Cool Spot

My eyes opened to find the other half standing beside the bed staring directly at me. As my vision and my mind began to clear I could tell he was saying something. Since it was morning of our six year anniversary, I looked down his body to find the tray of breakfast and piping hot coffee. He has never brought me a breakfast tray in the entire six years we’ve been together, so it’s strange that I looked for this. As I came around, I focused on the warm anniversary morning greeting he was exhorting to me.


“The refrigerator is dead! Everything in the freezer is ruined.”

He turned and marched from the room to let me process the death that has befallen our house.

After much caucusing between the two of us and the dog as we stood over the corpse of our 10 year old Kenmore, it was decided that we had to go appliance shopping. This is when I returned to my theory that domesticity isn't pretty. You just might spend your anniversaries driving from massive appliance store to massive appliance store in hopes to find a great deal.

“Ok, so we need ice and water through the door” I said after the third store.

“Yes, but we’re to the point in our lives that we deserve a really nice fridge. So, freezer on the bottom and French doors.” My spendy partner said as he attempted to sell me on the 3,000 stainless models.

As I walked down the endless variety of ice boxes, I couldn’t help thinking of Scruff. There were things to consider: Bottom mount. Top mount. Side by Side. Dear God, who knew there would be so many choices just to keep my OJ cool.

“This will be our anniversary present to us” actually fell from my dear man’s lips as the salesperson attempted to ring us up. “Oooooo, like a trip to London, yet better. And colder. And a fridge. Without us leaving the house.” I said to the cashier as she attempted to sell us an extended warranty.

We decided on a nice black Kenmore Side by Side. It has ice and water on the door, because we’re fancy, yet not pretentious enough to have French doors on our fridge. I’m excited to take vacation photos of it, because… well it’s my summer vacation. And my anniversary present.

Alan Turing

When asked who my heroes are, I always start with Alan Turing.

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alan_Turing

The Center

Every year at Denver’s Pride Celebration I have an amazing time. Hanging out with close friends as we watch the parade of colorful floats, groups, and utter craziness go by, heading for the Civic Center Park in the heart of downtown. This is followed by wandering around the massive event filled with vender booths, clubs, and fattening food and beer.

Every year, since my first Pride Celebration back in ’89 I also get a ping of guilt. This is because every year since I first matched down the parade route in cut-off Z Cavaricci jeans, I really thought I needed to volunteer for the event. The celebration only happens once a year and is hosted by Denver’s LGBT community center. Every year I think to myself, I really want to do something to help The Center. I’ve gone so far as sign up for the volunteer orientation. Somehow, I made excuses to NOT step up and become a volunteer.

My excuses are lame. I have free time. I want to get involved.

My good intentions have made no progress.

This is why I must be writing about it here. It has prompted me click on the sign-up for information on the next volunteer orientation. If you live in the Denver area, I encourage you to join me. Click here. If you don’t live in the Denver area, I encourage you to harass me until I attend one of the classes. It’s the only way I’ll learn.

Lunch Time

Starting out for lunch today brought me nothing but giggles.

My workplace is in the heart of Denver's hip and trendy Capital Hill neighborhood. It's a place I know very well. Right out of high school, my first apartment was in this gay, counter-culture area  next to the downtown business center.

As I walked down the sidewalk I found myself front of the first gay bar I ever fightenedly walked into, so many centuries ago. I snickered that it's now a hipster bar. Out front was a gaggle of young gay kids killing time. I made my way through the gang, just a forty year old in a suit. The conversation I heard could of been from the days that I hung out in front of this stoop. One of having nothing to do, not enough money, and why there so many old men in suits pushing past them.

I wanted to stop and inform them that they're nothing new. They didn't invent "being cool." I over styled my hair, wore Daisy Dukes, and sported tiny T-shirts to highlight my wash board abs too. And did it better.

Instead I straightened my tie, winked at the smoking hot twenty-one year old checking me out, and thought about the last twenty-two years.

Good Friends

Sunday afternoons during the summer mean warm long shadows as the Sun takes its sweet time to set. For me it means heading over to our local bear bar for Beer Bust. A long standing tradition of beers, beards, and buds. You can tell the beer bust is in high season by the metal cattle fencing surrounding the bar’s parking lot turned play space for the bears, otters, and other animal themed male homosexuals.

This really is the time to connect with old friends. I get to have a couple quality hours without the pressure of everyday life; it’s less about hanging out in a bar and more about hanging out with friends. Old and new.

This last Sunday I had the chance to spend time chatting with a good friend I met way back in 2004 when I first moved back to Denver. I consider him a long-time bud. We were given some time to catch up on our lives, flirt a little, and generally spend time enjoying each other’s company. Please don’t ask me his name. I can’t remember.

Moving from Dallas to Denver was pretty traumatic. Leaving the gay ghetto, they had to peel my fingers from the door jamb of my beloved gay gym. When settled in Denver the first thing I did was to sign up at Denver’s small gay club, Broadway Bodyworks. This helped the decompression to a city without a centralized gay neighborhood. Around this time was when I met ___. We started to match our workout times to get more gym hangout time. We have been great buds ever since. Well, all but that small part where he greets me with “Hey! Steve! How’s it going?” And I once again, have to stumble over saying hey…. handsome. It’s been 8 years, how frickin horrible is it that I can’t remember his name.

Yes, I have tried all the games of introducing him to other friends, yet it seems that his name never comes up. “This is my good friend________. We’ve known each other since ’04.”

Maybe I should ask him to friend me on Facebook?

You Go

Well, get her.

My Theme This Week...

ENTJ

All this week I'm in a training seminar. It's training so I can be a Practitioner of the Myers-Briggs personality test. I find this funny because I am so anti personality test as part of my nature.

If you don't know this structured test it lumps you into four defined groups, assigned a letter, to be formed into an acronym. I'm sure you've heard at parties, "oh... I'm a INFP" and everyone nods like they know what the heck that means. Well, I'm now trained to explain what the letters mean. Good times.

The funny part of this training is my perceptions. If asked, I'd say I was a feeling, introvert. With all this testing, I've come to terms that I'm very extroverted. And I'm all Judging, not what I hoped, a touchy-feely guy.

Guess this stuff works. So my intuition tells me.

Don't Ask About Carter's Memorial Day

Happy Memorial Day for my US centric friends. This is the day that the US remembers its war dead. Today my thoughts move to long gone loved ones and thank them for their sacrifice. As they died in their service to the US, way before the repeal of Don't Ask, Don't Tell, I wonder what they would think of the changes in what it means to serve, as they didn't get that honor.

My Memorial Day will start with a long run. It’s been two years since I committed myself to running. Do more than talk about good health, but actually put puma to pavement.

I have found that it also gives me a new mindset, and a new outlook on things rolling around in my head. It’s funny how something as easy as putting on running shoes and just moving forward down the path could help me… move forward down the path.

“Everyone who has run knows that it’s most important value is in removing tension and allowing a release from whatever other cares the day may bring.” – Jimmy Carter

It seems that no matter what you do in life there is a President Carter quote to back it up with. But, then again I probably think about Jimmy Carter too much.

I wonder if there's a Carter quote on Don't Ask, Don't Tell? I bet there is.

I should go for a run now, fill my brain with my iPod and stop obsessing over Jimmy Carter, being able to honestly serve in the US military, and Memorial Day.

Somebody That I Used to Know

Team work!

Olympians

This last weekend was my niece’s graduation from high school. Saturday night was the big graduation party at my sister’s house. The house, festooned in black and orange looked like a tasteful Halloween party. It took me awhile to calculate that the “fighting Olympians” have the black and orange as their signature colors.

My niece is an out going and fun/smart girl. She lettered in Theater, just like her uncle. This means that after four years of being a theater nerd, she is friends with every gay black and orange covered Olympian.  All of which were bouncing around the big graduation party.

I find this amazing. The fact that my niece has a circle of gay best friends, yet more importantly that they are all out of the closet and living honest lives. It appeared to be just no big deal, a normal group of kids. I immediately called my Ex/Best Friend to relay the scene. Both Dalton and I had struggled greatly through our high school years. Closeted and repressed as we found our only refuge in the Theater Club during our high school years.  I relayed the extraordinary idea that guys now come out of the closet in their freshman year and are considered “cool.”

What is cool is the fact that kids are having a completely different childhood to my generation. Their teenage years are filled with dating, having fun, and just being normal. They are now getting teased for average stuff like having dorky sneakers or for wearing glasses, not for who they are down to their very soul.  

Kicks Like Sleep Twitch

It has been days since my iPod randomly played The Editors Papillon. I've been running ever since. 





It really does kick like a sleep twitch. 

Dog Time

For the last month, I have set my alarm clock for 6am. For the last month, my dog has his set for 5:15am.

Starting at 5:15:03 the Shar-pei I adore has decided that morning walk time begins with a stroll up the bed and onto my chest. I will suddenly feel a pressure on my chest, then a wet sensation on my eye. This comes from a wet nose being inserted into my cornea.

I still set the alarm clock every night in the outside chance that Mr.Furry decides to take a holiday. That maybe I'll get to "sleep in" until six. I guess I'd miss that happy feeling of not wiping sleep from my eyes, but dog drool.

I really shouldn't complain, I do enjoy our sunrise walks. Just me and the dog.

Cory Hart

On Sunday afternoon I did something I hadn’t done in years. I cruised down the isles of my favorite used record/CD store. This is when it hit me; I hadn’t hung out at “my” music store in millennia.

The morning host of satellite radio’s GLBT channel informed me last week that the weekend fell on “Record Store Day.” This is a day to celebrate independent record stores across the world. On this day and age, with the huge conglomerate music stores long vaporized, we seem to have only these smart and passionate, independent music stores. This niche market is the only choice other than the streamlined online purchasing of your favorite tunes. 

As I flipped through the racks of aging CDs I couldn’t help thinking how long it had been since I had graced a music store. I became an iTunes zombie immediately after a birthday present of my first iPod, way back in 2004. Since then, the plastic jewels cases filled with artist’s presentations have vanished from my world. The convenience of clicking “Buy” took away this simple, yet religious act of digging through the racks of albums, making me forget how the act was incredibly cathartic.

Standing in the musty air of music’s ancient temple, I thought back to my first album. The very first record I ever bought was Cory Hart’s second album, Boy in the Box. I had just moved to Houston, Texas and discovered a record store in Houston’s Galleria Mall.  The attempts to hide the album from my Mom led to her think it was satanic “devil worship” music. Little did she know, the attempt to hide album was because I was desperately in love with Cory Hart and was convinced the 3^rd track “Never Surrender” was written just for me. Never Surrender was Cory’s attempt to convince me that it was okay to be gay. That I should never surrender; soon I would be out on my own with the freedoms that would go along with being an adult.

Of course, that was not the case. Cory was just a Canadian musician, who still to this day produces music with his wife. He will never know how he got me through my freshmen year of high school. Yet, discovering a scratched-up jewel case with his sneer looking back at me, I asked him. Does that even matter?  He gave me my theme song, not just for a Polo and acne covered freshman, but really for life.

I sat in my bedroom last night, listening again to Cory Hart’s album.

Honeypot

Mumbai Irony

Today is my last day of class before summer break. Two finials, and two papers to turn in and I am done. The feeling of excitement is overwhelming.

The finals (knock on wood) will be a piece of delicious cake. One hundred questions about Literature’s impact on modern writing in my American lit. class, and one hundred questions on creative writing sentence structure. Which, if my professor read this blog, I just might fail. 

Last night, confident that I had completed my two term papers early, I went to print my masterpieces.  Click-whirl-click.  I heard my printer go through its start-up noises. Then… nothing. Thinking I was out of paper, I investigated. My happy little printer was flashing something on its screen. “Printer head fail!” It screamed. “Oh, well… my ink must be out. After a trip to the Uber-Target I gladly installed fifty bucks worth of ink. As I closed the lid, it stated, “printer head fail!” Thus began two hours of downloading new updates from the website, speaking to an adorable young man named “Keith” from Mumbai, and making the sign of the cross over my non-compliant/non-Christian printer. After all of that, “Printer head fail!”

Keith seemed sympathetic to my desperate need to print my a five page paper based on Hamlet’s Ophelia descending into madness, yet didn’t comprehend my analogies that my printer was now, my Hamlet. I even quoted Ophelia’s death monologue to Keith, as my Lexmark printer was my own personal Hamlet. Driving me mad.

As a non sequitur, may I make it known that you meet the most interesting people at Kinko’s around midnight. God I hope that “non sequitur” is on my finial exam. Along with irony. 

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

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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. 

Integrity

I have been speaking about integrity a lot lately. After much thought I decided to leave my happy work from home job with the US Navy and move forward with my career.

When I transitioned my job from a bustling office in a Department of Defense office building, to my home office, I was thrilled. My own hours and my own plan. Then, I came to realize that I was just on my own. This is when I decided to move on, and back to a busy office.

Interviewing is an odd part of your life. It's half, self-centered self-promotion, and half being the dorky kid wanting to be picked for the baseball team. But, one word came up in all my interviews. Integrity.

I believe it was my second apartment. Being just a dumb twink, money was tight. Before I knew it I was late on the rent. I walked slowly to the Manager's office after finding a notice taped to my apartment door. The manager of 1160 Ogden Street was a massive woman who once was a massive man. Like a first generation transsexual or tran 1.0 she was happy being a big beautiful gal. But, that day she wasn't happy to hear that it would be three days until she got rent money.

This is when she taught me about integrity. Integrity, is the only thing that can not be taken away from you. You can give it away, but it can't be broken like your will, or deprived like your freedom. Your integrity may be all you have. Sometimes it will be all you need.

I thought about the trans-apartment manager as I sat with the Director that was looking to fill an amazing position. I retold my thoughts on integrity. I left out the part where the police showed up in the middle of the night to haul off the trans-manger due to her embezzling thousands of dollars of property management funds, but hey, it was still a great lesson.

It got me the job.

Just Keep Running

Yesterday I grabbed my new Puma NightFox TR running shoes, and headed towards the gym. I bought these visions of green and blue Puma technology in January and have kept them in their own special carry bag since then. I like to keep my running shoes in pristine condition and only wear them during actual running. This of course, makes me one of those nerds walking into the gym with a bag of shoes slung over one shoulder.


As I drove to the gym, ready for some quality time with a tread mill, I started to mull over why my “strictly running” shoes were not the answer to my shin pain. Even with all the support and cell technology built into these shoes I was having the same problem. Heel strike. I have never been able to really change my stride. It has improved; my crippling shin splints have decreased dramatically with training how to run on my forefoot instead of smacking down on my heels, yet after any amount of running I still had soreness and pain in my lower legs. This is due to the tendons and muscles surrounding the tibia being unable to absorb the shock I force this muscle group to absorb in my bad running form.

When researching how to correct my stride and relieve my pain, I found that proper foot landing during running was critical, but improper footwear, including worn-out shoes can also contribute to shin splints. This is when I started treating my heavily padded Pumas as if they were my children. My new kids were disappointing me. I thought back to an article in Runner’s World* about barefoot running. Proponents of the barefoot movement argue that barefoot running is healthier for feet and reduces risk of chronic injuries, notably repetitive stress injuries due to the impact of heel striking in padded running shoes. Figuring that I would try anything, I stopped off at my local REI store. After no less than five associates warning me to break them in SLOWLY, I strapped my new Vibram FiveFinger shoes on and headed to the gym.

The United States Army recently banned the use of Vibram FiveFinger toe shoes for image reasons* I can see why, they… take awhile to get used too. On my walk from the car, through the locker room, and to the treadmill I had four people stop and ask me how they felt to wear. In spite of the friendly sales associates at REI warning me that if I didn’t break them in slowly my feet would fall off from pain, I hopped on the treadmill and took off.

I would like to report that my feet did not, actually fall off. Today, they feel… amazing actually. My normal feeling of shin splints is non-existent. The barefoot feeling forced me, without me knowing, to land correctly on the treadmill’s belt. Yes, these shoes force unwanted attention down to my toes, but with the help they give me running I’m okay being a toe exhibitionist.

Pain au StevieB

It started on Friday morning. That twinge you get deep in your jaw. Something was wrong, horribly wrong in my mouth. I realized quickly that a filling I had replaced around a month ago had turned against me.

I will spare you the tale of woe, if you have ever had a toothache, you know of the pain and utter ouchiness. What I will tell you about is when I called my Dentist, late on Friday; he prescribed heavy painkillers for the weekend. Steve. On Vicodin.

Late Friday night, after huffing my Vicodin happiness,  I found myself sporting gym shorts and a wife-beater standing in the candy isle of Walgreen's (chain drug store.) I was looking madly for “pain au chocolat” because when I get high, I either turn French or into Eddy Monsoon. Not finding chocolate croissants in a small town drug store, I stumbled upon a dog bed. It was shaped like a Homer Simpson stylized doughnut. My laughs turned into snorts when I thought of my dog lounging in the middle of the glazed treat. My snorts stopped as sadness covered me, I wanted to buy the silk-screened doughnut, but I was convinced I’d get pink frosting all over my hands. When expressing my sadness, I was escorted quickly out of the store.

Me. Shopping for
pain au chocolate.

Saturday found me filled with determination. I was going to the International Auto Show even if I was jacked up on painkillers. It only comes but once a year, so really I HAD to go. I whole-heartily endorse going to car shows hopped up on the drugs, it makes the shiny cars… “real [SIC] pretty.” Although I did ditch the guys a couple of times, once to spend ten minutes in the cab of a Dodge Big Horn convincing myself I owned it, and another time to spend time pondering if I just drove out the side door in a Wrangler anyone would even notice. I think, fun was had by all.

Finally, Sunday came. After a massive pancake breakfast and a trip to a local vintage electronics trade show, I finally slowed down enough to change shorts and head to the gym. This is where my body over-ruled my “man ‘bout town” attitude. As I changed into my gym shorts I fell back into the bed. Eight hours later I awoke. My jaw was killing me.

My weekends are usually non-stop. Even if they are hazed over, drug fueled, Stevie pumped full of Vicodin, goodness. Determined to keep my busy stride, I just really needed to stop and listen to my body. I was; however, very entertaining to my friends. So, not unlike Eddy Monsoon.

Spring Break Beard

Today is my last full day of Spring Break. The only impact it really has is that my “spring break beard” will have to be tamed soon. I liked the fuzziness; although, today I think it changed from lazy college student to homeless man.

Thai Me Up

I have found myself addicted. Again.

I go through phases where I cannot get enough of one type of food. Last fall I stood in front of my favorite, and recently closed, Japanese fast-food restaurant and shook my fist and the locked front door. I had been eating lunch there almost every day for six months and without even consulting me, they closed the location. The betrayal of closing my favorite restaurant helped me spiral down into a cheese pizza tirade that lasted four months.

Although I still visit the cuisine of Japan regularly, I have gone to Thailand to find love. Peanut sauce and curry love. My fascination with the food of Thailand has grown to the point that I’m now the love slave of a nineteen year old Thai boy, named, Chad. I am at the point where I’ve visited his family’s tiny restaurant so many times that Chad now puts in my order as I walk through the door. As he places my over sized plate of chicken and veggie stir-fry, with extra peanut sauce and crispy garlic, he says, “Your favorite, Keith!” He calls me Keith, but that’s okay. Because I love him, he brings me spicy Thai peanut sauce.

Yesterday I found that I am cheating on Chad, as I have started to teach myself Thai cooking at home. After spending thirty bucks in the “Oriental Food” section of my local grocery store, I have all the ingredients to make a  เตะตูด Thai curry. Ya know, coming from a nerdy Mormon boy, I think I'm learning how to make a great stir-fry. This weekend there will definitely be a trip to Sakura Square and a shopping spree for more supplies. Please, don’t tell Chad. He’s sensitive.

International Auto Show

Ah, Spring. It is the time of year when a young man’s thoughts turn to love. Well, most men anyway. My thoughts turn to the upcoming International Auto Show. Like the swallows returning to Capistrano or gay men booking gay cruises, spring signals that it's time for new vehicles to be drooled over at the annual auto show, coming to town this weekend.

I’m not sure who started the rumor that gay men don’t like cars? Whoever said that gay guys aren’t butch enough to be Gearheads needs a good smack in the head with my Prada bag. Now, granted that most gay gearheads may not want to get down and dirty with gear ratio or pressure displacement, but if you want your bearings packed, look for a gearhead gay. It’s not that we, as a people, don’t necessarily like to work on cars, it’s that we have better taste and lust after cars for the aesthetics along with performance. Ask any gay to name Ford’s line up verses Audi’s nameplates and you’ll see.

This is why, coming weekend, the auto show at the convention center will become the hottest pick up spot in town. The gear-moes will be out in force, shopping for, or just drooling over their new crushes. Of the four-wheeled and two leg kind.

If you need me this weekend, I’ll be sitting in the cabin of the new F-250 Diesel. Or maybe the Dodge Ram 2500. I like them big.

 
 
To check out more information about the Denver Auto Show, click here.

Spring Break

I slammed my eight pages of writing down on the Professor’s desk and suddenly it became Spring Break.


In my creative writing class I started to hang out with the cool dudes. I think this is funny because sitting with the dudes would never have happened in my past rounds of education. I like to think it’s because I’ve connected to a couple of them in the gym. Most likely it’s because of our group projects. I like to actually read our assignments and give feedback during class discussions.

As one of the cool kids, last Thursday, we sat in the back of class discussing what we were going to do for Spring Break. There seemed to be a theme of non-shower sittin’ on the couch chillaxin. There was also a lot of mountain road trip talk. This is when I would have said “finally starting the Erik Larson novel and replacing the garbage disposer.” Something told me that this sounded lame even in my standards. Something in my head just clicked; I whipped out the iPhone and my HRC credit card. Finding the Best Western in Santa Fe that some friends were staying at, I booked two nights. Just in time to say, “I think I’m going to head down to Santa Fe, New Mexico for a while, chill out there.”

As I crossed over into the state of New Mexico, I started to giggle. I love road trips. Live for them actually, yet I couldn’t remember the last time I took one. The nineteen year old dudes in my class think they are pretty smart using me to do the majority of the class work, but they don’t realize that I’m using them quite a bit more. I used them to realize that when you get a Spring Break, you should use that time and enjoy life.

Demolition Man

There was just enough room between the last pole of the chain link fence and the side of the house. The fence was festooned with warning signs. “Keep Out” and “Guard Dog on Duty” but I knew there weren’t any dogs. At least I didn’t think so, at any point a couple of muscled watch-dogs could have leapt from the old Victorian house. I stopped halfway between the fence line and the massive edifice, hearing only my heartbeat and Interstate 25 humming off in the distance, I trusted that if there were dogs, they would have attacked me by now.

In my youth I did this almost nightly, just to look inside the hulking manors before they were ripped from the ground. My motivation was to be the last human to walk the decks of the Titanic before the rust and water pressure turned the iron to dust. Back then I would wander around theses houses thinking of the Silver Barons that built the brick and mortar, and within days the reception parlor and massive staircases would be gone from the Earth. These 1890’s monuments, sitting in the city’s once finest neighborhood were replaced by condo buildings to overlook Interstate 25 and downtown.

Now it seems the tide of obliterating our Victorian history has turned. The thinned out herd of massive mansions, with their stone and wrought iron filigree, do not get hunted down and murdered as they sleep anymore. Some survived. Somehow. In our new, enlightened and mature sense of preserving the past, the houses that once sat in the finest neighborhoods turned skid-row has now returned back to the city’s finest neighborhood.

“I hadn’t done this in years.” I thought as I pulled a sheet of plywood from a back window. I guess I didn’t need to. “They hadn’t torn down a Victorian house in ages.”

As I made my way through the house I could see a considerable change, this particular mansion wasn’t set for the chopping block; it was being prepped for “restoration.” Fifteen years earlier I explored the house that once stood next door. In a gaping hole in the upstairs bedroom I jerked off watching the city below me. Now condos “priced in the mid-300” have taken its place.

The feel of this house was different somehow. In the dozens of house I’ve explored I felt the Green Mile death walk sensation, this feeling was one of anticipation. Looking out of an upstairs window, out at the city, I started to jerk off. As I glanced over at the next-door condo building I met the eyes of one of the tenants on their balcony.

“Guess it’s all changed.” I said to the front parlor room as I kicked out the plywood on the front door. I ducked into a homeless shelter-turned-hipster club as the cop car turned the corner.