Meeko, the Robot Vacuum

Find yourself a man that will wave to your Roomba as he enters the room...

Now I do understand that anthropomorphizing can be unhealthy. Depending completely on the situation. I will let you decide on the level of this construct as I am deeply assigning attributes of human form or personality to a very inanimate object. But, heres the thing, the thing is not inanimate. It is very inanimate. It all starts with my very detailed understanding of my view of addiction.

I know that I can become overly attached to things. Like TV shows, foods, or that slut of an ex-boyfriend. This is why I never watch Game of Thrones or Glee. This is why when people ask if I want to smoke pot I say "no" because I know that within three days I'll be at the gas station buying my second pack of cigarettes in two days. I am in no way painting a picture of addiction. If you know me in real life you would know that I rarely drink; It's just that I know my personality. This probably is why I waited years to adopt  sorry, buy a Roomba.  The robotic vacuum cleaner.

Right out of his little kennel box I immediately started to give it a personality. I named it Meeko, from that horrific Pocahontas film. But its personality just matched the raccoon in the film. Now I catch myself at the work, I will signal him to go clean from my phones app, and then watch the security camera on my phone to see if he wanders through the camera's view. He's sooo cute when he finds dirt.

So, yeah. Anthropomorphize much? Although I have not forced the boyfriend to watch videos I have captured of Meeko in action; I did witness a troubling site yesterday. The Boyfriend entered my house and came into the living room, and upon spotting Meeko, he waved at it and said something like "aw cute, hello!" So either I am dating someone who knows how to humor a crazy person's delusions, or he also knows how to give human traits to a robotic vacuum cleaner.  Either way, he's a keeper. The boyfriend, that is.

Moving On

It’s been fun. No, really is been a lot of fun.

Mike and I moved in together on May 16^th 2015. If you are a longtime reader of my blog, you know this move was a major change in my life. I ended a nine-year relationship, and was throwing off the binds that a toxic relationship can wrap around your soul. Suddenly I was free. It wasn’t on the level of Celie gaining freedom in The Color Purple, but for me, it felt like that.

We will soon be in our current apartment for a year. This is the place I had in my mind every night when I dreamed of escaping an unhealthy relationship. My vision of peace.  All that time, painting in my mind how my own place would look like, how it would feel. Now, a year has passed, and the escape is just a memory. It is now the time for the roommate and I to move on with our lives. We have learned a lot in one year. The best lesson is how well we get along. Suddenly we were best friends, and most beneficial critics.  

After a drama-filled search we have chosen a new apartment. The only thing we did not like about the current place is how far away it is from the city-center. The new place is close to downtown.  Literally across the street from the train line, and a station. The only bad news is that we can’t move in until the end of June. I mean, our current lease is not over until the end of June, but I can’t wait for the new place.

I however, am already missing the feeling of the current place. It feels like Miss Celie, after leaving the farm gets a swanky apartment where she can do whatever she wants; whenever she likes. Now it is time to move on. Yes, the new place will be better. Yes, I’m now dating a wonderful and caring guy. It’s a simple matter of a chapter closing. For many years I dreamt of my own home. I imagined how it would feel. Now, we move on. It’s funny; life. If you live long enough, you’ll do everything.  

 

Checking Monsters

I got home super late last night. One of those nights where you dump your belongings and drag yourself up the stairs. I dumped my countless number of bags inside the door and stripped naked as I ascended the stairs.  My only goal was to be horizontal within my 800 thread-count Egyptian cotton sheets. Nothing was going to stop me. One thing did. 

I stopped and checked my closet for monsters. 

Monster in The Closet
by MoMoCookie

In my sleep deprived state, it hit me. I just checked my closet. I began to think; do I do this a lot? Yes, without even thinking of it. Every night I'm alone I open my closet door and flip on the light to ensure that there isn't anything evil lurking behind the Pumas. Hiding behind the flannel shirts.  I'm a fully fledged adult, and yet I check for monsters in my room. 


I'm sure this habit began when I was eight. My brother hid in my closet one evening to jump out and scare me. To this day it is my foundation in my belief that brothers are just simply assholes.  Ever since that night I have checked my closet. This habit has ingrained itself into just who I am for my entire life, so much so that I don't even remember or acknowledge doing it. 


In the movie 'The Dark Knight' The Joker says, “We stopped checking for monsters under our beds when we realized they were inside us." So maybe, that fact that I'm a full ground man and still checking behind the closet door every night, symbolizes  that I don't have a monster inside of me.  That evil is still an abstract. To be pushed away with one small ritual. 

Maintaining the Mean

I am not a fan of clutter. This may be part of my homosexual training in “clean surfaces.” Part of the homosexual agenda that pushes a simple and clean esthetic, and to force straights to no longer keep their toasters out on the counter, or large bowls of decorator soaps on the back of toilets.  Pushing and forcing our agenda on America. An agenda of tasteful design, simplicity in form and function. When clean design solves a functional problem as simply and elegantly as possible, the resulting form will be carried to success by the gays. 

That being said, I had a personal intervention last night…..

Yes, I am working fifty hours a week on top of going to school. I still should be able to keep my desk clean. Yet at the bottom of the pile is the box my Mac came in… over a year and half ago. And that’s the issue. When I purchase fun toys, I don’t want to part with the box. Like unwrapping and unboxing is such a high, I don’t want to just toss out the package. If it didn’t just smack of effort and crazy, I’d be one of those “unboxers” on Youtube. Those people that video the unboxing of any new electronics, and post it to YouTube. If I start, I welcome any smacks to  the head. 

So, I just keep the bags and/or boxes to hold onto the thrill of opening the new item. Well, it may also be warranty and return purposes. That doesn’t mean I must leave them on my desk so I may contemplate when I should be writing a paper on Aristotle’s philosophy on happiness in human nature (no irony there). 

Yet it does bring the reason why I still have the bag for my Coach wallet. “Happiness depends on ourselves.” Aristotle enshrines happiness as a central purpose of human life and a goal in itself. A new Coach wallet, although completely shallow in its happiness, makes me happy. Aristotle argues that virtue is achieved by maintaining the Mean, which is the balance between two excesses. I don’t depend wholly on wallets Swatches for happiness, they’re tiny treats for working fifty hours a week and going to school. I maintain the Mean. 

Now if only I could get the bags and boxes off my desk to maintain my clean desk… that’s another issue. I am not a fan of clutter. 

Plumbing

“It is time to buy a new house.” Was declared to me several weeks back. Apparently the sink in the master bath had finally clogged from the beard trimming and "Just For Menning.  This was followed by weeks of playing the “who’s going to fix it” game. That tedious dance where one of us needed to take the initiative and fix the sink. Also several weeks of using the hall bathroom to brush teeth. I found it easy to begin my teeth cleaning process by loading my toothbrush, then making a dash for the hall bathroom to complete my chore. That, or brush my teeth in the shower. Which reminds me....

Do you find it weird to brush your teeth in the shower? I only ask because upon mentioning my sink repair procrastination and shower brushing to a fellow blogger, they felt it was equal to licking cats. 

How Clean is Your Lube?

Today was the day. The sink would yield to my manly, magnificent power. I had to start by digging out all the items that found their home under the bath cabinet. I made a note, when we do buy a house, only pedestal sinks. As I discovered a third container of J-Lube from antiquity, I thought of a new British television show. “What’s all this, then...” Two nicely dressed grandmotherly Brits will come to your house and sort out all your lubes and... bedroom aids. They will be overly sweet as they reorganize your porn DVDs and recycling some, inventory all your lubes and check for quality and safety, and ensure all your “devices” are sanitary. 

In ten minutes the sink clog was cleared. I then spent an hour organizing the endless amount of supplies I have collected over the years. Guess I used elbow grease to finally find my tub of Elbow Grease. 

Labor Day

The Labor Day weekend was just the kick off to my "Late Summer Staycation." For me this is a quiet time to enjoy the ending of the crazy summer and welcome the fall season. This breather seemed to be the only time I could crank up the tunes and strip down to running shorts to give a well-deserved hand wax to the car in the local gay park. Truly a great way to meet people.

Labor Day found me relaxing with friends having a barbecue; it was just a  cat dangling afternoon....

After the symbolism of Labor Day betokening the end of summer, my mind too thought of fall. Well, new athletic shoes for fall. Mostly because everything makes be think of new athletic shoes. This prompted me to finally organize my obsession. So I went to the Homo Depot and bought a cart of this...

I then, turned it into this..

It's been a pretty great week off. As my home projects are done; today I'm off to the mall. The reorganizing of my running shoes gave me room to buy a couple more pair.

Breakfast Time

I rarely get to eat breakfast, even if it's one of my favorite things to do in life. I completely enjoyed myself this morning, before heading out for a stress filled day.

iLost

This morning I awoke bright and early to shower and head over to Hall of Justice. You may think your suspicions that I’m a superhero are proven correct. Alas, It was not that type of hall of justice, it was my county justice center, and I was reporting for non-superhero duty. Jury duty. Boy did I get looks walking in with a cape. 

You might find it interesting that it turns out I have a gripping bias against men who get drunk, toss their children into the family sedan, and drive around town sans insurance and drivers license. For my prejudice against this type of person, I was dismissed. However, as I sat in the courtroom, and the lawyers attempted to find some of my fellow jurors that were pro driving children around after getting liquored up sans legally being a U.S. citizen, my civic duty waned and I started to ponder things.... 

Where the hell did my AppleTV remote go?

I bought AppleTV a while back and installed it in the bedroom, I haven’t watch broadcast television since. At some point I couldn’t find the shiny, tiny, silver remote given to operate the miricale of our modern age. At the crushing point of not finding the sliver remote, I just downloaded the app and started using my iPhone as the TV remote. It’s awsome using my iPhone as the remote, most of the time I’m texting Pac while watching the tube anyway. Multitasking. As the prosecutors asked questions I counted up how-many times I’ve changed the sheets since the remote was lost. Eight. So six weeks ago? 

Where the hell is my AppleTV remote? When I get home I’m going to squeeze the dog and see if the channels change. 

Lights

This morning I should be writing yet another paper on the argument over Dualism or Materialism. Basically, do you exist as a pile of nerves firing, or as a being separate from your physical body. Although I respect philosophers and theologians arguing over this question throughout the ages, personally I’m just in it for a passing grade. 

Instead of absorbing the “spirit -v- body” connection, I’m blogging and eating cold pizza. That’s a “blogreader -v- tummy” connection. 

I’m very excited for this semester to be over. Not just because the hot wrestler that sat in front of me in history class that refused to wear underwear has stopped showing up to class, it’s the amount of stuff on my “to-do” list that’s getting pushed aside due to the huge amount of papers I’m writing this semester.  

 One thing waiting for me to stop writing papers is the light above the sink. A new light was bought to switch out the 90’s Melrose Place realness and install a new Mad Men touch of realness. The left fixture is the 90’s disk light (let me know if you want it: I’ll send it to you) and on the right is the late 60’s chrome job. As you can see they’re halfway installed. This is due to the call I received last week in the middle of class from the homo-sex companion partner; he calmly stating that his attempt to install the light went horribly wrong. Now, I fix. 

As soon as my struggles with writing about Dualism are over, my manly chores can resume. Assuming I make it through my philosophy class. 

The Down Comfort

On my Christmas list I had several things, the first thing I added was, “a high-end and high-quality down comforter.”  This was not because I thought that my lifetime companion-partner would cheap out and buy an inexpensive down comforter, it was that after seven years, I know how he would feel walking into the bedding department of the local Bed, Bath, and Beyond store. Scratching his head through his Hemi engine themed ball cap he would like to just point to my scribble of “high end” and the salesperson would get the hint.

I desired a new down comforter because the one on the bed was fourteen years old. It had traveled in my move to Dallas, then back again. It saw every life event in the last fourteen years and was now just a shadow of its former self.  In the last year, if you moved it just the wrong way a cannon of feathers would shoot out. A cascade or tickertape parade of down that would cover the dog an anything else the multiple holes were aimed towards. Parts of the ghost comforter where completely empty of down, just sad yellowing cotton held together by my determination.

I was odd how easily the request topped my Christmas list, as the ghost comforter did; at one point; mean the world to me. 

In the fall of 1996 I was planning to set up house for my first, real relationship. We had decided to move in together and were scurrying like happy, gay crabs to collect things for our first home. Both his and my leases happened to end at the same time, until then we would shop for what we would need. Growing up with out the simple knowledge that bedding wasn’t all animal themed acrylic blankets, I loved that our first purchase together was “a high-end and high-quality down comforter.” The future seemed so bright snuggling warmly under that down comforter.

As life sometimes happens, he became ill. We, and life abandoned our plans to live together. Soon his family stepped in to help.

On a sunny day in June, 1998 I wandered through a garage sale. It was on a well-manicured driveway of the sister who stepped in to help six months earlier. The items were nothing exciting, just your average garage sale stuff. The kind owned by single man who had succumb to a non-disclosed disease. Maybe cancer. As I walked through the discarded household items, I could feel the weight of the entire family burn into me. When the sister had organized the clean out of his house, my cries that some of the items belonged to me and somewhere jointly purchased, had fallen on deaf ears.  After filling a bag with my own clothes I picked up a down comforter lying on the cement.  I quietly shelled out $50 borrowed dollars and walked down the drive to my truck. Even though it was June, I wrapped my newly acquired blanked around me and hopped into the cab and drove away. 

For the next fourteen years that cotton bag of goose down was my remembrance of what had been and what could have been. It was a memory filled and my prized possession. As life sometimes happens, the cotton turned yellow as it aged, and holes tore in the fabric and my memory.  Holding on like a gay Miss Havisham I clung to the comforter as if it actually held the memories of my long dead relationship.

Material items cannot possess another’s memory. If you fall prey to this fallacy you create your own Great Expectations. I will always have my first love whether I cling onto an old blanket, or have the possibility to make new memories cuddled up in bed with my new down comforter, with someone I love.  

Cool

I had a very odd sensation as I walked from my front door to my car. Like something was wrong, not necessarily wrong, just unusual. There wasn’t sweat rolling down from my tightly buttoned shirt collar. It was actually cool outside. A nice light morning breeze drifted and lifted my tie over my shoulder.


Is it time already? Time for the heavy drapery of oppressive heat to break and the mornings and evenings to become cool? I guess it is mid-August, I wonder if my windows still operate? I have been living in a bubble of A/C for so long I am excited about leaving the window open at night.

Tukey Sam-wich



Man I love Turkey sandwiches. It just might be better than actual Thanksgiving to me.



Pulling out the endless supply of brightly colored Tupperware filled with yumminess. Heaven.

Raw Chinese Chicken

Sometimes I’m afraid that someone will break into the house and rub raw chicken on stuff.


Last night, the Homosexual-Lifetime-Companion-Partner and I finally arrived home from our Sunday adventures. Me, I was at my coffee shop exploring he wonderful and wacky world of Martin Luther, he was roaming the countryside with his homies. Around eight, with our guts rumbling, we sought out food. This is why we found ourselves at the local Chinese restaurant. We ordered take-out and sat in the designated waiting area. I was sporting running shorts, sans undergarments, and he sported sweats and a T-shirt. A shirt embellished with his life’s motto: I SHAVED MY BALLS FOR THIS?

Time stopped. We waited.

After a long line of local towns people paraded past us, most our antagonist declaring his shorn balls knew, we still have not received our Asian themed feast. Hunger and impatience turned the two of us in to the local gay troublemakers.

“Sometimes I’m afraid that someone will break into the house and rub raw chicken on stuff!” My Partner declared to me in a loud and concerned tone. This is an actual line from the TV show, Obsessed. A young girl was so concerned with food contamination that she would padlock her bedroom door in fear that someone would break into her house and rub raw chicken on her things.

Seriously. Raw chicken.

We now use this line as a term of endearment. I turned back and loudly said, “I know, we’ll be home soon and you can bleach everything before you go back into your box.” After a couple more cutting comments about how much he hated raw chicken the tiny girl behind the kitchen dropped her pen, ran back to the kitchen and emerged with our order.

As she rung us up, she made of point of saying that she had not, at any time handled chicken, cooked or raw.

“Good! It will kill you!”

Bare Bear Thanksgiving

While watching the Bronco game yesterday, I might I purposed an all naked Thanksgiving.


This fall, I have been included on an open invitation to go our local bear bar and hang out with a group of football aficionados. Sundays seem to be my homework day, so I mostly turn down the invite. Although this past weekend was packed with dining out among friends, spending Sunday Brunch at Pappadeauxs, I still managed to write four pages on the Protestant Reaffirmation.

With my Sunday morning run completed, dashing out a chunk of my fifteen page term paper on how Martin Luther kicked some Pope ass, and my belly full of seafood buffet I had no excuse but to belly-up to the bar and enjoy a televised football game.

Sometime during the third quarter, the conversation turned to clothing optional resorts around the country. My furry friend, Bear, travels around the world spending all his free time getting naked and enjoying nude beaches, hotels and resorts. This is the point when I invited him and his partner over for Thanksgiving. A naked Thanksgiving. As the words came out of my mouth I immediately flashed to my new dining room chairs. My new upholstered dining-room chairs. My joke turned back on me.

Suddenly I had purposed having a pack of football watching, large and hairy bears to come sit on my soft surfaces. In my head I turned into Mrs. Hyacinth Bucket. I flashed to a group of naked Onslows brushing up against my expensive wallpaper and drinking from my Royal Doulton with the hand-painted periwinkles, whilst in the all together.

Apparently I had proposed the best idea around Thanksgiving since canned cranberry sauce. I just need to stock up on trash bags. I’ll spend my turkey day shouting “stay on the bin bag! Stay on the bin bag!

Home Delivery Mormons

A roving gang of Mormon missionaries went door to door today in my neighborhood. I videotaped my reaction when they came to my door. ..




God I look terrible in pig-tails.

Snow Day

We have a snow day today in my neck of the woods. I was actually surprised as the announcement of closing schools and local businesses scrolled across the bottom of the screen on this morning’s news. There seems to only be six inches of snow, back when I was a kid we’d have to march up hill to the school bus in two feet of snow.



My house this morning.



Did I just make a statement about “back when I was a kid”?

Great. Snow bound and apparently I get old and crotchety. It is true; I grew up on a ranch, far outside of a small town. The house sat on a long dirt road and it was quite a march up the hill to the paved state highway and the waiting school bus. We were unceremoniously thrown out of the house and told to make it to the school bus on time, but either way to not come back. My long feathery hair would flap in the snow filled air as I traversed the barren, snow banked tundra. My color changing moon boots crunching in the fresh tire tracks, attempting to be quiet and not alert the coyotes.

Okay, they weren’t coyotes. But, the neighbor’s dogs were really mean and would come knock me down and lick me. Their tongue marks would freeze on my face. So, that was bad.

What I'd be doing right now,
if I didn't have to work.

Now I don’t have to leave the house, as I work from home. This also means, I can continue working as the other half and the dog join the neighbors as they organize a block snowball fight in the middle of the street. This will be followed by a History Channel marathon, tucked under the down comforter cocooned the middle of the bed.

I’ll spend my day coordinating Excel spreadsheets in my office. I guess this is payback for being able to spend most of my days in gym shorts and a pillow made late ‘80s Bobby Brown coiffure instead of adorning my thick neck with a tie and commuting to an office. So, go! Enjoy your snow day. I’ll be here. Alone. All I need is my Excel spreadsheets. My Excel spreadsheets and my office chair. My Excel spreadsheets, my office chair and my world wide internets.

Lesbian Football

It was Lesbian Weekend here at the ol’ homestead.


Not the trans-gendered lesbians from last summer, new sporty models. As all lesbians meet online and carry on relationships between different states, this couple was no different. The professional opera singer lives here in Colorado. With her parents. The parents would not approve of the high school football coach she’s seeing not only not being male, but being a female. There’s also the fact that they would be “sharing a bed” in “sin.” This weekend was when the Coach came from Oklahoma for a conjugal visit.

We welcomed the Football Coach and the Opera Singer with open fay arms.

I never realized how much I love lesbian bars, and how much more I could learn about American football. Although, when I referred to it as “American” the Coach got a little possessive. On Saturday afternoon, sitting in the stands of a local school’s football game I learned more intricate nuances to the game then I thought possible.

I realized that female gay set have it all figured out. They don’t care when I point out that they’re using the wrong wine glass to drink their beer, they just want to order pizza for dinner, and they love “chillin” out to watch TV. How frickin awesome is that. Although, we did rent The Bridesmaids and they spent the whole weekend screaming, “It’s coming out of me like lava!”

Nevertheless, fun was had by all. Now I just have to figure out how to get coconut and tea tree oil body lotion out of 600 thread count sheets.

Freezin' Steven

It was that time of year again. It seems that it comes faster every year.

The time, once a year, when I winterize the house. Not the whole weather strip, drain garden hoses, and other manly pursuits of home maintenance. More like pulling the light comforter off the bed and bringing out the heavy down comforter from its Space Bag induced summer casket.


See?  Doesn’t this guy look freezing?
He needs a down comforter.

Pulling out the heavy blankets means that I can finally crank open the bedroom window and slide under my over-sized down comfiness. I also did my annual trip to buy new pillows and new sheets to add to the comfort level.

Part of this tradition is wrapping the bedroom’s air vent in foil; this is to block the furnace from blasting heat into the bedroom. Making the bedroom as I sleep also suitable for preserving meat. I wonder if there’s a correlation?

This morning was the first, really chilled morning. The dog had reenacted his time in a German POW camp and tunneled his way down into the sub-layer of warmth. The Dupioni wafted as it half heartily covered the frost covered window.

 It was freezing.

During my thought process of how amazing sleeping in a cold room is, I always forget how frickin’ horrible it is to get out of bed and traverse the ten feet to the bathroom.

Dining Room

It took the entire day. From 10a.m. to midnight, but I finally have my gay boy dream. A new dining room.


Around 10 in the morning we hitched up a U-Haul trailer and headed towards the blue and yellow of gay Mecca. IKEA. Home of flat packed fabulous.

Already aware exactly what we wanted, the plan was to get some breakfast at the IKEA KAFE, write down the numbers using their tiny golf pencils and load up the trailer of the couple of flat cardboard boxes. We would then whisk home for some hex key assembly so we could sit down for dinner on our new dining room table and six chairs, along with a sideboard to complement the look.

Plans are funny things. They’re so flexible some times. Did you know that IKEA has two-hundred, twenty-seven million dining room chairs to choose from? I did. So on during the very first trip I stated “Oh, cool! I love these chairs! Right here! These are the chairs we should get for our dining room?!” So, when we arrived in the dining room area of the store, freshly filled up on Swedish pancakes I knew the plan. Then, two hours later…. The homosexual life partner and I needed relationship counseling. That’s when we met Chrissie, the lesbian IKEA relationship counselor.

Chrissie helped us make healthy choices about our relationship. That coming to a 100% agreement on what type of chairs we want will never happen: that compromise is healthy. Chrissie taught us a lot that day. She taught me that when your partner is a complete wacked job and just can’t make a decision that maybe you should dump his ass in the department and go shop for while.

Every 15 minutes I would call him. At one point he had 10 dining room chairs lined up in the main isle and asked everyone that walked by, who appeared to have taste take a vote. My pick, won every time. After a long shopping spree on the lower floor I returned to find him with a total, final decision. Leather. It had taken four hours to decide, yet we were ready to leave. Then as we marched to the bins we pasted a vignette with my pick, the hive mind was changed.

After 5 ½ hours we loaded up the truck and headed home. Mexican food, a pizza and two trips to Homo Depot I had my new dining room. Around hour two the question was asked “why don’t we just go to Ethan Allen?” Now I know why we didn’t, if you work for something you appreciate it more.

DVD Challenge

I have an incredibly small DVD collection; this is probably due my obsession with Netflix.  My Netflix cue is a two page list of Godzilla, Dr. Who, and foreign films.  There are however two TV series I ravenously collect on DVD, Dallas and Absolutely Fabulous.

This week I’m feeling quite smart. The two TV series I collect both had announcements that they are returning to the airwaves. I’m quite the astute collector.

Dallas will comeback in the summer of 2012 as the next generation (DallasTNG?) The series on TNT will have JR and Bobby’s sons taking up the fight for Ewing Oil 33 years after Bobby walked back onto the ranch.

Absolutely Fabulous will return later this year with three specials to celebrate the show's 20th anniversary. Yes, it’s been 20 years of AbFab.

As you can surmise, I’m one happy homo.

I’ve shown you my DVD collection, now it’s time for you to show me yours. That’s right, I want to see what’s in your collection. Take a picture, and send me a link to somewhere on the interwebs I can see it. Blog it. Flickr it. Or simply send me the photo and I’ll post it. Just let me know your DVD passions.

*I categorically deny the existence of the movie Beaches in the above photo.