huge breakfast for Nurses Appreciation Day here at the office. I now know something for certain. I.AM.A.HOG.

Stepping Back

2006-05-10T07:27:00.000-07:00

Warning!: This post is pessimistic and depressing. It's me under bad lighting. So if you are looking for shallow, happy, nonsense, you can just stop now and leave. I'll understand. I know that people don't like "ugly" or "messy" and that's what this is. I know that when the going gets tough, most people will just back away and disassociate themselves from the situation. Fine. Buh-bye! I've lived long enough to understand human nature and I don't blame you. Having been a foster parent and an adoptive parent of 4 kids with troubled pasts, I understand ugly and messy all too well! Sometimes I wish I could get away from it too. So go on...git! I'm making a conscious attempt to step back from blogging until my life is back on firm ground and at this point, who knows if that will even happen. Right now I'm in a very dark place and I'm not seeing any light at the end. I have been thinking about it for a while now and I'm just not sure that I want the possibility of our life falling apart playing out as entertainment for people reading my blog. There's nothing any of you can do for us so why even bother going on about it? I'm feeling more and more worried and depressed about everything. People at work are telling me I'm not myself lately. I have emails I'm not responding too...it all just seems like too much. I'm having thoughts I shouldn't be having. I'm so consumed with the uncertainty of our future that I'm forgetting to do things pertaining to my job, screwed up the on-call reports for the nurses on Monday...that was after being told that I completely forgot to do them in the first place! I'm a Cancer though so it's probably natural for me to be taking this so hard. We're too emotional for our own good. I want to thank the people who have expressed concern. I don't think anyone out there really understands how much this is affecting me. I have these moments even here at work where I just start to think about "what ifs" and the tears immediately well up in my eyes. I've been unemployed in the past and we've definitely struggled but never before have we had so much at stake. Literally everything we've spent our lives working for could possibly be wiped away. We both have excellent credit and it scares me to death that all those years of paying my bills on time could be destroyed because some faceless corporation wanted to save a few thousand dollars every month. My name is on the house too and if we had to foreclose or declare bankruptcy, there goes everything. Even if I cash in my lousy 401k to buy some time, I'll have to pay the taxes on it, and it just means more uncertainty for my long-term future. I just can't believe any of this is happening to us. I'm not a perfect person but I've lived my whole life trying to be a good person and trying to always do the right thing or what I thought was right and now I just feel like we're being punished for something. I don't even understand that because I'm agnostic but it's as if someone or something has it in for us. Like we are always destined to have to struggle for what we have. I know...boohoo, poor me...shut the fuck up already. I'm sorry for blathering on about this. I know other people can't help. I know other people don't want to be brought down by it because they don't want to see the reality of what could really happen to us. I know it's all well-meaning but I'm sick of people telling me that "something will come along" and that "everything is going to turn out okay". Nobody can promise us that! R has sent out about 200 resumes and has only gotten 2 lousy phone calls back! Does that sound promising? I don't get these companies that place ads to hire people, he's perfectly qualified for the job but they never call. WTF? I guess I just don't want the fake concern, the pity. I know that if "The Worst" comes to fruition, people will just stand back and watch us go down in flames, tsk-tsking, shaking their heads and muttering "what a shame". I can't keep up the act anymore. I'm not as strong as some of you think I am. I'm not very resourceful. Even at work, people ask how it's going with the job search and I have to be all upbeat and positive and happy...even though inside I just want to scream and cry. They don't want to see that. They want to believe it will be just fine. And maybe it will be but until it is...I can't delude myself. I can't "pretend". I have to come up with an escape plan, figure out what we'll do, where we'll go. Some would say I'm probably overreacting, it's only been 2 weeks after all, but that silent phone tells me otherwise. I just feel like I'm sinking and there's nobody there to throw me a rope. I might still post, I might not. Nothing much really matters to me at the moment anymore. The realities are slowly starting to settle in. We let the housekeeper go yesterday (yay! more work for me!), broke it to the kids that the trip to Disneyworld is off, thinking about getting rid of the cell phones. The list goes on. Anyway...this is just veering off into more self pity. Who cares. You'd think I'd learn. Sweet Death, please come take me. I don't want to live this life anymore.

When it Rains, It Pours

2006-05-08T07:26:00.000-07:00

I've often said that "Murphy's Law" is the biography of my life. I seem to be a magnet for catastrophe or struggle, it's always been that way. If you compared me with my two brothers and one sister, their lives are all void of drama, struggles, hardships, disasters...you name it. Then you look at mine and it's like the Towering Inferno! Nothing ever goes the way it's supposed to, nothing is ever "easy", and if it is, then I should best expect it to all eventually collapse around me like a house of cards because history, or at least MY history, has proven that to be the case nearly every time. Trust me, it's not stuff that I bring upon myself, I guess the cosmos just don't like me very much. Even my mom sounds a bit apprehensive when I call her until she realizes that there hasn't been a new major disaster and I really am just calling to talk. She even once told me, "You're the one I have to still worry about". Anyway with all of that said, the latest cruel joke that fate has decided to throw at us happened yesterday afternoon. It wasn't bad enough that R lost his job two weeks ago, no we need to struggle some more! He was coming down the stairs yesterday afternoon and landed funny on his foot. Now he thinks it's broken. He can twist it without pain but he thinks it's a hairline fracture because he can't stand on it or put pressure on it. Well, when he lost his job, he lost his insurance as well so his diagnosis is about the best we are going to get. We called Patsy and she knew someone who has crutches so now that is how he is getting around. It's not easy though and it's hard for him to stand and actually "do" things so basically, he's confined to a chair for the most part. This only makes my life that much harder. The help I was getting with meals and what-have-you will now be severely limited. He's already worrying how he can travel should someone want to see him for an interview. Yes, it's a charmed life here! Don't you wish you could lead it? I'd be happy to step aside and let you have it, just say the word. I had an okay enough weekend. Saturday was such a beautiful day. We were supposed to go to some Bucky-Fest or Bucky-Bash...Bucky-palooza...whatever the hell it was called over in Rockingham. It was some silly all day concert being held for this heehaw Bucky that got the boot on American Idol. Unfortunately he is from this area, actually his mom lives 2 streets over from me in our development. She is not anything like the redneck yahoo that he portrays himself as in public. But Patsy wanted us to meet her there and we said we'd consider it. Well, we did and we decided to stay home instead. We oiled the new decktop and I did a lot of work around the yard. Then later in the evening we sat outside by the fireplace and had some wine. It was a really nice day and I got a lot accomplished. Sunday it rained all day long. I worked on a couple of cover letters for R and then did a craft with the kids for a while. We're sending the results to gramma for Mother's Day. After that I tried out a recipe from a new cookbook I have. I was underwhelmed. It turned out okay, it was just kind of bland. I have some ideas how to liven it up should I ever make it again. I think I'm depressed again. After dinner I gave the kids baths and washed hair, then I went into my bathroom and had a mini-breakdown. But I was okay in time for Desperate Housewives. I read my May horoscope over the weekend that said, "It may be a few weeks before you can get back on your game enough to answer the call of friends and Beautiful People who want you to join them in exotic places." Who are these "Beautiful People" that are seeking me out? I'd be happy to give them directions to find me in order to expedite their invitations to exotic locales. I'm about ready to walk out on my life.

High School Hellcats!

2006-05-05T08:44:00.000-07:00

This post is dedicated to my Blogsister, Kel - Brilliant Madness. When I was in about 9th or 10th grade, I didn't really have any "friends" as in people I called up and did things with on the weekends but I did somehow manage to get in with an odd group of burnout girls who - for whatever reason - took me under their collective wing. This may be part of the reason I never really got beat up or harrassed in school...not just because I was taller than most of them but because I was tight with the "Bad Girls", the tough chicks that were always just itching to kick someone's ass! It was a great charade because I only appeared to be tight with them since I was often seen in their company. The fact is that once school hours were over, there was no contact between us. I have no idea what they saw in me. I didn't smoke like they all did, this was prior to my drug experimentation so we didn't have that in common, I was a good student who didn't cut classes to hang out at "The Hole In The Fence" (which was literally just that...a hole in the fence behind the school...very popular class cutting/smoking spot). From what I can recall, I only got in with them because I happened to overhear Brigitte, the one who sat behind me in homeroom, talking about a mutual friend of ours from outside that school who I had no idea before that day was a "mutual friend". I said something to the effect of knowing her too and adding a couple mildly humorous anecdotes and that was it. Suddenly Brigitte talked to me on a semi-regular basis and because I knew Brigitte, I was just as suddenly being talked to by her gang of naughty girls. I was usually pretty quiet when I was around them...just watching, listening, observing. When I ever did make a comment, they would laugh hysterically as if it was the funniest thing that they'd ever heard. Apparently everything that came out of my mouth was really funny to them. I quickly realized what an easy crowd they were! Mostly though, I was just in silent awe of this band of teenage hellions. A lot of the time, they would stand around and bitch about how much they hated their mothers. That was simply unfathomable to me since I had a great relationship with my own mom and had never heard of someone proclaiming an outright hatred for the woman that brought them onto this planet. They all wore really tight, flared jeans (the first time they were in fashion...I'm old!), had fried/permed hair - a few even dared to bleach theirs which earned cool points with me, and waaaaay too much makeup. I can still envision the ultra-heavy applications of black eyeliner that I played witness to so many times. Oh and of course, there were the slutty halter and tube tops they seemed to favor - no matter how warm or cold it was outside. I fondly remember when one of them, Sue, got thrown out of Typing II class and sent home to change for wearing a halter top that Mrs. K had deemed "too low cut...this is a schoolroom, not a beach!" Sue made quite a scene about leaving the room but as she passed me on the way out, she nudged me in the shoulder. Our eyes met and she had a slight conspiratorial smirk on her face. All I could think was, "Oh my God! I'm cool!!!" I knew others had seen our wordless communication too...in my mind, I was "IN". One of the things that amazed me most was that these Hellcats all seemed to have boyfriends that were far older than they were. There were no 16, 17, or 18 yr. old beaus for these trollops. No sir, they were all talking about the 22 and 24 yr. old guys that they were "going with". At the time, I was envious and awestruck. In retrospect I have to wonder just what kind of twisted, immature perverts 22 and 24 years of age were "dating" 15 and 16 year old girls!!! Geez, I was so dumb back then! There were always stories about their dates. These babes weren't heading for the United Skates of America on a Friday or Saturday night. Instead their men were putting them in the car and taking them directly into Cleveland...a forbidden place for us suburban kids at the time...and getting them into bars and nightclubs! Positively UNHEARD OF for me back then! I lived vicariously through their neverending stories of drinking, smoking, drugging, throwing up, and of course the backseat sex...which seemed to be the only kind they ever had. They were the living proof that kids at that age really were having sex. Prior to them, I never believed it! The best part about our bizarre "friendship" was listening to them talk about their hopes and dreams. I always equated them with the girl Linda Blair played in "Sara T.: Portrait of a Teenage Alcoholic" because, like Sara T, they all seemed to be into Horses. Why was that such a late 70's teenage girl thing? To be "into horses" like they were so exotic or something. I mean, we lived in the congested suburbs of a big city. Nobody had horses! Nobody even knew anyone with horses! So where did any of that even come from? Most of them talked about a future that, surprisingly, didn't include a man in it. They used to always talk about how one day they would run away and leave their hated mothers and families behind without a word. They'd make them all sorry! The funny part is that their destinations were always completely ridiculous...places like Akron! Or Dayton! Please! If you're going to run away at least make it somewhere worth running away to! But at the time we were stupid. The typical spoken daydream would go something like, "I hate that bitch! One of these days she'll be sorry! She'll wake up and I'll be long gone. I'll go to Akron and I'll get myself a little farm and raise horses!" All the while unshed tears would be glistening in the speakers eyes. I wasn't quite as geographically savvy as I am now and failed to understand that Akron was only 35 miles away. I would sit there nodding my head in agreeance and understanding, thinking to myself "WOW! Akron!! I've never been there! How cool! And horses! I'm so jealous!" I used to think we had such a kinship since they felt "safe" sharing these beautiful dreams with me. I imagined Akron as some kind of far off Emerald City where everything was perfect. Now I think back and laugh out loud realizing how stupid we all were. Akron is just as ugly, dirty, old and congested as Cleveland was! There are no farms there and I'm pretty sure there would have been laws regulating the keeping of horses in the inner city. Much later, I would spend three years of my life living in the open sewer that is Akron. Never once saw a horse there. But sometimes I still wonder what ever became of those girls...Brigitte, Pat, Sue, the two Jennys, Laurie...there were more. Actually I know one of them, Laurie, came out as a Lesbian later on in life. I wonder if any of them ever got their horses or finally made it over the rainbow to Akron. Here's to you girls! The original "Bitches", long before that word ever became a term of empowerment and endearment.

Interlewds

2006-05-04T08:16:00.001-07:00

I just got felt up in the kitchen next door to my office! It's Julie's birthday today so they have 3 different cakes on the table for us to help ourselves to. Well, I went in there to get my three pieces and as I was leaning over the table, I suddenly felt a hand caressing and then squeezing my right butt cheek! I let out a startled "OOOH!" and turned to find Pauline and Bunny standing there with big grins on their faces. Pauline said, "That was nice!" I stood there in disbelief and Bunny said, "I bet he's got six pack abs under that shirt!" At that I couldn't help but let out a laugh. I said, "I'll just let you hold on to that fantasy and not ruin it by showing you what's actually there." Come on people! I had THREE pieces of cake on my plate!!!

DP USA!

2006-05-04T05:43:00.000-07:00

Is anyone else out there up to admitting a terrible secret from their past? I'm just wondering if I can get anyone else to admit to being closet fans of that mid-late 80's masterpiece, "Dance Party USA" that aired weekday afternoons on the USA network? It's okay, really, the statute of limitations on embarrassment over that show has now officially run out. Alright I'll go first. I LOVED "Dance Party USA"! This show was just an American Bandstand ripoff that was videotaped in ultra-glamorous Camden, New Jersey - one of America's centers of music and television talent! I have to tell you, during the years that this show was on, I was into my punk and new wave/underground stuff but I quickly got sucked into this pop spectacle soley because of The Dancers! The show cleverly fostered faux-personalities out of their dancers and we got to know and envy these kids as if they were the popular clique in high school that I always hated yet secretly wanted to belong to. A young Kelly Ripa even got her start dancing on this show! There was a big "rivalry" between Kelly and another dancer named Lillian over who had the "biggest" hair. They even once had a competition where the height and volume of the girls' hair was actually measured and a winner crowned. Unfortunately I can't remember for sure but I think it was Lillian...she did have some mighty big hair! Big enough that one would be extra careful around her with an open flame. I think Kelly went in more for "The Rake" look that girls mistakenly seemed to find flattering back then (frighteningly enough, I STILL see "rakes" to this day around these parts!). There was some fool named Bobby Catalano who constantly wore sunglasses and nobody knew what he actually looked like without them. They used to do this segment called a "Lightning Lipsynch" and this dork fancied himself a young George Michael. This was prior to George coming out of the closet...I wonder how embarrassed Bobby is now? Anyway, it was quite an event the day that Bobby removed his sunglasses for the camera and we all got to see him for the first time without. They even counted down the days until this grand unveliing of his eyes. This kid was the worst when it came to letting his "fame" go to his head. You just hated him for the smarmy act he put on whenver the camera was pointed in his direction, like he was seducing the viewers at home or something. Ick. The true Star of Dance Party was a large boned, poorly bleached blonde Madonna-wannabe named Annette. This chick wore the Madonna ensemble from the "Like a Virgin" era (bangle bracelets, lots of lace), complete with black bike shorts that she had absolutely no business wearing! Sadly, Annette was quite homely yet she definitely became one of the standout dancers on the show. I was happy for her as I doubted she would amount to much else in life. Hopefully she has proved me wrong. You go Annette! Whether it was all staged for the show or not, the kids all seemed to be coupled with significant others on the show...except for poor Annette. She seemed to either dance alone or with some nameless, faceless leftover. The BIG STAR of the show (in my book) was a young lovely named Heather Day who dressed only in purple and was known simply by the moniker "Princess" in homage to her idol Prince. (Not to be confused with the other Heather on the show who was called "Baby Heather") Princess wore lots of flowing scarves to accent her outfits and you knew she was the girl who probably had taken a lot of ballet classes since she tended toward very theatrical and interpretive styles of dancing. Her trademark was this silly little clear teardrop that was glued high on her cheekbone if I remember correctly. I know there was something "off" about it, like it was coming out of the opposite side of her eye from where her tear duct was. She probably didn't realize that though. Princess struck me as a tough chick, a "bad girl"...the kind who was probably always smoking off camera and sabotaging the other dancers in order to gain more air time. You just know those kids were vicious to each other. Once they had some kind of contest where the prize was having the cast of Dance Party USA come to your high school and dance (or something). They were probably so excited with the prospect of leaving Camden, NJ and going to a winning high school somewhere glamorous and exotic like Florida or California or something. It turned out that the winning high school was located in some godforsaken prairie town in North Dakota! North Dakota!!! Somehow the prospect of an upcoming, thrilling, action-packed trip to North Dakota just didn't carry the same cache' as say, a trip to Miami Beach might have. I got a good laugh out of watching the kids try to muster up some enthusiasm for it on camera. New Jersey may not be the south of France but North Dakota in the wintertime is akin to a death sentence! Anyone with half a brain would have rigged the outcome! I made numerous attempts to Google up some pictures of these crazy kids that occupy such a large place in my heart but it appears that there has been some ugliness in the form of legal rights so all photos of the gang have been removed from the internet! How sad is that? Please! They weren't that big of celebrities to begin with! Well, except apparently in North Dakota. So, there you have it. Now it's your turn, fess up! I couldn't have been the only one!

6 Things

2006-05-03T07:43:00.000-07:00

Babs tagged me to list 6 weird things about myself. Okay, I'm sure there are way more than 6 but I like to maintain some semblance of privacy in my life so I have had a hard time coming up with 6 things that I am comfortable enough sharing with a bunch of people I don't really know. With that said...here goes. 1. I chew on my index finger knuckles. I've done this for years and it's now really ugly to look at and sometimes people will say, "Eeew! What happened to your finger?!" which only makes me horribly self conscious. I don't wear rings or anything that would attract attention to my hands because of it. 2. Back in the 70's there was an anti-smoking campaign running that encouraged people to "Kick the Habit!". The commercials would show people suddenly thrusting themselves into the air and knocking their heels together. 30 odd years later, I sometimes walk into the hall outside of my office and do that. Just because it looks and feels incredibly stupid. It's a lot of fun. 3. I tend to make myself sound dumber than I really am. 4. I absolutely HATE talking on the phone. The sound of the phone ringing at home makes me cringe. It's an invasion of my private space and time. 5. I think about dying at least once every day. And not because I work at Hospice, I mean I think about MY dying at least once a day. It's usually in the sense that things are too overwhelming for me or that things would be much easier for other people if I weren't here. Or just sometimes it's about how easy it would be to veer the wheel to the sharp left and plow into that big tree. Pretty depressing, huh? Surprisingly, I wouldn't consider myself to be suicidal. I think too much. 6. There are still chunks of my life after the ski lift collapse that I don't remember. It's probably for the best though. Okay, there, I did it. Pretty boring huh? I guess I'm not that weird after all. Well, actually I KNOW I'm pretty weird but the stuff I find to be amusing, nobody else thinks is funny so I wrote this dumb stuff instead. I'm in a strange, blah mood today. But I still feel like dancing.

Let's Turn Up the Lights....

2006-05-02T05:59:00.000-07:00

and take some questions from the audience! Just don't ask me to do a Tarzan yell. My mind is blank today as far as what to write about. I asked for suggestions or questions one other time and never got any though but that's okay, I'm not really that interesting. I could always retell the story of how I dared my neighbor, Laura, to go and poop behind her garage when we were younger. I've perfected the imagery in my head to run like a film clip on that one! I received numerous requests for that pork recipe. I'd be happy to give it to you but the problem is that I never have it with me here at work. If I even attempted to recall and post it here from memory, you'd be in for a disaster so if I can remember one of these days to get it from home and write it down, I will post it. And by the way, it was delicious! Other than eat, I didn't do much of anything last evening. It was absolutely gorgeous outside so after dinner and doing my workout, I went outside and meandered around the yard for a while to look at my plants and see what might need some work this coming weekend. Pulled a few weeds, picked up some pinecones, then strolled down to the lake and sat on the benches for a while. It was very peaceful and calming. Still no word on the job front. I'm trying not to dwell on it since we're okay for a little while but nevertheless, it's ALWAYS there in my mind. I know how hard this is on R too so I'm just trying to be very supportive and help out in any way that I can. I polished up a couple other versions of his resume and a few of his cover letters over the weekend but other than that, I feel kind of useless. Outwardly, his spirits are pretty good but inwardly I know he's as worried as I am. The kids have no idea what's even happened. There's no sense in getting them involved in it at this point. I have a terrible confession to make. I am hopelessly addicted to these no-bake dessert bars. I buy 2 boxes every week and then make them after the children have gone to bed. I do not share. I sit on the couch and eat it all myself, ashamed and hating myself for my piggishness...yet loving every single creamy peanut buttery bite! What I don't finish, I HIDE in a cupboard so that it is there for me the next time I need my fix. No one knows of my secret love, I haven't the heart to put my family through more hurt nor the strength to turn my back on my newfound joy. If you haven't yet tried these gifts from satan himself, I invite you to join me in my addiction. Taste the pleasure! Come over to the dark side. Sheer bliss.

Take up knitting!

2006-05-01T06:33:00.000-07:00

Oh boy, "Anonymous" came back! I'm glad they did because I was able to look them up on my tracker so now they aren't quite as anonymous as they wished they were. Anyhow now they are attempting to throw my own words back at me. Surprise! I'm not apologizing for referring to myself as a snob once!!! Guess I hit a nerve with someone out there but that's okay. As I said before, it seems to be their problem. If everyone likes me, then I'm doing something wrong! Throwing my 5 yr. olds words at me about living in trailers (a bias he learned ELSEWHERE before coming to us I might add!) is meaningless to me. And besides, I've also said before that I see nothing wrong with my kind of snobbery...that being that I have always and will always prefer quality over junk...that I don't blindly accept everything that mainstream culture trys to cram down my throat with a smile on my face and a "thank you, may I have another" to follow. Yes, in that sense, I'm a snob and proud of it. Why would anyone feel bad for wanting quality or for being discriminating regarding what they have in life? Whatever...I'm dropping it since it's all quite stupid as far as I'm concerned. I suppose I should be flattered that someone went that far back in my archives to try to "nail me" or that my words had such an effect on them! Please, if you don't like me, my blog, what I write about, nobody is forcing you to read this at gunpoint (I don't think!). Get a hobby. I hear knitting is the trendy new pasttime these days! I did get an intelligent comment from someone named Jeff though, which I will elaborate on. First of all, thanks for commenting! I understand exactly what you said and I guess we each kind of read that in a different way. I took the "redneck" type of language as thinking that this idiot believed because I live in North Carolina, that is how I talk. I only "seperated" myself because anyone who has read me for a while knows I'm NOT from here. However, anyone who has read me also knows that I do love it here and have blogged many times in the past about the wonderful people we know here, the widespread acceptance that we've received, many good things about the South...or at least North Carolina. In fact, I have even told R that the more resumes he sends out to companies based here in the South, the better as far as I'm concerned! There's a lot to like about this area, I'll be the first to admit that. And you're right, not everyone is a hayseed on the front porch rocker judging everyone who isn't like them. It's spineless cowards like "anonymous" that seem to feel that way. We ended up having a busier weekend than I expected. Friday evening was really nice and cool out so Patsy and Andy came over and we had some wine around the fireplace outside. Saturday, the kids, R and I put the new decktop on our deck. The last guy we hired and thought we could rely on never bothered to call back and set anything up as to when he'd come and put it on! Okay, fine, three strikes and you're out. We saved the money and did it ourselves. It really was pretty easy since R and I used to actually build decks for people back in the early 90's. Yes, I can be very butch! The kids got a big kick out of helping by handing up the deck boards and being "Nail Boys" and "Nail Girl" and handing us nails. We let each of them pound some in too. I managed to get a mild sunburn on my back though which sucks. Sunday we worked on the little "finish" jobs and it looks really good now. Just another selling feature. R made pizza again for dinner and I had a slow roast pork going in the stove for 8 hours which we will have tonight. It's one of my favorites since it's roasted in brown sugar, apple juice and worcestershire sauce and the flavor is wonderful. It's another busy Monday here so I am off to the fax machine.

There's One in Every Crowd

2006-04-29T20:07:00.000-07:00

When I first learned that Ron had lost his job and that our lives were about to change drastically, I held off writing anything on my blog about it for fear that there were actually people out there who would somehow see it as I (or "we" as in me and my family) was getting something that I deserved. After a day of stewing over it, I figured "Fuck it, this is MY blog. I can write whatever I want to write on it". Well, the response I got was overwhelmingly understanding and supportive and I am grateful for all of the things people wrote to me. But as it always seems to be the case, there has to be at least one asshole in the crowd. I received this comment on my post "There's a lot to be said for Intuition" at some point on Friday afternoon/evening. Anonymous said... oh hale, der goes da country-club, here cums da trailer-park ! muahahahahahah! At first I was going to delete it and then I thought, no. I'd rather leave it up as a testament to the heartless stupidity of other people. This spineless coward who couldn't post a comment that actually left a name or a blog link is exactly the kind of moron who had me debating whether or not I should even share what had happened. Am I bothered by their remark? Yes. And no. Yes because of the "muahahahahahah!" (which asshole should have added one more "a" to the end of) that was stuck at the end. Why would anyone find it amusing that the provider to a family of six has lost their job? That's just so twisted that it isn't even funny. Is it funny that there is a serious and legitimate potential that innocent children's lives will be disrupted in many ways because it somehow served to improve some faceless corporation's bottom line? If so, then please explain it to the rest of us because I'm not laughing. But overall, am I bothered by it? The answer is an honest NO. The entire thing is based solely in jealousy. I gave up apologizing for what we have in life YEARS AGO!!! I'm not about to start now. Yes, we live in a gated country club community. If this somehow means that we deserve to "suffer" or face hardships, then I guess those rules weren't spelled out to me. Could someone please send me that manual because I didn't get my copy. This idiot clearly does not know me or anything about me. Allow me to give some background. Ron and I have both been on the "other side of the tracks". Ron's parents died when he was 18. He was left to raise his younger brother and sister on his own. He worked his ass off to provide for them as best he could, in the meantime taking a college course here and there whenever finances allowed for it. He never got his degree because there was always someone else in need. Other people always came first with him. Nevertheless he proved that, with enough hard work and perseverance, the "American Dream" was still a reality for those who wanted it bad enough. He wanted it. And he got it. After years of toiling at low paying jobs, he finally started moving up to better positions, acquiring more and more skills. This job that he just lost was the pinnacle of so many years of struggling. Neither he nor I are ashamed of the fact that he made over 100k annually. He EARNED every penny of it. Both he and I have worked for and earned EVERYTHING that we have in our life and we are not ashamed or embarrassed about ANY of it. If you are jealous, than that is YOUR problem, not ours. As for me, I've been on the poor side too. The first time was after our dad walked out on the family. The second time was after I graduated college and got my first job. Poverty is no stranger to me, I just know which side of the tracks I like better. I struggled when I first went out on my own. Our first house was in a very sketchy neighborhood of Cleveland called North Collinwood. We wanted a house and this thing cost us 28,000 dollars! I remember fretting over my monthly mortgage of $213! Now I look back and think I would KILL to have a mortgage payment so low. Our car payments are higher than that! Yet, I worried constantly about where I would come up with that money every month. We were oddities in that neighborhood, gay, 2 of only 6 white people on the entire street. I remember the constant drone of police helicopters overhead, sitting on my big front porch of my 1920 bungalow reading and occasionally glancing up at the crack deal taking place at the curb not 30 feet away. I learned to be street smart pretty quick in that neighborhood...mind your own business and you will be just fine. Guess what? I was just fine. Strangely enough, I was sorry when the time came for us to actually move out and move up. I loved that cozy old house. Like Ron, I earned everything I ever had. Nobody handed anything to me on a silver platter and therefore I think it makes it all the more difficult and harder to accept when suddenly the rug gets pulled out from under you. So here I am almost 20 years later, living a life I never dreamed I would be living and I'm not one tiny bit sorry, ashamed or embarrassed for any of it! We earned it and if you don't like it, don't read my blog! The other reason I knew this person had no idea who I was is because, as usual, they came here, saw "North Carolina" and automatically assumed I was some native redneck. Why else would they have written in that redneck style? Hey asshole! I'm NOT from here! DUH!!! The people who read me regularly and know me know that I have never pulled rank on anyone around here or lorded status over any of them. Lastly, the trailer park comment. Hey, if that's what it came to, then that's what we would do. We're survivors. But the fact is that it isn't very likely. Hopefully Ron will find something before that even had to be considered. Otherwise, my mom has already offered us her home. It would be a last resort type of thing as I don't know that I want to subject her to four little kids for an unknown length of time. She's already raised hers. But she is all alone in that mammoth house and there is plenty of room-5 bedrooms, 4 car garage...one never knows. I apologize for the semi-rant. I guess that's what happens when a zillion strangers visit your blog in one day. Aaron, who has the blog Meanwhile, had a post up with a link to mine on Friday. They came in hordes expecting some sort of details about my penis! Ha! Suckers! I'm going to have to have the carpeting steamcleaned again! In addition to that, some foreign language blog called "gayblogs" has me listed as well and suddenly I have all of these international visitors...do they even understand this? The fact is that now, I'm doing all of this solely for Heather Day and dear Annette. Okay, and Lillian but only every other day. Dance On!

Birds, Flowers, Trees...It's a Whole New World!

2006-04-28T07:36:00.000-07:00

That was the refreshing line a young Miss Marcia Brady used upon her triumphant return to Westdale High School after the swelling of her nose (incurred during that tragic football accident...she was just trying to call the boys in for dinner!) finally subsided. I too am trying to look at the world from Marcia's point of view after my life was thrown onto the dung heap the other day. You know, dung, manure, shit, all of that stuff really helps to make things grow! Have you ever really looked at a septic tank leech field? If so, you'll know what I'm talking about! Maybe we will grow like fecal plants from this travesty that has been visited upon us! Do I really believe any of that? Well, probably not but at this point, deluding myself is about all I've got. Thank you for all of your truly kind comments and emails that you sent me yesterday and this morning. I know that your words can't undo our situation or make it any different but it's still nice to read them! Surprisingly today, I don't feel as lousy as yesterday. Nothing has really changed other than we got the severance package. It's not the greatest thing in the world but at least we are fairly certain that if we watch every penny, we should be able to keep a roof over our heads till around August. That sounds like a long time away but it's not. Ron told me he lost count with the resumes yesterday but thinks he sent out anywhere between 35 and 50. I asked "Are you just sending them to anyone that sounds remotely like a possibility or are these for things you actually felt strongly that you would be a good candidate?" and he said, "I felt strongly about almost every one of them". So for now it's just going to be a wait and see if anyone calls. He already had a list of places going this morning when I got up so he's not sitting around moping. Where we'll eventually end up is anyone's guess. He's sending to places all over the country. There were a couple for positions back in Ohio that I got excited about. As much as I hate the winters and have become massively spoiled down here with the warmth and all, I'd go back in a heartbeat for the right job. The worst possible place in my book would be California but I know he sent some there too. Please, not California, anyplace but!!! Ideally, (for me at least) we would stay here on the east coast, preferably no further north than Virginia/DC area. But I won't get my heart set on anything right now. It's Friday and we have nothing much planned. We were supposed to go to a dinner function at the club this evening but since this whole job debacle, we've decided to not attend after all. Neither one of us feels like sitting around telling all the neighbors we are on the road to Destitute...nevermind that I've heard it can be very pretty in the springtime! We aren't feeling very sociable at the moment. I think maybe we will stay home, have some wine. I'll probably work around the yard tomorrow. It will be a quiet weekend for us. Probably the beginning of a string of them.

There's a lot to be said for Intuition.

2006-04-27T07:38:00.000-07:00

Remember a week or two ago when I said I had this "impending sense of doom" and I couldn't really figure out why? Well, as has been proven to me time and again, always trust your intuition. Doom came home to stay yesterday. Ron was let go from his job. It wasn't anything he did that got him canned, but rather the old "last one in, first one out" deal. The company has had far lower than projected sales since January and now they are freaking out looking to cut costs. I find it all to be extremely shortsighted on their part but who am I? None of this even had anything to do with his job, he was working on custom design orders for key accounts...meaning that his clients had already placed their orders. These low sales were based on the catalog and showroom lines...something he had very little to do with. They are offering a severance package which we will get the specifics of supposedly today. In the meantime, I updated his resume last night and he's already sending them out. We can't afford to be without his income and I am unbelievably stressed out over the chaos that these motherfuckers have been allowed to wreak upon our life. Corporations, they couldn't care less. I get nervous and scared thinking about how long it took for him to find that job in the first place, how long the negotiations dragged on. He was employed at the time so that didn't matter as much. Now, we can't afford it. And to think I felt like my life was up in the air when I KNEW we were going to Atlanta! Now I have no idea where we are going. I see a bunch of nice cardboard refrigerator boxes in our future. Sorry, I'm the eternal pessimist. We've been poor before and I hated it. In addition to that, when we were poor in the past, it was just he and I, now we have four kids and a mortgage to pay. Hello bankruptcy and goodbye excellent credit rating! For 8 months with this job, I finally learned what it was like to live my life without worries about finances occupying every spare minute. To be able to purchase something or pay a bill and feel completely confident that there was plenty of money to cover it all. Now, it's all I can think about. It was sure nice while it lasted. I'm already trying to figure out where I might be able to start prostituting myself. I'm not really good for much of anything else. Bragg Blvd. over in Fayetteville is popular hooker spot but some of the girls here once told me about where all the "rural hookers" pick up their johns. So with all of that said, don't expect to see me posting here everyday and if I do post, don't expect much to laugh about. Inside I'm a total wreck, have sat here on the verge of tears more than once this morning, just feeling really lousy. And even just rereading this post, I hate the way I sound...pathetic. I'm just not good at handling this shit. There's a phrase people throw around, "Life never gives you more than you can't handle", well, I've officially reached my breaking point.

Yikes!

2006-04-25T08:38:00.000-07:00

Well, it may happen sooner than I had been anticipating. No sooner do we drop the sale price on the house 10,000 dollars and we had two groups come through yesterday. Apparently both groups just loved the place! The first one has already set up an appt. to come back for a second showing tomorrow, the other couple spent over an hour and 20 minutes, in the house, walking the yard, walked down to the lake and back, walked the yard again, then stood in the drive talking forever. I'm excited but nervous. The best case scenario would be that they BOTH want the house which means we'll have a bidding war and get our asking price or more. What kills me is that we should have just waited another week to drop the price!! Stupid! But we had no way of knowing so what are ya gonna do? The one lady said she has to be in a place by June which would mean we'd have to move during the last 2 or 3 weeks of the school year and that's not a good thing for us. The other couple was delighted to hear that we wanted to be there till the end of June at the least because that was when they wanted to move as well. For the right price, we'll do what we have to. Needless to say, I'm going to be stressing out over this one for the next few days and I bet nothing will even come of it. T came home from school with Pink Eye yesterday! Lovely. I somehow managed to get this crap 2 winters ago when nobody else had it so I have no idea how that happened. For me it was torture because I could only wear one contact lens so my vision of the world was a mess for 2 weeks. (I don't have any recent prescription glasses for emergencies because my contacts are a 24/7 thing.) For him it's a minor inconvenience but I worry he'll infect all the other kids because he won't keep his fingers away from his eye. It's VERY contagious and they won't let him in school till it clears up. Thankfully Ron is back home, perfect timing. Ron is still suffering from jet lag. He went to bed at 7:30 last night and slept till about 4 a.m. He said it's always way more difficult coming back to the US than it is when he flys over to Asia and is usually able to adjust within a day. I had a good laugh yesterday at dinner. We were talking about Hong Kong and I asked something about if it's all just Chinese people or are there a lot of other foreigners there. He went off on a tirade about Australians and how he found them to be the most incredibly loud, self-centered and rude people he has ever come into contact with. Now this is his experience so to all my Australian readers, don't hate me for him saying this. He had a lot of storiest to tell that backed up his claim and with a couple, I couldn't blame him for feeling like he did. It's rather amusing to me though since his take on Aussies is exactly the way that the rest of the world feels about us Americans. Don't worry, I don't judge an entire population on the poor behavior of a few though. Someone who I don't know commented on my blog yesterday and invited me to go over to hers and read a post she had made about homosexuality and the comments it generated. I went and although her post was one of tolerance and all, this comment was on there and I just couldn't believe the incredible ignorance of it. "Hey- 2 each his own! My biggest problem with this group is that they R constantly shoving their sexual preferences down Everyone's Throat! (Excuse the pun) Especially to R CHILDREN! My kids DO NOT want 2 see (and R VERY OFFENDED BY) all these bullshit movies they R putting on shelves at Blockbuster and other places, Like MOMMY LUVS NEW MOMMY, and How DADDY LEFT MOMMIE 4 ANOTHER MAN! I don't shove my beliefs into people's faces, and neither should they! Outside of it being an ABOMINATION of life itself, (no reproduction) 2 each their own." About the only thing I would love to shove down this moron's throat would be my fist!!! Yes and never mind the fact that your abominable heterosexuality has been shoved down MY throat since the day I was born! Idiot! It's imbeciles like this who say things like "To each his own" in order to appear politically correct or tolerant but in actuality, their hatred and loathing comes shining through in the rest of their comment. This person would be happiest seeing me in line for a gas chamber, after all, I've corrupted her precious children who will never know what tolerance and acceptance are really all about. Funny isn't it, that MY four kids don't seem to have the slightest issue with seeing their two dads kiss or having the knowledge that their dads sleep in the same bed. In FACT, they are well aware of how much better off their lives are now that they aren't living with the FUCKED UP HETEROSEXUALS that made their earlier lives a living Hell! Yeah...gotta hand it to those heterosexuals and their bang-up parenting skills! And when exactly does "no reproduction" equate with "abomination"? What an ignorant and narrow view of the world this person has. Attention all married couples with no children...you are now an Abomination! No reproduction after all! Attention all single people, you are now an Abomination! You haven't reproduced. There is no reasoning or logic with people like this. They will remain firmly rooted in hatred and ignorance. Personally, I think her kids could stand to benefit immensely from watching something called "Mommy Loves New Mommy". I think the word "Loves" in the title says a lot. It may very well be a foreign concept in that home that certainly needs to be taught by someone, why...maybe even a lesbian couple! Grrrr..... Why do people like this have to exist in a day and age where we have so much information and knowledge availabe to us? Sad.

Make It Stop!

2006-04-24T09:41:00.000-07:00

I'm insanely busy here today. I have no idea what happened to generate the amount of paperwork that was dumped in here first thing after morning meeting! So with that said, don't expect much from this post. R got home Friday night. We drove up to Raleigh to get him, the plane was 20 minutes late and then it took over 30 min. more for his luggage to come out on the carousel. In the meantime, I'm parked over at the Hilton and all four kids and myself fell asleep waiting. Sometimes cell phones can be a good thing. I imagine to anyone passing by, we looked like some destitute family sleeping in their car. Then again, all the windows except mine are tinted so they probably just thought I was either a bum or drunk...or both. For the record, I am/was neither! I think we got home sometime after 1 a.m., it's all a blur to me and I was driving! teehee! Saturday...that's a blur too. Oh yes, went to Southern Pines and got some things we needed and then we all went to the really cute/quaint ice cream shop in downtown Southern Pines. We walked around a bit to look in the store windows and laugh at all the bitter tourists that come down from New York City. Such incredibly nasty bitches that look down their noses at anyone they think is a local. One of them even went so far as to be snotty to one of the kids because he didn't immediately move out of her way on the sidewalk. How do their husbands stand them? These are a bunch of rich people that come down on weekends to golf in Pinehurst/Southern Pines and while the husbands are doing that, the wives are bored and go out and spend all the money. The downtowns of both places are really adorable, very walkable, very upscale, there are a lot of places to drop a lot of money. Well, these cunts just take over on the weekends and if you value your life, you'll get the hell outta their way because it's all about THEM after all! They ooze superiority! Unfortunately, most of the stores are run by women just like them...the husbands retired here and the wives open up stores to relieve the boredom. So these bitches are very "at home" here. Too bad for us! I usually really enjoy going up there to shop around because some of the stores are so unique and the quality of what they sell is top notch but Spring is the worst time to go since it’s high-season for golfing and that’s what drives the economy of those places. Hell, I think golf is the only reason they even exist! Afterwards we went home and it stormed for a while which was nice…we really needed the rain. I started working on R’s expense reports since I knew it would take forever to get done. I got about halfway and then it was time to get ready for dinner. We had invited Andy and Patsy to go out to Bonefish Grill with us as our treat to them just for being great neighbors. I normally despise chain restaurants but this one is an exception and the food is consistently excellent. It’s not cheap, that’s for sure, but you also get good portions. For an appetizer I had sea scallops wrapped in bacon with a mango chutney on the side. DELICIOUS!!!!! Then for my main course I got the Atlantic Salmon with a Tomato/Lime/Garlic sauce across it and garlic mashed potatoes as a side. Wonderful!!! I’ve never been disappointed there. There is also always a good portion of eye-candy that frequents that place. At the table directly next to us was a prime cut of beef that I was able to enviously glance over at during our meal. And I’m not talking about food that was on the menu either! When dinner was over we went back to our house and opened a few bottles of wine and relaxed in the living room. It was a really nice evening. Sunday was grocery shopping in the a.m., then the realtor came over and we dropped the price on the house to get it to move faster. I spent another two and a half hours on the expense reports and finished them…hallelujah!!! This appears to be the last long Asia trip till summer so I get a bit of a reprieve here. After that was done I went out and worked around the yard. It was gloriously hot (87 F.) but not at all humid so I enjoyed it. I noticed that all of my Lantanas have survived the winter and are coming back in a robust manner. Even a couple that I had in pots survived which was a first. I guess that’s testament to our mild winter this year. Lantanas are “iffy” in this area…they might or might not survive depending on how harsh the winter is. I had some beautiful ones last year so I’m happy they came back…now to see if I’ll be around to enjoy them. I suppose I could dig em up and take them when we move but in Atlanta, I’ll be able to grow even more than I can here…like Jasmine for instance…love it! R made hamburgers and homemade macaroni salad for dinner while I worked outside and they were awesome as usual. I miss his cooking. He hardly ever does it anymore. But we bought stuff for him to make homemade pizzas this week so I can’t wait for those! Better than any I’ve ever had! Today I look quite dapper. I’m wearing my black dress pants with a razor sharp crease down the leg. But to compliment that, R brought me back gifts from Hong Kong…a first!!! He got me a bunch of really nice shirts. I have on a brilliant white one with a light and a dark blue stripe at the end of each sleeve. It’s very nice! And then he also bought me a cool pair of funky new shoes from some company I never heard of, I think it’s Italian so I’m of course wearing those. I don’t know how to describe them other than they look vaguely similar to my Pilgrim shoes but don’t have a buckle. Solid black, very comfy. I’m delighted with them. And on that note…I just had my Cashew Chicken unceremoniously plopped onto my desk in front of me so it’s lunch time. Joi gin as Sam always says!

Another Sunshine Day!

2006-04-21T07:30:00.000-07:00

I read this this morning and would highly recommend that anyone bothering to read me go and read it as well. I was seriously leaning toward not coming back here next week but I'm now seriously reconsidering that. Thanks Toodler, you set me back on course and I am most appreciative. Thanks also to all the people who left me comments during my blogging crisis. Of course, most of you disappeared again with the next post but I guess I don't care anymore. I lost sight of why I was blogging in the first place. It was never supposed to be a popularity contest but that's what I turned it into in my own mind. Don't get me wrong, I still crave the comments, I always have, but I'm also going to make a conscious effort to not base my self-worth on whether or not I get any. That was just stupid and destructive. I'm also going to try to make a conscious effort to not become angry, jealous and/or perplexed when someone writes something that makes absolutely no sense to me whatsoever yet is hailed as being worthy of a Pulitzer. (????? Still scratching my head over a few things I read online this week!) That was a big part of my problem here...comparing my blog to other people's. It took getting thumped in the head to remind myself that I am unique, I am NOT like other people out there, I am a true individual with a pretty warped perspective on most things in general. I have NEVER felt understood except by a select few individuals in my life (faux-cousin Linda, Tina Pixie, a couple others) so why would I expect mass acceptance from a bunch of strangers online? This is where that whole psychological problem of longing for acceptance and attention comes into play. I guess inside, I'm still that 13 year old kid sitting alone in the lunch room wishing I could either die or vanish if I couldn't have the wild popularity. I really wish I could kill that kid! The fact is that I long ago embraced my "weirdness", the things about me that make me unique. I'm glad I am the way I am. I like me and I like my life. I like being the "Outsider" and I have accepted that I pretty much always will be. I'm an Outsider to straight people because I'm gay. I'm an Outsider to gay people because - oh my gawd, there are so many reasons to list here, but let's go with because I have kids and actually wanted a family and a stable, monogamous relationship. I'm an Outsider in the South because I'm A.) not Christian and B.) a Yankee. I'm an Outsider in society because I question authority instead of blindly accepting it. Because I can find humor in subjects that I think other people take way too seriously (Death - trust me, I work with death and it can be hilarious!). Basically, if the masses are going in one direction, you can pretty much expect to look the opposite way and see me heading in that direction. I've always been that way and it's one of the main reasons I've always thought that I cant easily be categorized. And I'm glad! Who wants to fit into a neat little "category"? I can tell you this, Gay Culture is the most categorized/segmented group I've ever found. And oddly, they seem to really pride themselves on that. I always found it rather dull, a little too tidy for my tastes. You know, wrapping yourself up in a label...that whole "I'm a Bear", "I'm a Twink", "I'm a Drag Queen", "I'm a Gym Bunny". How sad that 3 or 4 words could pretty accurately sum someone up and if you were familiar with the culture, you'd pretty much know what to expect from that person based on the category they lumped themselves into. It's actually always struck me as funny how the people who claim to want and honor "DIVERSITY" so adamantly, are really the ones who, when push comes to shove, are the least willing to put up with it. Gay people seem most happy when they have segregated and isolated themselves from, not only the rest of society, but also anyone who doesn't fit into their neat little social category. I'd much rather shake things up a bit by not giving anyone what they thought they should expect from me. I will NEVER be what someone wants me to be. I will NEVER give someone what they are expecting from me. I truly honor DIVERSITY. I am the face of DIVERSITY. My life is a testament to DIVERSITY. My children, my relationship, where I live...DIVERSITY. I suppose that deep down, the punk rebel still lives strong. And speaking of punk rebels, Bette Davis once said, "If everyone likes you, you're doing something wrong." I first heard that quote probaby 20 or more years ago and, at that time, I was in the process of truly discovering who I was as a person. That quote hit me like a lightning bolt and had a major impact on the way I think I live my life to this day. All these years later, I still remind myself of those words - more often than you can imagine. Love me, like me, feel indifferent towards me, or just outright hate me...it's really you're problem, not mine. I don't need you to approve of me, I don't need you to like me, I don't even need you to read my blog (although I want you to!). All I can tell you is that, if you do, you should expect the unexpected. I'm funny, I'm boring, I'm smart, I'm stupid, I'm crazy, I'm sane, I'm emotional, I'm uncaring, I'm jaded, I'm like a kid in a candy store...you never know what you'll get here. And really, isn't that what makes life interesting?

Yeah, I'm Still Here.

2006-04-20T11:57:00.000-07:00

Still feeling rather blah. I think I'm actually, honestly depressed. I have no drive to do anything, nothing sounds appealing or exciting or interesting. Ron called me to tell me he is coming home from Hong Kong tomorrow night instead of Monday night as he originally thought. I guess I didn't sound thrilled enough because he asked "Aren't you even excited that you'll get to see me sooner? You don't sound like it" so I had to kind of fake it. The truth is I AM happy that he's coming home but it just pushes to the forefront the impending reality of our move. He is saying that he's going to talk to the realtor this weekend and drop the price of the house to try to push the sale and have us out of here and in Atlanta by early or mid July. None of this comes as a surprise to me, we had talked about doing just that before he went to Hong Kong this last time but as long as he was over there, I could mentally postpone the inevitable. Can you tell that I don't deal very well with change? It's funny because I was the exact, complete and total opposite when we moved to North Carolina. I was so happy to leave behind my job and was so sure that I'd find something better and easily...after all, how much "competition" could there be in the middle of nowhere? I was proven so wrong and it really put some fear into me regarding having no income, relying on another person, having no health insurance. And it's all about to happen all over again. Who knows, maybe this time it will be a piece of cake to find a job but still, job-hunting is the most humiliating thing in the world. I loathe it! Plus the reality is there will be tons more competition in Atlanta, younger and prettier people, hungry and willing to work for nothing. I will probably have to sleep with someone to get a job. And with my luck it will be a woman. Reason #2 I believe that I am officially Depressed. I fell asleep at my desk this afternoon. That has NEVER happened to me at any job I have ever worked at in my life. I must admit that it felt good to have that little nap though. I had come back from putting gas in the van after lunch ($2.91 a gallon!!!) and sort of layed my head down across my arm...just for a minute you know? Well, when I was startled back to reality 40 minutes later, I was in utter disbelief of what had just happened. I don't think anyone came in here, I'm sure they would have laughed and woken me up. Maybe I'm just tired although I don't know why, nothing has changed regarding my sleep habits. I'm leaving early today to go to the Spaghetti Dinner at the club this evening. I told Patsy we would go and sit with her but I wish I could just bow out. I just don't feel like being around anyone. It's silly really because I know once I get there, I'll have a good time, the kids will go out and play on the playground and Patsy and I will drink and laugh. But right now, I just don't want to go. Why is that? Then again, maybe that handsome Don guy will be there and provide some eye candy for me. Today Sharon is wearing a provocative, risque top that screams, "Rip This Blouse Off Of Me!!!" I have told her as much. She says she wore it for me and then she laughed and walked out of the room. What is THAT supposed to mean? I spent over 30 minutes on the phone with my friend Shelly who is also an RN here but she works in the next county over to our west so I don't get to see her as often. She has porcelain skin, I call her "The Poreless Wonder". I still don't know why she called as all we did was giggle and accomplish nothing business related. But I am getting paid. Let's see, in other work related news...I was accused by our human resources lady of cheating on her by forming too much of an emotional connection with my boss. I'm convinced I am working in a madhouse. OH!!! Funniest comment on the last post...Aaron asked if someone went crazy at Crapster? Babs, Denise, Jackie? Anyone want to tackle that one??? LOL! Well, I said I'd probably still post today so I did. Not much here. I think I'm going to go back to sleep for the next 45 minutes and then leave.

Why?

2006-04-19T12:44:00.000-07:00

Why do I keep blogging? I've been asking myself that a lot recently. It used to be really fun, especially in the old days back at Crapster when I used to actually look forward to spending Friday afternoons at Sooner's Bar & Grille. I would sit in this office and laugh out loud for hours until I had to leave at 5 and even then, when I was able, I would go home, pour myself a glass or 6 of wine and laugh into the wee hours of the morning with Denise, Babs, Sooner, the whole gang. I made what I considered to be some wonderful friends from those days...it was literally like sitting in a bar with a great group of people you actually wanted to be with and just enjoying one anothers company. Then things turned ugly and people got mad, people left (me), morons took over, it was never the same. I look at those as being the "Glory Days" of my blogging hobby. I've liked it here at blogger as well and e-met a lot of really cool and interesting people and even furthered an online friendship with someone I would now go so far as to consider one of my best friends (Hi Pixie! Love you!). But lately, I feel like the fun is draining out of it all. I don't feel like I have anything very interesting to say. I mean really, I blogged about being given a whip...about being mindlessly happy. I've had to pull out old photos to find something to blog about. I'd say I've reached the end. Or have I? I don't know. When it seems to be a hassle to think of something to write, is it time to just quit? I don't matter to any of you really. None of you "know" me so if I were to just disappear your lives aren't going to be changed in any way. You might come back here once or twice to see if I turned up but otherwise, the world will keep turning. You will keep reading elsewhere, keep commenting on other blogs. I'm not really contributing anything that valuable here. Is this just depression talking? I don't know. I would say I "bounced back" some from that nasty little episode last week but I still don't feel all that fantastic. That's part of the reason I've been posting still...because I'm so fucking indecisive that I don't even know whether or not I want to continue...whether this is just me feeling crappy and wanting to crawl back into my shell and hide for awhile. Sometimes I actually base my self-worth on this stupid blog. I'll write something I thought was mildly entertaining, or funny, or enlightening or WHATEVER and I don't get the feedback I hoped for, or I hardly get any comments. I know how incredibly STUPID that all sounds. I know that I am NOT my blog, that it really has very little to do with me as a person in my day to day life...it's just a hobby. So why do I feel like that? I can't explain it. I'll see comments from people I know read my blog on other blogs but then they don't comment on mine. It makes me feel like I failed to move them or something. I don't like feeling that way but at the same time, I don't want anyone ever feeling obligated to comment here. Ron and many others have said to me all my life, "You want too much from people" and I suppose that's true. I want the acceptance and attention that I craved when I was younger and never got. I can't expect it to be given now either...and I'm aware that this is MY issue, not the fault of anyone who reads this blog. You owe me NOTHING! I want too much from people and I always end up disappointed. That's not news to me, I just need to remind myself of it from time to time. So what exactly am I saying here? Beats the Hell out of me! Honestly, I don't know. I am NOT saying that I'm folding this blog. I'll probably continue to post...at least this week. If I'm going to make a grand exit, I want to be certain I'm aware of what I'm doing. And like I said, at this point, I don't know how I feel about it. For all I know, tomorrow I may feel like I have a zillion things to talk about...or not. I know that I DO have things I would like to post about but then it seems like so much effort to compose and come up with something that sounds coherent and sticks to the point I would like to make...I tend to veer off course a lot. But by most gay people's standards, my life is incredibly dull. I don't live in a big city, my days and nights aren't filled with never-ending excitement and endless sexual conquests. I keep the private and intimate details of my life just that...private for the most part. I'm just a boring, average, everyday person. How much fun is that to read about? I think I've veered off on a tangent here again...I told you so. Anyway, like I said, I'm not folding this up today. I'll probably be here tomorrow and maybe the next day. Maybe I'll still post everyday or maybe I'll ease up and not post everyday which will surely kill my readership numbers...or maybe one day I will just disappear entirely. The ones who want to get in touch with me have the email anyway. Yours in Blah-dom, Kevin

Kitten With a Whip

2006-04-19T07:53:00.000-07:00

I've got drinks piling up on my desk and a stack of pills I haven't even opened yet but I figured I would make time to post for all of you beautiful people out there in the dark. I'm loving my new Miss Coco Peru avatar...the drink in hand, the haughty pose. It's all very moi. Yesterday I left a note on Sharon's desk. It's just one of the things I do around here to kill the time when I don't feel like actually working. It read: Fabulous Ms. B: Your sparkling presence was sorely missed yesterday. Please come to my office immediately and say something outrageous you bitch. Love your Luvah, Kevin I think everyone should come back to delightful notes like that on their desks after having been out for a day! It's these little things that serve to raise office morale and let people know how appreciated they really are! I believe that I would enjoy a position somewhere where all I had to do was circulate through the building, raising morale, making people smile just by my thoughtfulness and presence...a kind word, a warm smile, a most-heartfelt "Fuck you". It might be fun to push a little drink cart around with coffee and refreshments in the morning, hard liquour in the afternoon. I'm pretty good at fake smiling and nodding my way through embarrassing and awkward conversations about things like church services or white trash domestic squabbles. Yes, I believe that this is my calling, what I was born to do. GASP! I could resurrect my "Sunshine Squad"!!! That was my group of mindlessly happy people that I formed at the place I used to work (blogged about it yesterday). I even had a lively motto: "Those who bring sunshine to the lives of others....CANNOT keep it from themselves!" The "squad" consisted of 3 like-minded people at the time. We had always kept our fingers crossed that there might one day be an employee talent show so that we could do some kind of Sunshine Squad Cheer or something sunny like that. I was willing to put the whole thing together and even suggested a "Sexy Swimwear Fashion Show" featuring employees modeling the latest in Euro-beachwear. I had never before worked with a more motley lot of unattractive people in my life so I giggled outwardly everytime I imagined some of them strolling down the runway in bathing suits. Teehee! It still makes me titter when I think about it. So many people out there hate their jobs. I always felt that the trick was to make your own fun if you have to be stuck there for 8 or 9 hours each day. Oh and by the way, Sharon told me she was "put on the spot" and will have something outrageous to say to me today. NEWS FLASH: Katie Holmes STILL "loves cupcakes...she loves to laugh!" I was presented with a lovely and thoughtful gift yesterday. My supervisor, Miss Kiss, came in and handed me a leather whip. I have to admit to being rather flustered as to the reasoning behind why I was given this essential workplace item however I was gleefully flattered as well. I immediately hung it on my wall, directly next to my chair so it's within easy grabbing distance. Don't piss me off, I'm warning you! Now, for the record before anyone even starts asking, the answer is NO, I am not into S&M, B&D or any of those other odd sexual proclivities that seem to run rampant in gay culture. I find most of it just makes me laugh. And like Katie Holmes, I love to laugh! Cupcakes aren't too bad either but I digress. Anyway, I guess I'm what most people would consider rather "vanilla" in that department but oh...what they don't know! (and I won't tell) Now I have spent my share of time hanging out in leather bars, in fact the "Leather Stallion" in Cleveland used to be one of our favored places to go until it was overrun with meth addicted drag queens fleeing the raids over at the Cage. I never wore the "costume", seemed like a waste of money I'd rather spend on a good stiff drink. There was a man there though that used to crawl around the back patio and lick your boots. Now THAT was funny! Please, I scooped dog poop wearing those boots! Dumbass! But I didn't tell him that...teehee. Actually the proper protocol was to basically just ignore him and continue your conversation or whatever. He'd eventually move on. Hmmph, funny, I have my combat boots on today! What was I talking about here? Oh yes, my work-whip. I haven't yet had the opportunity to hit anyone with it but I did go out in the hall this morning and crack it a few times. Kind of to serve as a warning to anyone who might want to try to pull some funny stuff with me! I guess I don't need to know why I got it or where it even came from, I'm just happy that someone thought that much of me. I suppose I can now fancy myself as the Bettie Page of Hospice!

Hustlin' Up a Blog Post

2006-04-18T07:34:00.000-07:00

Simon sent me the most hilarious link to a clip from the mercifully short-lived Brady Bunch Variety Hour where the Brady's were singing and doing some advanced choreography moves to "The Hustle". That alone was ridiculously inappropriate for this family of do-gooders but the song quickly sequed into "Shake Your Booty" featuring a solo performance by that Jan imposter, Geri Reischell. Geri went on to...well...nothing really. Guess that show was the nail in her career coffin! If I weren't stupid, I would post the link here but I don't know how to do those things where you click on the words and it takes you right there. Can you believe I used to write code at my last job in Cleveland? It's true! It was very similiar to HTML too but I never had to do a link so if anyone out there would ever like to teach me via an email...feel free. I don't expect any takers for that challenge but I AM a fast learner. I kind of liked that job while I was there. Among other things, I had to write these "flow codes" so that the information entered in one program could flow properly into the templates we had set up in Quark. It was kind of fun because it was challenging when something didn't flow properly and you had to go back and find the mistake. I liked doing that...you got this great sense of achievement when it all worked the way it was supposed to. That job was probably my second favorite ever because, as usual, I really liked the people I worked with and then there was the fact that I was honestly one of the best people that they had working there so I was pretty much allowed to do whatever I wanted, when I wanted, including making my own hours and dictating what I wanted or needed. Surprisingly, people didn't hate me there. In fact, I was well-liked. We had these morbidly obese women in charge of our department though who were just bitter and nasty to everyone (except me). There were three of them and they were the types that wore those "retarded people's clothing", you know those shirts that feature cute Kitty Cats and Cuddly Teddy Bears with lots of ribbons or maybe some garlands of flowers surrounding them. They are the kind of clothes that I couldn't picture my stylish mother wearing in a billion trillion years! Thank gawd someone instilled good taste into us at a young age! I always used to look at these women wearing these things and think "What is WRONG with you???!!!" I mean, they were in their 40's and even 50's and they were dressing in these shirts designed for 11 year old girls. I sooooo do not understand that mindset. I imagine I've insulted some people here...well, to each his own but perhaps you can learn from your mistake as well. Anywhoo...the one "leader" of this pack of angry mama's was Beth. She was feared by almost everyone working there and you never knew what would set her off. Oddly, she just loved me and joked around with me all the time. I was pleasant to her but it was a pleasantry born of primal fear. The woman was enormous and had a scary hatchet face to boot! Even when she was "happy", she looked angry. At one point, Beth decided to go on a diet. This turned out to be a sadistic form of torture for everyone working in our department. She would heat up these pre-made diet meals in the lunchroom and then bring them back to her desk to eat. All I can say is that I have smelled filthy public outhouses that smelled better than whatever this woman was putting into her mouth! I couldn't even begin to imagine how anyone could eat something with an odor so foul! People would literally start to gag in their cubicles and you would start seeing them getting up and leaving to take their breaks. My friend Dawn sat by a door to another dept. and was able to position her desk fan so that it pulled in non-polluted air from the the next room over. She didn't suffer at all like the rest of us but to rub it in, she'd sit there laughing and smiling at me as I turned blue from holding my breath and then she'd start spraying air freshener in her cube. Oh my, we would be laughing so hard I would be in tears. We were so easily amused. Things peaked the day that Beth was eating her microwaved feces and this loud woman from Marketing walked in and literally shouted, "Oh my God, what died in here? Has someone called maintenance?" Dawn fell off her chair! We both lost it and couldn't stop laughing, ended up having to make a mad dash out of there. I suppose we owed this woman some gratitude though because that was the last time that Beth ever brought those "stink platters" into our department. Good times...good times. It was always those little, unsung joys of office work that seem to make places like that so memorable...enjoyable even! We had a big, nasty storm blow through here yesterday afternoon around 4 p.m. which knocked out power to the entire city! There are no windows in my fireproof records room so it was pitch black in here and since the power didn't come back on, I got to leave at 4:30 which was a nice treat. I was relieved to find our neighborhood appeared to have escaped the worst of the storm, there weren't even many pinecones that came down, so I guess it was worse here in town. Plus we had our electricity still so I was able to make dinner. I am actually having a "slow day" in here today!!! The first in what seems like ages so maybe I'll finally catch up on emails this afternoon. I've probably jinxed myself just by writing that though.

Obligated

2006-04-17T07:59:00.000-07:00

That's exactly how I feel today...obligated. Obligated to be here, obligated to do my work, obligated to talk to people in the building if they talk to me, obligated to post something here. Isn't that terrible? I just feel completely blah and have no desire to be around anyone. I wish I could leave and go home and crawl back in bed. I've sat here this morning (actually working) and thought about my blog and realized, I have absolutely NOTHING to say or contribute today. Not that I ever really do because I don't fancy myself as being some great philosopher or having any unique or spectacular outlook on life. Why the heck do you people read me anyway? I'm a fabulous bore!!! About all I can tell you is that I look good today if I do say so myself. All that sun I got on Fri. and Sat. settled into a nice light tan and I was kind of "glowing" in the mirror this morning. In addition to that, I hadn't bothered to shave since Thursday so I have a nice beard going and this morning I thought, "This doesn't look so bad!" and since it's supposed to cool off this week back to the 70's I figured, what the heck, I'll get rid of it in a week or so when it gets itchy. Yesterday went from bad to worse. The kids were unbearable and by 7 p.m. I had reached the end of my rope and sent all of them to bed early. They had been sent upstairs earlier in the afternoon to clean up the playroom which looked like the aftermath of a drunken frat party. I approved the clean-up but not an hour and a half later, it looked as if Hurricane Katrina had plowed through there again. They just don't get it that the house if for sale and needs to stay looking presentable. In fact, it's being shown again today. Anyway the second clean up resulted in non-stop bickering, arguing, fighting, tattling. I blew up!!! It was inevitable. It turned out to be sooooo worth it though because the peace and quiet I had afterwards was heavenly and ALL four of them were sound asleep by 7:45!!! They must have been very tired. No wonder I'm so yuck today! I just found out that my Sharon isn't here to make me laugh. I also heard from a reliable source that "Greg" should be back again this week to work on the phones. Ooo-la-la! Things are looking up! Ron comes home from Hong Kong one week from tonight. Well, tentatively at least, that's the schedule. They are famous for changing it. He may have to fly back again for a meeting around May 5 but it all seems to be up in the air...as usual. They'll wait until the last minute to confirm the meeting and then bitch a blue streak over the cost of an airline ticket. DUH!!! NEWS FLASH: The world has learned that Katie Holmes "loves cupcakes...she loves to laugh!" Okay, I guess this is dull enough so I have fulfilled my personal obligation to post on here today. To the beautiful people who I owe emails to...I haven't forgotten you. I was going to do it yesterday but just wasn't in the frame of mind for it. I will respond, be patient my pretties! Aren't you glad you just lost these precious moments of your life that you won't ever get back? Precious and few are the moments we two can share!

Just Another Sunday

2006-04-16T10:50:00.000-07:00

for me at least. Being agnostic, I don't observe much of anything today. We do the easter egg thing for the kids and they got baskets. We gave Patsy $100 and she put together four baskets and then left me her garage door opener so I could go in the house last night and get them (they're at the beach this weekend). She did a spectacular job! However since getting that stuff this morning, all good behavior has now gone out the window and today has been trying to say the least. Not good considering it isn't even 2 p.m. Maybe its just me though. I feel really blah today, not really depressed or anything...I just don't have that joi de vivre that I had the last few days. I called my mom earlier and talked to her for a while. She said that my aunt and her husband were on their way up from Columbus to spend the day and my sister and her family were coming over as well as Grampa. I really miss everyone I guess. I'm down here, alone, with four misbehaving kids. Lucky me. We just got back from the playground...HOT...the van said 91 degrees. I was hoping they would exhaust some of that energy. Now I don't know what to do with myself. I could iron clothes I suppose. Or go down to the lake. We actually saw people swimming yesterday! That water feels pretty cold to me still. The roll of pictures that I took at the playground on Friday and the ones my 8 yr. old took of me, well, I somehow managed to ruin that film. I don't blame Walgreen's since I'm pretty sure it was me. I accidentally popped the lens off and exposed the film. At the time I thought I would have only ruined about 2 or 3 pictures but it was a lot more. Oops, teehee! Anyway we took some new ones today when we were up there and K took a couple of me too. We shall see.... It's quite sad really. My camera is a professional quality 35mm with a whole slew of different lens attachments and filters and stuff...a lot of it I don't even know how to use..or should I say I don't know the proper way to use. Ron bought it for me as a gift quite a few years back and I know he paid in excess of $1600 for it. I love my camera but I really think he got it because he wanted to play with it. That's fine. He takes much better pictures than I do. I actually used to be pretty good. One of the most encouraging classes I ever had in college was Advertising Photography which I got an A in and my instructor told me how I had one of the best eyes for composing through the lens. What happened to that talent? I wasted it. Probably because I didn't believe in my own abilities. That's usually the way it is with me. Carol Burnett is going to be on Desperate Housewives tonight. I always loved watching this woman when I was growing up so the day that I had the opportunity to actually meet her was an exciting one for me. Unfortunately, she turned out to be a big letdown. My friend Tom had a friend who worked at CBS Television City in Hollywood and we were going there to go out to lunch with this guy. When we got there he got us visitor badges and said he'd take us around behind the scenes before we went to lunch. We stood and watched them film some Young and the Restless for a bit. I used to watch this one in college so I recognized most of the people. Then we went over to the next soundstage and there was Carol Burnett. She was in rehearsal for something or other but they were all taking breaks at the time we went in. Anyway, I was introduced and I am not the gushing fan by any means, I was actually quite reserved and respectful, but to be completely honest, this woman came off as cold as ice! She wasn't being interrupted, she was just sitting there! Frankly, she was a real bitch! I got the feeling that she felt threatened or something which was just ridiculous because there were about 100 people within 25 feet of where we were. Anyway she did say "hello" but that was the extent of it. Like I said, cold! Brrrrrr..... Later at lunch we talked about her and Tom's friend said she was like that with everybody and that we should consider ourselves lucky we even got a "hello" out of her. Apparently she has some paranoia about people attacking her or something??!! Showbiz people! They're all crazy! I guess I missed my calling.

Heat Frustration and Carolina Burning!

2006-04-15T12:54:00.000-07:00

Sweet Jesus of Joplin, it is hotter than the blazes out there! Last I looked at the thermometer, we were up to 92. The upside is that there is a good breeze blowing and it's surprisingly not at all humid so it feels kind of good. I took the kids to the Easter egg hunt at the clubhouse this morning and they served us a nice lunch. The kids played on the playground for awhile and had a good time. They have one of those enclosed curly-slides there and T wanted me to go down it so I climbed up into this contraption and crawled into the tube...holy shit! This thing was so slippery I was on my way in no time flat. I managed to completely skin my knee and scream like a girl on my way down. It was not a pretty sight. When I emerged, everyone was laughing their heads off. After that, I just sat on a nice bench in the shade and chit-chatted with some of the younger folks that live here in the country club. Oh my word...there were two extremely HOT guys in attendance there today with their wives and kids. The one, I used to talk to his wife at the pool all last summer but this hot daddy was never up there. Damn, too bad! I got to talk to him today though. Mmmm.mmmm...mmmmm! I told him that he needs to come up to the pool on the weekends when it opens in a couple weeks! I think he knew I was attracted, he certainly knows I'm gay (everyone here does) and I actually think he was kind of flattered by my attention. LOL! I took some pictures of the kids that I purposely got Don into (that's his name) the frame just so I can share if they turn out okay. Came home from there and made a quick trip into town to fill up the gas cans for the 4-wheeler and lawnmower. Driving down the road outside our development, I noticed smoke rising from the woods. At the gas station, about 7 firetrucks went screaming by us...I knew it wasn't good. By the time we got back to that area, the blaze was enormous!!!! Too fucking scary!!! And waaaay too close for comfort...this was maybe a mile from our house. It had jumped the road and was now on our side of the street, pine trees in flames, 2 houses directly in the path. The road was covered in black smoke so we were directed down another road and had to go 15 miles out of our way to get back home. I was kind of freaked by that. The wind, which in itself is a rarity here, was strong and it just blew that thing up in no time. We noticed on our roundabout drive home that there were two other huge smoke clouds in two seperate areas to the north of us. It really needs to rain here. This is a little too scary for my taste. When we got home, I went out and washed and vacuumed out both of the vans. They were both overdue for it. I took my shirt off and got a good deal of sun so I'm not completely ghost white anymore. Anyway, it's 4 now and I just finished an ice cold beer and need to get in the shower. I told the kids I didn't feel like cooking so we are off to Pinehurst to go out for Mexican food. When we get home, we'll dye easter eggs. I'm having a really great weekend. Hope everyone else is too. Late Update: On the way up to Pinehurst, we passed yet another wildfire burning in the woods off to the side of the road. There were about 12 fire trucks already there and we passed more on the way. Sheesh! This one was about 7 or 8 miles from us here but still...too close for comfort. I feel bad for the people whose homes were right there and the smoke was very thick. I think they evacuated a lot because there were people standing all over on the side of the road. Still going when we made the return trip too. On the upside....dinner was delicious! I ate way too much but their Tamales are the best and they aren't that easy to find.

Some New Pics

2006-04-14T18:46:00.000-07:00

Okay, these pretty much suck because Eckerd's overexposed the entire roll of film. I know it was them because every single picture, no matter when it was taken, is over exposed to the exact same degree. Grrrrr..... I will NOT be bringing pictures there anymore! R thinks I should take these negatives back and ask to have them redone. I don't know if they'll do that or not, they'll probably blame me for it. Anyway...here are some pictures of the kids and a brief tour of our neighborhood in order to give you an idea of what I'm going to be giving up when we leave here. This one is older. This was the night we went to the Christmas party at the clubhouse. They were all standing in the kitchen when we took this one. L-R: K, C, Ro, T. The older three really look alike but poor T, I still question if he has the same dad. I just don't see the resemblance. This is looking up our street. Look at all the houses! What's that? You don't see any? Hey, I have said over and over that we live in the middle of nowhere!!! Now do you believe me? Trees, trees, trees and more trees! Mostly pine trees. Actually there are houses directly to the left and right of me but because of all the trees, you don't see any of them. Fine with me. This is Ro, C and T at the one end of the lake. It doesn't show up here very well but Aunt Patsy's dock is right on that spit of land to the upper left of Ro's shoulder. This was a couple weekends ago, the day we walked all the way around the lake. Ro and T - Mr. Penny in the Tummy. This was about half way around the lake at this point. That sandy area on the far side of the lake is the beach that we frequent. (to the upper right of Ro's head) Our house is two doors up from there but can't be seen in this picture. Wow, Eckerd's really trashed this picture. I even tried to touch it up with my photo editor and couldn't salvage much. C at the far end of the lake. Actually this is right in front of Hazel "The Landscaping Nazi's" house! She's a blog post all on her own. About 90 yrs. old, used to be in charge of the country club's landscaping committee and ran it with an iron fist and a reign of terror! Oddly enough, she just loved us! I'll never forget the day she came over and brought us a half-eaten cake as an excuse to come in and see what we'd done with our house. We were giving her a tour and out of the clear blue, she just blurts out, "So how do you like this lifestyle?" Ron, being clueless as always says, "Oh we don't golf." I said, "I don't think she means golfing Ron." Ron told her, "You don't have to be afraid to say the word 'gay' Hazel." to which Hazel replied, "I know, I know, Lord knows it's all over the t.v. these days!" Aaahhh yes, good old Hazel. She's the last of a dying breed...old, mean, crotchety and so politically incorrect but couldn't care less! But we still love her! She had us over one time to give us a bunch of plant cuttings from her yard for our yard and then she gave us a tour of her palatial estate. It turns out that when she dies, she is leaving it to some boytoy of hers over in Fayetteville who when R and I saw his picture upstairs both looked at each other and knew "GAY!!!!" This was at the point where we were almost back to the house. The lake is actually right back there through the trees but thanks to Eckerd's doesn't show up in this picture at all. Jerks! Well, I guess you can just make it out a little bit. See all of that brown covering on the ground? That is the pine straw that falls twice a year from the trees. It is a massive fire hazard down here and since we are in "Extreme Drought Conditions", no fires have been allowed for over a month now. Other than one afternoon last weekend, we haven't had any rain in over a month and a half now. It's pretty dry out there and every evening when I leave work, I can see smoke from wildfires that have been started. Sometimes they are the controlled burns but there have been a lot of intentionally set (arsons) fires lately with people having to evacuate homes and all. Scary stuff! Well, that does it for this round. I have one more from the Hospice egg hunt but I'll wait till I get the roll developed that we took today. There are some of me on there too but since K took them, I can't guarantee they'll turn out at all! Yes, I allowed an 8 yr. old to take pictures with my $1600 camera...and they'll probably turn out better than anything I can take!

His Dirty Little Secret

2006-04-14T05:52:00.000-07:00

We have two vans. Mine is silver and her name is Silver Goldberg and Ron's is white but otherwise, they are both the same style, make and year of van. Mine however, is a lease whereas we own Ron's outright. Because of the lease, we have to watch the mileage on my van so that we don't exceed the limit at the end of the 3 years and have to pay a hefty cost. When Ron goes to Asia, I just park my van in the garage and start to drive his. That way we don't rack up any more miles for a while and it allows us to take Silver on trips to Ohio, Atlanta and to Florida next month. Since I've been driving Ron's van, I've just been listening to the radio in the mornings and in the afternoon I was either listening to my Scissor Sisters or Confessions on a Dance Floor by Madonnna. Yesterday I decided I was tiring of those two and decided to open up his cd holder to see what choices he had in there. I was flipping through the cd's, no, no, not this one, nope, when suddenly I stopped. My hand recoiled in terror and I let out an audible gasp of fear and horror! What the Hell was THIS doing here! Staring me directly in the face was his filthy little secret.... Yes, that's Debbie Gibson's mid-late 80's album "Electric Youth". I can tell you with all certainty that this little gem had NEVER existed in our cd collection prior to his last trip to Hong Kong! I can't begin to tell you the thoughts that went running through my head..."How could he?", "Is THIS what comes of his trips to Asia", and the most frightening of all..."How will I ever trust his musical tastes again?" A single tear slipped from the corner of my eye and rolled slowly down my tender cheek. I have not yet confronted him with the knowledge of what I have found. The devastation and heartbreak are overwhelming. So much for being able to sleep in on my day off! Nope, not gonna happen today. I awoke to the two little ones standing next to my bed telling me that T had accidentally swallowed a penny. When I asked why the penny was in his mouth in the first place, I was able to gain the information that apparently the penny rolled, on it's own, into his opened mouth while watching tv upstairs. It all seems highly plausible to me. I got up and came in here to check the web for what to do when this happens. The information I've found says that most of them will pass through the system with no problem. However pennies minted post 1981 are made from different metals that can cause an ulcer if they were to lodge somewhere. Basically I have the joyful task of inspecting his poop for the next two days to see if it passes. If no penny emerges, we'll probably be at the ER. I was also informed that Ro swallowed a penny not that long ago but "she was brave and didn't tell anyone". Lovely! I'm guessing that it came out since she seems fine in that respect. At what point do the words "Don't put money in your mouth!" actually take on some meaning? Just got a call from the realtor that someone wants to look at the house shortly after noon so I suppose I have some work to do around here. I think I will murder these people if they cancel at the last minute like the last 2 parties that were supposed to come through here did. The house is clean but getting the kids to pick up the junk laying around their rooms is the big struggle. Wish me luck.

He's Back!

2006-04-13T08:08:00.000-07:00

What a wonderful way to end the workweek. Yes, "Greg" the phone guy is back at work in the communications room and I have been walking back and forth getting some eyefuls all morning. Oh my word! I do believe I may have the vapors! He is such a fine specimen and has absolutely no right to look so good in this hickish one-horse town! Sadly for me, I look like Hell today. Yesterday in my all black ensemble with freshly coiffed hair, I was a sight to behold! Today, I figured "who cares?" and showed up in sloppy khaki's that probably needed to be ironed, a really loose fitting shirt because it's already 84 freaking degrees out and tennis shoes. Wait a minute, like he's going to even notice me anyway!!! Well, actually on one of my frequent trips past that room (pretending to look for Sharon who would certainly understand) his eyes locked on mine and he nodded at me. Be still my heart! He knows I exist! I immediately was drawn into the room, our gazes fixed on one another. I moved directly toward where he stood, his hand reached out and cupped my ample manhood as we leaned in to one another...our lips meeting in a passionate kiss. The whiskers of his goatee brushing and teasing. "Oh Greg!" I moaned in ecstasy! LOL! Oh dear, I've gotten a bit carried away here. See? This is why I will never do a cheap "Porn Blog", that shit is so ridiculously easy to write....and usually fake! Just how sad and pathetic do I sound right about now? Hey! Just remember my husband is in Asia for another week and then some! You can't think this is easy for me! So back to reality. I have very little to say today. Ummmm...it's hot both outside and in that communications room. (must stop thinking about him...must stop thinking about him) Yesterday's lunch at the country club proved to be a bitter disappointment. Neither Sharon or I saw anything that really inflated our sails. Oh well, I got a free lunch out of it. I'm currently just sitting here munching on some delicious, ripe strawberries that someone brought in to share with everyone today. I was thinking of doing some "seductive eating" in front of "Greg" down the hall, leaning on a wall, making love to the strawberry with my mouth, all the while a "coy" look on my face directed toward him. Huh? How did we get back to this again? There were also a bunch of cookies and stuff sitting in the kitchen. I guess that'll be lunch. I have tomorrow off which will be nice as long as the kids don't wake me up early. Everyone keeps asking what we're doing this weekend and the answer is always "Nothing". I'll take the kids to the egg hunt up at the clubhouse on Sat. morning but that's about it. Seems like everyone is heading to the beach though so it will be quiet around the neighborhood. Patsy, our friend Fred, Judy, all beach-bound. With as hot as it's supposed to be, it will be a madhouse down there so I guess I should steer clear. I don't like crowds anymore. I can't think of anything else exciting to say other than to rhapsodize further about "Greg" but it won't result in anything so what's the point. I guess I'm going to run up to Harris Teeter's (local grocery chain) to get the eggs and egg dye that I forgot to buy last week. This will mean I get to walk past that room again though so it's all good. Scary Update: I got a good look at "Greg's" teeth. Oh dear, he needs to keep that mouth closed or else have some work done! Some serious work! Not a pretty picture....but oh-so wonderful with the mouth kept shut. sigh.....

Interlewds It Is!

2006-04-12T06:09:00.000-07:00

Thank you Lauren, the minute I saw this suggestion, I knew I was going with it. I shall be sending your gift basket by the end of the week. I'm trying to correct them but if I miss any, please forgive me my spelling errors here today. I was involved in a tragic medical charting accident first thing this morning. My finger was accidentally in the way as i clamped the ring binder shut. Oops! The immediate reflexive response was to withdraw my hand but all that did was serve to rip the length of my finger wide open. Oh the blood was everywhere! It even soaked through the bandages they put on me. Who would have thought a ring binder could be so deadly? Anyway it's making typing rather difficult today. But nothing can stop me from my purpose in life, blogging. Even the dull, throbbing ache of my index finger. Alright folks, I said it before and I will say it again, I DO NOT own now, nor have I ever owned or worn a Speedo! I don't believe that said swimwear is capable of adequately containing me. There will be no photographs of me in one either. And as far as the questions of how long it is? There are just some things that only a few select individuals will ever be privy to. All I will say regarding that matter is that at 6' 1" tall, I used to think I was merely "proportionate". I have since learned that I am well beyond "proportionate". I can tell you that the husband is very happy. Thanks for asking. And no, I am not Slavic. LOL ~ although I am one quarter Slovak and they sound similiar. I possess evidence that Ms. Collin's claim regarding Slavic men is indeed false. Moving on.... The annual Hospice fundraising golf tournament has been going on for the last 2 days. Yesterday and again today, we get to go to the country club up the road from here and get our free lunch since we work here. I went with our receptionist yesterday and we were kind of disappointed because all the men were old. Screw the lunch, we were there to see the sights. There just weren't any. So we were complaining when we got back and Sharon told us, "You need to go on Wednesday because that's when the Gold Grip players play. They're the younger guys, in their 30's and 40's, and they have the money." (Gold Grip players pay a steep price to play in that league). So it looks like I'll be going this afternoon around 1 with Sharon and one of the other social workers. I told Sharon I am going solely for the purpose of helping her to scout out a man that I approve of. Of course I'll get to look too. The three of us were all laughing at morning meeting this morning because we all dressed in solid black (unplanned!!!) so we should make quite a sight ourselves. I am getting my haircut by the closet case at 12:30 so I'll be fresh and fabulous! I'm trying to get Cheryl to go with us but she isn't sure...depends if any of her people are about to die then. I told her to tell them to wait. And on a psuedo Interlewds note: That song, "I Just Wanna Fucking Dance" is cursed for me now. I swear, nobody really comes in here much all day. Well, yesterday just as it started playing on the radio, my boss - "Miss Kiss", comes into my office. I reached over and turned it down and I was laughing at how this time I didn't have it come blaring over the speakers. She said, "What's so funny? You don't have to turn that down for me". I clicked on the Windows Media Player where it showed the name of the song and said, "Yeah, I do...come look at the name of the song". She walked over and looked and starts laughing and says "Turn that up! I want to hear this now!" So I turned it up and she's laughing and suddenly starts shouting "SUE!! (one of our RN's) Come in here and listen to what Kevin has on the radio!" So Sue comes in and she's really getting into this song and asking "How do find this stuff?" I ended up doing a short seminar on finding gay dance radio internet stations for them. And you thought all I ever did was blog at work! I think I've actually done pretty well with the typing today, despite my injury. If I find the time, I may be back later to report on the findings at the country club. Otherwise, see ya tomorrow! Brief Update: HELLO!!! I just heard on the news it's going to be 93 here on Sat.!!!

In the Realm of the Inappropriate

2006-04-11T05:44:00.000-07:00

Anyone who can think of a good title for me to use when I find myself involved in these outrageously inappropriate workplace conversations, please feel free to make a suggestion in the comment section. Yes, I had yet another one of those bizarre conversations in my office yesterday afternoon. It was quickly followed by another ludicrous occurrence that practically had me in stitches. As seems to always be the case, the cast of characters in the first conversation were myself, social worker Sharon and RN Cheryl. Sharon came into my office and sat down to kill some time. Sharon: Did your kids have fun at the egg hunt? Me: Yeah. They really did. I meant to tell you that you looked really good on Saturday! Sharon: I have to look my best when I go out now. You never know when you just might meet someone. Turns out that was a complete waste of effort! Me: I'll say! Nothing but a bunch of Bubbas. But did you notice how they all were giving me the once over twice...probably nudging each other and saying, "That's one a them gays". I should demand to be paid if I'm going to be a sideshow attraction! Oh! But did you see the hunk of manmeat working in the communications room across from your office? Sharon: (starts laughing) You mean (we'll call him Greg but his name is weirder than that)? Cheryl comes into my office: I heard you two laughing. What's going on in here? Sharon: Kevin was eyeing up Greg! But I was looking too. Me: I was more than eyeing him up! I kept finding excuses to walk past that room just to check him out. I was eyeing him up, down and ripping his clothes off in my mind. So do you guys know him? How old is he? Is he married? Sharon: Everyone knows him around here. He's in his 30's and he's not married but he's a dog. He's nothing but a woman chaser...and he's not your kind. Me: Sharon, even steel bends with enough heat! I'm perfectly willing to dump this glass of water on my phone if it means he'll come in here and spend some time fixing it! Cheryl: Did Sharon tell you I asked him out once? Sharon: Oh no...here she goes. Me: (already laughing because of Sharon) NO! Really? Did you go out? What was he like? Tell me everything! Cheryl: (her delivery is so matter of fact serious...I don't think it translates as well here) Well I asked him but he's pretty arrogant and he never really answered me so we didn't go out but I wanted to. He's pretty hot and I've heard from other people that he's got a lot down there in his pants. I wanted to be one of the ones who found out for sure. When I hear that kind of stuff, I want to know...I'm curious by nature. Sharon: Oh Jesus...now you got her started! Me: (laughing quite hard) Well, your being rejected only serves to give me some hope...I want to find out too! Cheryl: (walks over and puts her hand on my shoulder) Can I ask you something? Me: Uh-oh... Cheryl: How long is yours? I think I might have screamed aloud at that point...I vaguely remember Sharon running from the room and saying "Oh God, no you didn't Cheryl! No you didn't!" I quickly got up to follow Sharon out, laughing to the point of finding it a bit hard to breathe (Sharon later told me I was turning purple) while Cheryl followed me and kept saying "What? I want to know? I told you I'm curious". Oh my...I laughed about that for the rest of the afternoon. Like I said before, I can't believe we three haven't been banned from socializing at work. We're dangerous when we're together. It's a good thing there aren't any patients in this building. Anyway, fast forward maybe an hour or so. I'm sitting at my desk breaking down a death chart and our bereavement coordinator, Julie (the former nun) is in there with me doing something too. We're chatting away and not paying much attention to the music I had playing on the internet radio. There was a brief lull in the conversation at the exact moment that Alison Jiear blares out the line "I JUST WANNA FUCKIIIIINNNNGGGG DAAAAAANNNNNCE!!!!!" (from "Jerry Springer: The Opera") My hand flew to the volume control like a lightning bolt. Julie just slowly turns to me with this smile on her face and says "She just wants to whaaat?" I started laughing and said, "I'm sorry. I have no control over her feeling so passionately about 'the dance'". Oh geez! Something like that would only come on when a former nun is sitting there next to me! Thankfully this woman is so super cool that it didn't really faze her. I told her, "You have no idea how glad I am it was you sitting here and not Patricia (the Hospice Chaplain who has an office directly across the hall from mine)." With Julie it was just funny, with Patricia, I'd have died of embarrassment. Oh my...I love this job.

Bouncing Back

2006-04-10T09:59:00.000-07:00

I think I may have bottomed out. I'm hoping that's the case. I just know that I'm feeling somewhat better today, definitely not back to my usual witty and sparkling self but not the quivering blob of jelly I was yesterday. Okay, I wasn't really that bad but it was pretty ugly, wasn't it? To all of the people who were so kind and sent me emails, I promise I will answer each and every one of them. Just give me some time here. It may take a day or two but I'll get around to answering you. I appreciate each and every one of your comments. This is the only place I have that is "safe" for me to spill this kind of stuff. I certainly can't in my daily life. I have an image to maintain! Anyway, nothing has been resolved but it sure is nice knowing that misery does indeed have company out there (some of them wearing smart Chanel suits with Alexis Carrington Colby veils!). I figure I'll bring down as many of you as I can...muwahahahahaha! So a new day...I don't really have anything much to say. I just got back from running up to the local Eckerd drugstore to get some film developed. These will be pics from when the kids and I walked around the lake 2 weekends ago. If any turn out half way decent, perhaps I'll post a few. It is absolutely gorgeous outside today after a very wintery feeling morning! I couldn't believe how cold the house was when I got out of bed. I still had the thermostat set for a/c so the furnace never kicked on. Brrrrrr. I finally buckled under the pressure and did my taxes. Oh my goodness, the amount I get back is laughable. I swear, if it wasn't Bush in office, I'd send a little note just telling them to keep it or send it to someone who's starving or something. So not worth the hassle of doing them. I think I'm getting back like $30 from North Carolina and around $350 from the federal govt. At least it's done and in the mail. After that I went outside and the two little ones helped me wash one of the vans. It really needed it since it was covered in yellow pine pollen. That stuff finally seems to have stopped falling so it was safe to wash once again. Afterwards I made dinner, gave baths, got the kids to bed and then vegged on the couch and watched Discovery channel. Cheery, uplifting stuff, all about disasters! There is a complete HUNK in this building today working on our phone system. He's what I would compare to a slightly younger Tim McGraw except his goatee is a bit more on the full side. I have been finding reasons to slowly stroll past the communications room where he's working just so I can gaze longingly and lustfully at his unbridled sex appeal. I have had to restrain myself from walking in there and slamming the door shut in order to rip his clothes off. It's a good thing for him, I suppose, that I am so NOT the aggressor! Men like this are put here in order to torture me when my own is away. Hmmm...I wonder if I could find something wrong with my phone...nobody ever comes in here. Ooops! How did that glass of water just spill all over my phone?! I had a very gossipy morning here. Everyone shows up for the Monday morning meeting so a lot of the girls that I only see once a week will come in here afterwards to sit and shoot the breeze. Oh, the things I become privy too! I love it though! They all know I can be trusted. Okay, I have to call and check two references now. My least favorite thing to do. Thanks again. You people are so great.

Worries and Fears

2006-04-09T09:39:00.000-07:00

WARNING! The following is one big, massive pity party. If you want happiness, look elsewhere. Or maybe come back tomorrow. I felt as though I was rather vague the last few days about what my problem is. Hell, I don't know what it is but I thought I would sit down and try to get out as much of what's running through my head as I could and post it here. Some of this information is rather personal. I don't really know any of you so I guess I just don't care. Judge me...or don't. Read it...or don't. Just don't fucking tell me I have no right to feel the way I do. I'm purposely sneaking it in here on Sunday because according to my tracker, hardly anyone comes here then. Don't say you weren't warned. I'm a big worrier. In fact, that's a major part of why I've been so down lately. I've been worrying about the move to Atlanta, about having to quit my job that I love, about facing the "unknown" again and being unemployed. I've had this foreboding sense of doom come over me like a black cloud for the last few days. Murphy's Law is actually a biography of my life so I suppose I really shouldn't be too surprised by any of this. I can't explain why but I started thinking about if anything were to ever happen to Ron, I'd be lost. I'm really nothing without him. After spending 18 years of your life with someone, there's just going to be a certain level of co-dependency there. I don't think there's really anyway around that happening. But in addition to that, I truly have to rely on him now and sometimes it scares the crap out of me because I have never relied on anyone for anything. I mean that in the sense that I gave up my career when we moved down here. I used to be the one who made the good money and now he's the real breadwinner. Funny how the roles switched so drastically! Ever since we moved here, I can't find a decent paying job to save my life. I know that I've said how much I love my current job and yes, that DOES count for a lot but the pay is so ridiculously low that I can't even afford to save for my own future. I'll say it point blank so you can all laugh at me...I make less than 20k per year. Once upon a time, I owned three houses. Do you see where I'm coming from here? 7 yrs. of college and I'm worthless and useless. I'm poor. And yet the funny thing is that together, with our salaries combined, we're really quite well off, north of six figures even. The problem lies in the fact that thanks to our Christian-based government, I don't count. I'm not part of a "couple". My relationship of 18 years that I have invested a good chunk of my life into is not valid in their eyes. If something were to happen to Ron, I honestly don't know how I'd support the kids on my income, I certainly couldn't pay the mortgage. Yeah, there's some insurance but only enough to cover our major debts, insurance costs a fortune! I have no claim to any of his benefits like Social Security or anything a regular, "legitimate" married couple might have because basically, I'm nothing. I don't exist. My future is a cardboard box. I'm 41 years old and I have nothing to show for it. I once did, but not anymore. I've actually hoped that I die early in life just so I don't have to face the uncertainty of living for a long time like everyone on my mom's side of the family seems to do...the side I most closely take after. I can't afford to live long! I guess I'm just suddenly freaking out about things. The whole idea of having to move again is really scary. I know there will be more opportunity for me in Atlanta but still, I'm giving up everything AGAIN for the unknown. So that I can set myself up for the humiliation of job hunting and the feeling that you're useless and nobody wants you and how dare you expect to ask for that kind of salary! I'm not ready to go through that again. The saddest part of that for me is that I know it's my own fault. I hate the career path that I chose for myself 20 years ago and now it's like it's too late to do anything to change it. Even if I were to ever go back to school, I could only go part time. I still have 4 little kids to keep after and I have to work just to attempt to build some sort of pathetic social security nest egg or whatever that I'll probably have the govt. take away from me when the time comes anyway. When would I do all the work that school requires from you? I have to be realistic...I remember how much homework I had to endure back then. And where would the money come from? I applied to go back to school a year and a half ago. I had no problem being accepted but then I was told I was not eligible for financial aid because I had made too much money 2 years prior. Never mind my income was currently ZERO! That was the end of that. I get shot down at every turn I try to make. But once again, realistically, I was probably being a fool. I was going to have to go back as an undergrad because my last degree, a BFA, was too different from the field I wanted to pursue now. By the time I ever finished, I'd probably be 65 yrs. old and then what? I would go out and look for some entry level position somewhere? May as well keep the one I have, thank you. So now I pay the price for my indecision of yesteryear. You know what's really funny is how every year you get that statement from Social Security telling you how much you've made each year you've been working and what your benefits will be if you retire at this age or this age or that age. Well, in typical fashion for me because I have to go against the grain, instead of growing every year, mine dwindles lower and lower and lower. Like I said, it's really my own fault, I'm being punished for not really knowing what I ever wanted to do with my life. I thought I made the right choice but I didn't. Tough luck for me. I'm not very important. Really, if I dropped dead tonight, nobody would miss me. Yeah, my family and friends back in Ohio might mourn me for a week or so but I'm 500 miles from them. We only get to see each other once or if I'm lucky, twice a year. It's not like it would be a loss....in a way, I'm already gone from there. Their lives have moved on without me being the bigger part of them that I once was. And mine has moved on as well except with big holes that have never been filled because other than for my kids, there isn't anyone down here that was capable of filling them. Certainly nothing down here would change if I weren't here. Ron would be inconvenienced because of the kids but I don't even know that they'd care that much. They're so used to being abandoned in their lives anyway. Please don't misunderstand me here, I'm not suicidal. I'm trying to look at my life from an objective standpoint here and what I see is that I'm not that big a deal. I'm really just not that important. I don't do anything that someone else out there couldn't do just as well. Of the things I can do...I just feel I'm taken for granted. At work, at home, with the kids....unappreciated. I'm well aware that everyone feels that way too so I guess in that respect I'm no different. Does anyone know what I'm talking about here? Because I don't anymore. Please don't think that I'm posting any of this because I want comments telling me how useful and not-worthless I am. I know some of you out there feel that way and I love you for it and appreciate it but I'm really not looking to have my ego stroked. And also please don't tell me what the Bible says about me or anything I am feeling. Although I completely respect your right to observe any religion you want, the Bible is about as meaningful to me as a Jackie Collins novel telling me that Slavic men have the biggest penises (i.e...I don't believe it!). You know, someone I just "e-met" emailed me last night and gave me what I felt was probably the best advice so far. She told me to just go with it. Just wallow in it if that's what I need to do and that eventually it will pass and I'll come out of it. I guess in a way, that's what this post really is. Wallowing in it. Thank you, you know who you are. I don't expect that there is anything anyone can say or do to make me feel differently. I hate feeling like this though and I'd give anything to just snap out of it if I could. So that's really about it. Judge me, laugh at me, hate me, tell me I have it good and have no right to feel so bad. Whatever.... I just don't think anyone can understand. I don't even think I understand what's wrong.

Stalling....

2006-04-08T13:25:00.000-07:00

Blogger is doing something weird because my "Create a new post" page looks totally different all of a sudden. It was like a springtime breeze that takes you by surprise! At the moment, I'm really just sitting here looking for ways to put off doing my taxes. I get money back as usual but I just oh-so-hate doing them. It would be really easy if I still didn't own the house back in Cleveland that our friend K lives in and takes care of for us. Because of that, I have to itemize and fill out Schedules A-Z it seems. All so I get a couple hundred dollars back. Whoop-di-do. It almost doesn't even seem worth it. I took the kids to the Easter egg hunt and cookout that Hospice sponsored earlier this afternoon. It was actually a lot of fun but I'm the rare individual who really loves the people I work with everyday. It was pretty windy out but at least the rains held off until we were on our way back home. It's pouring out now...probably another sign I should really be doing those taxes. This rain is so welcome. We've been under a high fire danger alert all week and it really hasn't rained in well over a month now. Trust me, it's a tinder box down here with everything covered in pine straw. There was a big fire over by Fayetteville just yesterday that I saw on the news. Thanks for the nice things you said about me on that last post. If you've read me long enough, you know that sometimes I just get like this. Teressa, you're a sweetheart and no, I'm not past the point of listening to what other people tell me. It doesn't make how I feel any different unfortunately but still, I appreciate it. I don't mean to worry anyone...I'm not going to be doing anything stupid. My kids are what keep me going when this garbage sets in. I don't know...I don't really feel like talking about it right now. I spilled my guts in an email to one of you already (and you're probably still scratching your head and thinking..."Psy-Cho!!!") so I feel like I "got it out" at least for right now. I may be back later. No, I'm not depressed, no, I'm not suicidal. I just think that I THINK too much when Ron is gone. I have so much on my mind and so many responsibilities and so much to juggle by myself. It's like a tidal wave crashing over me sometimes and I get so overwhelmed. There's no family down here to help, I can't trouble our friends all the time. Okay. I'm shutting up now. I just sound weak and pathetic and I hate myself.

And Finally....

2006-04-07T18:24:00.000-07:00

This is the end. I promise. I know I've bored my readers with these pictures all week but I don't have any more after these. Well, at least not scanned in. To the people who enjoyed the series, thanks! I have to say that it made my blogging easier all week. It's easy to look at a photograph and remember the story behind it or around it and then write it down. Some of this was stuff that I probably wouldn't have ordinarily blogged about. If you got nothing from it, sorry. I'm not doing this for you anyway so fuck off. Or am I? You be the judge. After tonight, it's back to normal around here. I'm fearful of what that means. I've been teetering on the edge of a dark abyss for the last few days here. I just wish I'd fall one way or the other and have it be done with. It's not just about missing Ron. I do. But I've been thinking about a lot of other things. Things that aren't pretty to talk about. You know...I'm really not very important in life. If I wasn't here, nobody would really miss me. And I'm not talking about here as in blogging. I mean here as in alive. I'm not writing this in hopes of people gushing to me about how I do matter or any of that. I'm just stating a fact. Yes, I probably think too much sometimes. Anyway, you can think about that and maybe we'll discuss it tomorrow. Or maybe not. I don't really care about too much right now. So I am off to the kitchen to do one of two things...either fix myself a tropical rum punch with lots of rum or else make a milkshake since I am craving one. In the meantime...enjoy my last two pics. Aaahhh yes, the ill-fated trip to Washington, DC. This was almost exactly 3 years ago, and only 2 months prior to the move to NC. Linda and I took a chartered bus to an "I Hate George Bush" march on Washington. Look, you can even see the Capitol dome just behind me and the crowd of peace-loving Asians that I was surrounded by. Actually, this was an anti-war march held the week before we started the debacle in Iraq. There were a couple hundred thousand people in attendance and I have to say, I have never felt more American and more proud than I did on that day, marching with all of those other people through the streets of DC for something I believed in. And now, knowing we were right all along, it just makes it all the sweeter. It's something that everyone in this country should experience at least once in their lives. It was powerful and emotional and the greatest sense of freedom I've ever felt. Yeah, it had a real impact on me. This picture was early in the day, before the trip home when everything went sour. I know I blogged briefly about this before but after the rally, the bus driver lost his mind. First he took us to Baltimore. Ummmm...wrong direction dummy! Instead of just catching I-70 west from there, he turned around and took us BACK to DC. On the beltway he truly went mad, driving 90 miles an hour, leaving mere inches between the bus and car bumpers in front of us, taking up two lanes at a time. People were gasping in shock and horror. I was honestly fearing for our lives. Then the police got involved. Flashing lights, sirens. Do you think he pulled over? Hell no! He tried to outrun them!!! Finally they force him over only to inform him that we have no brake lights, no turn signals, no lights whatsoever. And we're going to be crossing the mountains in this rolling deathtrap? I don't think so! I still couldn't figure out how he was allowed to just drive off?! At the next exit he got off and pulled into a Toys R Us parking lot to check the fuses. Linda and I grabbed our stuff and charged off that bus. Two other women came with us. We had no way of getting home and no money but we were not going to risk our lives with that maniac. We walked to a Hilton hotel and and explained our situation. The people there were unbelievably nice to us! They brought us drinks, allowed us use of their phones, their restrooms, just whatever we needed. (Both Linda and I sent praising letters to Hilton Corp. once we got home and recovered.) Our moms came to the rescue by securing a rental car for us at BWI (Baltimore-Washington Intl. Airport) and the other two ladies agreed to help split the costs so we took a taxi back to Baltimore and got the car. By the time we left Baltimore, it was 11:30 p.m. We had both been up for over 38 hours at that point and still had a six and a half hour drive ahead of us. We all talked to keep whoever was driving awake but by the time we crossed from Pennsylvania into Ohio, Linda and I were the only ones left up. We were both hallucinating at that point but neither told the other until the next day. I saw clowns in the middle of the turnpike. Linda told me she had seen tigers! We laughed our heads off over the circus theme. Great minds.... 46 hours after having last slept, I finally pulled into my driveway, unlocked the door to the house, stumbled to my bed and collapsed. I slept for almost 20 hours. NEVER AGAIN!!!!! Brace yourselves...this is where I get old. Old Old Old! After I got rid of the blonde, I let the gray grow in. And OH! How gray I became! Everyone in my family has turned prematurely gray. I had gray hairs coming in in my early 20's but it was never all that overwhelming. My mom has the most beautiful silver/gray hair I've ever seen and I always liked it so the fact that I'm only 41 and have as much as I do never really bothered me. Ron always liked it too and hated when I would mess with the color. Anyway...this is the most recent picture I have of myself, from last summer. Note the cocktail in hand! LOL! Actually I look rather sloshed in this picture but I guess I'm just a big ole' lush at heart. Linda and I had started our drinking early that day, she was visiting us on vacation so that's as good a reason as any...it was 5 o'clock somewhere. I think that was her mom taking the picture. Memories...so fuzzy. teehee. I can tell you that I was in desperate need of a haircut when this was taken! Yikes! Rest assured, it's much shorter now. Oh and the goatee is gone as of last weekend. It gets too hot for that in the summer here and then if I'm in the sun, I don't want that white ring around my mouth if I were to cut it off. Okay, so that's it. I've laid myself bare here. Go ahead Nicole, mock me. LOL! Can you believe how in only 3 years I aged about 20 years? That's why I'm considering the bleach again. Hmmm....decisions...decisions. Long gone is that porn star on the balcony in Virginia Beach...he's been replaced by Grampa.

The More Recent Years

2006-04-07T03:46:00.000-07:00

Okay, before I proceed with my pre-written post I wanted to take a second and make a few comments here real quick. First of all, Are you people all crazy? That last batch of pictures were the bottom of the barrel! Yes, I have worse but I wouldn't have dreamed of putting those up on this blog...usually because my hair looked horrible or I was smiling "too hard" and my eyes are all scrunched and squinty. I'm copying this from an email I wrote to Tina (Miss Pixie) yesterday since it's completely true. "Sadly, there aren't any good recent ones of me because Ron trains the lens on the kids now and I've fallen out of favor. I got old. So sad is the life of a former supermodel! He knew how to get me to make love to the camera. No one else can do that. I shall never model again." Ron was a pro at photographing me in ways that didn't look forced or "stagey", nobody else has ever mastered that. I've got a lot of free time on my hands now....I guess I'll call Linda Evangelista and do coffee or something. Someone or some thing called "blob" is of the belief that I am ancient porn star, Matt Ramsey. I'm sorry to disappoint "blob", but no. You are mistaken. Please do not ooze into my home under cover of darkness and smother me in my sleep. Please welcome Miss Coco Peru to my blog. She is my current avatar of choice! A message to Nicole: As America's First Family of Rock, The Partridge Family, once said (well "sang" if you want to be picky about it) "I think I love you!" Thank you so much for your comment. I laughed so hard I almost fell off my chair and believe me, I needed to laugh today. I pre-wrote these posts earlier in the week so the breezy tone belies the fact that I have been really down the last couple days. I may blog about that over the weekend...when nobody reads me anyway...that way if you don't want to listen to my pity party, you don't have to show up. With all of that said, here is the next installment of my life and times. This was 2003. Once again the coloring in this picture tends toward the yellow side. Damn photographs! Anyway, we were on our friend J's yacht, taking a 5 day cruise up to Sarnia, Ontario, into Lake Huron and back to Cedar Point where the yacht lived. These were the years that we were really hobnobbing with the upper crust of old-money society. It was very interesting. J owns the premier catering company that all the wealthy families used and Ron was working for the Event Florist that they used so that's how we met and hit it off. J's in his early 60's now, one of our older friends. His partner died, probably 12 of 15 years ago. They had started the catering business together and the rumor was always that his partner died of AIDS. I believe that to be true but J didn't like it brought up...so it wasn't. Unfortunately, in their business and the way things used to be, word of that spreading around could have wrecked his livelihood. J always maintained that it was "cancer" that did D in. There was one night on this particular trip that we were sitting in the salon and J started opening up and reminiscing about him. It was very emotional and I saw a side of him I'd previously never seen and it broke my heart. Here he was, is still, this insanely wealthy man who seemingly has it all and yet he was so alone, so lonely and still missing his partner who had been gone for over a decade. Geez, I still get misty recalling that evening. But despite that, our cruises were always a great time. He loved having us up because he said I made him laugh so much plus the fact that in our early years together, Ron and I had a boat so Ron could drive J's and J could sit and relax and have cocktails with me. Why does everyone always say that? That I make them laugh...I don't think I'm that funny on here. This is the actual yacht. To give an idea of scale, that's me up there sitting on the bow. It was glorious and I have photos of the interior I may post someday. There were 3 staterooms on board, a full size kitchen, beautiful main salon, enclosed sun deck on back, 2 full baths, it was a floating condominium really. During the days that we didn't go out into the lake, we would spend them mainly up on the Bridge...enjoying the sun and having cocktails of course! I look at this picture and realize how much I miss those times. They seem like so long ago and yet they weren't. Funny how life just happens. Finally, a picture where my hair really shows as the white it was! No, I am not bald here. Yes, there is hair there, it's just so white and short that it looks like I'm bald. Can you believe this was only 3 and a half years ago? I can't. I look so freaking young in this picture. HA! Wait until you see me now! That camera-shy sweetheart in my lap is Mr. Noodles, by the way. This was in Cleveland still and Linda took the picture. Ron was already here in NC and I was up there waiting for the house to finally sell. This may have been one of the last times I bleached my hair. I knew we were moving to the middle of nowhere and I was wary of drawing unwanted attention to myself and the fact that we were two guys, gay, and living in the rural south. Now that I've been here a while, I see in retrospect what a complete waste that all was! We were welcomed with open arms. This was supposed to be the last installment of my series but because I put those additional paragraphs at the top, it's getting kind of long and I don't want to bore you forever so I'll break it up here and do the rest later. But I will pose this question to you....My Reader's Poll: Do you think I should bleach my hair again? I have the bleach under the sink in my bathroom and I'm itching for a change. I shaved my goatee off last weekend so I'm raring to go on this. What do you think? I'm not saying I'll do what the consensus wants of me, Hell, I'll probably do the exact opposite just to spite you all but still, I'd like your opinions! Of course, this is with you not having seen my most recent picture with all my gray hair so if you choose to wait another day, feel free. That one may sway your vote.

Stoned! or "The Unflattering Collection"

2006-04-06T03:44:00.000-07:00

Sorry, but there's really no other way to describe these first two pictures. I have no idea who had the camera but if I had had my wits about me, these would have never been taken! LOL! When my mom saw this first one, she knew but wouldn't say anything other than, "Oh, this is terrible!" You know how mom's are when they know they can't control their kids anymore. Well, I WAS in my mid-late 30's at this point. Not too flattering is it? I didn't want anyone thinking I was just posting "good" pictures to get gushy compliments. Trust me, we peaked in the 90's and it's all downhill from here! Fasten your seatbelts, it's going to be a bumpy ride. So anywho, this picture was taken during the summer of 2000. I'm at my friend B's house, the trust-fund baby...a.k.a. The Bat Lady, way out on the far east side of Cleveland. That was the only place I ever smoked pot after my "partying days" were over. B would always cook us a feast afterwards and everything would taste soooooo good! I miss doing that sometimes. Her daughter that she adopted from China is next to me. Ron didn't partake so he was the responsible adult in the room. Not that I believe pot makes you irresponsible because I don't. It just makes you not very photogenic. Oh Look! My eyes are all fucked up here too. Stoned again! Except this time with platinum blonde hair. This was New Years Eve 2001 at B's house again (it's traditional for us). Yes, this was the year that I bleached the hell out of my hair. I told my friend who did hair that if he could guarantee me that it would be white blonde and not yellowish or orangey, than I would let him do it for me that first time. He promised and voila', Look out Marilyn! Actually, having always been a major fan of Miss Deborah Harry, she was my real inspiration. That...and the fact that at my age, it was totally unexpected. The day after having it done and walking into work, jaws hit the floor. One must shake things up on occasion. People seemed to either love it or hate it. I loved it. My mom hated it yet the day I finally shaved it all off 3 years later and let it grow back in naturally, she told me "I actually grew to like it!" I figured when I did it that if I was going to do it, I wanted it to look as unnatural as possible. I think I succeeded. Unfortunately in this picture, the coloring is off and it looks yellowy but in real life, it wasn't. It was snow white. And let these pictures be a lesson to kids about the dangers of smoking pot! This is me in Manhattan, 2002. I am NOT stoned in this picture. What exactly was happening I don't remember but I was either very frightened or caught mid-sneer. I do know that this was taken in "The Dungeon Room" at the Incentra Village Guest House in Greenwich Village on 8th Ave. (My check better be in the mail) Normally we would stay at the Colonial on W. 22 in Chelsea but on this trip, there was no room at the inn so we went here. Believe it or not, the Dungeon Room was actually pretty nice! Yeah, it was in the basement and there were no windows but it was "well-appointed" and came complete with a pig bench which made for some good pictures. No, not those kind of pictures. Get your minds out of the gutter! Personally, that kind of stuff does nothing for me except make me laugh. The night this was taken, our friend "K2" had come over from Jersey City to go out with us. We also had our other friend, "K1" who came with us from Cleveland. I remember this night very well because we managed to completely lose K1 who had never even been to NYC before and didn't know his way around. Now if you are above 14th Street, it doesn't matter as much because it's all just a big grid and you'd have to be a moron to not know how to count (all the streets are numbered). But below 14th, where we were, it's a bit more tricky. We started out at the Spike (is that even open anymore?) then went over to the Eagle. That's where we lost K1. He was pretty drunk and, we found out later, had managed to find his way over to the Lure (is that one there anymore?). Being the bad friends that we are I suppose, we went back to Incentra and went to bed. Well, really, we had no idea where he was so what could we possibly do? He finally came stumbling into the room around 6:30 a.m. At breakfast that morning he told us he vaguely remembered seeing a street sign for 8th and W. 30-something and decided he had walked the wrong direction. Yeah, I'll say! This was the last time I was in New York. I really miss it. We used to get in the car and take, literally, spur-of-the-moment trips to Manhattan all the time. This was actually one of those. Shortly after this we would move to North Carolina and, although I don't really think it's much farther of a drive, we haven't been back. Eventually though we'll get there again. We want to take the kids because, as Audrey Hepburn says in Breakfast at Tiffany's "They must see this! Oh, I love New York". Me too, Audrey, me too. I shall call this part in my series "The Unflattering Shots" since they are really awful pictures! Tomorrow I'll post some decent ones of me as a blonde and then a recent photo to show how OLD and ugly I am now. It's amazing how fast I went downhill. Break out your handkerchiefs, you're going to need em.

The 90's

2006-04-05T03:45:00.000-07:00

So, here I am in San Francisco, circa 1995. That's "Postcard Row" behind me, the famous row of restored Victorian houses that fans of "Full House" will recognize. No, I did not see the Olsen twins while there. San Francisco, the "Gay Mecca", the city to leave your heart in. Me? I couldn't wait to get out. I truly believe that I am the only gay man on the face of this planet who really hated San Francisco. I know, I know, that's some sort of sacrilege to even say such a thing but it's true. I was just amazingly underwhelmed by that city. Yes, it's very pretty....in certain places. Other areas are just a big dump...like any other large city. Yes, the bridges and the hills are impressive. Yes, there are lots and lots of gay people and the city is very liberal in it's ideology. It's got a lot going for it. But it just wasn't for me. I don't "fit" with the gay crowd to begin with so none of that aspect was particularly appealing to me in SF. It's a very tightly packed, congested city, but not in a good way like New York or Chicago even. And gawd help you if you want to make a left turn somewhere because you might as well just curl up and die before you actually find a place that you are allowed to! Yeah...I knew it wasn't for me when each day dawned with me thinking "Only 3 more days and we get to go back to LA", "Only 2 more days of this place", "Please let tomorrow get here fast!" One morning I was jolted awake by a moderate earthquake, something I was used to from LA but the bldg. we were in was foolishly built on STILTS!!! What was someone thinking??? It served to make it feel much worse than it was and scared the living daylights out of me. Ron wasn't too keen on SF either. Perhaps it was because it was one city that we went to on our own. Usually, we prefer to have a friend along who actually "knows" the city and can show you the real side of it as opposed to the tourist side or at the very least, someone who can steer you in the right direction if they aren't physically there. This is one city where we knew no one. Hey, I told you we don't fit with the gays! Maybe someday we'll give it another chance but eh...we came, we saw, we left. This was St. Augustine, Florida. I believe it was 1998 or 99. I really should write this stuff on the backs of these pictures. My memory is shot already. What was I doing? Shopping of course. They have lots of cool stores in the "Old Town" section of St. Augustine so it's fun to browse through there. Note the graying at my temples. It was around this point I just gave up trying to hide it and let it all come in. What do you think of my hair this short? I liked it. It was so easy, no fuss and stood up to wind and humidity. Geez, it was military short then. I have been considering shaving my head to this length again because I'm tired of what I have and feel like I want a change. Hmmmm..... Opinions are welcome. This was in Key West, Florida. Same trip, just further south. This was the sunset cruise that I ended up jumping into the Gulf of Mexico naked because I had to use nature's toilet. There was so much wine and champagne on board that boat and I wasn't the only one. It was rather liberating actually. This was our second time vacationing in Key West and of all the times we've gone there (four now I think?) this was the best trip, the one I'll always remember as The Trip. Everything was perfect. The first time we went, we hated the gay bed & breakfast we stayed at. That put a damper on things from the start. This trip, the second one, we stayed at a place called "Alexanders" which was wonderful and we loved it...stayed there every time afterwards. It was one of the few times I ever really bonded with a bunch of strangers but that's how it was. I actually liked all the other guests staying there during our stay (maybe about 8 or 10) and we did everything together for that week. We had a blast. The following trips never equaled this one. There was no connection with any of the other guests, nobody seemed as friendly and fun as they were on this trip. Whooda thunk? Me...being sociable?! After the sunset cruise, all of us went back to the B&B and had a big party in one of the suites before going out on the town. I was so wasted! We never went to sleep that night and then we had to drive back to the mainland the next morning to catch our flight home. This picture was from the party. I opted for this one over the one of me lighting a bowl! Yes, that kind of bowl. It wasn't mine, I swear. Someone else furnished the party favors. Once again, geez! I was so tan! I don't even think I ever get that tan anymore even when we sit at the pool all summer. So, there you have it...the 90's. I looked pretty average then, just normal, nothing unusual. Well, wait until the 21st Century starts! You're in for a treat tomorrow! (and Pixie, you keep your mouth shut since I already clued you in!)

21 Years Ago

2006-04-03T03:49:00.000-07:00

This was me, 1985, in Virginia Beach.

This isn't even my good side, I photograph better from the right. Hmmm...I don't know...I think I was okay once...maybe a little skinny but I was young. My hair was certainly a lot darker! Would you have dated me? Oddly enough, this was during a time where I couldn't get a date to save my life. I was told numerous times that I looked "unapproachable". Yeah, probably...but it was no doubt my contemptuous attitude that was shining through in all of its glory. I really hated people in general back then. Nowadays, it just depends on my mood.

I scanned in a bunch of pictures that I'll be posting this week. I decided to leave out a few of the more embarrassing ones (of which there seemed to be quite a few! 80's fashions could be very unkind!) There will even be a "Reader's Poll" for one of them. How exciting, huh?

Why does my title not show up sometimes whenever I center a picture? For anyone unable to see it, this was me 21 yrs. ago.

If He's Blogging on Sunday....

2006-04-02T08:10:00.000-07:00

That can only mean that R is on his way back to Hong Kong. Yep, that would be the correct answer. Time is on my side once again. It's been a pretty busy weekend so far. Friday evening I came home again to cocktails but it was a beautiful evening so we sat out at the outdoor fireplace with Patsy and laughed until dark. I just opted for simple Vodka/Tonics with lemon this week. Easy and Refreshing! The guy who is going to put our new decktop on came by to take a look at that. Finally! We've found someone we can rely on to actually show up and do the job...we've "hired" two guys previously that never came back. This guys old (lives here in the development and just wants something to do to fill his time) so as long as he doesn't die, it should be done within the next couple weeks. After Patsy went home, R and I went in the house and started getting it ready for the open house. It was already fairly clean so it was more a matter of putting clutter away. Woke up Sat. and did more of that. The place really looked fantastic by the time we headed out to Fayetteville. It was a beautiful day, a little hot though (in the mid 80's), but we had a pretty good turnout. Apparently EVERYBODY was dazzled by our stainless steel appliances in the kitchen. I confess to having a secret love affair with my oven/stove so the validation of these strangers made me realize I am right to have it! We haven't decided yet whether we will take it to Atlanta or leave it here. It will depend if there's something decent already at the place we buy. The stove here is gas (I HATE electric!) and was insanely expensive, only 3 yrs. old. We've shared some lovely times together...I can only hope we need not part. It was when we got this stove that I realized, Hey! I'm not half bad at cooking! So....Fayetteville! I hadn't realized how long it had been since I was there. It's only about 45 min. away but we don't go very often. Southern Pines/Pinehurst usually has everything we need. First we stopped at a little Mexican place we enjoy going to and ended up running into our friend "F" who was walking in at the same time! It couldn't have worked out more perfectly if we had planned it! R and I used to work with "F" when R still worked for the company that brought us down here in the first place. I always had a bit of a crush on "F". During the year I worked there, he and I would spend ages sitting in his office, laughing and giggling like school girls over the stupidest things. He wanted me around because I always made him laugh. Some people are just so easy. He's a real oddity though. To look at him, you would think he was the biggest "Good Ole' Boy"/Biker Dude here in the South but the fact is he's as gay as Christmas. He and R get together when they're in Hong Kong at the same time. We had a nice visit and good lunch, then we went off shoe shopping for the kids. I looked too but found nothing that met with my satisfaction. Oh well. I did find some really cool shoes for Ro though so she ended up with 3 pairs while the boys only all got one pair. Interesting observation: Military boys throw incredible amounts of money away on flashy/expensive cars that are well above their income levels simply because they do not have to pay for housing. Some people will never understand what a "sound investment" is. I reset all of the clocks and went to bed at 8 p.m. last night. Woke up at 2 a.m. (which technically didn't happen) and we all got in the van and headed to Raleigh. I did okay but I was becoming a bit of a zombie on the drive back home. I'm too old for these kinds of stunts! Dropped R off and did the hugs and kisses thing...yes, we kiss at the terminal. What other people think BE DAMNED! I felt really depressed as I pulled away. It seems like he just got home. By the time we got to Southern Pines, I had a brilliant idea! "Let's do Moron-Free grocery shopping!" Talk about beating the Sunday Church Crowd! The grocery store is 24 hrs...we pulled up at 5:38 a.m. to six other cars in the lot. It was a dream come true! Even the kids were well behaved in there and for the first time in a long time, I enjoyed grocery shopping! Bought lots of junky stuff...ice cream, Cadbury creme eggs, nothing healthy or good, LOL! When we got home about 7:15 a.m., I had a burst of energy and decided to make a big scrambled eggs and bacon breakfast for us all. Yummy! Cleaned up that mess and then put a DVD in for the kids to watch while I went back to bed. I never really fell back asleep though, just teetered on that brink between waking and sleeping for 2 hours. Now I'm awake, barely. It's so pretty outside so I told the kids we could take a walk around the lake or else ride bikes. I think I'll take the camera and get some pics. For those interested, that would be you mysterious "Cooper", I have an email contact on my profile page now. Have a delicious day! Update: We walked...and walked...and walked...and walked...all the way around the lake, just over 3.5 miles. It wouldn't have been bad really as it's a beautiful day out but it was so damn HOT!!! Guess I got my first sun of the season though. Took bunches of pics too which I'll post when developed (not on the digital camera).

Attention Work Bloggers!

2006-03-31T13:40:00.000-08:00

All those who accomplished absolutely NOTHING at work today, say "Aye". AYE!!!!! and to think I'm still actually going to get paid.

Feisty Friday

2006-03-31T08:55:00.000-08:00

Maybe it's because it's Friday (which is usually rather meaningless to me) but I'm feeling rather feisty today. I've pretty much pissed away the entire morning here, socializing, playing around in the lobby, reading blogs and commenting. Looks like there won't be much working going on. Oh well...it's Friday. Last night I went home and made a huge batch of homemade meatballs. I have this excellent "Italian Immigrant" cookbook and trust me, these things are to die for! We're going to have meatball sandwiches for dinner tonight and just the smell of them baking last night had me salivating. Dee-lish! We pretty much decided not to go to Myrtle Beach tomorrow. Now they are predicting thunderstorms...just doesn't seem worth the drive (90 min.) for such iffy weather. Looks like we shall be gracing the thriving metropolis of Fayetteville with our presence. Oh well, I can console myself with the knowledge that I get to look at handsome military men there. I had completely forgotten about that stupid time change this weekend. It couldn't come at a worse time. R goes back to Hong Kong Sunday morning. They got him on a flight out at 6:25 a.m.!!! Considering we live 90 miles from Raleigh, this means getting up at 2:30 a.m. to get him there in time. Except with the time change, it will be even worse! Ugh! He is supposed to call a friend of ours here and offer to pay him to drive up there. I have no problem doing it but I DO have a problem with getting the kids out of bed and loading them into the van for that trip. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that "G" will drive him otherwise...lucky me. After the meatballs last night, I was going through a bunch of old photos I found in Ro's closet. After R leaves, I'll have to scan some and put a few up on this blog. Sometimes I have to wonder, "What exactly was I thinking???" Every now and then I find amusement in the simplest things here at work. Yesterday I was putting away some paperwork for my dead people and I had two sheets for one patient. The first one dated 3/18 stated that "Patient has Expired". The next sheet dated 3/23 stated "Patient has returned home. No needs at this time." Really??? Ummm...let's hope not. Late Update: Guess who's driving to Raleigh??? G claims to be going to Atlanta this weekend to party. Not sure I believe that but whatever. It's good to be me.

Dildos at Work

2006-03-30T07:24:00.000-08:00

This is just the latest installment in my series on wildly inappropriate workplace conversations that I always manage to get involved in here at Hospice. Yesterday afternoon, I was sitting here in my office, possibly working, maybe just goofing around on the computer, when my friend Sharon the friendly neighborhood social worker came in to chat me up for a spell. As is usually the case when Sharon and I get together in here, things became rather boisterous and our laughter drew in Cheryl, one of the RN's that I get along great with. Frankly, I'm surprised the three of us haven't been banned from socializing at work since we get far too carried away. I have no recollection of what we had even been talking about but it somehow turned to sex...or rather a lack of. Me: (to Sharon) When R leaves for Hong Kong, we should all go out to (Only bar in town) and each pick up some desperate college boy to satisfy us. Oh! That didn't sound very good! The "desperate" part...I meant they'd have to be desperate to go with me, not you Sharon: They'd be desperate to go with me too. I haven't had it since (ex-husband) left! I don't know how you manage when R's gone as long as he is? Cheryl: You could always just do what I do, I've done away with the need for a man. Me: (Laughing) I'm not sure we should go down this road. Cheryl: I'm really happy with my vibrators! Did I ever tell you my dildo story? Sharon: Too late Kev, she's half way down the block! (to Cheryl) This isn't the story I think it is, is it? Me: I don't think it's required for me to know this, is it? Cheryl: The one about the cable guy? Yeah! I had hidden my dildo so my kids wouldn't stumble across it but I forgot to move it when the cable guy came to hook up the tv in my bedroom. He found it and laid it in the middle of the bed. I didn't even see it until after he had left. I don't think he knew what it was! Me: (probably turning red and near tears from laughing) At least he was discreet and didn't come out of there with it bouncin' around in his hands saying "Hey lady, I found this in there!" Sharon: I bet they find stuff like that all the time. Me: I always have to wonder if our housekeeper goes through our drawers when we aren't there. Sharon: Hell yes she does! You're gay! I'd go through your drawers if I was in your house! Cheryl: Do you guys have dildos? Me: (To Sharon) Remind me to never have you over again. (To Cheryl...trying to be tactful and control my laughter at the absurdity of this conversation) Well...yeah...we have some...ummm..."toys". Cheryl: (Who had been standing all along, pulling spare chair up to my desk and sitting down, eyes wide! Blurts out rapid fire) What do you guys do with em? How do you use em? I mean I know how you use them but how do you GUYS use em??? Sharon: (screaming with laughter) You did NOT just ask him that! Me: (tears running down my face from laughing) Conversation over! I think I have to go fax something. I got up and walked out of there but as I was leaving I heard Sharon tell Cheryl, "You scared him away. See? That's why you have to use Dildos, Cheryl" sigh...I'll never find another job like this one.

I Really Shouldn't Be Here.

2006-03-29T07:54:00.000-08:00

Blecchh! I feel pretty lousy today, tired, headache, just not one of my better days. But today was the day the housekeeper came and I don't like being there when she is so here I am at work. Mind you though, I look fantastic! I love the shirt that I have on and had been waiting for some warmer weather to finally be able to break it out and wear it. It was originally a very expensive shirt, the tag said $93, but I got it for $8 and some cents. heeheehee. I shall never divulge my shopping secrets! I have to keep the ladies I work with here happy and maintain my workplace status as "Eye Candy". LOL. Actually I have sometimes wondered if I came into work and never lifted a finger to do anything, they probably still wouldn't fire me because they really like me. The fact that I actually DO work and am good at it is just icing on the cake for them. Has there ever been a greater job? Does this sound a tad bit egotistical? Yeah? Well tough shit! My sister told me yesterday that she is going to Africa this summer. Personally I think she's lost her mind but she insists that the area she is going to is safe and not in any political turmoil. I'll be worried sick until she's back safe and sound. I have an older brother who lives in the middle-east, Bahrain to be exact...new home of Michael Jackson, where he works as a teacher. We're always worried for his safety there but he loves it and has had plenty of opportunities to go elsewhere but chooses to remain there. At the same time, I have friends back in Ohio that worry about me living in rural North Carolina (the whole gay thing) so I guess it's all relative. As is typical of my life, as soon as I started leaning toward going down to Myrtle Beach on Saturday for shopping, they are now predicting rain. So we'll probably end up going to Fayetteville instead which is boring beyond belief and that will be the guarantee that it doesn't rain a single drop. Myrtle Beach just requires much more outdoor walking so it's best to go on a nicer day rather than a rainy one. We'll see I guess. The stores there are better so I'd rather go there. I need some shoes. Cooper, I am terribly sorry but I can't adopt you based solely on the fact that you don't have a blog link. For all I know, your'e some crazy serial killer or something. However, those with blog links may still apply for adoption. And speaking of crazy serial killers, has everyone heard about that nut Whitney Houston hittin' the crack pipe again! Gotta love that one! I always thought when she coined that phrase, "Crack is Whack!" that it would have been so great to use in the fight against drugs in this country. You know, something like "Hey Kids! Whitney Houston says 'Crack is Whack'!" According to what I heard, she's so into this stuff now that she just wets herself and puts on a diaper so that she can continue smoking and not have to be bothered with natural bodily functions. I suppose we could put a positive spin on this by focusing on her committment to the activity at hand. Git-r-dun as all the stupid rednecks say down here. And moving onto rednecks, at lunch today I have to remember to go to the drycleaner to pick up some stuff I have there. I always have a hard time at that place because the woman who waits on me has such a horrible accent and she talks from the back of her throat and doesn't properly move her jaw to form words correctly. She'll always ask me when I drop stuff off, "Do ya want Storch in that?" The first few times I was like, "What?" "huh?" until I finally realized she was saying "Starch". Now it just makes me laugh. But I'm easy that way. Not so much other ways though. This is all just a bunch of meaningless nonsense today, isn't it? We'll blame it on the fever I think is taking over.

Come on, Get Happy!

2006-03-28T08:57:00.000-08:00

It was about time for that dork in the corner to be taken down and replaced with something of true beauty, don't you think? I really need to find some new avatars on google since I'm starting to recycle now. But Babs has been so darn happy lately that I couldn't resist. Honestly, I have nothing much to say today. It's the Tuesday Blank Mind Syndrome which is de riguer for me it seems. I would love to regale all of you with a story of relevance and great insight but I got nothin'! Then again, I never really do that stuff anyway so.... What else is new? R got a call yesterday from his boss asking if he can go back to Hong Kong on Sunday instead of waiting till the 10th. They have a potentially huge, multi-million dollar sale riding on what kind of designs he can come up with for this client. It's a pretty big deal but I'm confident he'll get the account. He has actually worked with this customer at his last job and they were very happy with what he designed for them and ended up purchasing the entire line so he's already familiar with what they're looking for. Of course by going back nine days early, it means he will be gone that much longer, at this point it looks like the entire month of April. I should be used to this by now but still, it feels like I've been socked in the gut when I think about it. I'll manage though, I always do. It's not like I have a choice. R told me that while he's gone I should start looking into where we want to stay when we go to Florida in May. I think I'd like to stay at the beach and just go into Orlando for a day or two but I don't know. I'm not even sure how long he wants to stay. He also wants me to contact "Uncles" A & F, our friends down by Miami, and ask them to meet us there. That would be great if they came up since I really love their company. A hasn't been working (he doesn't have to) other than helping out a friend of his at his store in Wilton Manor so his schedule is pretty free. F, however, may have a harder time getting time off. Guess I need to give them a heads up now. A is just like Ron in that he wants to be there to see the kids' faces when they go to Disney. Sheesh! It's amazing those two ever broke up because they are exactly alike. Then again, that's probably the reason they broke up. Oooh! Brainstorm! I should look into renting a house for a week! That could be fun! I still haven't done my taxes. I'll end up getting money back but I just hate doing them so I put it off till the last minute. R paid to have his done but I can't justify the cost since I don't get back nearly as much as he does. Still...time is running out on that. Wasn't this a delight? No? Yeah...I kinda thought not.

What a Weekend it Was!

2006-03-27T07:07:00.000-08:00

Break out your tumblers and martini glasses! On Friday evening, Ron, Patsy and I officially kicked off the start of Cocktail Season '06!!! I got home from work to find that the kids had already eaten and Patsy was over from across the street, sitting on the kitchen floor with a drink in hand. Before you ask, yes, we do have furniture in our house but the kitchen, in our home at least, is truly the heart of the house where everyone seems to gather so that's the only reason she was on the floor. Anyway, R fixed me a martini and we moved to the great room. He built a roaring fire too (since it's STILL been cold here!) and we saw in the "Season" with a bang! I kind of forgot to eat anything (teehee!) and since we were having such a good time, I didn't bother when the thought crossed my mind. Let's just say that the perils of drinking on an empty stomach are something that should be considered. It only took about three drinks and I was pretty much gone with the wind. Not passed out or anything but wow, I was feeling it! Not that I was going to let it stop me from having another though. We had a great time, laughing, getting the neighborhood gossip, Patsy was dancing with a couple of the kids to some of the really good techno/electronica cd's that Ron got in Hong Kong. Sometime around 11 p.m. or so, Patsy stumbled out the front door and I'm guessing she made it back across the street to her house. R was blotto. I knew he'd be regretting it in the morning. I went into the kitchen and drank about 5 glasses of water and then had enough wits about me to go and read for awhile. I even remember what I read...sometimes I amaze myself! But sound the trumpets, the official Cocktail Season has begun! The coming months will be a social whirl of cocktails at the outdoor fireplace, cocktails on Patsy's patio, cocktails at the beach, cocktails at the pool, just...cocktails. Gotta love these crazy golf communities! This is what I'll miss when the house finally sells! (Sob!) Woke up Saturday feeling....GREAT! No hangover whatsoever! Never underestimate the power of rehydrating! Can't say the same for R though. Most of the day for him was spent lying on the couch. LOL! I did some cleaning, mainly in the kids rooms, and made them clean out under their beds. We have an open house next Saturday afternoon so I'm trying to get a head start on some of the things I want to have done. We'll probably go into Fayetteville that day and go shopping or something, either that or maybe go down to Myrtle Beach and shop. Depends on the weather. That afternoon we went up to the Clubhouse for the neighborhood's annual Spring Fling that one of our excessively wealthy neighbors sponsors. It was a lot of fun and as usual, all the old ladies want to sit around and gossip to me. They served us dinner which was surprisingly delicious and there was beer, wine, drinks...all of it free to residents. The kids spent most of it outside playing with other kids from the neighborhood so we had the freedom to mingle and socialize. Both of us had a really great time. Patsy sat at out table and we were laughing about the previous evening. Apparently her husband hadn't spoken to her all day. He gets mad when he thinks she spends too much time over our house...having fun! Please! I say "where else is your wife going to be completely safe in the presence of two men and a lot of alcohol?" Actually, her husband is a sweetheart, he may just be jealous when she comes over without him. Sunday was just okay, kind of the downfall of the weekend. Nothing bad happened, it's just that I spent 4 and a half HOURS filling out Ron's expense reports from Hong Kong and China. I can't even begin to tell you what a pain in the ass these things are! First of all, most of the receipts are in Chinese and since he never makes notations on anything, you can't read them and have no idea what they are even for. Then, you are dealing with two different currencies, the Hong Kong Dollar (HKD) and the Chinese Yuan (RMB) that both need to be converted to US dollars. Frankly, I can't believe they don't have someone at the company to do this. Oh wait a minute, they have ME! Aren't I the lucky one? Ugh. And I'm not even getting paid. I only do these because he puts it off so long that the AMEX bill comes and we have to send them 5,000 dollars of our own money because he never got the reports in to be reimbursed. Did you know that you can stay in 5 star hotels in China for only like, $57 per night??? Hong Kong isn't nearly as cheap though. Amazingly enough, I was in a good enough mood by the time I finished (or rather elated with a sense of relief!) that I went in the kitchen and cooked a dinner that we'll be having tonight. After that, I had just enough daylight left to go outside and put flowers in the two big urns that flank the front steps so that's another thing done for the open house. Yay for me! So, Friday was my biggest blog day ever according to my Tracker. Yikes! All that activity just for a rerun but I guess a lot of people here have never seen it before. Aaron, if you ever come back, I apologize to you for generalizing in my statement about not being up to some people's standards. It's a little peeve I have about New Yorkers in general, or rather the one's who come over from Joe's blog. Average stay for any visitor who came based on a comment I've left on Joe.My.Gods. blog.....0 Seconds. LOL! For real! You may have been the first in history to have actually stayed for more than that but I still can't count it as such because I think you came from a comment I left on your blog anyway - not his. To the mysterious "Cooper", once again, I apologize for the misunderstanding. Denise is awesome and I'm proud to say we go way back in the blog world. She's just watching out for me and I love her for it. Yes, there was an anonymous commenter before but that person, according to my trusty Tracker, is no longer a visitor. C'est la vie. Danno, first of all, Welcome Back!!! Second, please don't EVER say I live in South Carolina again! LOL! Trust me, there IS a difference!

You've Probably Seen This Before But....

2006-03-24T06:54:00.000-08:00

Yesterday I read a post put up on someone else's blog which, if I were tech-savvy, I would post the link to but I don't know how. Actually, it was their reaction to a post that Joe.My.God. had put on his blog. Anyway, it doesn't matter...those people don't come here because I don't meet their standards or something so I'm not going to advertise for them. Basically the post was about gay youth gangs terrorizing people in the West Village of NYC, a place I am quite familiar with. The dialogue that ensued was very interesting to me because a lot of people talked about the kids in these gangs and what may have brought them to the point that they were doing what they were doing. The person who inspired me to repost this old post from the "other place", said on their blog that they didn't care about the people being terrorized, rather they were "concerned" for the kids. I thought to myself, your concern is admirable, but who exactly is it helping? There's a lot of "concerned" people in this world, a lot of people who worry about societal issues...but there are seemingly very few who actually step up to the plate and put their money where their mouths are by DOING something. I have long felt that gay culture is a very selfish one, inhabited by people consumed with fulfilling their own needs...be they material, professional, sexual, whatever. The majority of our gay friends STILL don't understand why we have kids and only see them as a nuisance. Well, I look at their lives and wonder how they feel satisfaction or a sense of self-worth. To me, what I always see appears very shallow. I certainly don't believe we are "better" because we have kids, but I do feel enriched in ways that our childless friends could never understand. I'm getting a bit off subject here...Although the article I read yesterday was about gay kids in these gangs and mine aren't necessarily gay (although one never knows), the general idea behind the situations that produced these kinds of kids remains constant. Too many people want to complain about it or show "concern" but nobody wants to actually do anything. With all of that said, I'm reposting this old blog post of mine. I know a bunch of you have already read it but hopefully you'll take the time to read it again. I still think it's relevant. Kids When I was in my 20's, I hated kids. I couldn't stand the sound of them, didn't want to be anywhere around them, thought most of them to be nothing but dirty little ill-mannered and poorly behaved street urchins. Then somethings happened that changed everything. First my sister had my niece. Then my stepsister and her four kids came to live with us temporarily while her husband was stationed in Alaska. Then my friend B went to China and adopted a 2 yr. old girl. We were flattered beyond belief when B told us that she was naming us as her daughter's legal guardians should anything ever happen to her. B had already raised two full grown sons and yet, she felt more comfortable with the idea of us raising her daughter rather than her own kids. Although we hope never to have anything happen to B before her daughter turns 18, we still couldn't help but be flattered and excited about forging a bond with her daughter. I couldn't imagine a greater vote of confidence, a greater gift that someone could give to us than the trust of raising their child in their absence. My opinion of children has changed a great deal from those young, selfish days. Ron and I became foster parents back in Cleveland. We took in children who had experienced horrors unimaginable to most people. We always said that our goal in fostering was to make a difference...to show these kids another way of life outside of the violence and neglect and heartache that they were already accustomed to at 3 and 4 years of age. To show them that they didn't have to settle for the hand life dealt them. When we left Ohio for North Carolina, we immediately set off on becoming licensed here as well. To their credit, the Social Services agency in our county was amazing! They fast tracked our entire licensure process because the need for foster parents was and is so great. One day after becoming licensed, we received a call from them saying, "You're license was approved yesterday, we have two kids for you today". Of course we said yes. What we got were a 3 yr. old boy and 5 yr. old girl, living dolls. It wasn't until a month later we learned that they had two brothers (6 & 7 yrs.) who were living with a foster parent. We received many warnings ("Oh, you don't want THEM") but we kept telling ourselves we got into this to make a difference. Nobody wants four of someone elses kids, especially ones with behavior problems. We bit the bullet and took them in to reunite the siblings, something that there was ZERO percent chance of ever happening. We have since adopted those children. There was no future for them otherwise beyond foster and group homes for the rest of their lives until 18 yrs. There was no suitable family left for them. Our kids are special beyond words. They have experienced far more tragedy, abuse and heartache than many adults will ever know. Our kids come from a background of parental drug abuse, sexual abuse by a grandfather and uncle (and the mother knew and didn't have a problem with it), unbelievable neglect and abandonment, being forced to eat human feces as a form of punishment, being locked outside of their home in the dark and cold as a punishment. These were BABIES!!! Animals should never be treated in the way these children were. And yet it happened. We have our work cut out for us. We are reminded of that everyday. But the strides we have made are visible to us and those around us every single day. This year, we were given an award by the Social Services agency for all the work we have done. We have been told over and over that we were among the best foster parents this county ever had and how they wish we could take even more. We would if we had the room. Our kids may create problems for us but we are rewarded with their unconditional love every single day. They know that they are with us forever and they realize how much better their lives have become. Our kids came from roach and rat infested trailers. They now live in a country club golf community, in a home more beautiful than they could have ever imagined...with parents who give them abundant love and attention. We have provided for our kids in any way possible and will continue to do so. To those who have a problem with gay people being parents, I have only this to say...What have YOU done to curb the tide of unwanted children that plagues this country? When you put your money where your mouth is, then I will listen to what you have to say. Until that time, you are ignorant fuckers who love to preach but have no solutions to any problems. I rarely blog about my kids or my experience with adopting or fostering because I never wanted to come off as "banging my own drum". We never got involved in any of this for anyone to compliment or congratulate us. We did it silently and for the children. I can't begin to think of how many times I have bitten my tongue and listened to others go off about gays and parenting and how the two should never mix. These are usually the same "right to lifers" that advocate having all the unwanted babies because of all those people out there waiting to adopt them. Excuse me but have YOU adopted any of them? Let me be the first to tell you, it doesn't work that way. Those hordes of adoptive parents are NOT out there waiting for these kids. Wake up and quit living in Fantasyland. Shut up and put your money where your mouth is. When you are able to stand up and say you literally saved a child from a life of Hell, then I will entertain your thoughts and opinions. Until then, crawl back under your rock.

There will be no stripping today.

2006-03-23T08:59:00.000-08:00

You guys are all way too nice to me. I think you were saying that stuff because I have no self confidence but either way, thanks, I appreciate it. I can assure you that nobody is going to see me stripping anytime soon though. Well, other than R but it's meaningless to him since he's seen it for so many years now. I actually missed the birthday party yesterday since I had so much work to do in here but I did hear a lot of hooting and hollering through the wall so for all I know, they did find a stripper in which case I'm kicking myself for not going in there! Oddly, I only seemed to make it as far as the kitchen where in an almost fugue-like state, I found myself piling all sorts of food, assorted sweets and cake onto a plate and walking back in here. When I came to, I was face down on my desk with an empty plate lying next to me...dollar bills strewn about on the floor around me and tucked into the waistband of my underwear. Still not quite sure what actually transpired here. I had a really nice evening after I left here last night. I got home and R was sitting with T in his lap finishing up the last of all the homework. I got a night off! I made dinner which I actually felt like cooking and it turned out pretty good. Afterwards I went upstairs and did my workout and it was a really good one since I had some energy finally. I'd increased all my weight by 5 lbs. last week and had really been dragging since then but this one went well. Let's see...what else. Oh yes, I spent almost an hour ironing. Yes, I iron clothes. I don't know why that amazes some people but it does. I don't LIKE ironing, in fact I really hate it but I do it anyway. Damn this "having to look professional" nonsense! After the kids went to bed I read for a while and then watched Lost. Then bedtime. Exciting stuff here, huh? R found out that he doesn't have to go back to Hong Kong until around April 8 or 9. He'll still be gone for about 3 weeks so it doesn't really change anything other than it being pushed back a bit but that's okay. I haven't gotten sick of him just yet. He told me that he wanted to take the kids to Disneyworld next weekend. Ummmm...hello??? Could we at least plan this a little better? I told him we really need to wait until after he comes back from Hong Kong and take them in May instead. That way we can figure out where we want to stay, how long we want to stay, where Kevin can get some Xanax and perhaps a gun, basically all of the essentials. I'm not looking forward to it at all but at the same time, I know that once we are there, it will be a fun time. R said "I want to see it all through their eyes". He's such a big-kid at heart! But I understand what he's talking about too. I appreciate a lot of things now that we have kids that I didn't really think too much about prior to getting them. Having kids puts a lot of things into perspective. Did I ever mention that one of my best friends here at work, our Bereavement Counselor - Julie, is a former nun? I just love this woman to death. She is the epitome of the "cool granny" image one might conjure up. You can joke about organized religion with her and she is right there joking and laughing with you. she's got an awesome sense of humor. Anyway, I was sitting here just now and she came in with a plate that had a sandwich and chips on it and gave it to me. I said, "What's this?" She said they were making sandwiches in the kitchen for anyone who wanted one and brought it for me. I said, "Okay, but what is it?" "It's..." and she started laughing..."fried boloney". I burst out laughing too, I said, "I think this is the stuff my grandparents ate during the Depression!" Julie goes "Shhhh...." and whispers "they still love this stuff down here". (She's not from here either...originally from Wisconsin.) Well you know what? I ate the dumb thing and it was actually pretty good! Oh, I'm turning into one of them now! LOL! I promise I will NOT be serving this to the kids for lunch this weekend. That's it for today. I don't have much to say really. Have a good Thursday.

Whole Lotta Nothin'

2006-03-22T10:19:00.000-08:00

Sweet Jesus of Parma! I thought she'd NEVER leave! Why does everyone in this place like me? I mean, I have my favorites around here but with most of the others, I'm just kind of quiet and friendly but otherwise mind my own business and keep to myself. I think that these "others" see me being raucous and laughing and making sarcastic cracks with my friends here and they want to get a piece of the action. They want a piece of me! It's all I can guess because Elle, the woman who was here half the day, isn't one of the people I do that with. Then I feel weird because they're trying to get me to be like I am with, say Sharon - my social worker friend here, and I can't be that way with Elle because her sense of humor is nowhere near what Sharon's or mine is. So I had to sit here all morning with one of those awkward and kind of embarrassed smiles on my face while she went on about everything under the sun. Ugh! So yesterday I had another strange and awkward moment here at work. Well, it would have been more awkward if it hadn't been so funny! I was almost doubled over laughing. My supervisor, Miss Kiss (the one who kissed me for those who don't know), was standing in the kitchen yesterday afternoon and I walked in to get some ice and water. She and another nurse were talking about today being her assistant's birthday and how they wanted to do something special. Then she turns to me and says - deadly serious, "Kevin, did you ever do any male stripping or know of any male strippers?" I almost dropped my glass! "WHAT?" I sputtered! She said to me, "Well, you're good looking and you have a nice body, I just thought maybe you had done that once! Do you at least own a thong?". "EXCUSE ME!!??" I could hardly breathe! I was laughing so hard and turning beet red. She was totally serious too. My coworkers want to see me take my clothes off! Mind you, I work with 50 women and then there's me. I'm seriously beginning to reconsider ever having started working out again. Perhaps I should just let myself go to pot. I don't do well with being "checked out" like a piece of meat, let alone being lusted after. LMAO! I know I posted on Monday but it feels like it's been forever. It has taken me two days to catch up with everyone around here. Geez, I decided I can't add any more blogs to my list or I'll never get any work done here. I've taken to weeding out ones that don't post much and replacing them with new ones I enjoy. Please don't feel slighted if you aren't there, I still check those sites too. The conferences went okay. Well, the one that we actually attended that is. We had to deal with an unexpected emergency on Monday afternoon regarding our daughter Ro. Nobody is hurt or anything but it has created a lot of stress. As if I need even MORE to deal with! I'm not going to give out details because we are still trying to get to the bottom of exactly what it is that happened and has been said. It's just incredible to me how a 6 year old is capable of being as sly and manipulative as this one is though. Sadly, it's all in hopes of being reunited with her mother which is NEVER going to happen. And it's scary that I don't believe she even realizes what she says and does. Then we found out that our youngest, T, is the subject of an investigation regarding his kindergarten teacher slamming his head onto the floor during a Tornado Drill! T keeps saying it didn't happen but it was another teacher that witnessed and reported it so I don't know what's going on. Needless to say, on top of regular day to day existence, this has all proven to be overwhelming. Sometimes I think to myself, "Oh my Whoever!, what have I done? Why did I ever put so much on my plate? I can't handle all of this!" Then I think about my mom, my inspiration. She had it worse than I do and that helps put things into perspective. If mom could do it, I can too. She didn't raise a bunch of quitters. But you know what? Sometimes I would give anything to just quit. I hate admitting that but hey, I'm being honest. Does that make me a lousy parent? Anyway, yesterday I didn't blog. I was feeling emotional and mean, a real Negative Nellie, and couldn't think of one good or positive thing to say about anyone or anything so I just kept my mouth shut (or fingers off the keyboard) and actually worked. I still didn't get caught up but I managed to put a dent in the heaps of work I have here. I've just had so much on my mind lately with R going back to Asia, the move, the stress of finding somewhere to live (which isn't all that fun when you feel pressured), the kids, everything. I think too much. And I worry too much. My friend B, the Bat Lady, always tells me "Worry and Guilt are useless emotions" and she is soooo right. You can't undo what you feel guilty about and you can't change what hasn't happened. Nevertheless, I am guilty of embracing both of those a bit too tightly. Perhaps that might make a good blog post? Well, back to work I suppose.

Grrrrrrr......

2006-03-22T09:09:00.000-08:00

I have, or maybe it's "had", every intention of blogging today but one of my least favorite RN's has decided to set up shop in my office today and has been here for the last 3 and a half hours! I am ready to scream. She just loves me and wants to chit chat and I so don't care for her. Inwardly I am screaming and thinking "Shut up, do your work, GET OUT!" She's coming back. Please send help!

Back From Hotlanta.

2006-03-20T07:00:00.000-08:00

Or as I've also heard it referred to, "Gaylanta". Gawd only knows why? I think the one word that would most accurately sum up the weekend trip would be "Stressful". It was hard to keep four little kids cooped up in the car while we raced around from area to area and house to house. Bless the person who ever put the DVD player in the van! They were bored out of their minds but we managed to keep them from staging a revolt. Anyway...Atlanta. Until this weekend, it was one of the few large cities in this country that I had never been to. Before living here, I never really liked the South all that much. Now I know better and actually prefer it over other areas of the country. First impressions...BIG! HUGE even!!! I was actually a bit surprised over just how big it really is, even after doing all my online research. The place just goes on forever in all directions. I now fully understand why it ranks among the 50 largest cities in the world. The traffic was phenomenal. It vividly brought back memories of when I lived in Los Angeles and sat on the 10 or the 405, moving 3 or 4 feet every minute, wondering why it was that California is so appealing to the rest of the nation. Fools! It was a bit of a shock to be driving on a freeway again with 12 lanes going in each direction, all of them full to the hilt, but we did quite well. Did we find our dream house? Not even close! Well, we weren't necessarily looking for a house this trip. Rather, we were looking for areas we might like. Our realtor was a bit of a disappointment to us but I give her credit for trying. She doesn't understand us. She's used to finding homes for other gay people and their pack-mentality of surrounding themselves with only other gay people. We had made it rather clear from the start that we didn't want to live in the gay ghetto and that the ideal for us would be way out in the woods somewhere with neighbors kept at a distance. She kept wanting to show us houses in the gay parts of town. Ummm...how much clearer can we make this sweetie? Does she want to lose the sale? Beats me! The other "problem" was that R has been pre-qualified to spend a great deal on a house. That does not mean that we have any intention of spending that much. In fact, we have no desire at all to spend that much. Life is no fun when you're mortgage broke. But in typical realtor fashion, she only wanted to show us houses at the top of our range. Grrrrrr..... We looked in a lot of areas. First off we were in Druid Hills/Virginia Highlands/Candler Park. Druid Hills is beautiful but very pricey...it's big, old mansions lining curving streets with mature, dense foliage everywhere. I'd be happy there but the prices are astronomical and it's VERY congested. VA Highlands and Candler Park are gay comeback-areas. Cute, lots of funky boutiques and sidewalk cafes and all that fun city stuff. If I was still in my 20's or 30's, I'd love to live here. But in my 40's with four small kids, not so much. Oh and the traffic was awful in here too. Next we went to Decatur, a suburb about 12 miles out. Loved it!!! We actually stayed in the downtown section which is a city in itself. Lots of activity, vibrant street life with cafes, shops, restaurants, strolling musicians. We were very happy with Decatur. The biggest problem there was that although the houses were in our price range, they were tiny in comparison to what we're used to. You're paying for the location if you want to live there. That's great but once again, with four kids, we need the space. Our hotel there was really nice though and we walked to restaurants in the vicinity each night. The first one, Micks, was awesome. Comfort food, my favorite! I had the meatloaf, huge portion, good price. Did a lot of window shopping in the evenings too which I liked. Lets see, then we headed out to Gwinnett County. (Lilburn, Snellville, Lawrenceville and environs). This was very nice, pretty, maybe a little too suburbia for my tastes but I could see living there and our realtor assured us that Gwinnett county is fairly liberal and progressive. One thing that I noticed about Atlanta and the area in general is how hilly it is! We were on streets that would put the hills of San Francisco to shame, I actually had to grasp the dashboard on a few for fear of sliding out of my seat! I kind of liked all the hills and how there isn't a straight street to save your life...everything curves all over the place. It's easy to get lost. It's also the greenest city I've ever seen in my life! The foliage is very lush everywhere you go. Anyway, Gwinnett was nice but I didn't see anything that really excited me. Then we went waaaay out to the west of town, Douglas County. This would be considered the boonies and guess what? We loved it! We found some excellent neighborhoods we became infatuated with (Chapel Hills....gorgeous!). Unfortunately a lot of it was out of our price range (almost a million dollars!) but there was still some we could afford. So that's an area we'd consider. On the way home, we decided to get off the freeway about 45 miles out east in Newton County and ended up discovering this town called Covington that we really liked too. Even found a few subdivisions we could be very happy in and walked through a few spectacular homes that were under construction. In one of them, we were so impressed, R kept saying, "You mean we could actually afford to have THIS?!" With Atlanta, the further out you go, the less expensive things get and you get a lot more house for your money. That's the exact opposite of where I came from (Cleveland). However it also means you are looking at a 40-75 mile commute each way. It takes careful consideration especially since R will be working downtown, luckily not having to go in every day though. We got home late yesterday afternoon. It was a worthwile trip and I liked Atlanta in general but I wish we'd seen even more and had more time. Next time, R will probably go for about 5 days by himself and report back. He bought our last two houses with me never laying eyes on them so I trust his judgement. Plus it will be easier without the kids tagging along. Yikes! This is far lengthier than I had planned on making it. So here I am back at work and I'm buried! It figures that our patients all waited for the weekend I was out of town to have a massive die-off. I've got 9 death charts to break down, ugh! To make it worse, I'm only here till 1 today since I'll be in parent/teacher conferences all afternoon and then we have to go grocery shopping since there isn't a piece of food in the house. I'm eager to catch up with everyone but it may take me a few days! Forgive me! I feel like I'm missing out on what's happening in all of your lives. But I'm back!

Simply titled - Insecurity

2006-03-16T08:30:00.000-08:00

Once again, I don't feel like I have much of anything to say today. I spent a good part of this morning just reading. I had been in a pretty jovial mood this morning but I got into something that just really hit close to home. Amazing how the power of someone elses words can have that kind of effect on me. The funny thing is that the thoughts I was having were all things I've known about myself for years but reading it all coming from someone else kind of freaked me out. I always think that I'm such a fucked up mess on the inside but I do a bang-up job of hiding that and on the outside, nobody would ever be able to tell. I feel like I have to hide that because everyone else out there seems to have things so much more together. I think that's a big part of why I've always felt like such an outsider. People around me never seem to be wrestling the demons that I have running around in my head. The insecurities, the neediness of wanting to be wanted. And then I read this thing this morning and BAMMM! It was like, Oh my God, it's not just me! I can be pretty emotional, a big baby sometimes, but I have to tell you, it takes a freight train hitting me before something I read online can bring me to tears. This did. I'm not going to divulge what it was if you can respect that. I'm not even sure why...I didn't write it but my reaction was so intensely personal that I don't feel like I can share it. Not right now. I think the author knows who they are though and to that person, thank you. Yesterday I made a remark on my blog about how nobody was commenting and I must be a big bore. At the time, I really wrote that more as a joke than anything. I was well aware that I hadn't posted anything earth-shattering that would have moved people to leave gushing comments. But the more I thought about it, the more I realized, maybe I was only half joking. I've said before that I need you people. I don't understand why but for whatever reason, I need your validation. The more of it, the better. It's my insecurity shining through. That need to be accepted, something I've never felt that I've had. Even with my relationship with R, I've said in the past that I don't have my emotional needs met at home. That's true but maybe not completely true. I suppose for R to meet my emotional needs completely would probably be suffocating. He doesn't have the issues in his past that I have in mine so I am grateful for the understanding that I DO get from him. It's unfortunate that sometimes it doesn't feel like enough but, well, that's my problem I guess. Most other men wouldn't put up with my need for reassurance and validation...for being told that you do matter and you do make a difference. People can say it but when you're like me, I don't know that you ever really believe it. When you didn't get that kind of stuff growing up, I think that getting it later in life makes it not seem as real. When my dad walked out on our family, he blamed us kids. My mom was rarely around after that, working 3 jobs to keep a roof over our heads and food on the table...I certainly can't fault her for doing the best she could. I had no real friends. I basically raised myself. There was no one there encouraging me, giving me any emotional support. I guess that fucked me up pretty good. Now, as an adult, when people give me the support or whatever I crave, I'm immediately suspicious, feeling I don't deserve it and wondering why they're being nice to me? It never feels genuine, the way it would if one were praising a child. And yet I have to have it, I crave it. I'm insecure, remember? I don't know what the Hell I'm even talking about here. I'm just going on about nothing I guess. What can I say, it's been a strange day. I could go on but I don't feel like I'm making any sense so...I won't. This'll be my last post till Monday. We're leaving for Atlanta early tomorrow morning so we can get there and have the afternoon to explore a bit. I have a ton of stuff to finish up before I leave here today, mainly Care Plans which are time consuming so please forgive me if I don't get to read and comment on your blogs like I always do. I promise to catch up when I get back. I'll miss all of you guys! Thanks for always being there.

I've become a crashing bore!

2006-03-15T12:21:00.000-08:00

Yep, people have no interest in me anymore. I posted the post below about 3 or 4 hrs. ago and never got a single comment! LOL! Hey, I asked you people for some requests! Anyway, I have managed to get quite a bit done here today and was going through all the stuff I printed out from my old blog at that "other place", looking for things to post for your reading enjoyment this weekend. Then I thought, why not start now since I have nothing worthwhile to say? So below is an old post that a few of you will recognize and can feel free to skip. I think it's one that kind of sums up certain factors that have contributed to why I am the way I am today. Anyway, I present: Why I Hate Competitive Sports Growing up, I was never all that coordinated when it came to doing anything really physical. There was nothing physically wrong with me, it's just that I wasn't good at any sports. I never had a father who taught me to play any sports...to this day I have no clue or understanding of American Football. All through school I HATED taking gym classes. It was bad enough in elementary school when the teachers would inevitably pick the two most popular kids in class to be team captains and then those kids got to choose teams. Without fail, I was always one of the last two or three kids standing there, embarrassed to death, mortified that I was being put in this position in the first place, and being bargained over..."If you take Marie (the 300 lb. girl) then we'll take Kevin" or "We'll take Monsterhill (a nasty play on her name), if you'll take him (me)". To this day, I can't believe that the practice of choosing teams hasn't been banned in the schools. I truly believe I was scarred for life by the incredibly cruel things that would be said and done during this process. It made me grow to hate and dread the days that we had P.E. By the time I was in junior high, not much had changed. The big difference is that something clicked inside me. I wised up and accepted the reality of my situation. I came to the self-realization that I was an outsider and probably always would be. Then I decided that two coul play the Nasty Game and I dove right into it. I figured if they could make me feel so miserable, then I'd get them where it mattered most. I'd make their teams lose...on purpose. And that's exactly what I did. Whichever team was unlucky enough to wind up with me on it, I would do everything possible to make them lose. I'd stand so far out in the outfield that if a ball ever actually came toward me, I'd usually just mosey away in the opposite direction or slowly, without effort, walk toward it a bit and then make no attempt to catch it. In track and field, we had to run so many miles as a team. I sabotaged it by walking. I walked the entire length. I was sure I'd get the shit beaten out of me but that never happened...for whatever strange reason. But these kids would be so incredibly furious over my making them lose. I had every name in the book hurled at me. "Good, mission accomplished" I used to think to myself. The teachers couldn't figure me out...DUH! Yet they never failed me either. As long as I actually completed the mile, they couldn't say I didn't. As long as I actually "participated" in the game (stood in the outfield), they couldn't say I didn't play. I resented being forced to participate in games that brought out the worst in people and made them competitive to the point of practically wanting to kill one another. People who would be perfectly nice to me at any other time of the day became monsters in P.E. class. And the teachers, no doubt a bunch of lunk-headed jocks in denial of their faded dreams of a pro-sports career, just watched blindly from the sidelines. Hell, most of them were probably delighted to see the abuse I took. To this day, I despise any form of competitve sport. Except maybe volleyball, that one is kind of fun to play with friends. Otherwise, it's not gonna happen. I've always said that the day one of my kids comes home and tells me that the teacher had someone choose teams, I will be putting to use the special lecture I have reserved for them. That teacher will be sorry they ever subjected those kids to that antiquated and cruel tactic. Years later, I may have been just out of college at the time, I saw one of those rotten kids from all those years ago, out at a bar. This guy had been the QB of the junior high and high school football teams and was one of the one's who had always been nice to me EXCEPT in gym classes. He was being all chatty and friendly, hell he may have been trying to pick me up! I tried my damndest to let bygones be bygones, I really did, but I think I came off like a real snob toward him and walked away. I realized then that those scars would always be under the surface, the hurt and anger that those teachers and kids inflicted, not just on me but on so many others, had truly impacted me. And now, at 41, I know that stuff like that never really goes away. It helped make me who and what I am, and in an oddly masochistic way, I guess I'm kind of glad for that. I'm still a total outsider. And I'm not saying that because I'm gay. I have NEVER fit in, anywhere. I'm "weird", I know it, I accept it, I embrace it. The fact is that most of the people I consider my best friends in this world were outcasts too. They have turned out to be far more interesting people with fascinating outlooks on life in general. Those rotten, cruel kids only made us stronger. I guess for that, I should thank them.

Thrills! Spills! Chills!

2006-03-15T09:17:00.000-08:00

Actually, you probably aren't going to get any of those things out of this posting. My supervisor dumped a project on me yesterday that she didn't want to deal with anymore so what was supposed to be a pretty laid back week for me has become suddenly quite busy. It probably wouldn't be so bad except that this lousy computer seems to be acting up lately...running very slow, pages taking forever to load up. I have the enviable task of going back the last 3 months and finding all of our dead people to see who died of cancers. Then I get to document what kind and gather a bunch of other information about them. Personally, my guess is that the government or some shady agency likes to monitor this stuff to see if whatever they put in our water (or air or food or ANYTHING) is finally killing us off. Perhaps I could be the next Erin Brockovich and discover something unseemly in these death files. I guess I'd better keep my eyes open. I'm sorry but I've got nothing for you today. I wanted to compose a post that was actually about something but I just haven't had the time to devote to it today. I can tell you what I did last evening. Well, after dinner I washed the kids' hair and gave baths. Then I looked at R's pictures from China and some of the mini-movies he took while they drove him to different places. A couple of the cities he was in looked kind of nice. More modern than I had expected they would be. But the air is so filthy. Even on the sunny days, it looked dreary, worse than a bad smog day in LA. After that I made myself a strawberry milkshake just because I had a craving for one. Then I watched Sex and the City reruns. They're in the final season when that dud Aleksander Petrovsky comes into the picture. I didn't like that guy. Watched the news, went to bed. Okay, that's about it. I'm so boring. I'd be happy to take some requests about what somebody might like to read about? (How blank must a mind be for someone to solicit "requests" on a blog???) Well, sorry about that. I can't think of anything other than food right now because I'm starving but can't leave for lunch because R is supposed to bring my van here (which he took to have the oil changed) and switch with me to take his and put gas in it. Guess I'll go peruse the death files.

Do You Have a "Type"?

2006-03-14T08:13:00.000-08:00

I started composing a blog post this morning and the further I got into it, the more uncomfortable I was with it. It was strange feeling that way since I don't usually post a lot of "heavy" stuff on my blog. I saved a draft of what I had so far and maybe I'll go back to it at some point and finish it. Sometimes I start blurting out things that I'll go back and read and think, "that's too personal to post" or I won't like the way I "sound" in a post. This was a little of both. Throw in a dash of my low self-esteem and worrying what people reading it would think of me and BAM, I shelved it! So instead I'll write a bit regarding something that Pixie and I were emailing about yesterday and that was "Types"...as in "what's your type of guy/girl?" I can honestly say that I've never limited myself to a "type". I always viewed that as severely limiting your options. Why focus solely on one idealized image (in your own mind that is) when your true soulmate may be someone who doesn't fit your idea of what you think you want in the slightest? For me, it worked out exactly that way. Everyone has a certain "type" that they find themselves attracted to. I'm no different although my "type" has varied pretty widely over the years. There are only a few constants in my personal taste in guys over the years. One would be that I have always been attracted to muscles. Not overly built bodybuilder types, that's just gross to me, but rather an athletic build, nice definition, someone that obviously takes care of themselves. Another would be that I have never really liked red hair. And finally, I'm not too fond of blonde guys. Go figure! It's just a personal preference. But even knowing that there was a certain image I found appealing, when a person I found interesting in other ways presented themselves, the "type" usually went out the window. My current husband, R, is a perfect example of this. When we met one another 18 years ago, he was physically "not my type". I believe that was during my whole Clean-Cut phase. R is sooooo not that! He's got the muscles but he's big and bulky like a barroom bouncer. He has a rough and tumble look to him and he is covered with a nice coat of fur, hair on his arms, legs, chest, what in gay terms is known as a Bear. LOL! I laugh because back then, I think he was so far from what I ever imagined I'd end up with! But he was persistent, I'll give him that. He and I would meet every Wednesday at a little bar up in Cleveland that we used to hang out in. We would talk for hours and eventually started dating. The Type thing pretty much became a dead issue because we fell in love and here we are today, still together. So, what's my "Type" these days? It's kind of funny because the guys I find myself giving the once-over-twice to are pretty much exactly what I actually have now. I like guys around my own age, Bearish but not overly so, definitely with a rough edge but not to the point of looking like they've been beaten with a 2x4. Leather daddies need not apply! Never understood that whole scene...the whole "let's put on costumes and pretend we're tough!" Whatever! Never mind we used to hang out at so-called "Leather Bars"...that's a whole other blog post! But I think Boot Lickers are really funny! Now there's someone with some REAL issues! Oh, I digress yet again. What's the point of any of this? Beats the hell out of me! I just didn't know what to write about. I guess it's the old "Never judge a book by it's cover" thing rearing it's head here. I'm glad I didn't.

June is Busting Out all Over!

2006-03-13T08:02:00.000-08:00

Last week, I would go home from work each evening and build a nice big fire in the fireplace. The days were pleasant enough but the nights were still pretty cool. All of that changed in the space of one day. On Saturday, we jumped straight from winter to summer here. It was 82 on Sat, 85 on Sunday and they are predicting 87 for today!!! Could we please have Spring first? Now I love the warm weather here during the summer but I enjoy the transition of Springtime just as much. 73 degrees and no humidity is most welcome before 93 and sauna-like sets in. We literally switched from the furnace Saturday morning, straight to the air conditioner. The forecast does show a cool-down though, just in time for our trip to Atlanta this weekend. Is it just me or is Blogger all funky today? It's taken me FOREVER to get around, pages not loading up at all or else taking forever to load. Error messages when I'm trying to leave comments! But...whaddoo I know! I'm just ya motha! R is finally home!!!!! I get him for two weeks and then he's off on a return trip to Hong Kong for almost another month. I'm so happy to have him back but honestly, by the end of those two weeks, I'll probably be so sick of cleaning up after his lazy ways that I'll be ready to put him back on the plane. ;) Oh, you all know I love him - lazy, sloppy habits and all. If those really bothered me to the point of insanity, I'd have left 18 years ago. He's dealing with the jet-lag/time difference right now. We are exactly 12 hours behind Hong Kong so when it's day here, his body is still telling him it's night. I told him, "I know you're tired but you aren't going to sleep just yet!" The kids bedtime couldn't get here soon enough! And that's about all the details you'll be getting because this is not a porn blog. Email me if you want the specifics, LOL! Let's just say I have a smile on my face today. I really can't think of anything to write about today. I keep reading other blogs where people relay stories from their past and stuff and I think, "oh I could tell about the time that..." and then I realize that it just wouldn't translate quite as well to blog. We were kind of weird kids growing up and it's hard to convey that and the stuff we thought was funny over a blog. Interesting how all these years later and I STILL don't feel "understood". Regarding the comments people have left about the ignorance of people where we live and all...I'm well aware that stupidity exists everywhere. There were bigots when I lived in Cleveland, there were bigots when I lived in LA, there are bigots everywhere. It was the whole KKK thing that really threw me for a loop. I honestly had never before heard someone profess to belong to this organization and then to sound almost boastful about it! ICK! And the way it was said out loud, as if everyone there sympathized with his ideology, really turned my stomach. I guess I'm just a Pollyanna at heart. I WANT people to get along, I WANT everyone to live together in peace. OH! I just realized I sound exactly like Karen Fairgate when she launched into her famous "Pollyanna Speech" on Knots Landing! Yeah, I'm old, I know but it was still one t.v. moment I applauded since I could relate to it so completely. R went to Hong Kong Disneyland during one of the days he had off while he was over there. Now he is all gung-ho on taking the kids to Disneyworld in April or May. Ugh, I'm so not looking forward to that. I only like Epcot. It's definitely more adult oriented and educational. The rest of it is just too many strollers for me! I know that's a terrible outlook on it but I'm just not crazy about Disneyworld. I always preferred Disneyland in Anaheim just because it was a much more realistic scale. The one in Florida is too huge. I'm not stressing over it yet because if the house were to sell, we'll be focusing on the move instead. For all of my fans who give a hoot, I won't be here on Friday or any of the weekend so don't be looking for posts. I was thinking I might post some old ones from my Blahgster days since there are a lot of new people reading lately that don't know my deep, dark secrets. Boy, are they in for a disappointment! I'm off to sit at the switchboard for lunch. Oh joy.

Late Update

2006-03-11T18:03:00.000-08:00

Flight from Hong Kong to Toronto, on time. Flight from Toronto to Raleigh, Cancelled. No R tonight. No nothing tonight. You cannot begin to fathom how depressed I am.

I've been deprived for too long!

2006-03-11T09:26:00.000-08:00

It's a beautiful, sunshine day out there today. I woke up way too early though. Rolled over and looked at the clock and it was only 6:42 a.m.! WTF! I couldn't fall back asleep to save my life so I finally just got out of bed around 7:15. The kids had all just woken up too so I got them their breakfast and went upstairs to do my workout and get that out of the way. Showered, got everyone dressed and took them up to Southern Pines so the boys could get haircuts. This barber shop has 8 barbers working there, most are all younger guys in their late 20's and early 30's and I sit there and basically cruise them while they're cutting the kids hair. No harm in looking, I'm taken anyway...their loss. However today I got a rude reminder that I'm still very much in the South and that somethings (like ignorance) die hard down here. As they are working, a group of 3 black kids walked by the big picture windows in the front holding up signs for their car wash to benefit a black organization. After they passed, the one barber (who we shall call Bryon because that's his name and spelling and someone so ignorant should be publicly humiliated and embarrassed) who I previously found to be rather handsome and now see as nothing more than an ugly, rotting beast, said rather loudly to nobody in particular, "We oughtta get out our signs for the car wash that benefits the Triple K". Then he looks to the barber across from him, Troy, and says "That'll get em outta here real fast!" to which Troy chuckles. I was absolutely mortified! Honestly, if the last kid hadn't already been in the chair, I would have stood up and walked straight out of there, I was so disgusted! It sickened me to have to hand over money to a bunch of racist pigs. I wanted to say something, stick up for the black people, or tell them, "you know I'm a fag don't ya?" because I don't look effeminate or anything and with four kids in tow, it would've shocked the crap out of them. But I didn't say a word. Like I've said in the past, it's too easy to "find" people around here and I don't need crosses burning in the front lawn. No, I will fight their stupidity the best way I know how, I won't be going back to that barber shop and I will do my best to spread the word of their ignorance to anyone else who might go there. They've seen the last of us. I guess I'm going to head outside and wash one of the vans. It would have been a beautiful day to head down to the beach like everyone else in this region, not to swim - it's still too cold, but there's plenty else to do there. However, we have a trip to Raleigh ahead of us this evening. R's plane lands at around 10:30 or something like that. He has to go through customs though so I'll shoot for a later arrival. I definitely need to take a nap this afternoon as I expect to be up rather late tonight...if you know what I mean. Well, the outdoors are calling. Have a great weekend.

It's Started Already.

2006-03-10T06:22:00.000-08:00

And I have to say that I'm surprised it began this soon. Last night I was upstairs getting the boys clothes out for school today. While I was up there, I overheard C and T talking about something in the playroom. I'm not even certain what they were saying but I distinctly heard T say "They said our daddies are gay and so I'm gay too!" Then I heard C say "Shhhhh!" Of course, I HAD to know what this was all about so I nonchalantly wandered into the playroom and said something to the effect of "What's this about being gay? Who's gay?" They kind of looked at each other and neither one would say anything. I told them it was okay, that we could talk about this. The word "gay" is not foreign to our kids. Every one of them knows what it means...well, on a 5-8 year old level I should say! Better they learn and understand it now rather than learning about it from all the warped, prejudiced people out there who know NOTHING about our lives. I asked them, "Is somebody picking on you because other daddy and I are gay?". T (my 5 yr. old) said, "Yeah, on the bus" and C (my 7r. old) said "and at daycare". T said that the kids single out our kids and pick on them on the bus saying "Your dads are gay and your gay too!" At first, I could feel this rage building up inside. How dare these fucking little punks give my kids a hard time over any of this! But reality kicked in pretty fast. R and I have known since the day we got our kids that there would almost certainly be a time when they would be given grief over our being gay. I just always figured it wouldn't be till the middle school years, not this soon! But I also forgot that this is a rural area and everyone knows who we are even if we don't know or care who they are. And how tragic that people have instilled this kind of bigotry and hatred into kids that young...because hatred is learned at home (and church!). This also shed a whole new light on all the incididents C has had that got him kicked off the bus! I had the boys sit down on the couch with me and told them we were going to talk about this. I asked them "You live here with other daddy and I and you know we're gay, right?" Both of them say yes. "Well, since you live here, you are the ones who know exactly what it's like here. Do you think there's anything bad about living with gay people?" "NO!" They said. T said, "We love it here!" I said, "That's good! Now, when you think about it, you live in a beautiful house, in a beautiful neighborhood, you have a pool and a lake, you have nice clothes to wear and lots and lots of toys and you have two daddies who love you very much. Do you think that maybe those kids see all of that and perhaps they're jealous? Did you have any of that stuff before you came to live with the daddies?" "NO!" they said. I said, "Don't you think that your life is actually better now that you live with gay people than it was before you came to live here?" "Oh yes!" they said. "Our real momma didn't care about us", C said. I told them, "Those kids on the bus don't know anything about our lives. They don't know anything about what 'gay' is except the nasty things that people have taught to them. Just because daddy and I are gay does NOT mean that you are gay! It doesn't work that way. So the next time those kids start to call you gay or pick on you, you just say 'So?'. You know what 'gay' is and you know that it's not a bad thing. You are better than those other kids because you are smarter than they are about what 'gay' is!" T said to me, "Those kids all live in trailers!" I started to laugh! I said, "Well, you know they don't live with gay people!" I know, I'm a terrible snob! After they went to bed, I sat by the fire and kept thinking about this. I don't know if I handled it correctly of not. Is there even a "correct" way to handle it? I didn't want to take a superiority stance but I keep thinking that I kind of did. Hell, I'm not going to sugarcoat it, my kids ARE better than those brats. My kids are learning acceptance, not discrimination! And other than one other kid on the bus, none of those rotten kids lives here in the country club. They DO all live in poverty and trailers so I can't help but think there probably is some jealousy involved. I don't know...I probably messed it all up and didn't deal with it like I should have. I just hate it that my kids, who have had enough shit in their short lives to deal with already, now have to get it from a bunch of ignorant know-nothings. I'm not a violent person at all but as I thought about it, I noticed my hands clenched into fists, I was that angry! Later in the evening when I was putting them to bed, they brought it up again. C said that he told one boy, "My daddies have muscles and they can beat you up!" LOL! The stuff they come up with! I assured him that there would be no beating anyone up. But curiosity got the best of me and I asked C while I was tucking him in, "How come you told T to 'Shhhhh' before I came into the room before?" He looked at me and said "Because we didn't want you to be sad!" The realization that they were trying to protect me from the nasty ignorance of a bunch of little kids hit me hard. My heart just melted.

I'm Stuck!

2006-03-09T07:58:00.000-08:00

That'll teach that Nomi Malone to go sticking her tongue on dirty, frozen poles! Actually, the title of this post refers to the fact that I really can't think of anything worthwhile to write about. Then again, HA! When do I ever write anything one might consider "worthwhile"? Oh, I slay myself sometimes with these delusions of grandeur and self-importance. Mark my words people! One day you will all be able to say, "I knew him when..." First that scandal-plagued beauty pageant that I won, then the Fabulosity Toodle last month. What other honors could possibly be bestowed upon me? For I am but a humble blogger...nothing special really. Just an observer on the sidelines, watching, laughing on the inside and rolling my eyes over all of the idiots out there. But I digress.... Would you care to hear what one of the biggest possible turnoffs for me is when looking at a man? I despise plucked and waxed eyebrows on a man! Eee gads! It is the most OBVIOUS thing in the world and the guys who have it done seem to think that nobody can really tell. Now if there is really a cosmetologist out there who does men's eyebrows and doesn't manage to make them look like women, PLEASE by all means, get that person's name out there for the public to see! This frightening trend of men waxing their brows into Pamela Anderson arches seems to be gaining a foothold and it needs to be stopped! I have some strange conversations with people here at work. This morning someone asked me if I had given up anything for Lent. I said, "Oh I don't believe in all of that nonsense. Life is a big enough struggle, I'm not going to rock the boat and make it harder!" She said, "Don't you go to church?" I responded that I haven't been to church in decades. Now, down here where religion is worn on your sleeve like a badge of honor, talk like that doesn't go over well. I sensed the disapproval so of course I continued! I told her I had been raised Catholic but that my falling out with the church started when I was in 8th grade. She asked if it was because I was gay and I laughed and said "No! Hardly!" No, I quit church because a priest yelled at me in the confessional. At that point in my childhood, I was such a disgustingly good, meek, mild-mannered kid that I actually used to MAKE UP SINS when I went to confession because they required that you do that and I had nothing to confess! The stuff I would make up was stupid too, harmless stuff like fighting with my brothers and sister, dumb things like that. No, I never confessed I was lying in confession. That could have been good! But it all backfired on me! Apparently I got a priest on a bad day or recovering from a hangover or perhaps lamenting over his inability to touch me in the forbidden way he probably wanted, whatever the reason, he just laid into me with this lunatic tirade about "you teenagers this and you teenagers that!" On and on he went. I was mortified but I wasn't stupid. I got up and walked out. I went home and promptly told my mother I was never going back. And I didn't. The girl I told this too just had this look of shock on her face. The idea that there are non-Christians and people with no religious affiliations whatsoever inhabiting this part of the South is still a foreign concept to these folks. I enjoy shaking things up a bit! I'm starting to get excited about our scouting trip to Atlanta next weekend. I hope we have good weather. And I really hope that we find a certain area that really speaks to us and we know that that is where we want to move. Actually, we are a real estate agents dream clients. We know EXACTLY what we want and don't want and we give all of that information up front. We won't waste your time if you don't waste ours. If we told you we don't want a master bedroom that shares a common wall with a family room or other living area, then DON'T TAKE US INTO HOUSES THAT HAVE THAT! Sheesh! Can we make it any clearer? I demand silence when I sleep! The faint sounds of voices/music on a tv through a wall will drive me to the edge of insanity and beyond. I leave you with this hilarious "review" I found on Coolcinematrash.com for "Torch Song" starring Joan Crawford. At the final dress rehearsal, Jenny and the chorus members run through the finale, "Two Faced Woman." It's this unbelievable number that propels Torch Song from an average backstage romance to an unforgettable piece of cinema trash. The cast members (Crawford included) perform the number in blackface! Though it was made before the civil rights movement of the 1960's, it's hard to imagine that anybody, anywhere, at anytime could've thought that this was appropriate. In an atrocious turquoise sequined gown Jenny makes her grand entrance. As she begins to "sing", she descends a grand staircase into a smoky, stylized jazz joint. She seductively winds her way through the chorus boys, incurring the wrath of the women who are all wearing Aunt Jemima-style head wraps. The cast moves through the simplistic choreography which consists of Crawford hitting a predetermined mark, and then posing. To top it all off, Crawford rips off her black wig to reveal her own frightful orange hair! Despite its obvious awfulness, everyone seems thrilled with the show. LOL! What a great movie! Poor Joan!

Skidmarks and Lighting

2006-03-08T10:31:00.000-08:00

If you ever doubted my belief that the one school I bitch about all the time has it out for me or has some sort of problem with gay people raising children, allow me to present the latest piece of evidence to back up that case and put to rest any ideas that I am being paranoid. Yesterday afternoon, about 1:15 or so, my cell phone rings which always means something bad. So I answer and it's T's (my kindergartner) teacher. "T's had an accident" she says. Me: "What? What happened?" Teacher: "He has diarrhea and unfortunately he's pooped in his pants." Me: "That's unusual! Is he sick? Does he feel warm?" Teacher: "Well, he's a little warm but I can smell it and I can't have him in class like that" Me: "Fine, I'll be there within the hour." I left work for the day and drove to the school. There's T sitting in the office in a room by himself. He looks okay. Never saw the teacher so I signed him out and left. In the van on the way home I asked him "Do you feel okay?" He said he felt fine and he's smiling and talking and laughing about things. I didn't notice ANY smell whatsoever. We got home and I told him to go in the bathroom and we'll get him into the bathtub. As he pulls down his pants I looked at his butt and didn't see anything that had soaked through. My suspicion really kicked in at that point. He pulls down his underwear and I look....there is a tiny, maybe one inch, skidmark on the inside of his underwear!!! Yes, I lost a half day of work and had a child tossed out of school over a skidmark! These people are fucking idiots! I am living for the day I never have to deal with those bunch of bigots again! House, please sell already!!! I was talking to one of the girls here this morning and she asked me if I'd ever been to a particular restaurant in Pinehurst. I told her no. She said, "Oh! You have to go there, the food is so good!" I replied that we won't eat there because we don't like the lighting. She looked at me as if I had just landed from another planet. Is this just us or do other people feel that way? We will not eat at places that we feel have bad lighting. We've driven up to restaurants and looked in before and if we've seen flourescent lighting or it's just too bright, we get in the car and go somewhere else. I'm sorry but lighting is extremely important when it comes to a satisfying dining experience. Besides that, simply everyone knows that people look better under dim lighting and so does food. I don't care how good the food supposedly is, if the lighting is lousy, it won't be going anywhere near my mouth. Why don't people down here have any appreciation at all for aesthetics? On the sunshine side of the street, it appears that my honey will be coming home on Saturday night after all! I'm so excited I almost get a little misty thinking about it! Mind you, I said "almost" because I know it means I'll go home from work to a messy house everyday while he's back. Geez, I haven't seen him since Feb. 17!!! He was waiting for confirmation on his flight schedule. He was either going through Toronto, Chicago or Los Angeles but wasn't sure when I last talked to him. This morning was insanely busy here at work. I though the afternoon would be better but it isn't shaping up that way so I suppose I should sign off here. Have a sunshine day everyone.

A Cavalcade of Classics!

2006-03-07T08:14:00.000-08:00

Oh Boy! I struck a gold mine this morning entirely by accident. Something was wrong with my connection to Gaydar and it kept cutting out on me so I went to find a new station to listen to for a bit and managed to hit the big time! Yes, I'm currently bopping to "Teen Idol Headquarters". I honestly feel as though I've been transported back to the classic AM radio era circa 1972-73 where we were obsessed with carrying around transistor radios with those tiny earpieces. Growing up outside Cleveland, the big powerhouse station was WIXY-1260. I could very well be listening to a broadcast from there that was lost in time and somehow found it's way onto the internet. I'm sitting here laughing and (quietly) singing along to The Osmonds, The Monkees, Dusty Springfield, The Banana Splits, The Brady Bunch, The DeFranco Family and of course my beloved Partridge Family. It's like all the truly good "Bad" songs that the Golden Oldies stations won't play. You know, the stuff that warped me so wholly back in the early 70's when I was in primary school and coming of age. Oh God, be still my heart!!! Bobby Sherman is on now!!! I don't think the early 70's ever get the respect they deserve. What a time it was! The true beginnings of Crass Commercial Culture had taken root. Everything was "manufactured"... just look at that list of "artists" I noted above. And is it really any wonder that people I know that are my age are such a mess? I mean, we grew up on Saturday morning drug fantasies churned out by Sid and Marty Kroftt..."H.R. Puffnstuff" - remember that ultra-creepy flute? Freddie the Flute it was called and it moved and talked and said things like "Blow me Jimmy, blow me!" Did you know that Jimmy (Jack Wild) just died last week? Then there was "Lidsville" about the boy that fell into the magicians hat and ended up in a land where all the hats talked? Can we all say "LSD Trip" in unison? And if I recall my late 70's drug culture terminology correctly, wasn't a "Lid" a certain amount of pot that you could buy? Did a "lid" predate the nickle and dime bags? The Sid & Marty Kroftt Power Hour came a few years later and that's when things became a bit more tame and they gave us "ElectraWoman and DynaGirl". Unfortunately, at least in every picture of me from that time, my mother dressed us in the most horrible clothing imaginable! Actually, I think the styles were the just the most horrible imaginable which really then made us fashion plates but I still cringe and grimace when I see some of those old slides and photographs. Dear gawd, I had a pair of ORANGE tennis shoes! I could go on but unless you were there during that time, it's hard to convey the way things were. Post-hippy, pre-disco. Awkward is the perfect word to describe that era. Isn't it amazing (or frightening) that I couldn't tell you what I had for dinner two nights ago but I can sing nearly every word to these songs from 33 years ago? We were so INNOCENT. Alright, time to actually do some work. Oh, it's lunch time. Forget the work! This reminiscence was brought to you by "Teen Idol Headquarters".

Can You Believe It?

2006-03-06T10:20:00.000-08:00

I mean, I came into work this morning and actually had to WORK??? Unbelievable! Today was the dreaded "Med List Monday" when I have to stand in front of the fax machine for hours on end faxing stuff all over creation. We have one of those nifty faxes that scan in your papers and then hold everything in a queue to send when their turn comes up but it still takes FOREVER! Then when I'm finally done with all of that, I have to file everything where it belongs and this task creates an incredible amount of paperwork. Woe is me! I have actually finished with faxing though, wore the wrong shoes again as is usually the case, and now I have a foot thick stack of papers in front of me that I am not in the mood to touch. Blogging calls! So I got my haircut over my lunch break and I'm once again very happy with the results. Closet-case was extremely chatty with me today. Perhaps because it was just he and I in there . I think the other lady was on lunch break or something so maybe he felt less threatened by someone overhearing our conversation. Anyway, he was asking how long R and I have been together. I told him that as of Feb. 22, it was our 17th Anniversary so we are now into our 18th year. He just marveled at that. He kept going on about how commendable it is that we've stayed together this long and adopted our kids and this that and the other thing. Then somehow things turned and he started complimenting me on my clothes, my shirt in particular. Ummm....yeah...you can come out of the closet now. Really...it's Oh-Kay! He's a nice guy and all but I almost feel sorry for him. Oh yeah, and he seemed genuinely hurt when I told him we'll be moving to Atlanta when the house sells. Yikes! Maybe he has a crush on me or something! Whatever! He's good at giving me head...I mean the head of hair that I ask for! I always walk out of there satisfied. With my haircut, you bunch of sickos! I watched the Oscars last night up until 11 p.m. It was a rather dull telecast. I missed the big upset where Crash beat out Brokeback Mountain. I'm surprised actually. I didn't see Crash but of everyone I know who did, one of them loved it and the rest hated it. My friends in LA really hated it with a passion and felt it was a very unfair depiction of Los Angeles. I'm sorry BBM didn't win just because I really believe it was an important film. Groundbreaking even. Racism has been tackled over and over. BBM had something new to say and although it was acclaimed, I think the subject matter still scared some people. The funniest, albeit unintentionally, part of the show was poor Lauren Bacall coming out there and fumbling all over the place! Was she drunk? Hopped up on pills? Forgot to put in her contacts? It was painful to watch whatever the reason. Whoever allowed her to be paraded out in that shape should have been shot. Poor Betty! Also, when Reese Witherspoon won her Oscar, could Ryan Phillipe have looked more awkward and uncomfortable? I sensed some marital discord there!!! Once again, painful to watch! Let me see here, scanning the memory banks for anything else noteworthy that happened yesterday or today. Coming up blank. The TV comes back from the repairman tonight. That'll set me back almost $200. I wonder if Mr. Fireman will wear that nice t-shirt again? I found out his name is David. Not Dave, but David. Didn't get to talk to R yesterday because his laptop was acting funky. He calls me via "Skype" with a headset over the computer. You can make these international calls and it's only pennies per minute. If all goes smoothly, he will be home in a week and a half. And then, just think, I get to deal with all over again when he goes back to Asia at the end of the month. He's actually more excited about this next trip though because he is the one who gets to set up the company's new showroom in Hong Kong (which he said was absolutely amazing) and he loves doing that stuff. The HK showroom is the newest of all their showrooms and it's also the largest (over 30,000 sq. ft.) and it's his baby. Welcome to all of the new people popping up on my blog lately. Please comment away! I'm a comment whore. And to all my old friends, where the hell are you people? Everyone's disappearing these days. I may as well have "Property of MGM" tattooed on my backside!

S-A-TUR-DAY NIGHT!

2006-03-04T18:06:00.000-08:00

Ah, yes, The Bay City Rollers. Was there any band from the 70's that was possibly more relevant than these snappy dressers? Remember when we were all running out to buy High-Waters/Flood pants (or "Floods" where I came from) that were then tarted up with Tartan? No? Well, actually I don't either because as catchy as that tune was, I wasn't really into all of the Rollermania that my faux cousin got herself immersed in. She'd kill me if she knew I just wrote that here too. Anyway, yes it's Saturday Night and I won't be "dancin' to the rock and roll on Saturday night, Saturday night" because I have 4 kids in bed and nowhere to go dance at anyway. So blogging is always the next best thing. We had a great day. Woke up to blinding sunshine, got everyone ready and we drove up to the Sandhills Nature Preserve where we hiked for 3.5 miles. The kids were real troupers and only toward the very end did I start to hear complaining about being hungry. The scenery was gorgeous, lots of trees already in flower, lots of green bamboo in some of the valleys, majestic Loblollys and Longleaf forest, and the terrain was varied. They don't call it the SandHILLS for nothing! The kids thought it was really cool that we got to walk through an area that they had just done a controlled burn in last week. There was still a lot of smoldering debris on the ground and plumes of smoke coming up all over...very eerie looking passing through that particular area. Oh, these are what Loblolly pines look like, in case you never heard of them. The needles are about 6-8 in. long and very soft. Our yard is full of them as well as Longleafs which are pretty much the same. After we made it back to the car, we went to the drive through at "Cook Out" and got hamburgers and fries to take home for lunch. I think this is a small chain establishment but I can tell you this. If you have ever seen one or have one in your area, by all means, GO THERE! "Cook Out" makes the absolute BEST hamburgers I have ever had from a fast food restaurant in my life. Juicy, loads of flavor, all the extras, and to top it off their fries and onion rings are like the really good, greasy kind you get at fairs/carnivals/amusement parks but can never seem to find anywhere else. After we ate, I attempted to do my workout but only got through half. After all that walking, I was beat! So I laid down on the sofa for an hour or so and dozed a bit. The kids were actually quiet upstairs too but later T told me it's because they were all tired as well. Got back up again, finished my workout and made dinner. Now I'm sitting here sipping on a concoction of my own making. I wanted to make a Cosmopolitan this evening but I finished the Triple Sec last night. I'm a lush. So I had this V8 Tropical Colada Smoothie stuff that I mixed in some Bacardi with. It's pretty good. Talked to R earlier in Hong Kong. He was in a lousy mood because he got an email that the place he'd UPS'd stuff to on Feb. 16 in Jacksonville, FL claims they never got it. Being in Hong Kong, there is very little he can do about it from there. The big problem is that the day he shipped this stuff, the UPS stores computer was down. They weren't able to supply him with tracking numbers that day. They DID fax a receipt the next day here to the house but no tracking numbers. I have the receipt and am hoping they can locate those items based on the info. on there. This is a big account too so I can understand his being angry. 99% of the time you get those tracking numbers and never need em. The one time you don't...everything disappears. Well, I really don't have anything interesting to say here this evening...as you can clearly see! But hey, Wow! Look at all the comments I got on that post below just for being happy! Oh and by the way, the regional snobs I referred to below are a bunch of New Yorkers. Didn't want to step on any toes there. Now, let's tear down that bitch of a bearing wall and put a picture window where a picture window ought to be!

Ta-Wiirrrllll!!!

2006-03-03T06:37:00.000-08:00

What a difference a day makes! I'm in such a good mood today and I couldn't even begin to tell you why but I'm running with it. I almost wish there was a club open at 9:37 a.m. because I feel like going out dancing and having a few martinis. Oh, I forgot where I was for a moment. I suppose I would first have to wish that there was a CLUB period! Let alone one that played good, danceable music. There are exactly two bars in this county. It's not "dry" but it's about as close as you're going to get to it. Now if one were to go up to Southern Pines or Pinehurst, there are a couple of clubs there that aren't too horrible. Certainly not gay, they're mostly catering to New Yorkers down for a weekend of golfing, but half the guys working there are gay so I suppose "gay-friendly" would be the term. But the music is still Carolina-suckage. Anyway, I guess I'm stuck at work and the only dancing I'll be doing is chair-dancing to Gaydar radio. I found a new station, PrideNation out of Palm Springs that I listened to some of this week but I decided I like the European station better. American dance mixes are soooooo monotonous! The same beat over and over and over and they do away with the vocals. The Euro versions have a lot more lyrics and you can sing along. I prefer that. I'm finally (Gasp!) fairly caught up here at work. In fact, I think I very well may be bored here today. Lately I've been branching out here in the blogosphere and reading a lot of new blogs. I've even added some new links to my blogroll. It's kind of interesting to note how the blog world is almost as cliquish as high school was. For instance you've got your bored housewives with kids who only want to talk about their kids and nothing more. If you don't fit their genre, you will be ignored. Then you've got your Christians...I don't bother reading any further as soon as I realize what I've stumbled upon. There are the Depressives...we all know lots of those ;) and although I'm not a clinically depressed person (I think), I tend to relate the best to these people. Go figure! Maybe it's because they are the "searchers" and I like the idea that people want to explore their minds and/or their environments. I see that a lot more among the Depressives than any other blogs. There are the Kids/Teen blogs...don't bother with em. The Nonsense Blogs which I'm probably a part of since I talk about nothing and everything. I saw this referred to as the "Hi Mom" style of blogging yesterday. And then there are the Gay blogs which I've been exploring lately. That genre is really segmented when you get into it and EXTREMELY cliquish! Unfortunately it seems the vast number of these are porn blogs, not necessarily with pictures but rather sex/cruising stories. Can you say boring? I find myself routinely questioning the authenticity of the stories by the time I hit the second paragraph. By the third, I'm usually gone. If I want fiction, I'll watch a porno movie. And even if it's true, who really cares? Porn is the easiest thing in the world to write. The scenario may vary but the ending is always the same. Unfortunately I think a lot of these "authors" fancy themselves to be the next Shakespeare or Hemingway. There's also a real snobbery in the gay blogosphere. I can't tell you how many of them I've read and commented on and the "favor" is never returned. I'm a realist, I don't expect every person who's blog I comment on to rush over to mine and comment back. But you still can't help but feel some sort of "rejection" that you weren't worthy of that person acknowledging you. Yes, my insecurities shine through once again. Maybe it's just me, I try to comment on everyone's blog that comments on mine. It's just part of being a good host. But I also believe there is an elistist snobbery involved in it that is really laughable to me. Mainly because I'm the biggest snob there is! LOL! Please! I've either visited or lived in almost every major city in this country at some point in my adult life. Just because my blog currently says North Carolina doesn't make me a toothless redneck hick. Knowing what I know, there's a very good chance that I am not only better educated but also enjoy a far higher standard of living than the snobs who deem me unworthy of their time. And "regional snobbery" is soooo 1987! So I shall stay content within my own blogosphere of friends that I have acquired on here. I went in search of greener pastures and guess what? There really weren't any. I've always been very selective in real life so I don't see why I wouldn't be the same way online. However...in my house, all are welcome. Ooookaaaaay, don't know where that mini-rant came from! Like I said, I'm in a good mood today. So the big weekend plans....NONE! What else is new? It was absolutely gorgeous here yesterday, 82 degrees, sunny, I have spring fever now! Unfortunately tomorrow is supposed to be cool again, only in the mid-50's. We had a house showing yesterday, another one at noon today and yet another around 11 tomorrow morning. I would like to not be there with the kids when they come through, the kids are too distracting, so I think we may drive up to Southern Pines and go for a hike. They have the Sandhills nature preserve up there with a lot of hiking trails and it's very pretty. We could just go over to the Gamelands but I'm never sure when those crazy, gun-toting hunters, or worse yet-Dick Cheney, might be over there. Actually I think hunting season is over...but whadooo I know? I'm just ya motha! Madonna is currently on singing "time goes by...so slowly". Girl! You're singing my song! I'm so ready for this day to be over so I can go home, feed the kids and fix myself a deliciously refreshing cocktail. I feel like having a party. Too bad Patsy is out in Vegas, she's always up for a good time. Any takers?

Baby Cried the Day....

2006-03-02T10:11:00.000-08:00

the circus came to town. Cuz she didn't want parades just passing by her! So she painted on a smile and took up with some clowns. She danced without a net upon the wire. I know a lot about it cuz you see, Baby is an awful lot like me. OMG! What the hell does any of that even mean? That had to be one of the stupidest songs ever written. Giving the advice that you shouldn't cry out loud. Right! Yeah, just bottle it all up until you are ready to explode or kill someone. Good thinking, great idea! For some reason, when I lived in LA still, my roomate and I would laugh our butts off over that song. We would sing it to one another when the other was down about something. She was a horrible singer too so it made it all the funnier. I'd erased that Melissa Manchester classic from my memory banks until today when Tina had to go and dredge it up all over again! LMAO! I'm not complaining, I needed the laugh. Actually I'm doing much better this afternoon. Perhaps I shouldn't post on my blog before 10 a.m. from now on? I even managed to successfully put gas in Silver (my van's name is Silver Goldberg) without crying AND the pump accepted my card! Of course I went to a different station and paid $2.13 (how's that for wildly fluctuating price ranges?) but this one was more convenient and I wasn't sure I could handle the devastation of a second rejection at the original station. This picture is exactly what Silver looks like, even the wheels are the same. However I have NOT been to Springs Air Museum. There is some sort of airborne military museum or something of no interest to me like that over in Fayetteville but I haven't been there either. The only reason you might EVER find me in a place like that would be to check out hot military guys but I can go to Homo Depot outside Ft. Bragg for that and it's free. Okay, yes, I am officially sexually frustrated. Tina sent me this too. Ah, the good old days when the rules of parenting were so much looser. Anything went! I still miss laughing over kids getting spanked in the grocery store! You used to see that all the time and nobody thought a thing of it. Being a kid myself, I always knew that the recipient of that spanking or ear pulling (another popular tactic) had most likely been totally deserving of it. Yes, I was an evil child as well, laughing at the pain of others. And for the record, NO, I don't do that to my kids...not that there haven't been times that it's crossed my mind! There does seem to be something about the atmosphere of a grocery store that does stretch a parents sanity to the breaking point when it comes to kids though. Anyway, yes, I'm doing better than I was this morning. My general "issues" remain the same but I'm coping. Thanks to the people out there who made me laugh. I needed it.

You Know Something's Wrong When....

2006-03-02T06:27:00.000-08:00

you start getting teary eyed at a gas pump! Yes, welcome to my morning. How is it that you can go to bed feeling perfectly fine...well, let's say feeling okay, and then wake up 7 hours later and just wish you were dead? Maybe I really am mentally ill and I just can't accept that fact? When I read the blogs of the depressed people I've befriended around here, I always think to myself, I'm not like that...that doesn't sound at all like the way I feel when I'm down. But maybe I really am "like that". I don't know what I am, I don't even know what I'm talking about. I just know that I feel like crap this morning and I'm so down and alone and miserable. But yeah, that gas station incident happened this morning. I drove into town for work and noticed I needed gas and oh look! That station has it for $2.05, that's pretty good! So I pull in and swipe my card and it won't take. I did it about 3 times getting angrier and more frustrated with each swipe but it still wouldn't go through. Then I noticed I was getting all teary over this shit! I was absolutely NOT going to stand there and cry at the gas pump so I just got in and drove away without getting any gas. I have to remember to go back out and try again at lunch or I will not be making it home this evening. So I'm sitting here at work again not focusing on anything. Even this post has been up on my screen for over a half hour. Yes, I guess I'm just insane. Perhaps a stay in Blogville Mental Asylum wouldn't be such a bad thing. Does missing somebody make a person feel this crappy? Does loneliness cripple people to the extent that I sometimes feel this way? Why does this only seem to happen when R is gone? Answer me dammit! Maybe I'm just sexually frustrated. Does that put a peson in this state of mind? On the upside of things, it's supposed to be 83 here today. That makes me smile, especially knowing they are having a snowstorm up north today. Yeah, I'm evil. Muwahahahahaha! Thank you Pixie, you know what for. I just have to type this word because I laugh whenever I see it or think about it...."Doilies". Much better.

Why does "heat pump" sound suggestive to me?

2006-03-01T07:39:00.000-08:00

The tv repair guy called just as I was leaving work yesterday. I told him I had to pick up the kids at the daycare and then I'd be home in 40 min. Two guys showed up. The younger one was definitely recoil material but the other one in charge that was wearing the fire dept. t-shirt wasn't as horrible as I had imagined. Oh gawd, I'm so desperate that I'm actually checking out redneck tv repairmen now. Please! My standards are SO much higher. Anyway, I brought them into the living room and turned the tv on to demonstrate (not un-like Carol Merrill) the spine tingling "BZZZZZZZZZZ" sound that it was making. Mr. Fireman said, "Oh yeah, that's the high voltage regulator, we can fix that but we'll have to take it" or something technical to that effect. I told them I wanted an estimate FIRST before they repair anything because I'm not spending hundreds of dollars when we can just go get a new one at that point. We shall see what they come back with. Unfortunately, when service people find out where we live, prices seem to skyrocket. The unwritten rule of small-town Southern living, "screw people over for money any way you can!" One time we had to have the heat pump serviced and the company we had chosen told us there would be a $65 charge just to send someone "all the way out there". Excuse me??? We live 13 miles from the town that company was located in! An entire tank of gas (at the time) wouldn't have cost what they were going to charge! Pigs! I can't think of much to write about today. The realtor called and they want to show the house Sat. around lunchtime. I told him that was fine. What else....I called the closet-case who cuts my hair and set up an appt. for next Monday at lunch. That's going to be the second worst thing about moving after having to go job hunting again...finding someone I like to cut my hair. It's not even like I have some cutting edge style or something, it's just being able to walk out knowing I got what I asked for. It's a lot more difficult than it sounds. They never want to cut it as short as I ask for because they want you to have to come back that much sooner. I'm wise to their dirty little ways. That's why I like the closet-case. He does what I ask. Okay, how about another picture? Like you aren't sick of these already. I was cleaning out the "My Pictures" file on this computer at work and didn't even remember I had this one on here. This was me and the kids when we took them to Miami in November. It is not a good picture of any of us...we're all squinting since it was soooooo bright, the boys were in desperate need of haircuts, I look Chinese (I'm not). Eh...who cares? I'm certainly not out to impress anyone anymore. I can't even think about the very word "Miami" without that Golden Girls song running through my head..."Miami, Miami, you've got style!" I'm stuck with that the rest of the day now.

Who Wants to Die for Art?

2006-02-28T08:54:00.000-08:00

Thank you Toodler! I LOVE that quote and it's been a while since I'd seen the movie and had forgotten about that. That Divine, she was the quintessential "Star", unfortunately gone too soon. I'm happy to say that I got to see her perform live while she was still up and kicking though. Let's see, it had to have been around 1986 or 87 maybe? I know I was with Rocco at the time. It was at a gay nightclub called Numbers in the warehouse district in downtown Cleveland. I wonder if that place is still there? It used to be one of the better clubs in it's day. Actually it turns out that R was at that show too but I was not to meet him until 2 years later. Anyway, it was a really funny show. Divine came out and basically insulted the audience. Then she launched into singing some of her big hits like "You Think Your a Man" and my favorite, "I'm So Beautiful!" There was a section in the show where she answered questions from the audience ala' Carol Burnett. I have to hand it to her, she was quick on her feet. Not even knowing what was going to be asked of her, she could come back with a sharp retort or an hilariously bitchy response at a moment's notice. That was one of only two shows I went to in my life where I felt as though I was actually witnessing "something special". It's hard to describe what I mean, I went to plenty of concerts and all but there was a certain je nais ce' qua (SP??? I'm not French!) about the Divine show and the other one would be when I saw Deborah Harry perform on a solo mini-tour live. This was in the early - mid 90's. She was only doing 3 performances nationwide, one in NYC, one in Chicago and one in...of all places...Cleveland. That Debbie, always the cool one..she had always liked Cleveland from back in the 70's before Blondie ever got big. That show was like watching a Legend perform. I was captivated, probably had goosebumps the entire time. Maybe that's what it was...the idea that these performers transcended mere "fame" and have achieved legendary status? Memories....light the corners of my mind. Okay, back to the here and now. Ro had a normal temp. this morning so I sent her to school. I have an uneasy relationship with my cell phone though. It sits on my desk here at work and I'll often glance over at it and ask it to please not ring. It's always bad news when it does...a sick kid, someone getting kicked off a school bus again, etc. Today...so far, so good but I keep waiting for that cheerful Polka ringtone to go off at any minute! Then again, I gave the TV repairman that number to call and ask me for a date....I mean to call and tell me when he can come up and look at the tv (which was indeed an RCA Jackiesue, your theory holds no water here!). I learned long ago that the good looking repairman is a myth...a fantasy born of bad porno movies. They certainly don't exist down here at least. I'm usually horrified when I answer the door and see what's standing there. I may have even visibly recoiled on more than one occasion! Interestingly, there always seem to be good looking landscape guys out there though. Oh, the one guy we had cutting the grass two summers ago was a dream! We even told him we would pay him more if he cut the grass with his shirt off. He just laughed, cute college guy, dark hair, dark eyes, had a mohawk that summer, nice body, originally from Ohio too. Oy! My lack of a husband for the past couple weeks is starting to show up in my blog posts now! Speaking of R, it sounds like he may be coming home on the 15th which will mean that our Atlanta Odyssey may still happen on the 17th. I emailed the realtor we're talking to and let her know and she is willing to spend that weekend showing us around. I warned her that after a couple of hours with the 4 kids, she'll probably ask us to pull over so she can run screaming from the van. She has been very informative and helpful so far. She's a lesbian, works for a real estate co. that caters to gay people. It's kind of weird because she's telling us all about "the gay lifestyle" there and how there are so many gay families and groups that watch each others kids and stuff. That's all fine and dandy but how do you tell her, "Ummm...we don't really like most gay people"? I already have let her know that I refuse to live in any "Gay Ghetto". ICK! I have no desire to sequester myself or my children from the rest of the world out there. She kind of has this mentality that "you'll want to be around all the other gay people" like it makes our life "safer" that way or something. I said to R, "We've lived in the absolute middle of nowhere, rural South here where we are now and NEVER encountered any outright hostility from anyone!" Maybe that's what all gay people should be required to do...live in the middle of nowhere to see that people outside of the urban centers aren't as horrible as they all seem to think they are. Yeah there are some doozies out here but they're fun to laugh at. I actually see that our being here has educated a lot of people that otherwise probably would have held onto horrible stereotypes about what gay people are like simply from never having been exposed to any. So I guess my work here is done! Bring on Atlanta...well, when the house finally sells that is!