The Tebow Beard

“Yer [sic] sporting a Tebow there!” Said the fifty year old man sporting the dice themed Hawaiian shirt behind me in line at the coffee counter.

The “high-roller” was pointing to my beard, sans a moustache. As I turned to the cashier and handed her my debit card “No! I’m Amish.” I said this in a huff; the gentlemen stammered not knowing what to say to someone of the Amish faith. Drinking Starbucks, in a gambling casino.


Being Amish, I don’t normally spend time in the casinos nestled in the Colorado Mountains. Years spent by multi-national gambling organizations, blasting away entire mountains, paving over an entire mountain valley to make a smooth foundation for massive hotels and restaurants, all to supply an endless supply of Hawaiian shirt clad gamblers a plush carpeted oases to spend their cash. They went through all that trouble, I should use it more.

 

I happened t be in this gaming temple because my Father is in town for the holiday. Although there are casinos in Boise, Idaho it’s nice to visit other casinos in your travels. For us it was how we spent our Boxing Day, two Sisters and the Dad. Out for a wacky time.



The Kitler!



I suggested the casino that had a Starbucks, because the only money I had planned to waste was on a Venti Caramel latte. This is when I ended up with a Tim Tebow beard. Great, the man that show-boats his direct line to Jesus Christ and Jesus’ apparent love of the Denver Broncos, now has usurped the Amish’s beard? Does he plan on destroying it for the world like Hitler and his cats? No one can sport a jaunty tiny stache without someone saying, “Ooooh, really? A Hitler?” Now if you choose to don a beard without the trouble of fur on your upper lip you’re going to be called a Tebower? Hand me a razor.



Christmas Evie

It's time for our annual message from Evie Harris.

Merry Christmas, Mary.

Ron Moore

This morning I got to the point where if one more person wished me a Merry Christmas I was going to force feed my garland down their throat. Then, out of the ether I received this comment on a blog post I did at Christmas time in ’08. It was about my memory of Ron Moore, a gentleman I dated back in the Middle Paleolithic period. Reading this comment and my post reset my mid-December priorities. Funny how that happens, just when you’re at your most cynical, memories of loved ones can slap perspective into your head.



Ron Moore



"Nice to read your memory of Ron Moore. I never met him, but he was an idol of mine way back in the 1970s, when nude photos had just become legal and legit. I had a bunch of his photos from Western Photography Guild, and I thought Ron was the handsomest man on the planet. What really wowed me, though, was his ease and comfort with his own body. He wasn't a pumped-up muscleman, thank God, but he had a beautiful natural physique that he was happy to share with the world, and he looked like a really nice guy. I still have the photos. I'd like to read more of your memories of Ron. Enjoy the holidays! "

You can read the post here.

RT

When two men decide to share their lives together they have to remember that when it’s all said and done, they are men. And men have needs.

Every gay couple must have “the talk” to discuss the level of boundaries that they are going to allow in the relationship. Whether they base their relationship on monogamy, some level of quiet openness, play only as a couple, or totally open. They say that “open” relationships take the most amount of trust and faith in the solidness of your partner and the foundation of the relationship. I believe that any level of spending your life with someone will take the same amount of trust.

I hesitate to refer to these differing types of relationships as layers, yet I believe that the next layer to relationships would be a Triad. Having more than one intimate relationship at a time with the knowledge and consent of everyone involved. Insert gay Mormon joke here.

I am not opposed to triads. Although I can barely remember one birthday card, and shopping for two Christmas presents might send me over the edge. Not to mention that I  already sleep on the edge of the mattress because of bossy dog that takes most of the bed's prime real-estate, I’m not sure how I feel about another person.

I’m rambling on about this because as of Friday night at 9:00 PM I was thrust unknowingly into a triad relationship. The new addition is a muscle brute named RT. The other half, my other half brought a 2012 Dodge Challenger Classic into our happy home.

How can I compete for attention?

Saturday early; I’m pulled from my book and coffee for a ride in RT. As we race endlessly up and down the empty streets in our fictional town, the “other half” says, “I so love you!” “Ah, I love you to.” I say as he strokes the six gear shift knob. “You do? You really love it as well?” He half-heartedly asks as he downshifts.

“Take me home.” I flatly respond.

Can three-way relationships really work? I ask, as my two other parts of my triad plan on discarding all Christmas storage to make more room in the garage for the love fest.

The Yellow Rose of Dickinson

I really didn’t sleep at all last night. I was up worrying about a blog bud and his choices. It’s funny how cyber-friends work. You chat on line, interact almost daily, yet you never really meet the person. When they go through a hard time you want to jump in and help, even if it’s just a hug or a smile. Then you remember that they live on the other side of the planet.

When my brain is squirming late at night, I fall back on an eternal question in life. “Have you noticed Emily Dickinson poems can be sung to ‘Yellow Rose of Texas’"?

I can spend hours pulling Emily Dickinson poems out from the recesses of my tiny monkey brain and getting them to fit to the tune of the old Texas hymn.


Here's some examples...

BECAUSE I could not stop for Death, He kindly stopped for me;
the carriage held but just ourselves and Immortality.

StevieB. On Ice

Yesterday morning I was psyched about getting to go for a run.


The morning temperature was in the teens, and I found the running paths were completely covered with ice and snow. This was like Christmas to me, I love being out in freezing weather. I layered up my gear and switched to the knobby running shoes for off road, inserted my ear buds under two layers of cap and ear protectors. I set out to run through the ice covered trees and the sound of crunching snow under my feet.

Halfway around the park I encountered an intersection that was a solid sheet of ice. I gingerly navigated the mirror-like ice while mumbling my mantra “walk like a penguin, walk like a penguin.” I’m not sure when or why I began chanting this mantra, it was eons ago. I started to laugh out loud as I realized my rant about penguins not having anything to do with Christmas, then there I was evoking their ice walking prowess to stop the inevitable fall.

My concentration broken, I started to slide. Like Bambi on ice really, my legs stretched out in my running spandex. Sliding completely across the intersection I hopped into the snow along the curb. I quickly looked around. Not a soul in sight. No one saw my amazing show of athleticism and dumb luck? Drat.

Feeling amazingly full of myself, I spent the day feeling superior to winter and anything is can throw at me. I then retold my running triumph story to a friend I ran into as I left watching a football game at our local bear bar. Upon showing off how cool I was, I turned and slipped upon the ice and clumped down to the pavement.

That’ll learn ya.

December 11

Thanks to Jerrod for this.

December 10

On the tenth day of December...

 

 

 

Photographer Jeff Sheng's amazing Don't Ask, Don't Tell

 

Jeff Sheng Photography

http://www.jeffsheng.com/

 

 

 

Where Y'all From? Bitch.

It’s time to open the little door mark “nine” on your advent calendars.

Yesterday was the last day of class before the holiday break. I feel relieved to have my tests done, yet strange to not have the structure of school. I’m not great with changes in my habitrail. I might go stir-crazy until spring class starts. All that time spent at my gay coffee house without chapters to read. Torture.

 'I'm from a place where
we don't end our
sentences with
prepositions."

For some odd reason my English classmates had started to bond in a way I’ve never seen before. Like a group trapped during jury duty, or exhibiting Stockholm Syndrome they started to form a unity. Last night my last final was a time of release; I was surprised to be met with Christmas cards and homemade cake from my fellow classmates.

The big haired gal with the obsession for acrylic sweaters wanted to have my Facebook contact. Really, you didn’t get my Designing Women- How to remember prepositions tool, yet you want to be friends on Facebook? I’m very sorry, if you never saw Designing Women, we can’t be friends.

Before the test began, the hugs came out. As if we survived weeks after crashing our plane in the Andes. Resisting the urge to demand that a classmate stop pressing her man made fibers against my person, I brushed off the Facebook requests to deflect onto the final. Still this was better than the 19 year old guy, for whom showering is a monthly option, showed up to my first class, declaring his drunkenness, and wanting to squeeze my arms, “hard and slow.”

I guess I underestimated the power of school stress and test anxiety. Or just crazy people.

Finally Steve

Today is finals day.



I have two papers due and several major tests to take. As you might guess I was up late studying last night.  I was up into the wee hours re-reading the implications of Martin Luther on the Scientific Revolution and his stance on intransitive verbs. Maybe the intransitive and transitive verbs are for my creative writing class. It’s all a blur.

Evil coffee maker, you want me to fail.
Don't you?

My focus on finals carried over to this morning when after starting the coffee and walking the dog, I was greeted by the entire pot of coffee flowing across the kitchen Pergo at me. I suspect that I did not put the coffee carafe in far enough letting the hot coffee flow in a title-wave towards my delicate constitution. This spurred my cleaning ritual to sanitize the entire kitchen. Seeing my mad cleaning spree the dog wanted to join in and helped by licking up a large amount of the coffee tidal pool. Completely buzzed on Hazelnut coffee, my Chinese Shar-pei is then ran around the house rearranging the furniture and asking me to take him for ice-cream. In his heavy Chinese accent.


My belly is now full of coffee, my kitchen is obscenely clean, the dog has fallen into a K-hole, and I’m ready to cram the founding of Britain’s constitutional monarchy into my small monkey brain. After I study that, I should really study up on subordinating conjunctions.

Obsessed with Scott From Obsessed: Still

I wrote a somewhat innocent blog post back on the 21 of July, 2009. This particular day I had watched the pilot for the TV show Obsessed on the A&E channel. The post was how I was obsessed with the first storyline, “Scott” an incredibility hunky germaphobe dealing with mysophobia, a pathological fear of contamination and germs, and how the phobia was overcome by therapy.

Observe the creature in its natural
environment. *

I was obsessed partly because of my own bizarre cleaning rituals that rule my life. It is completely fair to say that I was also enamored by the utter hotness of Scott. Who knew that two years later it would still be the third highest linked/Googled post on my blog? Hundreds of hits have turned it to the top Google result. This has supplied me with endless emails asking if I know anything more about this Scott guy.


I have received stolen snapshots of Scott shopping for produce, driving, and buy Apple products. It’s like he has turned into a gay Big Foot. Sightings from his natural environment, blurry photo evidence of vague existence. An urban legend for the muscle worship crowd.




It is kind of odd how stalkerish behavior works. Once a month I receive an email pleading to share any information I have, to swap photos and share details. Each time I respond with, “If the guy wanted to release information, I’m sure you’d be the first to know…” I receive some sort of response requesting that I keep them in the loop. Loop? There’s a loop?


So go forth hunky gay big foot! Be free to wander quietly in your natural habitat. Don’t let the muscle worship Queens hunt you down. Run free! 

*The above photo appears to be the property of Scott Barnes Photography. No infringement is intended. Please visit sbarnesphotography.com 

Flock Me

On the sixth day of December…

The temperature plummeted to negative ten last night. I figured that this would be the ideal environment to march through the wilderness and chop down a Christmas tree. Nothing will break my lack of Christmas spirit then relentlessly tracking down an innocent tree and cutting it down in its prime.

Okay… so the other half stopped me from pulling the axe out of the garage, and instead decided to go to a garden center. It was a real rustic garden center. A manly garden center. We marched up and down outside in -8 degree temperatures for like five minutes before we headed into the green house for hot chocolate and carolers. But, I drank my hot chocolate out of a butch paper cup.

I picked out a flocked tree. Yeah, I never thought I’d like a flocked tree, but I fell in love and I figured anything to help my bah-humbug mood as of late.

It’s pictured very naked. Since I have finals all this week the lights and shiny crap will have to wait until the weekend. All things considered I’m deeply in like with my tree. Flock me.

The Annual Christmas Rant

Ahh, December 5th. It’s time to gather around and listen to Uncle Steve’s annual Christmas rant…..

WHAT THE F*#K DO PENGUINS HAVE TO DO WITH CHRISTMAS!?!?

Have you seen the inflatable, glowing Christmas crap that everyone displays on their front lawns? Big billowing snowmen, elves, and insidiously happy penguins. Seriously, What the heck to penguins have to do with Christmas?

At night it’s quite a cute little scene. A winter wonderland all blown up and bopping around to the forced air whooshing up their butts. During the day it’s another story, driving through any upscale neighborhood it's a reenactment of Jim Jones goes to Christmas town. Dead, flat elves and snow people scatter the lawns like a mass suicide cult hit the North Pole. A massacre of merriment. One half-inflated penguin dragging its self off the lawn coughing out,  I only live in Antarctica and parts of South America why am I even here?

Aaaaaaaaaghh!”

Snow Running

December 4th. 

I discovered a new high last year. It was late in the season, so this year I get all winter to enjoy my new fetish. Running in snow and twenty degree temperatures.  

I finding it a great way to gently ease into December.  Since my running path takes me next to the Denver Botanic Gardens I can enjoy the twinkling lights in the snow... 

The bundling in layers; however,  I'm finding is problematic. Just when I have five layers of Under Armour on I usually discover I have to... go. That and I'm frightening the squirrels.

Snow

December 3rd

Snow has started to fall in its robust attempt to make December look like December. It did a good job.

Bah, Humbug!

December 2nd


I’ve always been gung-ho about Christmas. Way before Thanksgiving I’m warming up the staple gun, ready for the outside lights to be pulled from the garage and installed above the inflatable snowman on the front porch. Stopping myself from bugging everyone around me about when their trees are going to be installed in their living rooms.

This year I’m struggling. For the first time in a long time, I just don’t feel it. I guess it may have started around the time when I was mocked for wanting to go to our town’s annual Christmas Parade. My suggestion was met with ridicule. It opened my eyes to the folly of the season. Putting up outdoor lights really is a lot of work. An afternoon spent in the cold. Trees, wreaths, and scented candles just appear to be clutter.

I’m quite hoping that I’ll move past this never-before seen stage in my universe. I’m sure I will. Once again understand that standing in the cold is worth seeing Christmas lights. I just might go wander around the Christmas tree lot like Charlie Brown.

Perchance to Dream… of a Datsun

Is it December already? Time to start flapping open your advent calendars.


If I were a better blogger I’d start advent blogging, every day open another blog counting down to Christmas. Am I that dedicated? Let’s find out.

December first.

It appears that dreaming about Datsuns is all the rage, since Christopher over at his M. Monologues (NSFW) dreamed about me driving my old Datsun truck last night. I had a seemingly never-ending dream last night that I wanted to buy a 280ZX for my Christmas present this year.

In my dream I wanted to buy a Datsun 280Z as a project car. Desperate to buy this sports car I was traveling around looking a car after car to find the perfect one to restore. I hate dreams that make me work, I spent most of the dream agonizing over fuel-injection and whether I should go older and get a carbureted Z car. In the end I never did find my car, until the closing credits I was riding home for Christmas with the T-tops off and my beard blowing in the wind. Yeah, in my dream I had a long beard. Not symbolic at all.

In reality I do have an affair with this car. I just didn’t know how deep it ran. And although I won’t be getting a Z car for Christmas... this year.  I do have twenty-four more days to dream about what I do want.