Pride II

I was jumping around and stumbled over Joe-my-god’s post about pride. He makes a great point and a powerful reminder. I’ve already shared my thoughts on Pride celebrations but I felt the need to weigh in again. If you aren’t part of “the scene” or “into the gays” but still identify as gay, that’s ok. Just don’t bash the rest of us. I usually try to avoid using such terms as they are completely subjective. Often times referring to a very limited portion of gay culture in general.

The mostly white bread, self-haters over at the LCR would have us believe drag queens, leather daddies, circuit boys, punk queers, etc are the doom to our culture and rights. You have it backwards boys. If anyone is holding us back, it’s you and your conformist attitudes. You make the same mistake our straight counterparts make. I shouldn’t have to conform to your views just to have equal rights. I was born a human being. That gives me the same rights of any other human. Who I sleep with and how often isn’t part of the equation. I don’t need to ‘play nice’ to gain equal treatment.

I’ve always been an oddity unto myself. I’ve never really felt like I fit in w/any “scene”. I sort of lurk on the fridges of all of’em. I go to clubs/parties. I go to drag shows. I go to leather bars. I workout often. I’ve even been seen in a few goth clubs. I also go to sex clubs bathouses, etc. None of which defines me, I just happen to like aspects of each. Some might say, I’m the ‘typical fag’. Does that somehow preclude me from being able to share my life w/another man? Leave my wordly possession to who I choose? Or prevent me from being able to celebrate the hard-earned freedoms gained in the last 20 years? In a word, NO.

Our narrow-minded brethern have mistakingly assumed that by “fitting in” we can advance our cause. How’s that going boys? From out here, I’m not seeing it. Maybe you should spend less time worrying about us ‘freaks’, and more time trying to accept that not everyone wants to be a corporate logo queen.

As pride week approaches and parades all over the world march the cause, take a moment to look back on your life. The pain, the sorrow, the disappointment is not unique to one. Many of us have “been there, done that”. Rejoyce in your freedoms and in each other. I know I sure as hell plan to.

Texas

I booked a flight home to see my youngest brother. My older brother is around but doesn’t have much to do w/me. Mostly his issues, such is life I guess. My oldest brother is off in Alabama working a new job. True to form, he has stopped responding to the rest of us. It will just be me and the little ‘bro’. Well, that and his kids. My afore mentioned nephew and niece whom I adore. Little Ricky just makes my heart melt every time I see him. But I digress. I helped raise my little brother. We’ve always been the closest. We email/text each other a lot and it’s nice to keep up w/him. For a long time I kept my family at a distance. With the passing of my father, we’ve sorta reconnected again. Some of us anyway. It’s nice getting to know my brother as a man vs the boy I remember.

The land that I used to refer to as “my parent’s place” is ‘our place’ now. I keep forgetting and referring to it in the former. It’s odd. I still don’t really see it as mine. I still think of it as my dad’s. I guess that’s normal, I dunno. I’m supposed to help rebuild a fence when I get back but I don’t think my brother wants to. hehehe. We’ll probably end up just hanging out, going hunting, fishing or stuff like that.

People who know me now don’t often see my country side. Other than my twang and slang that is. Most of my friends think I’m just headed to another city. My parent’s place Our place is out in the boonies of East TX. Even though, it’s not so boonies anymore as the place is growing like crazy. But for now, it’s still pretty hick’ified. My closest neighbor is half a mile away and our place sits between a natural gas pipeline and a 400 mile slew (open wooded space). Sounds exciting huh? lol

I am grateful that I grew up in the country. I think it has added to my perspective on life over the years and helped to keep me grounded. There is something to be said for growing up close the Earth and raising food/livestock for yourself. I didn’t understand it as a kid but as a man, I see it all too clearly. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t think I’ll ever go back to live there however, I’ve learned to value my roots. (pun intended)

I guess my point in all these jabber is this. I used to dread going home. It was sort of like my once a year punishment. Now I look forward to it. The demons of my past are slowly falling away and in their place new memories are growing. The need to “get away” has left me. Ain’t life funny that way?

Looong Day

I worked from 8am till 11pm today. To say I’m tired is putting it mildy. Oy! Teaching a class then a full day of work. I’m tuckered out.

I have a date for Monday though. Details later.

Still Here…

I survived 6 + 6+ (0)6 day. Thank you to everyone for the kind words. I’m upset but I sorta saw it coming so not the end of the world. I am little bitter but I have a right to be. And no, I don’t regret it. I learned a few things about myself in the process so in the end it wasn’t a total waste. Here’s a twist. I ran into someone yesterday that I’d sorta put on the back burner. (I’m never been able to date more the one guy at a time.) I wiped the egg off my face and explained why I’d been so distant. He was still very interested and very happy to see me. Irony or fate? You be the judge.

In other not so dramatic news, I went to Ikea yesterday. Can I just say how much I love Ikea. I could redecorate my apartment several times over for under 10 grand. I wanted to buy everything but bought nothing instead. I’m trying to put together a new scheme in my head for the living room now that the roomie has moved in. He found a chair we both like that he likes and I can live with. The roomie tends to like very contemporary stuff while I like the more hardwood rugged look. I think we can do a merger of both w/some thought beforehand. The chair he picked, while not my first choice, is the right color scheme so it will fit in nicely.

This is sort of a new experience for me as I rarely decorate. I could take you shopping and dress you to the nines w/o much effort. However, I’ve never felt the need to invest time/effort into decorating a place that isn’t my own. Well, I’m tired of living in white cardboard surroundings. I plan to be in SF for at least 2 more years so I might as well make my new pad comfy. Nothing grand or flawless, just some new paint and a couple of well thought out pieces of furniture.

I’m off to instruct class.

Letting Go

Someone tried to let me down easy today. It failed. Miserably, I might add.

So, I’m left to move on w/my life. For the 2nd time in just 2 short years, my heart is broken.

When will I ever fucking learn?

Random Kindness

A co-worker bought me a sewing machine today. I know, you are thinking “what an odd gift.” True enough. This particular co-worker is a newer dispatcher. One I’ve watched blossom from a greenhorn into a very competent caring dispatcher. She works very hard at her job and makes an effort to get it right the first time. How could I NOT like her? I’m always of the mind if something is worth doing, it’s worth doing right. I forgot who taught me that but it’s always stuck w/me.

This all came about while we were training for the new fire deployment. Lady N (not her real name, duh!) is a superb knitter and can often be found knitting a variety of items. Knitting takes too much patience in my opinion. An opinion I expressed to her but w/interest. During our down time, we’d often talk about our lives, tribulations, etc. I confided to her that I’d always wanted to learn how to sew. I talked about my earliest memories from childhood. My foster mother was an expert seamstress (spelling?) and made all my clothes up until she passed. She would often include me in her chores of finding threads, fabrics, etc. Very good memories from a time in my life where everything was as it should be. I used to spend hours watching my mother sew. I’ve always thought making your own clothes a very noble sort of thing to do. I know many folks consider it gay but hey, I am gay after all. (Ding Ding! Whatta we have for’em Johnny?)

So Lady N, out of the kindess of her heart, decided to buy me a machine so I could learn on my own. I was am really touched. She doesn’t owe me a thing and here she is buying me such a nice gift. I checked and it’s a pretty decent one too. Not decadent as that’s not her style however, a sturdy well made one that will see me thru my beginnings and well into expertise. (Yeah, I know it’s not good grammar, get over it!) When I asked her why, she said “because you have always been so supportive and kind to me w/o having a reason to be.” My response was well that’s just who I am. She said, “exactly!” Kindness really does go along way.

Tomorrow, I get to bring it home on muni. What? You think it will fit on the back of blue?

Name Dropper

I’m having a “that current popular kiddy bimbo” girl moment…

I ran into v-hold in the castro today. Him and his sexy husband were there “representing”. *G* They really do make an adorable couple. *sigh*

homer also called and left me a quick message. I’m at work at the moment so couldn’t answer. Text’ing me works so much better.

Chad Fox is mia as usual and Kel found a place to live. I even noticed Dunner is back in town.

I had my 2nd “Body by Moby” installment all ready to post and clicked the back button and erased it by mistake. Arrrrrggh! Now I get to retype it all.

I wore a sleeveless shirt to work today and all the girls were cooing. Whatever. I didn’t wear it for them, it is hot outside today. And speaking of, what the hell are you doing sitting in front of your computer reading blogs…get outside! Go on, shoo!

Latter Days

Movie critique ahead. Not many newer gay movies make my list of faves so I felt the need to share.

Tivo happen to record this movie for me a while back. I got around to watching it last night and was impressed. Well, let me rephrase that. I was impressed with the acting. Several great actors brought life to a plot almost completely devoid of complexity. Oh, the storyline is clear enough just lacking in development and a bit rushed. There are several very touching scenes throughout the movie w/the end being a good tear-jerker.

The story revolves around a mormon boy who moves to LA as part of his upbringing to “spread the word”. In turn, his neighbor is the typical hot but shallow gay boy who’s life revolves around his next conquest. A touching but fast love story follows w/several very undeveloped side stories thrown in for flavor. Surprisingly, there were several sizzling sex scenes that were very believable as well as stimulating. (The opening scene starts out w/a very erotic encounter)

All in all, it’s worth renting on DVD if you haven’t seen it.

Track This Back Biyotch!

Lately, the evil sp@mmers have gotten good at infiltrating blogs using wordpress and typepad w/trackback sp@m. Basically, they trick the blog into thinking someone has linked back to a particular post and wordpress will post what is called a trackback comment. Of course, the spoofed version is just full of crappy links and words that increase hits from the evil engines.

Today, I installed a new filter that will verify said trackbacks and automatically discard the phoney ones. Hooray!

(or at least in theory, check back w/me in a couple of weeks…)