All Men can be Heroes

Wooly Steve

I just might have a new addiction. After my addiction to Fabergé egg/door stops collection that is.

On Sunday, I found myself back at my dealer. I said I would not walk in the front door, then it was to "only look" but I knew. I knew I needed the rush of standing on that tiny platform as an Ukrainian man took chalk to my nether regions.

There is a certain rush you only get from buying a new suit.

You can mix the gitty-glee of "balls to the wall"* shopping spree, with the manliest pursuit of being surrounded by wool. Add in the elderly gentlemen that want nothing more than shove a tape measure up your bum, and you have manly ecstasy.

As I stood there, incased in wool, letting the former Eastern Block tailors work their magic of trimming away the fat, and disguising the fat, I realized why "brides" squee about their dresses. This thought made my spine quiver. When the head tailor was done re-arranging my balls, I asked if he had a cigar. Or maybe a Dos Equis.

Okay, so I have a wool addiction. I have come to terms with this. It's harmless. Well, besides the damage to my credit card.



*trade mark saying by that umber sexy Aussie, Kez.

My Ex, Hamlet

I have one, final paper due in my college literature class before summer break. The topic is to examine a new view on the most popular work of Shakespeare's Hamlet.

What the hell can a nerdy-gay-Mormon forty year old say about Mr. Hamlet that hasn't been said, to death? Alas, poor literary critic! Term papers of infinite jest,of most excellent fancy.

Well, I'm finding there is not much I could possible add to this well-worn topic. This week I wrote three pages on how I dated a thespian and helped him prepare for the role, by mentally getting him into a "mindset" of Hamlet. This support manifested itself by quizzing him on the protagonist's lines and a lot of blowjobs. I ended up deleting the three pages. Nobody needs to know how I “supported” a bearded man in tights.

With more research, I decided to take the approach of examining the ingénue role, the potential wife of Prince Hamlet, Ophelia. What gay man can’t identify with this noble woman of Denmark? We have all tried to get with our own Prince of Denmark, yet after finding that we have become a needy bottom, the jerk projects his creepy Mother issues off on to us. Before you know it, we are sitting around with friends, crying into a beer uttering statements like, “He took me by thewrist and held me hard; 
Then goes he to the length of all his arm… because hesaid he all loved me and junk.”

As gay men we have the possibility of having a tragic heroine inside of us.  Not because we as gay men are weak, but because of our sometimes warped view of loving men during our first exploration of same-sex attraction. The impression of gays as callous sexual predators can sometimes be overwhelming to someone first coming to terms with their ownsame-sex attraction. Thankfully, unlike the weak character in Hamlet, modern gay men gravitate out of this tragic ingénue role and no longer allow the classification of tragic caricatures.  We may not understand fully why our Prince is treating us badly, but we are not going to throw ourselves into a lake. Hopefully.

I will write about Ophelia. About this Shakespearean character’s struggles with Hamlet using her and then tossing her aside when his home life got complicated.  But, really my term paper will be aboutyoung gay men.  When coming toterms with love, without role models to guide them, how easily it is to base their self-worth in another’s opinion. That is until they see that what matters most is their own self-worth.  

Brain Freeze

I started my new position with feverish abandon. This means that my brain has been overly filled with learning new work information and trying to change my habi-trail from working at home in my underwear to re-applying the suit and tie. This has not left a lot of time, brain power, or will power to blog.

I am finding that all the strange crap that rolls around in my head hasn't been able to be poured out onto the Stevie B. blog page. This has caused a painful brain freeze of strange Stevie ideas. About the time i felt my head exploding, I discovered one thing. It's not that I like to blog, it's that I must. Like a shark who can't stop swimming. If I stopped blogging, I'd die.

With suit and tie Steve settling into place, let us return to our regularly scheduled blog.

MacMaze

As I picked up my car from the car wash, I noticed that my Apple logo sticker was badly faded. Being an Apple-head it’s important that my shiny white Apple sticker be prominently displayed in the rear window of my vehicle. A faded and worn out sticker is a good indication that it’s time to buy a new MacBook.  Like a pop-up timer in a turkey.

It has been in the back of my head for a while that I may want to replace my trusty sidekick. An aging gracefully white MacBook that has been my closest friend since late ’06. Mostly my thoughts of a new Mac laptop are driven by the massive amount of papers I’ve been writing for school. I need to buy an updated version of Word, so really now that I have a typical gay boy Apple-zombie problem I might as well just buy a new computer.

Remember when Apple retail stores were like libraries?  Quiet and respectable places where the Apple staff would greet you with eager anticipation.  Now, they’re like the grand Turkish bazaar. Hoards of people hungry for all things Apple.  I found a Macman on my latest visit to the sleek white Apple temple and started to decide which of the shiny electro-happiness would be correct for me.  It is harder than I thought.  I finally decided to not decide.  Pending more research whether I need a MacBook Air or MacBook Pro. And so my trusty ol’ white Mac Book is still by my side. My Apple sticker fades more everyday as my car waits for a new white window sticker. 

Thick Neck Steve

The last time I put on a work dress shirt was the end of May 2011.  My work dress code since then has been comic character T-shirts and gym shorts.  Washing and underwear was optional.  Now, I am returning to an office setting for a new job.  My days of working from home are done, and not a minute too soon. The gym shorts will only be good for the gym and the dress shirts will be coming out of the closet. Literally.

Yesterday I pulled every bit of work attire and completely reworked my closet. The dress shoes were under massive layers of Pumas, and I found the suit jackets and white shirts so far back I had to use a machete to get through the Structure polo shirt section. They were just hanging there in plastic dry-cleaning bags, thinking they were never to be worn again.

After trying on the ol’ work wear, I discovered two things: My waist is smaller, which is great, but my neck has gotten much larger in a years time. How the heck does someone lose weight everywhere, yet gain weight in their neck?  So, I’m a thick neck?

I now have an entire wardrobe of dress shirts that cannot be buttoned at the neck. This is kind of important, because I need to sport a tie.  They really need to make a dress shirt with a Sansabelt like option for the neck. Sans-a-collar?  Maybe I just need to go on a crash neck diet. I know that rushing out and getting liposuction in my neck may cost just as much as replacing all of my shirts. Until then, I will be the nicely dressed chap grabbing some lunch with some of the other gals from the typing pool whilst my head turns blue from lack of oxygen.