Happy Halloween

It’s trick-or-treat time for the dog. This year Harley is going as a terrifying shark. Stay out of the treat isle.


Da-dum.

Da-dum.

Dum-dum-dum-dum

Daddduda!

Here is Harley’s costumes from years past:


 2010












2009



2008

Cuddle Buddies

This isn't my pic, but I love it.

Shar-Better

Apparently the dog is feeling better…

Panda and Bunny

The next episode from the ongoing saga of Panda and Bunny.  See the first episode here. 

Chicken Dog

A typical morning. Made coffee, then went for a morning walk around the neighborhood with the dog. It wasn’t until, back in the kitchen, I finished toasting English muffins I really woke up. Right about the time I placed the toaster into the refrigerator and the butter into the cabinet.

My last mid-term paper/test is today. The studying and memorizing hasn’t been that bad. What had really worried for the last month was my dog. Harley went to hop off the bed around a month ago; missing his landing did a belly roll and hurt his back. This started an un-ending cycle of pain pills, doggie downers, and expensive trips to the vet for a dog that couldn’t really walk. My Shar-pei had turned in to an un-moving bag of wrinkles.

Harley is no chicken.

About the time when the vet started talking about me giving him the financing for new graphite golf clubs, a Lesbian came to the rescue. She swore by doggie acupuncture and chiropractic. Half believing, yet willing to try anything to help my wrinkled dog, I made an appointment.

Harley stood there, looking like a pin cushion. Tiny needles covered his back and sides. He was completely un-aware as we shoved delicious treats at his face for a distraction. After the needles came doggie chiropractic. After the vet discovered two vertebras out of joint, she worked to correct the infrastructure. A couple of yelps and he was back to normal. This was a major load off my mind, because Harley the wonder dog has a Halloween costume to show off next week.

I’ve gotten back my dog, and today will mark the end of my mid-term exams. Just maybe my brain will return to its upright and locked position. But, if I keep putting the toaster into the fridge I could always go get acupuncture on my brain. It works wonders.

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.

Desk Top Friday

Pac's Panda

Patrick over at Pac's Pad is under a massive amount of work stress this week. I thought I'd try to convey that amount by having a cuddly Panda dramatically interpret his last Blog post:

Running With the Dead

I really need to run more.


One of the best things about running is the ritual. I am a man powered by rituals. If I have the ability to incorporate a ritual, or Habitrail, into my life I’m more than happy to spend days memorizing and ingraining it into my small monkey brain.

My running habitrail is early Sunday morning, lapping around Cheesman Park. I’m amazed how beautiful and quiet the park is, I am always amazed how the trees are perfectly aligned even after their planting one hundred and twenty years ago.

Even after I participated in a Denver Ghost Tour, last Sunday, and was re-reminded of the close to two thousand bodies left over in this runner’s paradise. The perfectly aligned trees are from the city when they turned their largest cemetery into a beautiful park by removing headstones and planting grass seed. Very industrious.

As I strode down the paths of trees, I always find it the best part of my week. My ritual of running, in the park, with the trees and a thousand 1880’s prostitutes and cattle-thieves.

I do, however, love running so much that I want to do it more often, yet running on the streets of my small fictional town doesn’t have the same endorphin rush. The countless suburban streets, the development company so long out of business that even their signs advertising the luxury neighborhoods has long since fallen to the ground. The streets and cul-de-sacs without houses, just empty housing lots returning back to fields.

The clean, black asphalt is perfect to run on for miles. Without the worry of cars or… anything interfering with my runs, this may be the problem. Right out my front door and off to the maze of under-developed neighborhoods doesn’t have the correct ritual.

I do need to run more. I guess that part of the inconvenience of the twenty mile drive to the park with the trees and the one hundred and twenty year old dead prostitutes is the ritual.

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.

Study Aids

I have been spending every waking moment lately studying for mid-terms. “Wow, mid-terms already?” you ask. I know!

I am having, lately, a huge problem with my western religions Professor. Not the class, I’m getting along swimmingly with western theology, It’s the fact that he’s a sixty-four year old dick bag. Yesterday he was drinking a soda in class as he discussed the Cluniac reforms of the late 800’s. He sat his soda down in front of me and said, “don’t drink my soda, I have AIDS.” My reply was, “Wow. How 1980’s of you.” He stopped, realizing that I was not joining in the joke, “If you really do have the HIV virus, you must really already know that it’s not passed through saliva on soda straws, if you don’t and that was a insensitive joke from the 1980’s I don’t appreciate jokes that are based on ignorance.

He told me to lighten up.

I will. I’m going to ace his class then report his ass to the university. Not for his ignorance of HIV, but for the thousand other misogynistic and raciest, faith based garbage he’s spewing.

Maybe I should take a break from studying for mid-term exams. Just a little bit.

Marching on the Appian Way

When I lived in Dallas, I rented a house on Appian Way. It wasn’t the Appian Way, just a close reproduction, sans the whimsy.  It was a tiny stone house that backed up to a creek. It was amazingly quiet, as it was just me and my roommate.

I wasn’t ever formally introduced to my roommate, he was a shifty character. Mostly he would stand at the end of the hall, late at night. Tall, dark and translucent. Me being me, I decided that my black, shadowy friend, although he wouldn’t chip in a dime for rent, needed entertaining.

Sometimes I’d put on an impromptu play involving current events of the day. In some sort of way to translate the outside world to a shut-in, in song and dance. Sometimes I’d re-enact famous stage shows, just a little one man show for the purpose of humoring the un-quiet dead.

I handle stress in strange ways.

Mostly because I was such a bad singer, the ghost roommate would disappear and try to ignore me for another week. One night I was on stage, pulling out the stops in a marching band montage. I was hot that night, and I went for the big finale, I started into a marching kick routine to Don't Rain on My Parade not realizing that the dogs were also running from my general area. They were fine with the ghost, just terrified of me. This is when I slipped and fell onto the hardwood, slamming my right shoulder. As my shoulder hit I thought I saw stars, instead it was every light in the house flashing on all at once. I distinctly heard laughter coming from down the hall. Everyone is a critic.

The muscle in my right shoulder has never been the same, and as I tweaked it again yesterday at the gym, I thought back to my original injury. Oh, yeah. marching with spirits on the Appian Way.

Sometimes You're the Balloon...

I'm having one of those days...

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.

Beware the Aberzombies

You learn life lessons no matter where you are.


My friend Tom just retired from twenty years in the Army. He has a wife and two kids. I met Tom, with his wife first through an event at church, then at their first gay pride parade. It was his first gay event other then bars and T-rooms. I wrote about it here.

The other night I was kicking back some beers with Tom, his wife, and his wife’s new boyfriend at JR’s. After coming across as a complete nerd explaining why our local gay bar is called JR’s Tom started to update me where he was in his transition to being openly gay, his new job in the private sector and what his plans where moving forward.

As we chatted, a small group on the other side of the table started to make fun of people coming in the front door. Most likely new to gay bars, a couple of guys seemed hesitant. They didn’t dress in complete modern up to date styles and did not in any way seem like Aberzombies. As one guy tripped coming in the gays giggled.

Tom stood up and in a military calm tone of voice explained that it probably wasn’t that long ago that they were stepping into a gay bar for the first time. That making someone the butt of your joke isn’t cool, in fact makes you look like an ass. Humor comes from wit, not judgment.

Upon sitting down and without missing a beat Tom continued to explain how helpful I was in supporting and helping him learn lessons about his new life. I was dumbstruck. “Yeah” I said “you learn from me?” That’s funny.

Cheesy Goodness

Yesterday was spent with my nose in a lap-top and my head in the fourth century.


Well from eight to two, anyway. After attending a five year old’s birthday party, by eight pm I was spent. Through, tired. Nothing was going to move me from my couch. Not even an invite to go to an impromptu BBQ with the gay street bikers and their amazing assortment of over the top, exotic side salads or their use of gorgonzola in the prosciutto topped burgers. They are a real bike gang, yet they need vests that read “SONS OF WHOLE FOODS” stitched across the back. Even their lure couldn’t get me to leave my Super-squishy, elle shaped sofa of softness.

Then, my stomach thought changed my mind.

The pizzeria/cell phone/gas station/quinceañera dress shop is right around the corner. So, really there wasn’t a reason to put pants on, a dirty T-shirt and boxer briefs and I was fine.

This was my justification until the pizza took ten extra minutes and I started tweeting in the middle of the gas station. This is when I discovered a local boy cruising me. At first I thought he was judging my poor choice in Calvin Klein sport wear, and then I realized he was wearing the new gay uniform. The black, tight T-shirt with paux-metal studs and metallic paint adorning crosses and skulls and other over-done tuff [sp] symbolism. Like a gay knock off of Ed Hardy. I will never understand why guys like this style, as it reminds me of the Kardashians or the rotating cast of the Pussycat Dolls, Why men wear these shirts is beyond me.

Please don’t think for a second that I don’t appreciate the irony of me judging a guy wearing a shirt that Cher would think was over the top, whilst I stood there in a ripped up wife-beater and stained Calvins. This realization turned me into the strange man who hangs out in the local pizzeria/cell phone/gas station/quinceañera dress shop in his underwear, laughing to himself.

Alexander the Great

My whole week has been consumed by Alexander the Great.


I have a ten page paper due in seven days, comparing Alexander’s campaign of conquering new territory for the propose of empire building to the founding of our modern government. Yet, I’m more intrigued by his sex life.

I eat this history stuff up, yet I’m having an ongoing issue with the Professor teaching this class. Here’s an example:

History Professor’s version:
Alexander the Great had a father named Phillip. He was King of Macedonia before Alexander and was murdered at his Daughter’s wedding.



GWM, swimmers build, ruler of empires,

Seeks muscle-bound bear, bodyguard type.

Must have large sword.  

Me: Whitney Houston, You: Kevin Costner.

No Persians

 

Textbook’s version:

Alexander the Great had a father named Phillip. He was King of Macedonia before Alexander and was murdered at his Daughter’s wedding by a bodyguard named Pausanias. Pausanias had been a lover of Philip, but became jealous when Philip turned his attention to a younger man; Pausanias got all Jerry Springer on the new boyfriend and became a stockerish creepy ex, causing the new boyfriend to off himself. The dead boyfriend’s best bar mate, Attalus, gets all possessive and gets Pausanias drunk and rapes his ass. Pausanias, with his ass still sore, goes and assassinates King Phillip.

Well, the textbook doesn’t say “rapes his ass” but you get the idea. But, the point is that my very conservative teacher, who also teaches at a Christian college, takes the time-old tradition of editing out the gay bits.

So, my paper does compare and contrast the differences between Alexander the Great and the US Constitution, but really will read like a Michael Tomas Ford novel. I do find it challenging to link Alexander’s own long term relationship with a bodyguard to the three branches of government, yet I did make a great simile in regards to when Alex’s lover dies, he forces an entire city to throw themselves onto Mr. Hotty bodyguard’s funeral fire to the Bush presidency.

Steve in a Vacuum

Last Blog Challange Question

I have finally made it to the very last question in the sixty-four blog challenge. It only took me six months, but we’ve come to the last question. And the toughest question:

The last thing that made you cry.

This is tough because it takes quite a lot to make me cry. The last thing that put me into tears was writing about my toughest choice question on Marches blog challenge FIVE DEGREES. You can read about that here.

I going to re-post it as well to answer this last Blog Challenge question:

In the pre-dawn morning I stood in the main terminal of LaGuardia Airport in New York City. My flight back to Colorado was departing soon. I had just helped drive a moving van across country ending in Dalton’s new life in Brooklyn.

There were a lot of tough choices to get us to this point. Some bad, some good, but the culmination of all these choices after four years together he was starting his life in New York.

In a way, that morning was the end of choices. We rode to the airport in calm silence. We watched the dark buildings of the strange city that would change what meant to be Dalton and Steve speed pass on the highway. The crushing crowd at the airport seemed to be move in slow motion. If only we had more time in our relationship…. Seconds ticked by…. Dalton and Steven as a couple where moments away from evaporating… I flashed to the smile on his face when he finally pulled his head out of his notebook at that coffee shop in Dallas. If we only had more time.

We hugged and he turned quickly. He disappeared into the crowd.

Five years have passed since that day and I wouldn’t change anything on the path since. Our bond is stronger today then even back then. We knew even on that day that we really would be connected forever. Yet choices had to be made to keep moving forward.

Our decisions define us; the tough choices define our character.

BIKE Shorts

I’ve started to work out at my school’s gym on the days I have class. I find that during that time of day I’m completely alone in the gym, other than Mr. Eller.




You want them to look like this...

Mr. Eller is the head of the athletic department and connoisseur of polyester coach shorts. We met a couple of weeks past when during my orientation to the gym explained to me what dumbbells are verses free weights. I feigned interest when showing me the emergency stop on the tread mills, I then expressed shared enthusiasm for making sure every plate gets returned to the correct place. Upon showing me the locker room and showers I was surprised when he didn’t demonstrate the proper soap lathering technique.  

...when they really look like this.

I have spent a lot of time since then thinking about gym coaches. No, not like you think. Okay, sort of like you think, but more about their style. I’ve been wondering about when a young man, fresh form college with a degree in physical training and education of athletics stops and says “I really need an ensemble that is comfortable, kicky, yet demands respect?” He then searches the finer magazines designed for the up and coming coach. CoachVogue and CQ (Coaches Quarterly) both point to the B I K E short. Not bike shorts or biking shorts, no. BIKE shorts. They’re comfortable, accentuate the upper thigh, and demand respect as they are cut in a maternity style under the belly. And every coach in the United States MUST wear them.

My new bud, Mr. Eller has a rainbow of colors in BIKE shorts. This has started me to think about my upper thighs. Have I denied showcasing my thighs to the world? I just might head to the sports shop and pick me up a pair. Get my polyester on.



Fall

I had to put on a hoodie this morning to take the dog for a walk.


When this happens, I am always reassured that Fall is my favorite season. This is due to the break in the weather. The long, dry summers of Colorado turn into cool autumns. The hot, summer storms end and crisp mornings begin.

Part of this love for cooler weather is the end to air conditioning. I can now open the windows for the first time in months. In the evening, I can crack open the window as I slip into my crisp, cool new IKEA sheets and duvet. A summer of hot sheets is now behind me.

I slip into a cool sheets and drift off to sleep listening to the outside world. The sound of the AC droning on and on is gone and instead I can start to hear the owls coming awake and starting their work day.

As I wrap my duvet around me, I’m thankful for the cool room surrounding me. I listen to the night sounds in our small fictional town wafting in the window. A train blows its whistle in the distance, I’m quickly asleep.

Life is Better then the Days Behind

The theme, it seemed last week in the blog-o-sphere was relationships. Relationships always need some sort of attention, if you’re still trying to re-tune your relationship it means you still care. And that is a good thing.


After years together two men can get into a routine, because men are men. If it works for them, who can judge the life they have built. If the routine is unhealthy, say… like why am I always the one man who cleans the shower, then the years of sharing a life together can open up communication as they have designed it.

Whether it’s a relationship where one partner flies off during the week or a relationship that works even though they don’t share a house, I’m sure if asked they’d say that the skin of a cookie cutter relationship wouldn’t fit them anyway. Because, life if better then the days behind.

The unwritten theme of relationships after being together for many years immediately made me think of a very old song. As much as I’m aware that posting a song in your blog to put in emphasis to a point is very “fan girl” I guess I’m guilty. I’m okay with that.

The Femail Man

Sometimes I fear that since I so infrequently check my mail box that the femail man will someday call the cops to do a welfare check at my house.

Yesterday was a mental break day for me, Tuesday found me scrambling to completed a major report for work and today I have an exam at school. Yesterday was all about gym shorts and un-washed hair. Just one of those days where you spend hours going up every isle at Über Target throwing crap you’re your cart you’d never buy unless under the influence of the man fumes coming from your dirty T-shirt.

“Wow, they’re paper towels… but in a box!”

It wasn’t until late afternoon that I came to my senses and really started my day. This is when I was greeted by a month’s worth of mail at the mail box. And also Ted. Ted is a neighbor that would find fault in toast. The type of person that actually posts on Facebook or Twitter about how he doesn’t like any new formatting changes. “God, I hate the new Facebook blah, blah, blah” It was his anger over the femail man not lining up his mail that made me realize that I was in an exceedingly great mood. I guess the whole “recharge your batteries” thing, actually works.

Today I have paper towels in a box and my mail out of my box. I also feel ready to take exams at school and generally re-join the world.

LABOR DAY

The weather has changed.

The heat of late August has passed, giving me a cool morning as I take the dog for our early morning walk.  I think that Harley also senses the change as we walk along the canal that runs behind our house.

I try not to think that this is the beginning of fall because knowing Colorado, the dog and I will be met again with eighty degree temperatures soon enough. This morning autumn greets us.

Harley races ahead.

Our Labor Day will be filled with lounging in bed drinking coffee then a BBQ at a friend’s house. The morning it’s just the two of us wandering in the chill looking for bunnies to chase.  

   

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.

Blog Challenge

I only have two left. Just two more questions and I’ll be completed with the 64 question blog challenge.

‘member. The Blog Challenge. There has been some shifting here at Stevie blog, luckily I blog by weight not volume, I may settle during handling and shipping.

A lot of shifting about has happened in the last couple of months, “Look at me everybody! WordPress!!!! Oh, shiny!” Then “Grumble-grumble, blog roll won’t do…. the…. thing where it sorts by last update…” Downloads? Platforms? My own hosting software? “Uh, if you need me, I’ll be over at BlogSpot.”

“Look everybody, I’ve moved back to Original Coke.”

Now if I could just get around to answering the two last challenge questions:

62. Talk about the last “random act of kindness” you encountered.
63. The last thing that made you cry.

Right then, on to that….. Let’s knock out 62.

Yesterday I spent pretty much the entire day at my coffee shop. Although, technically not mine I spend a lot of time there to claim ownership. At one point sitting next to me was a gay couple with their stroller. An elderly woman came up to fuss over the baby girl inside. Upon asking the couple, one with beautiful mocha skin, the other with olive skin, what the girl’s name was they responded with beaming pride, “Cloey.”

“Jebus, why do all gay men name their daughters Cloey?” I thought as the grandmother peered in to the baby girl’s stroller. The elderly woman almost stumbled back like Rosemary seeing her baby for the first time. The baby could have been a poster child for Aryan propaganda. Beautiful blue eyes beamed up at her.

Confusion was turning into disgust on the woman’s face. The Dad’s tuned on the charm. They went into total “We’re not going to apologize for how we live, and you’re going to sit there and learn something” mode. By the time they were done, the grandmother was sharing stories of her history and asking questions about cloey’s sleeping patterns.

In my head, it was a complete “random act of kindness” to teach this grandmother that a family with a mocha Dad, an olive Dad and a Aryan girl can be just as normal as any other family out for the day.

Western Civilization

I saw the train wreck coming down the line. It moved quickly and suddenly I found it was my turn.

“Would you be interested in a Wells Fargo account?” The bubbly girl rambled off to me. “You can link it to the school ID and use that as a ATM card.” I had been standing in a very long line for a very long time waiting to take my turn getting in to the campus bookstore. I had attempted to complete the task of buying books in what seemed months ago but couldn’t due to one certain Western Civilization book being on “backorder”. I simply wanted to buy my book and get the hell out of Dodge City.

“No thanks. “ I said to Bubbles. She went on to explain that it will save time and help my student adopt independence. As she said this she was half speaking to me and half to the shell-shocked guy behind me. That’s when the Matrix cam went off in my head. The entire line was parent with kid, parent with kid…. down to me. Suddenly I had a son and I was helping to finalize his book list.

I bit my tongue. I fought the urge to scream “Look lady.. I’m not a parent.. I still sit up ‘till 3AM watching Japanese anima in my tighty-whities. I have a sub-woofer in my car. I collect sci-fi action figures. I listen to techno damn it!” I would of screamed that but, then the rest of the line would starts saying things like “Gee willikers, what‘s that old man yelling about up there? Bet his son is really embarrassed.”

Morning Run

Have you ever decided something was exceedingly simple in your head? Base jumping, easy! Periodontal root planing, easy! Smiling at a girl in the gym a little too long, then as the girl thinks that you’re flirting with her and comes up to move the relationship on to the next level trying to explain that really you’re a huge Mo and you were only staring at her because you thought she was your niece, easy!

I had been avoiding the conversations of “we should run together some time” from friends and family. My sister asked if I’d join her in a fun-run for charity. I turned my head and pretended I didn’t speak English. “Sorry. Nooo runy funy.” Sure, it sounded exceedingly simple in my head. Until I realized that I run like one of the hippos from Fantasia if right in the middle of the hippo dance recital they dropped a big game hunter loaded with a high-powered rifle. The Hunter giving orders that he will give me and the troop a three count head start then he was a-coming for some tutued hippo ass. I run like a hippo, in a tutu trying to flee for its life. Or, something like that.

It sounded exceedingly simple, and then I would imagine my tutu and decline. Until yesterday.

Yesterday morning I pushed myself further on a run than ever before. This was mostly due to a guy we’ll call Mike. Because I never got his real name. Mike didn’t give me a chance to say “No thanks, I’d like to go running… but I don’t speak English… and I’m a hippo you see… and my tutu might get in your way…. hippo…

As I had just completed a warm up lap, Mike came from out of the blue and started to match my stride. We ran for quite awhile without speaking, just ran in the early morning sun. Without realizing it, my tutu was gone. The mad hippo hunter was gone. I ran farther and with a better stride than ever before. Then, Mike was gone. He just uttered thanks for the run and turned out of the park.

Running with someone? Exceedingly simple.

College Boy

Yesterday marked a milestone in my so called life. College orientation. Again.

I’ve blogged in the past about my chosen career and its eventual fading away. I felt it was time to switch gears and as I approach forty to embark on another path. This led me to sitting in a large auditorium with hundreds of people just like me. Okay, a dozen people like me and hundreds of nineteen year olds. Smelly, texting nineteen year olds. I can say smelly because half way through the lecture on balancing your school work with your parents help and me thinking “my parents are eighty, and probably aren’t the best help on Calculus” the skate boarder next to me with the half bleached blond hair started to chat me up. He totally wants to like meet up and totally check out the gym. I responded that it would be totally fetch.

Our mascot is a wolf that looks suspiciously like a furry I saw at pride last year. I received a book bag full of freebies. The best was a window sticker for the back window of my car. Nothing looks classier than that.

My classes start next Tuesday. One is a creative writing class since I bombed that section on my entrance exam. This was exceedingly hysterical to me because 3,388 blog hits last month could have told them that.

Now I just need to bleach half my head blond, stop showering, and buy some skinny jeans.

Big Wheel

When I was five or six I wrote a letter to Santa declaring my love for him.


No, not that I would love it if he brought me toys. That I was desperately in love with him. Since he was the source of all things wonderful in my world I screamed like a Justin Bieber fan on Christmas morning when rushing out to the tree I found the love letter back from my idol.

“Santa” had received my letter and upon delivery of the big-wheel, wrote on the top of the box that he too was fond of me. My fay heart was reeling. It was akin to Zak Spears sending me a letter on scented stationary declaring that he wouldn’t know peace until I was his. But with a big-wheel.

Jebus I was a strange and effeminate little boy. But this may explain why I have a fondness of guys with beards.

When I was just out of high school I found another man that rocked my world in such a complete way as my big-wheel boyfriend. I declared my love for an amateur body builder named JT. Every glance was like Christmas morning. Every time he looked my way it was un-wrapping my big-wheel. But, like my favorite toy from my childhood the time with the body builder didn’t last long. Both were cheap plastic and within months broke. Leaving me broke along with the plastic.

Steve grows up into a well adjusted, contented guy. Who happens to wander around Facebook and stumbles upon his first love. No, Not Santa. The former amateur body builder.

It’s funny how what you yearn for, desire to have forever and ever is just temporary and you can look back grateful that what you wanted never came to be. If I could Say something to my 15 year old self it would be to live by the mantra: All things are in fact temporary.

I’m learning lately that happiness is not a state where you get rid or give up on your desires. Rather, you change your relationship with them. The ability to stay present and to remain open to emotions without getting "hooked" is something I’m learning and increasingly is carried over into my daily life.

All things are impermanent ...not quite the same thing as temporary, but similar. There is nothing wrong with thinking about the past or present or future ... but the goal is to not be hooked by thoughts, as well as to not be hooked by emotions.