#biglegrowlski

The Password is: CULTURE

galby68, , , , , , , 11 Comments

Celebrity Host: Yogurt.

Me: <blinks>

CH: Kombucha.

Me: <blink, blink>

CH: Live performances.

Me: THINGS I SEE FOR FREE!

CH: Oh! Wait, what? No. I’m sorry, we were looking for “culture”!

Me: Same, yo…but not on my budget! Someone else gonna need to pick up that tab.

CH: No parting gifts for you. Can someone get my agent on the phone!

Ok, my skinflintiness is situational. I’m choosing to be amused by the pattern. I’m also choosing to be grateful for the opportunity to see live performances again.

It had been too long before the pandemic started. Tack on two pandemic years to that too long and you’ve got a real risk of Xtopher returning to some devolved Appalachian form of human.

Don’t get me wrong, I know my problematic drinking made me luckier than most during the pandemic. Geez, that sounds like a line from a winning entry for a free stay at Betty Ford…

Tis true, though. My former old standby, the Big Legrowlski, hosted music during the pandemic.

Daily.

It was quite…the salvation.

No, I wasn’t there daily, thank you.

But a couple times a week. I’d go and sit in their three-sided tents outside and watch people perform through the 10 foot windows, doors open and speakers on the sidewalk.

Plus, fire pit. It was the mental health booster I needed during the lockdown. Sorry for anyone who thought “alcohol” was the correct answer there. Close second, but…no. And that’s despite the fact that many of these mental health boosts happened in 40 degree weather, oftentimes with rain running in under the tent wall and right under my feet.

So when I was working from home and heard one of the DJs from my local radio station – Kink.fm – say he was giving away tickets to a Saturday morning performance at the inaugural re-opening of their live music lounge…I was on that phone! Despite the fact that refreshments were being sponsored by Coors Light.

And I won!

And that’s why I was out of bed before noon a few Saturdays back.

Tom Odell, that is, not free Coors Light. (Sorry, dad!)

Seriously, having a chance to see live music for the first time in over two years…we’ll, I thought Indigo Girls playing at the Pioneer Courthouse Square would get me fixed up. But that show isn’t until June. And I’d have to buy my tickets. I still might. Or I’ll just go hangout on the sidewalk, since the venue is literally a brick plaza on a city block.

Proof Portlanders use umbrellas?

Legitimately seeing live music for free, though? Highly recommend. And as if free wasn’t an awesome enough incentive? The free libations included some Topo Chico hard seltzer options, so I had some. Partook of the two free drink maximum, did I.

Booze Bracelet!

Then there’s the reality that this venue holds less than 100 people. I tried to count seats, and I don’t think it has 70. It had 7 rows of seats. I chose to stand close to the bar in the back, since I was alone.

Free, boozy, intimate…well, I doubt I’ve ever experienced those three adjectives simultaneously before.

Plus, Tom Odell has a seriously distinctive and evocative singing voice. The first note off the piano made the hair on my eyes stand up and when he opened his mouth, tears started welling up on my forearms.

Wait. Something’s not right in that paragraph…here, don’t think too much about that. Look at these pics, instead.

Ok, his voice and fingers do all the heavy lifting. He doesn’t have to rely on visual distractions like dancing and pyrotechnics to give a killer experience. But it does make for a dozen pics that look almost exactly the same.

But just look how small the venue is!

Pre-show audience games

Best part – besides standing in a room with a few dozen strangers having an aurally stimulating experience? When I turned on the car, guess who was playing on the radio?

Right outside the station, no less. Quite a meta-moment, if you ask me.

This is all top of mind for me right meow since I just got home from a show with Little Buddy. I was her +1 for Freestyle Love Supreme this afternoon. Yay for married season ticket holders with busy spouses!

That’s right, I am spoiled and got to see a second live performance in less than a month for free! I wasn’t super into seeing the show, but I was super into a social fix with Little Buddy. It’s always too long between visits, but since she moved out to the Columbia River Gorge, it’s even further between visits.

Don’t get me wrong, she invites. I think I’ve taken her up on it twice, although one of those might have been prior to the full-time residency. But it’s home to some of the best wine in Oregon – and that’s saying things! – so it is somewhat problematic for this light weight…since it’s an hour away.

So on the second-nicest day of the year so far in Portland, I donned my dress-Chucks and went to the theater.

Hey, it was over 70 today…I almost wore shorts!

For a show I wasn’t jazzed to see – call it a variant of something every younger sibling knows too well, since this was co-created by Lin Manuel Miranda and (through some scheduling miracle) playing at the same time that Hamilton was in town – this was pretty damned entertaining.

The premise is that it’s all pretty much improvised based off of audience feedback, hence the “freestyle”. There’s also a lot of hip-hop vibe going on with that improv. There’s a beatbox guy, a couple MC folks, not in the Master of Ceremony vein, rather the MC rappers tack onto their stage names.

And then a bunch of middle-aged or better white women from the suburbs yelling out suggestions.

FWIW, my word was gonna be orgasm – but some of these Karens brought proof they’d had sex with them. Since I have a modicum of decency, I didn’t ejaculate yell out my contribution.

I think part of the fun for me was judging what people did yell out.

Two people yelled out answers that one of the MCs had used as an example. Friggin’ brainiacs, those two.

Several others yelled out variations of things like “singing” or “dancing” and I was all, “Really? We’re here to watch some hip-hop improv and your subject matter suggestions are ‘singing and dancing’?!?”

Mouths shut, husband’s wallets open, ladies. That’s all the contribution to the arts you need to worry about.

Makes me regret not yelling “Orgasm!” when they were taking suggestions on the “Something you can’t live without” theme. Seriously, someone yelled “Banana”…to be fair, I think it was the sibling of the STD that yelled out “Monkey” when the MCs were looking for verbs as a cue. But who can’t live without a banana?!?

Despite my audience members doing their best to prove they are barely more tolerable only being seen versus heard, I’m in the mood for more super spreader events live entertainment.

Given my aforementioned pandemic “live entertainment loophole”, I can only imagine how exciting these past few weekends were for others. I can overlook them not fully knowing how to audience appropriately.

And, damnit…now I’m in the mood! I may need to pick up a rush ticket or two over the coming month. Who knows, I might even troll Craigslist for an Indigo Girls ticket.

The Password is: CULTURE

Lockdown 2.0

galby68, , , , , , , 2 Comments

Welp. Here we are, it’s round two of stay at home orders here in Oregon.

Two weeks for the state and it’s looking like Portland’s home county – Multnomah – will get a bonus two weeks. Here in Portland/MultCo, we’ve been running about 1/4 of the daily cases for the entire state. Our ICU beds are at over 80% capacity, although in our defense there, we do have either the lowest or damn near lowest inventories of ICU beds in the country on a x/1000 residents basis…

Through that lens, I’d say we deserve the extra two weeks. No, we need the extra two weeks.

Looking at it through the Stupid Americans lens, I’m curious how we will execute the extra two weeks of isolation with the rest of the state resuming its running around like COVIDiots. Ok, we’ve been hit pretty lightly by COVID compared to the rest of the country, but still, Portland proper touches three counties: Multnomah, Clackamas and Washington. How does this compliance pep talk go?

Governor Brown: Ok, everyone but Multnomah county residents can resume Phase 1 or 2 activities, but stay out of Multnomah county unless you live there!

Oregonians: It’s fine, we’ll wear masks if we have to go to Portland!

GB: Wait. Weren’t you wearing masks this whole time?

Oregonians: Well…<looks nervously at Clackamas county>

GB: I’m waiting. <taps shoe>

Oregonians: You’re looking for a “yes” here, right?

GB: …

Nothing has made me more nervous than having rides in east county or Clackamas – with the higher population of morons Trump supporters that live there. Indeed, it’s where the Trump Trucks staged prior to running amok around town waving guns, flying Trump, Back the Blue, Confederate and other racist flags from their trucks while spraying onlookers with bear spray and indiscriminately firing paint balls.

I keep thinking about that wall…I know a decent alternate location.

Anyway, knowing we’d be in lockdown again, with restaurants back to takeout service only, bars and gyms completely shut…I prepared. Once again, I did not run out and stock up on Crapping Paper, nor did I hoard food stocks. Although, I’d found stocking up on my go-to soda difficult. The local grocers usually have Buy x/Get x sales three weeks out of the month, so if I look around, I can stock up on Coke Zero (take that, V!) for a month at a time on the cheap. Not this time. After checking three stores close to me and finding them out of stock, I had to fall back to Diet Coke.

Optimistically or stubbornly, I only got one 12 pack. You decide. Of course, then I come home and settle into the couch to watch both Deadpool movies, binge some SNL, watch movies made in/around Portland (ugh, that means Twilight, too) and play Words With Friends over the next month. Only to be trolled by the WWF ad algorithm. Here I am, ready to ring the alarm about a local shortage of Coke Zero and I’m getting ads like this on WWF.

Bastards.

But I did avail myself to my local watering hole returning to beer delivery. Big Legrowlski is doing $10 crowlers (32 Oz filled on site cans) of their best of Oregon beer taps again. Two crowler minimum. Of course, I got Pallet Jack!

Well, two.

I joked and told the owner I wasn’t stocking up, I was getting one for each hand!

They kept the 22 Oz bottle of another of Oregon’s best – which I liberated from the Silver Fox’s fridge last time I collected his mail – company. Honestly, I thought they wouldn’t last the night when I picked them up last Tuesday.

I’ve surprised myself, though. One on Wednesday night. The second last night (Saturday) with my pizza night. Both nights, I expected to deplete my stock. You know what, though? That pilfered 22 Oz bottle of Breakside is still literally chilling in the fridge.

Yay, moderation!

But I really did intend to support Big Legrowlski with a 2x/week order, so I’d best get busy getting back to form. Or I could be perfectly content drinking less.

I did supplement my first order with the possibly limited edition Big Legrowlski face mask!

I hope The Dude abides. He didn’t seem too put out by my current favorite mask when I visited a few weeks back.

Still, now I can suck up to The Dude when I pick up next week’s order, right? I washed the BL mask before using it the first time. I gotta say, it felt like a Speedo for my face! It’s so sleek. Maybe I’ll save it for special occasions. Regardless, it does increase my mask inventory by 25%, so now I have more options when a couple are in the wash.

Not that I’m going anywhere anytime soon, but I’ve got a “Little Black Mask”, now…just in case I get invited anywhere formal once we are released from Lockdown 2.0, so there’s that.

Plus, beer delivery! Ok, just beer, I guess, since I pick it up.

Lockdown 2.0

Um…I Wrote A Book(s)

galby68, , , 17 Comments

Alright, this is late news in WordPress-Land…but as of 3/11/19, I am officially a (self) published writer.

I had originally been planning on making a final decision on publishing or self-publishing my novel – No One Of Consequence – by this past Monday, after a conversation with a publisher last Friday. What I learned as I was researching self-publishing was that having more than one title available lent a significant credibility advantage to self-published authors. Now, I had plans for a second installment of No One Of Consequence with a self-imposed November ’19 deadline.

But that’s a long time to wait for a credibility lift.

So, I went back to a thought I had in January ’18 when I began my Dating Into Oblivion writing challenge. Originally, I’d thought that it would make a good NaNoWriMo compilation for last year. I’d been skunked for the prior…six? – yeah, six years on participating because I work in retail. November in retail is a bad month to take on a non-work related special project. I figured having a dozen blogs in the pipeline as a foundation would help me succeed in 2018.

Finally.

Of course, then I ended up not working and just wrote a damn book.

This was actually more rewarding for me, since I’d never wanted to be a memoirist, even though that’s where my natural writer’s voice would place me. That being said, I totally wrote in the first person.

Then my plan was to just publish No One Of Consequence with a tentative release date of April 1st – because of course I would release my novel on April Fool’s Day.

Learning that a second work was recommended, going through the self-publishing motions with Dating Into Oblivion turned out to be a wise way to kill time before my publisher interview.

Is that what it’s called, an interview?

Well, with self-publishing it’s on you to provide your own editing and cover.

Ok, I figured I could reasonably succeed at one of those, but what the hell was I gonna do for a cover?!?

Turns out, Amazon Publishing has a cover design tool. Which is how I ended up publishing a non-fiction work with nothing on the back cover but an awkwardly cropped picture of me. No synopsis, no About the Author…just my thumbnail pic and the rest was black.

Glad I took a dry run.

By the time the first hard copies were delivered, I’d figured out how to fix the back cover. By accident.

Meanwhile, while I thought I had done a good job of editing during my two read throughs – one for tense and content after laying it out and one for typos – what I missed were typos that accidentally created an actual damn word.

Oy.

But, at least I can re-upload a corrected copy. So there’s that.

I also learned that if you’re going Kindle and hard copy, do the hard copy first, then do the Kindle version. For whatever reason, the hard copy process includes a spellcheck function and the Kindle version does not.

The last thing I had to consider I’m self-publishing was pricing. I nosed around in my genre on Amazon for comparable work and was surprised to see the pricing was actually higher than I had thought. I’d been thinking $3.99 Kindle and $5.99 hard copy. Well, A) there are a lot of short works – like 60 pages – in my genre, mine was in the 150 page range; and, B) they were more in the $4.99 Kindle/$9.99 hard copy range.

I was ok with all of that.

Since…

Royalties.

Ugh. This was confusing. But I’m going to try and break it down for you.

The obvious winner: 70%!

This was Kindle only and you can’t release it on any other e-platform.

Runner up – and if you’re gonna write a book…don’t you want a book? 60%

You can publish a Kindle and a hard copy, both available on Amazon.com. The shocker here is that print fees come out of your royalties. So the author’s 60% is actually .60 – print fees. Printing fees for Dating Into Oblivion were $2.74, but it’s print on demand, which is convenient. So for my $4.99 Kindle book, my take away is actually around $3. However, for my $9.99 hard copy, I’m walking with just under $3.75 per unit in royalties.

Still…

For this little experiment, that was better than the final option: 40%

This affords the author the ability to wholesale their book. So, my book could be available to bookstores to order and in this case, I’d make $1.66 per unit that a wholesaler ordered.

If they found it on Amazon’s offerings. I decided to keep that option in my back pocket for No One Of Consequence. Remember, I’m not dying to be remembered as a memoirist. I just…I dunno.

But this is all good to know as I wait for my publisher interview.

I should say, my publisher interview, which went predictably terrible. I know it was my first conversation of this type. Strangely, it seemed like theirs, too.

So, decision: made.

I was going to self-publish No One Of Consequence.

Naturally, this two weeks before my self-imposes deadline would be the obvious time to rewrite the ending.

So I did.

I’ve got to give it one more read through, then it’s ready to go. I’ve got the cover ready to go and 11 days before I hit the “publish” button. I’m going with the wholesale availability, just…because.

Because: I for sure know someone or someones who knows someone or someones that influence bookstore buying decisions.

IF YOU ARE SOMEONE, I NEED TO HEAR FROM YOU!

But since I planned this to be a three book arc, I want the ability to wholesale it. It might be once the first book starts getting into second wave/used bookstores, someone that buys gay fiction might find my book, I might drunkenly wander into a bookstore and introduce myself…

Also, with the 60% royalty option, my payout minus print fees would have been $6.66 and I really don’t think I need to tempt that kind of fate.

That’s my 411 and my excuse for being so quiet on WordPress for the last two weeks. Also, the bold entry I worked on over the weekend farted out of existence as I finished it, so that didn’t help.

And while all of this has been going on, I got a jump start on the outline for the second book of No One Of Consequence. I feel good about getting it into the hands of my dozens of fans by November.

Which is good, since I woke up the other night with a “Eureka!” idea for a book called GhosTed. It’s about a guy named…Ted, who agrees to a date with an online guy, gets stood up, then jumped and killed on his way home. Bad day for Ted.

It’s a love story, right?

Seriously, as I’m writing this, someone in Big Legrowlski just said

Do you know who David Sedaris is?

No one did.

Anyway…Ted “wakes up” in his no-show suitor’s bed. They figure out that they have to work together in order for Ted to be able to move on. I’m friggin’ excited about this idea! I’m hoping to put some work into it between now and June and have a draft ready to shop to publishers by July 4th.

Because I still want to try that route, just not right now. What I learned about publishing is that submission is a contortion act, the work needs three documents:

The whole work

The first 50 pages

And a synopsis.

Ok, that probably the reverse order in which they are viewed by the publisher. But, after all of that, they’re hoping you have both a marketing plan and a following. Hopefully with DIO and NOOC in the Amazon pipeline, I’ll at least have a small following to sweeten my deal with a potential publisher.

We’ll see. But until then, look for No One Of Consequence on Amazon on 4/1, BUY IT, leave me a (kind) review and if you could, share this post or my work with your friends and network.

Um…I Wrote A Book(s)

Myrt and I Need Couples Therapy

galby68, , , , 3 Comments

Still!

I went to a movie yesterday. Mary Poppins Returns…highly recommend, Charlotte, as if you haven’t already seen it! But anyone else that loves a good, family friendly story that’s dripping with nostalgia…go see it! If you also like crafty, half-marathoning, Disney loving new moms, then click on the link to check out Charlotte’s blog. It’s like checking in with an old friend, that you just met.

Anyway, The Fox and I enable one another for a drop-in to the good old local for a Pallet Jack on the way home. It’s a moral imperative, I tell ya. If Peej is on tap, I’m stopping in!

All this is to say that after I left the house at 345 for a 415 movie – after giving Myrt her midday snackety-snack – and have myself the teensiest of tasties on the way home…it’s 715. Myrtle’s 6 PM dinner is late!

That cat greeted me at the door like I’d just come home from a solo trek across Antarctica. Sure enough, in the extra 75 minutes, she’d finished her breakfast kibble, which she doesn’t normally do, and reverted to a near-feral state.

Wet dinner, coming right up, Missus!

Fifteen minutes of smacking later, she’s meowing at the door to go play in the hallway. Since getting a new neighbor a few weeks ago, I’m reluctant to let the Missus out into the hallway as often as I used to when it was just me and “another” old lady living on the floor. I don’t know why, I prop the door open for Myrtle while she’s in the hall putting the laying in playing and she runs in and under the bed when the elevator lifts off of the first floor.

30 minutes later, I’m texting a friend and I hear the distinct sounds of impending disaster.

Hur-uh-hurg-uh-rawlp!

Now, two things to keep in mind here:

First, Myrtle has a history of false alarms. More often than not, a few hacks sets her right.

Second, on the half dozen times she’s hurled since I’ve been holding her hostage, it’s that rawlp that signals real trouble.

I get up and look for the chunky puddle.

Nowhere.

Nor, it seems, I’d my feline overlord. It had sounded like she was by the utility room…

No.

I open the cracked door and Myrtle looks up at me from the doormat next door, her expression inscrutable. No barf.

Maybe it was a false alarm.

Breathing a sign of relief, I give her a distrustful look and turn to go back inside.

Something in my peripheral vision makes me stop. Sure enough, 20 feet away, there’s a clump puddle trying to decide what to do.

Myrtle…!

To her credit, she went to her office, located somewhere in the box springs of my bed, instead of supervising my clean up efforts. Unlike the close oversight I get when tending to her litter box.

Speaking of the Missus and her box of poo.

I know cats cover their waste as a generic throwback – or reminder – to their days in the wild. Covering waste is covert, so others don’t catch their scent. Like you when you use the bathroom on another floor at work to poo – you know who you are.

Anyway, my defective cat…she endeavors to cover her waste. I guess. If by “cover” you mean scratch around at everything near your box versus simply pulling litter over the waste and – y’know…covering it. I’ve watched this supposed superior being scratch at the wall behind the box, the chair or table legs that the box is under and the floor outside the box.

Nope.

The closest she’s gotten is scratching at the lip of the box. Unfortunately, since she was scratching with one paw and balancing her svelte self on the lip with the other paw, so only succeeded in covering her poop inasmuch as tipping the cat box over and burying it under an avalanche of spilling litter counts.

My cat ain’t bright, folks.

But these are her “Aaw, poor kitty!” behaviors.

She has never been a real affectionate cat. Playful is not her thing.

I nicknamed her Murderous Myrtle and The Mistress Myrtle for a reason.

This is our fourth year together. Each year at Christmas, my sister gets Myrt a gift, as she does for each of the family dogs. Usually it’s a crack-version of a treat, which Myrtle loves, and a catnip toy…which she pretends is trash.

Still, every year, I give it the futile college try. A little ignored encouragement and then into the closet it goes.

Until this year.

It might have just been the trauma of going into the kitty carrier and a 40 minute car ride. Or the DMZ meeting of my parents’ chihuahuas in my upstairs guest room – Myrtle has never traveled anywhere previously with me but the vet. But this year, the catnip toys got a little attention. At first, it was just a few

These fucking things again

…swaps after she emerged from under the bed. But then I caught her laying on her side, hugging one between her front paws.

I took some of the loose cat nip and sprinkled it on the carpet and she came over, sniffed at it, sat on it and then flipped over and rolled in it twice before skulking back under the bed.

Promising.

At home, I have no carpets. She diligently destroyed my one and only favorite all time carpet years ago. I think this is why she loves the neighbor’s doormat so much. Anyway, I tried sprinkling some loose catnip on a dish towel at home for her. Sure enough, she luuuuurrved it. I’d even catch her running to the towel and planting her front paws on it so she skidded across the floor, gliding on the towel.

I like this new cat!

Myrtle 2.0!

Until one morning I come back from coffee to find that she’s successfully covered a poop in her box with the dish towel.

That’s more like it.

Still, this is all just inane cat weirdness, right?

She hasn’t put me on my face in two years. That’s saying something!

Or, maybe she just hasn’t succeeded in tripping me…and I’m hardly one to assume the worst.

However, a couple weeks ago…it was 3:40 on a Sunday morning. Billy Joel, this wasn’t, no regular crowd…just insomniac me, watching the Netflix.

And the Murderous Myrtle.

Knowing nothing of the prophet Billy Joel and his song about people being alone together, Mistress Myrtle had just climbed into my lap.

Climbed might be overselling it. She’d scrabbled over the far side of the coffee table, using my ankle for purchase; been freaked out by my cry of pain and jumped onto the back of the couch, landed on my shoulder and connected the claws of three paws with my tee shirt clad flesh.

Here’s the only G-rated and non-humiliating pic I could get of the damage

I’m not sure I could capture the double tracks on my shoulder without also exposing more side boob, chicken wing or Dunlap than I care to admit to. But on the plus side, my ankle looks way thicker than its usual Chankle (chicken ankle – Chrisism) self.

Since I was trying to get her off of and away from me, she settled on my lap. I sat and bled, fearful of the proximity of her claws to my crotch.

This has now become a part of Myrt’s nightly routine.

300: Snack

530: Pretend it’s dinner time.

600: Dinner. Finally!

630: Whine at the door. Or a kitchen cabinet door. Just whine.

700: Pre-bedtime nap.

830: Fully dilate pupils and attack.

845: Retreat, but be creepy about it.

1100: Bedtime!

It’s the addition of that 830 activity that has me on high alert. She’ll just come sit by the coffee table and stare at my ankles, like they are singing a hypnotic siren song that only she can hear. When she feels like mixing it up, she’ll sit behind the corner of the couch. I can hear her paws clickety-click-clack up slowly behind me and I’ll turn to see her sitting there, black eyed…

Meow

“Don’t you even think about it.”

Meooow

“Shoo, Crazy Eyes!”

…and she’s off to the box spring home office.

Clearly, we have differing hobbies. Mine is to cuddle and watch Netflix

…or nap, hers is to kill or maim me.

Maybe it’s because she resents that she’s not a dog and doesn’t get three or four walks a day.

Whatever, there was a couple of moderately non-lethal years in there. Maybe the dark days this winter are just hitting her particularly hard.

I’m still walking around, so she clearly still finds me useful. Even if it’s just as a cushion and occasional scratching post.

Myrt and I Need Couples Therapy

Probably, I’d Bitch…

galby68, , , , 1 Comment

…if I were hung with a new rope.

To paraphrase one of my grandfather’s favorite gripes.

Lately, though, it seems the Silver Fox and I are able to walk into one of our preferred watering holes and complain about something.

Big Legrowlski: no Pallet Jack

Tanner Creek Tavern: inexplicably rotating Breakside IPA off their tap list

Even when we randomly wander into a “bar”. We were at the Safeway, buying lottery tickets and just happened into their taproom.

We were thrice rewarded.

First, they had Breakside. Naturally, we had to order one. It would be disloyal to not, right?

Secondly, they were $3 a pint. Unheard of! Normally, $5 is a good happy hour price. $6 is the accepted norm and $7 is “aren’t we precious” pricing.

Third, the Filipina Fox and her hubby just happened by and totally busted us day drinking in a friggin’ grocery store.

But we still found our way to a gripe.

There’s no head on this beer!

That was totally The Fox, BTW.

This observation was on our second beer – I mean, they’re $3 pints!! I had actually spent some time staring at the first two pints as they say there on the mat and The Fox chatted the bartender up over the realization that our tab was $6.

That’s $6.

I’m getting them both, actually – The Fox

Yeah, $6.

They’re only $3 each?!?

Right?!?

We’re gonna have to come back here!

And I’m just standing there wondering if it’s bad form to grab my pint and take a sip. So I happened to notice that there was a head on the glasses.

Regardless, they certainly hit the spot, I mean…we handily talked ourselves into a second pint. How could we not?

But I assured The Fox that there had been a head on the first pints and then we both made generic affirmation sounds for a minute or two. I think we were both searching our data banks for an explanation as to why beer loses its foam.

All of this came back to me today while I was having a beer with Diezel at Big Legrowlski. I had ordered a second pint while D nursed his first – he had to drive. One of my favorite bartendresses checked in on us a few minutes later to see how I liked the new beer I was reluctantly sipping.

I had commented that the back to back holiday weeks must have been good for them. Four of their 18 taps were empty. Halfway into my second beer, Boneyard had delivered five kegs and Owl X put four of them into immediate rotation. The IPA I was sipping was new to me, but from one of my favorite breweries, so where’s the risk?

Wow, look at that head!

That was all she had to say and I was immediately I was pulled back to the taproom in the Safeway.

For the record, it was a particularly creamy foam. It was like head plus, so I can see why Owl X was amazed when she saw it!

Ain’t no complaining about that!

Probably, I’d Bitch…

Maybe I Can’t Blame Lack Of Sleep…

galby68, , , , , , , , , 3 Comments

I was talking to the Silver Fox over a beer last night at Big Legrowlski. It was kind of touch and go for us last week when he floated the notion of not drinking any more. I’m fine with not drinking any more, of course, it was the realization that he meant that maybe he should drink less.

Like zero.

He was trying to blame his acid reflux on beer and wine. I – unsurprisingly – was not having it.

Of course, my not sleep deprived brain got weird with it and made it into a song, a la Duran Duran’s song The Reflex.

The Reflux.

Flux.

Flux.

Flu-flu-flu-flu-flux.

I distracted myself from this ear worm with a story about my mother’s new contact info.

Yeah. I’m one of those guys. With just a hint of this guy, but only for comedic effect. Swearsies.

My contact info is separated out into three solid categories with a couple of fringe elements:

Nicknames: people I love

Names: friends I regularly associate with

Numbers: people I don’t know whether I like yet or not

These unsaved numbers used to just get a first name, but then I ended up with a whole bunch of people saved by first name only – and really, how many Mikes and Peters does one phone list need? Also, there were a lot of people with the surnames Scruff and Hookup.

So I did a clean sweep and deleted all those one name wonders. Haven’t missed them since. Now, I don’t save a contact until I know the person’s first and last name and they prove they aren’t a flake.

There are exceptions, of course.

The Fox taught me his best practice for eliminating phone clutter. Consider this a bonus Today I Learned: if someone calls from an unrecognized number and doesn’t leave a message, he blocks the number. I had been saving the number to a contact called Likely Scam. I just changed all that. Now I do as the Silver Fox do!

The other exception actually occurred last Thursday when I got a lot of attention – and a special freebie – from a very bored stripper. I was texting The Fox (and by texting, I mean accidentally waking up at 1:30) and this stripper came back from his set. In a fit of pay attention to me-ness, he took my phone out of my hands and then texted himself and created his own contact.

So, now I’ve got a stripper’s phone number. Again.

Oh, well.

He’ll either upgrade of get deleted.

And unless I’ve been sleep deprived my whole life, I can’t blame any of that nonsense on lack of sleep.

Because of evidence like this, which is years old.

Look, ma…no asocial media apps!

I dunno. Maybe I’m just weird. I am a native Portlander.

Maybe I Can’t Blame Lack Of Sleep…

Dating Into Oblivion ep7.1

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A Ghost Story

After our first date, I broke it off with The Transplant.

I had come to realize that regardless of how stimulating our conversations had been during our time together, stimulating isn’t my default setting. Playful is.

We had been texting about our second date, which he’d sorta planned while visiting Seattle with a friend of his that was in from Chicago. He suggested the M.I.A. documentary, of which I’d never heard.

I knew she was/is a rapper and had even heard one of her songs, which featured some poppy gunshots. Not that I’m a big fan of mainstreaming violence, but rap incorporates violence into its art form regularly.

And I’m not one to claim an understanding of art by any means, so I keep my own counsel on that opinion.

Oops. Lookie!

Anyway, before he’d even returned from Seattle, he’d changed his mind about the movie.

No problem, we can do something else.

Truth be told, I was kind of relieved. Not sure I could muster sufficient enthusiasm for a rap documentary in a second date scenario.

“You pick something”, he says.

So bossy!

I playfully replied.

Ok, he was not having playful.

I actually spent the next dozen or so messages texting on eggshells. Deliberately not pointing out that he planned and vetoed the scuttled plan, so he should figure out a replacement. I planned the first date, after all. Anyway, this reservedness was in direct opposition to what he said he really appreciated about me on our first date: that I don’t behave like I’m in an interview, carefully measuring my words and maintaining a cautious demeanor.

Screw that. Eventually a facade drops and then people learn how you really act. I don’t play dating games like that – hey, it’s Why I’m Single #12! – I go into dates dressed like I dress and acting like I act.

So, basically I come across as a teenager who has recently had a stroke.

(Not that kind, Diezel)

Anyway, I think in those dozen texts, I wrangled some form of “apology” for calling him bossy – an attitude which I would appreciate, for the record. I did not enjoy the direction this interaction had taken, and the best he could muster in response was “I’m not offended”. As a stand alone, with no additional words providing context, that just reads like a petulant, “Fine“.

Lemme think about it, I’ll walk by a couple of venues on my way home and see if there’s any groups neither of us have heard of playing…we can have an adventure!

He seemed to like that idea, so I figured an adventure date could help reset the conversation or clearly define his lack of playfulness. Nevertheless, after failing to shake the disease of the prior night’s texts, I decided to pull the rip cord. Here’s how that went.

Yeah, yeah…I didn’t even save him as a contact, I know. My rule is that I don’t save contacts until I know a person’s last name. How many generic Matts does my phone book need?

Matt, BTW was his given name. He and his brother were raised in something of a Christian Cult setting.

After leaving/escaping, he and his brother had both changed their names to non-biblically influenced monikers.

Like adults.

But at least the name he chose for himself simply made him sound like a Seattle-phile or an aggressive fish enthusiast. His brother chose Aphid.

Adults, these days…

But his response at least pointed back toward the reasonable and well-considered person I’d first met. So…date number two was back to Go-Status.

I wasn’t feeling particularly plucky on the big day, which happened to be a Friday night. Turns out that he’d had a rough day at work – an ongoing recent theme as he worked toward getting a new restaurant (not of his) up and running. It is – as is he, if you recall – vegan. Turns out vegans had been incensed by both the restaurant’s name and their use of honey on the menu.

You have to remember that some people are just happy being unhappy.

Was about all I could muster, advice-wise. My inner voice was screaming that a hamburger might improve their collective disposition, but I’m pretty confident that wasn’t a welcome observation.

I surely had no expertise with opening a vegan restaurant. I barely have experience with vegetables.

Show of hands, how many of my friends thought that exact thought right before they read it? A lot, right?

Nevertheless, I also cautioned him that the restaurant could capitulate to a bunch of cranks before it even opened its doors and I guarantee that those people would either:

1) Still never even show up

Or,

2) Find something else to bitch about.

Hey, I may not know vegans from vegetables, but I do know a thing or two about sons of bitches.

So, there we were, committed to a date, but neither feeling like going out. We decided on a movie and wine/whine at my place. I reminded him that my TV was in my living room and not my bedroom and he reiterated that he was not interested in just hooking up.

Game on. No…foreshadowing!

When he arrived, we went over to the Brodega across the street for some wine and vegan approved snacks. This she-she neighborhood market would surely have some, high prices on weird foods? I don’t call it a brodega for nothing. We ended up with some fancy chocolate bars – including some from Theo’s, which I decided to not tell him he could have just visited in Seattle. This is how vegan excommunication begins…using honey in your restaurant and eating chocolate.

Vegans are like religious folk: picking and choosing what dogma they will/won’t follow. I found it promising, while also making a note that he’d really traded one cult for another…

We leave the store…and run smack dab into the Silver Fox, who was “out walking his dog”.

How many times did you walk poor George around this block?!?

The Fox swore that when he’d left Big Legrowlski under the auspices of needing to let George out to pee, the bartendresses had made him swear he’d bring George by so they could see him. Feasible enough, but the Brodega still wasn’t on his way home.

I introduced The Fox and The Transplant, who in true introvert form was already walking away as he said hi.

We went back to my place and watched The Kindergarten Teacher, which is as great as you’ve heard…and if you haven’t heard, it’s great! We actually stopped the movie a couple times for pee breaks and also just to talk about the movie. It was really nice to have a fresh movie watching companion. The Fox and I watch shows together, but more often than not our movie breaks are to discuss (one sidedly) the show’s Game of Thrones connections or whether that actor was in this or that or is dead.

There’s nothing wrong with that. The Transplant is 24, though. His mid-movie talk breaks were more aspirational.

Big Thoughts.

High Art Concepts.

It was fun. Inspirational, to be honest. I haven’t indulged my brain like that since my college days of late night studying in the Catskeller, taking breaks to conversationally dissect what we’d just reviewed.

It was quite the mental stretch for me, and it was invigorating.

After the movie, which took three-plus hours to get through, he suggested a change of scene. He asked when the hotel bar next door closed, since I’d kind of raved about it earlier.

Midnight…so, 45-ish minutes. Do you want something else to eat? Drink?

“Not really, just a change of venue”, he replied.

I was kind of relieved, because I wasn’t yet in the frame of mind to take him to my normal haunts. We decided just to walk and see what happened.

What happened was we walked the waterfront and Eastbank Esplanade.

At midnight.

On a Friday. Well, Saturday.

We got back to my place at around 2:45 and at the door to my building, I tried to say goodnight. Apparently, he wasn’t done yet. We’d been holding hands for about four miles as we walked and talked, so I figured I could safely invest a little more time to continue the conversation.

Being 24, The Transplant can put on a good show of maturity, but at the end of the day – or very early the next morning, in this case – that maturity is going to be tested when it comes time to make your actions and words line up.

At around 3:30, I joked that he was going to have to pay for parking soon, by way of closing the chapter on date two. He told me that he’d taken an Uber over.

Then why are we drinking water?!?

I poured us each a glass of wine. Shortly thereafter, he invited himself to stay the night.

Maybe I was special enough that he’d deemed me worthy of escalating this to mating into oblivion status. I told him I thought that was premature, we hadn’t even kissed yet.

“It’s just sleeping“, he teased, suddenly fluent in playfulness.

Yeah, but spooning leads to forking,

I advised, continuing with,

That’s not something I’m not interested in, but I don’t want it to be unintentional.

We talked a bit more, about big stuff. Sexual health and history – I said big stuff, not hot stuff – and he still seemed up for it. I told him I didn’t have condoms, for both good and obvious reasons and he told me he had some in his bag. He also mentioned he’d brought the lube he likes.

Not looking for a hook up my ass.

His ass.

Not looking for a hook up but brings his own lube on a date? It secretly made me wonder about the veracity of his claim to be able to recite all of his sexual partners’ names – all of which started with a J, allegedly – on one hand.

I don’t seriously doubt his integrity, I think the kid just had an itch he wanted scratched.

Sooo, I added a C to that string of Js and at 6 AM we laid down for some well earned rest.

At 10:30, he was dressed and out the door to shop for his costume for a Halloween party that evening. Around 3 we texted for a bit on how that was going. My last text being something about how I’m glad he was finding what he needed because the Saturday before Halloween could be slim picking for costume stuff.

I’m assuming he just needed to cut a couple of eye holes in a white sheet since I haven’t heard from him since.

And y’know what’s the worst when shituations – wow, the Chrisisms are just cascading out in this post – occur? I’m past worrying about what I may or may not have done to deserve this. I do indulge in a few thoughts of things that he might have felt insecure about driving his actions…

Wink, wink.

But ultimately, my frustrated parent gene kicks in and I find myself wondering if he got hurt or taken advantage of that night…or worse. I know it’s unlikely, but it’s not a concern I can control. And Portland’s weirdos aren’t all lovable, harmless old curmudgeons.

Being 24, maybe his ego needed to be the dumper versus the dumpee…but he put a lot of effort into that charade, were that the case.

Regardless, after learning that a young fella I used to recreate with on occasion died – two years ago, obviously we weren’t close…just situationally joined on a temporary basis every now and again – a month after I saw him last, well…I just hope this particular ghost story remains theoretical.

Dating Into Oblivion ep7.1

Why I’m Single #647

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Unflattering Compliments

“There he is again”, The Fox said as we sat sipping our Pallet Jack and a Pacific Northwest College of Arts student crossed the street in front of us.

There is something so not wrong with that.

Maybe that doesn’t sound enthusiastic, but it’s among one of the higher compliments I can muster after a lifetime of dating in the superlative laced gay dating underworld.

Still, I wouldn’t expect your run of the mill homo to have the attention span to figure out that was a compliment.

So, I’ll just sit here, sipping beer and casting negs with my *NSLP.

*Non Sexual Life Partner, if you must know. 😂

Why I’m Single #647

TIL #4: Tech Cheat

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So, I’m sitting here at Big Legrowlski – alone, again…naturally – trying to figure out how to make a story on the Instagram. Well, making a story in and of itself isn’t terribly difficult. It’s the extras: adding additional pics to it and enhancing it with text…oy.

And links?

Fugeddabowdit.

It’s one of many situations that make me scream – sometimes in my head, sometimes in real, live technicolor – “I need a twenty-something!

Notice that I didn’t say “one of many recent situations”…gentle readers, this has been going on since I exited my own 20s.

Mind you, I’ve only vomited out about 5000 words into the WordPress Abyss today, why not keep going. FYI, that’s a lot of words and there was plenty of emotional heavy lifting between brain and keyboard…so, yeah. A little millennial vs old timer levity was required!

This phenomenon I mention…it is not one that I alone seem to struggle with, either. Witness this random post from a friend on the Facebook.

Not that I don’t enjoy my friends’ equal discomfiture, here in the techno-wilderness.

On the flip side, it’s nice to encounter situations that let you know that – somehow – it goes both ways.

Surrealiously…it takes 5 million years to make a goddamn rock. You’re only a millennial so where’s the disconnect? Sending a FAX should still be current events.

Situationally speaking, of course.

So, between those two generational extremes…what is it that I’m learning today, exactly?

Jesus, not to get myself into any situation that somehow evolves into me brokering peace in the Middle East, but I’ve learned today that this isn’t just a grumpy old Xtopher peccadillo, this tech frustration.

It really does go both ways.

Here I am, the perfect example of that statement: sometimes screaming to be helped by an assuredly more tech-comfortable younger person, other times the actual younger person being asked to help the Silver Fox figure out why his phone shows a music app running on his phone that he swears he’s never installed.

I’ve learned that, regardless of one’s chronological accomplishments on this galactic rock, technology is the great leveling device. You might think you’ve got your shit dialed in and your figurative water fowl aligned…you just haven’t met your technological undoing yet.

It might be the next it app that proves a boondoggle for your supposed savviness. Then again, it could be the old school alarm system at your kids’ house that keeps you huddled on their porch in a rainstorm as you wait for them after failing to gain entry, defeated by a keypad and four-digit passcode.

One never knows, do one?

In an abundance of flip sides leading up to this entry, I’ve also learned not to downplay expertise from surprising resources. I have this blog-buddy, Phil, that read of one of my storage issues with Apple.

Having grown weary of their too-frequent “Storage Almost Full” push notifications that really seemed to just be a squeeze play for an extra $.99/month from poor old Xtopher, I tossed off a whiny blog post.

What does the universe provide me in return?

A recommendation from Phil in my comments that I simply get a flash drive, onto which I could save my photos, music and anything else that congests my cloud storage situation. That would leave my cloud space free for apps and other shit…shit literally being “I don’t know what”.

Phil and I have bonded over many things: humor, beer storage, saddle rash. We’ve clashed over more important, serious issues along the lines of writing – in a strictly helpful, mentor-y manner. We’re not arguing Oxford Comma here, folks.

Phil is a grandparent.

Setting aside the reality that I could be, too, in a bizarrely alternate reality, Phil has subtly led me to believe that he’s got a few more laps around the sun than I have managed.

And here he is throwing me tech pro tips.

I’m sitting on my couch, reading this comment of his and resisting the urge to look over my shoulder at the Apple G4 Tower that I’ve had since the early aughts that has all of my music stored on it – stuff I transferred from CD into the drive after getting tired of dusting my CD cases.

A drive I moved from Portland to Seattle and back again – five households in all – to preserve my music library.

“Oh…just get an external drive?” – Me

Jesus.

I need a twenty year old. Stat!

TIL #4: Tech Cheat

The Salad Tosser

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Here’s a glimpse at my creative-slash-procrastination process:

I’m polishing up a year end/resolution type post.  One that I’ve been kicking around for over two months – since my last trip to Seattle, where I had a conversation with an old friend in late October or early November.  And by “kicking around” I mean, “please see the above note about my procrastination process”.

It’s been on my radar in particular this week because:  NYE, right?  Kind of lame to post a year end blog at the beginning of a year.  So, this week is the week.  Naturally, that means that I posted a completely different blog (Asocial Media) earlier this week versus working on the post with the expiration date.

Last night, I tell the Fox as we nightcap at the Big Legrowlski that I need a few hours this morning before we do coffee to review some job posts and work on the year-end post.

Or not. Continue reading “The Salad Tosser” →

The Salad Tosser