#derpthoughts

Kyrie Eleison

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This song meant so much to me as a teen and young adult. But what the hell were those lyrics?!?

I’m not gonna post the entire lyrics, but this screen shot gets you to the chorus, which is the source of my confusion.

On paper it looks so perfectly innocent. But listening to the song, the phrase Kyrie Eleison is unintelligible.

Not knowing, I made up my own malaprop lyrics: carry a laser.

And it worked.

Carry a laser down the road that I must travel.

Carry a laser through the darkness of the night.

Carry a laser where I’m going, will you follow?

Carry a laser on a highway in the night.

Kinda works, right? A little?

In reality, the song demonstrates that knowledge isn’t always a plus. Sometimes it can put a real damper on things.

Boo. Knowledge FAIL.

Kyrie is Greek for lord and is used in the New Testament book, Philippians. Eleison translates from Greek as have mercy.

I’d rather go back to my blissfully ignorant substitute lyrics of carry a laser. I’m not sure my joy when hearing this song can survive the knowledge of what the true lyrics invoke. <sigh>

Eleison, indeed.

Kyrie Eleison

Three Act Plays

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That’s what they all are, right?

Plays.

Three acts is the norm. Sure Billy S did some shit back in the day. Then there was the occasional epic endeavor, like Angels In America, that had so many kicks to the heart balls to deliver that it needed to be broken up into two three act plays.

But overall, three gets the job done. Two, and people feel blessedly cheated. Four, and no one likes you.

Plus, there’s the whole “I can nap at home for free” chestnut among reluctant theater-goers. Four acts seems less like a nap than an entire damn night of sleep.

At least for my nearing-geriatric sleep patterns.

Why is this on my mind tonight?

Well, I just poured my third glass of wine. Emptying the bottle.

Heavy pour.

But it is in deference to a Silver Nugget – a phrase coined by Little Buddy about the secrets people started sharing with me when I turned 50. She – Little Buddy – is not yet 50, but enjoyed my sharing of privileged information here on this blog, and felt compelled to come up with a name for these aged secrets.

Being the Little Buddy that she is, this process involved an evolving train of thought on a text thread.

It was impressive, and I know I’ve failed to retrieve the best of her efforts from the impenetrable vault that is my memory. The fallout is mine to deal with.

The Silver Nugget in question came from my sister, who was not yet 50 at the time of this nugget’s disclosure. It was more of a hybrid wisdom: things of a life hack nature combined with parenting perks.

In this case, it was my sister pulling the epically resonating parental sacrifice offset of having my tween nephew refill her wine glass for her. He comes back into the room heel–toeing his way to her throne chair in order to avoid spilling anything from a glass that was filled so full, its meniscus existed only on a theoretical plane.

Being a highly decorated and multi-faceted snob, I had to make mention of the situation. It was also helpful – and I credit my Catholic upbringing for this skill – in deflecting my own uninhibited imbibing. An ongoing situation – clearly – for another time.

Being a mother, my sister coolly spared my judgment a total of zero fucks and set me straight.

“Why waste the trip?”

Fair point, but my snobbery was feeling robbed of a Karen moment.

Being in high end kitchen retail for several of my career years, I knew things.

I knew that a bottle of wine held five pours.

I knew that a proper pour was five ounces.

And I knew that wine glasses came in varietal sizes, designed to enhance the drinking experience by combining the sinuses and the palate for an optimal flavor experience. Overfilling the glass defeated these design endeavors.

Adding a total of zero additional fucks after hearing my objections, for a total of…<carry the none>…yes, zero actual fucks, my sister completely poo-pooed my criticism of her life choices.

I now know that was a mom life hack.

And now embrace it.

On a Monday morning, approaching 2 A.M.

And as I watch crappy movies from the earliest of aughts featuring the best of actors, I find myself wondering if I’m enjoying my wine in three acts better than these movies in their own three act efforts.

I think I am…but now I’m on my last glass and still have an hour and a half of Under Suspicion left to go. I think I should have made sure to have some backup spiked seltzers for this crisis.

Here’s one of Little Buddy’s bronze nuggets – which evolved during a fit of pandemic drinking: anything under 5% ABV is hydration.

So my spiked seltzer backup is…health food.

Technically?

Don’t argue with your elders.

Three Act Plays

It’s Kind Of An Ennui Story

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I dunno, maybe it’s more of a torpor…but I couldn’t come up with anything to play off of that, so here we are, stuck with a lane riff off of “It’s kind of a funny story”.

A quick backstory:

My first “good” boyfriend died back in…late ‘96 – Jesus, he’s been dead nearly 25 years, that’ll take some time to absorb – anyway, we were separated by more than half a country by then. It’d probably been a good four years since our relationship had ended, too, which was a pretty good percentage of my 28 years.

Naturally, having a dream about him was unusual at that point. Nothing compared to the actual dream., though!

It was one of those moments where you know you’re just about to drift off, then suddenly there he was, floating near the ceiling of my bedroom. He’s gesturing toward me, as if to get me to somehow move closer to him, and I’m all, “Sorry, buddy…me no floaty” without registering that it’s weird that he could and was. Then he starts telling me to come with him, but without telling me where he was off to. Naturally, I was all, “Nah, I gotta, like…work in the morning”.

It was the next evening that a friend called to tell me he’d died. I knew why he was calling the second I heard his voice and preemptively announced the reason.

One of the more surreal moments in my life – for sure – because who am I kidding, saying that was a dream?

Present Day:

It happened again a couple nights ago. I can’t tell you who it was beckoning to me. I just remember the disembodied, plaintive invitation. So far, no news on any deaths in my present or past circle of friends and intimates. As far as I know, I never met Charlie Watts, so I’m pretty sure it wasn’t him, despite the timing.

What struck me this time was my response.

What can I say, it’s been a rough couple weeks.

Really, though…a “Meh, why not?” attitude from a seemingly non-corporeal invitation? It’s a wonder I haven’t been abducted by now.

What bugs me isn’t the potential surprise of waking up dead the next day. No…it’s the resignation of the situation.

I joke often about the randomness of death. How an accident or sudden illness can take any one of us unexpectedly. Usually, I’m pretty blithe about it with some response along the lines of, “I don’t really have any plans, so…”

But this felt different. Like if ghost grandma showed up one night and offered her hand, I’d just toddle off alongside her into the great unknown.

Like I said, it’s been a rough couple of weeks. Making headway (or not, as the recent results show) on my condo savings goal and trying to wreckoncile – Chrisism – the Black Sheep Bro situation (and failing) are taking a cumulative toll on me. But…I’m actively counting the number of days I consecutively leave the house now, so I take that as a good sign that I’m coming out of this torpor or ennui or tailspin or whatever you want to call it.

Maybe if the voice comes back anytime soon, I’ll send Myrtle off with it.

It’s Kind Of An Ennui Story

I Am A Horrible Person

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Apparently.

And a covert racist.

This was my takeaway from a conversation the other day.

Then again, thanks to the transitive property, so was Rodney King.

Even worse, “Why can’t we all just get along?” wasn’t even my starting or main point.

This was all happening during a Lyft ride, too, so I’d inadvertently wandered into quite a minefield. I picked up this person at home and started chatting away by checking her destination: a coffee shop. I asked if she was going for leisure or work – a question I was actually invested in since she lives half a block from one of the best coffee houses in Portland but was going across the river for her joe.

It was work, a meeting. When I asked what kind of work she did, she simply replied that she worked for a non-profit.

Sidebar: my observation is that people who work for non-profits are the least likely to give you a descriptive account of their work. It’s curious.

She was actually my second non-profit rider that morning. In my head I made a joke about all non-profit people knowing each other. In real life, I joked by announcing that I am also a non-profit organization.

That actually drew her out a little and she volunteered that she worked for an organization that promoted racial equity. And I know that I just paraphrased that wrong, but I’m already allegedly going to hell so I don’t care.

But we’d just added Portland’s #1 Boogeyman to our chat: Gentrification.

Take a moment and shudder. God knows I should have. But no…me? I wade right in.

We chat vaguely and amiably about plight. Since it’s got a friendly vibe, I tell her about my old neighbor in NoPo. You can click the link to get the full gist, but long-and-short: he was the last black man on the historically black block I bought my first house on.

When I finished telling the story of my frustration that he wouldn’t budge on his anger, I realized her silence was drawing out and glanced in the rear view mirror.

She was smirking at me like I was some preciously idiotic child.

“Ok, let me have it”, I chuckled. She seemed to get that I know I don’t know anything but grasp the notion that I don’t know what I don’t know.

Y’know?

She wasn’t forgiving me for not knowing. But with her smirk, she was at least seemingly acknowledging that I wasn’t coming from a place of ill will. So, I’m not a horrible person, I’m just horrible at being a person, I guess.

We then had a pretty interesting conversation about understanding. Let me tell you, it had layers. Like, layers that I am only vaguely aware of and layers that I’m only guessing must have been there.

But my big takeaway from this moment was a reminder that in order to understand, you have to set your own situation aside. One of my old co-workers used to tell me to get out of my own way, which seems like a pretty good way to put it in this case. The Angriest Man In NoPo didn’t care whether I was trying to be nice or build friendship bridges. I was a symbol of a perceived wrong. I chose to be offended that he didn’t even bother to ignore my neighborly overtures. Ignoring them would have acknowledged them and he didn’t even deign to give me as an individual or my hapless acts that much recognition.

Like I said, the conversation was a good reminder about the first step in understanding. I told my passenger that I was glad I’d had the chance to meet her, and I meant it. The look she gave me could have been the very same she’d give me if I told her I planned to BBQ inside because it looked like rain.

Whudyagunnado…

Still, as I drove away I indulged in a little future-play fantasy. Recently, I heard a statistic that I can’t quite recall, something like by the year 2025, 50% of all babies born will be of two or more races. You know that statistic isn’t moving backward. When will we become so blended that racism becomes a ridiculous thing of the past? I imagine that when we finally count the majority of our population as multi-racial, my old neighbor’s obstinance will look anachronistic.

Sadly, I doubt we’ll be able to look back from that vantage point and see the point in our history where minority people like my neighbor were satisfied that the situation had been rectified. While today, they force the racial majority to broaden their view of a situation, I worry that some will never put away their hurt, just like many older generations of white people never put away their racism.

Looking back at my neighbor, as far as I know, he died with his anger still in full disdainful glare mode and in the middle of his struggle to be seen. Just as I’ve wished racism could die with the older generations that can’t set it aside without infecting younger generations, I hope someday that people who are symbols of yesterday’s and today’s racial injustice can take their anger to the grave and let us call history, history.

That’s not 100% true. I hope that we can get to a point as a blended racial culture where we can talk to people who hold so fiercely to that tether to the past and help them accept that that future’s reality has changed enough that it’s safe to rejoin the present instead of persisting in the past.

I’m sure I’ve said all of this wrong. But maybe you can understand the spirit of what my meager words cannot express.

And let’s all just try and get along, please?

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to buy a BBQ, even though it looks like rain…

I Am A Horrible Person

About That Gay Agenda…

galby68, 4 Comments

I’m not one to blindly follow someone cuz they’re a gay.

Truth be told, it’s more of a red flag to me, given the shambles of gay culture in this country.

Doubt me?

Just consider for a moment how hard it was for me to not punctuate that statement with a meme that suggests

Gay Culture is…<insert enabling or inane graphic here>

For me, whenever I see one of those memes, I roll my eyes and think, “Gay Culture was…” wistfully.

So hearing that a gay mayor was running for President conflicted me. On the one hand, finally – a gay leader.

I think the gays have mastered following. Sadly, they seem to be lining up to follow 17 year old pop stars and drag queens.

Inauspicious.

Perhaps this was a chance for them to follow someone worthy that could benefit the country more than Taylor Swift or Arianna Grande.

So, when I saw an ad for Mayor Pete on the Insta, I clicked on it to learn a bit more about him. The ad was less platform driven, more a statement of the size of the field and the struggle faced by those vying for market share in the party.

But if you donate…

And I admit, I was curious enough based on interviews I’d seen to want to see more. I mean, even watching him explain how he balanced faith, politics and sexuality left me nodding appreciatively compared to his fellow (closeted) state politician, Pence.

So I donated.

Plus, there was a bumper sticker involved if I made a donation.

So, that was seven weeks ago.

Do I have a bumper sticker?

No. No, I do not.

I mean, it’s not like I have a friggin’ bumper, but still.

To me, it would be refreshing for a homo to follow through on a commitment, so…

Anyway, I’m writing the whole thing off thusly and moving on with my life when I get an email from Petey Boy.

Alright, I’ll allow for a lil hope. Maybe the campaign tasks this out as a monthly function versus a quid pro quo process.

Fine.

Huzzah, even.

But that was three weeks ago.

Do I have a sticker?

No. Still, no, I do not.

I mean, the email didn’t specifically say it was going in the mail that day. But it also didn’t say that an inter was personally walking it over to me.

Frankly, gay sensibility being what it is, I’m worried the latter might be occurring.

In heels.

But at this point I’m kind of torn between snarkily wondering if this is an example of the ineffective government machine or just another gay guy overpromisimg, underdelivering and eventually demonstrating that the promised follow through never mattered.

Troubling.

But maybe if I make it into a joke, it won’t bother me. Clearly, that’s a strategy that’s worked so well for me up til now…

About That Gay Agenda…

The Roto-est Of Rooters

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I’ll need a photo ID as well as your insurance card.

A pleasant delivery doesn’t stop me from wondering aloud from behind the Silver Fox if they wouldn’t likely have a lot of imposters showing up to an appointment like his.

My pithy posit barely merits a side eye from The Fox, but I’m accustomed to my observations being met with an occasional absence of encouragement.

Today, you see, is a certain someone’s very special once-in-a-decade doctor appointment.

The dreaded colonoscopy.

You know it’s been longer than a decade since the last time we did this, right?

That was my question as I parked.

The Fox assures me that I’m wrong, but I remind him that a decade ago I was living in Seattle.

The email I got said it was my ten-year reminder!

As if that closes the conversation. I mean, “The email said” is a far better argument than “I read it on the internet”, but it’s far from authoritative.

Still, I let it drop, wondering if perhaps I took The Fox to his first “people pay for this experience?” appointment and perhaps there was a former boyfriend that filled in for me ten years ago.

It’s not unlike my best friend to be religiously early. We jokingly call it Fox Time.

Even for this. Closing in on his sixty-eighth birthiversary, if this happened to be his third procedure, I could easily see him justifying his first at a Fox Timely 48.

Of course, the problem there is that it probably only seems like we’ve known each other two decades. Especially to him, I imagine, given that he has to put up with me and sometimes I’m a little much.

For instance, we didn’t talk so much this morning in the our first of dozens of daily texts. I just sent him this:

So I dropped the timing question. No need to unnecessarily poke the bear, as the saying goes.

Or The Fox, in this case.

Poor guy’s about to get poked enough for a while, I imagine.

Besides, there’s plenty of other topical material presenting itself. As we step into the elevator, The Fox pushes to button for the top floor.

They’re on the top floor because everyone that goes there bottoms.

I could do this all day.

I did manage not to comment on the photograph of the canal hanging in the lobby of the office.

The gaping span framing a lovely waterway bordered by blossoming cherry trees.

Anyway, before the Silver Fox is done not responding to my initial query at the check-in window as to whether this office has a lot of imposters showing up for colonoscopies – it is Portland, the kinkiest city in America – I see this:

I cant help it. My derp thoughts just appear out of nowhere and without warning.

My imagination instantly starts creating this story where a translator is called in to break the process down into gay-speak.

Gurl, I hope you brought poppers because this. is. happening. Mmm. Git it.

And with a Cher tongue, flip of the imaginary wig and snap of a paper accordion fan, the consult is over and my best friend is led off by a GoGo Boy in gold lame hot shorts.

And the next time I see him, he’ll be all doped up and rubber-legged. I do recall that from last time…it was quite amusing to see my fairly dignified bestie a little worse for the wear.

But the light at the end of the <ahem> tunnel is food!

The last words he said to me were about how hungry he was. The last words he texted to me – a few moments after being led away – were about him being one pound inside his goal weight range.

That shut me up.

You know how many back to back colonoscopies I’d have to prep for to get down to the goal weight range that I abandoned?

Lots.

The staff would probably think I had fetishized a good snaking.

Like I said…it is Portland.

Now, I’d better go before they finish up and I’m tempted to write about The Fox’s behavior while he’s sedated!

The Roto-est Of Rooters

What Could Possibl…

galby68, , , , , , , , , , , , , , 8 Comments

Yeah, ok…the hell with that question.

I’m torn about whether it will be my death certificate or my tombstone that says, “Well, that answers that question…”

I forwarded my acupuncture appointment reminder to voicemail earlier and when I went in to delete the message, saw that I actually had two. Now, this would hardly be the first time I’ve received two reminder calls, but that wasn’t the case today.

The second call was a follow up to a kick ass interview that I had last week. Just wanted to let me know that they went with an internal.

If you have been reading The Great Job Hunt series, you know how lovely I find those words.

So, instead of dwelling and falling into the same trap that I did last time I got the internal candidate rash, I decided to refocus on some funnier “What could possibly go wrong” moments and other recent examples of my quirk-centric existence.

A much better use of my energy.

It’s amazing to me how many of these humorous situations are actually crowd sourced while I’m with friends versus my solo adventures. But let’s start with one of those rarer gems, shall we?

Because, it just happened.

I was at the pharmacy picking up a refill before the weekend – because I’m not working, pretty much have every day to get this errand done but for some reason would rather wait until 4:45 on a Friday to do so.

Maybe it’s that I wanna trot my keg belly across town at the hottest part of the day. Perhaps since it’s a Friday, I figured there’d be some guycandy knocking off early along the way to reward me for completing this task.

Maybe it was both.

I had called ahead, but there were still a few minutes needed to finish up my refill. Taking a seat, I heard the door open behind me and was treated to my guy candy.

Dressed in a cropped mesh football-ish jersey and cut off denim shorts, I assumed he couldn’t be coming from work. He might be heading to work, I mused, since my pharmacy is near one of Portland’s two gay strip clubs.

I got a little distracted when leaned over the counter and pushed his butt out toward me, but I did vaguely hear him say he needed a refill over the rushing of my pulse. My first thought was absolutely unmentionable but my second thought was, “This guy looks like he could have starred in a gay remake of an 80s Whitesnake video.

I was abruptly ripped back to reality by eight numbers: 11171996.

11

17

1996

He’s 22.

Of course, I had to share this with my friend, Diezel. He would certainly enjoy my discomfiture.

He certainly didn’t disappoint.

I couldn’t resist throwing a little shade in my jealousy over the carefree existence young gays have thanks to science, hence my “whore” comment.

Naturally, he sat down three feet from me and began finessing the fringe on his shorts. Picking at a thread here, lifting a knee to the side of his head to get a look at the backside of his shorts.

Seriously, kid…I’m looking. Let’s not overdo it, shall we?

Nevertheless, this St Lucille Bluth meme just captured my inner grumpy old man so perfectly in the moment…me, being all bitter over what I know I can’t have.

It was quite delicious – and responsible – that this kid was picking up his PrEP prescription moments before the weekend began. All the while, teasing the defenseless old man. It’s 90 degrees, kid. I’m too dehydrated to drool, don’t take it personally.

Earlier today, Jortis took some time to take a swipe at my figurative chops on the Facebook. He had seen a video about how to tell if there are sharks in the water before you swim in it.

He thought to tag me, which made me chuckle. Still, I watched the video through my fingers, ready to throw my phone aside at the first sign of a shark attack.

The video proudly touts the simple secret of detecting a shark infested body of water using only a spoon.

Step 1) Use spoon to taste a sample of the water

That’s it.

If the water tastes like salt there’s sharks in it.

I’ll wait while you recover from that subtle shock.

I’m of the mind that just because sharks are rarely found in fresh or brackish waters it doesn’t mean theyaren’t ever found there. As a matter of fact, I think every time you go into fresh water without encountering a shark, it just makes it more likely that it might happen the next time.

Yes, rivers.

Yes, lakes.

Yes, yes, yes, swimming pools, jacuzzis and bath tubs.

Fears are supposed to be irrational!

Also, I failed Probabilities & Statistics. In my defense, I took it at 8 am while I was working swing shift from 11 PM to 7 AM at Hoag Hospital.

This galeophobia of mine has been responsible for some rather amusing moments for my friends recently. At my expense, naturally. Not that I mind. With all the shit I sling, I best be able to take some in return!

Interesting side note, galeophobia is derived from the Greek word for weasel or polecat. Have you all become at least virtually acquainted with my murderous feline?

Not to be outdone, Little Buddy can generally be relied upon to insert an “irrational fear of sharks” bon mot into any given situation. And they’re usually pretty friggin’ hilarious.

This floor decal, for instance

Surely, there’s a shower curtain available.

I’m not suggesting at all that she goes out of her way to find these nightmare triggers for me.

The Facebook, on the other hand, seems to understand her shopping and internet browsing habits. Recently, this suggestion popped up on her Facebook feed.

She’s a crazy-talented baker, too, so I’ve no doubt about what the next birthday cake she bakes me will look like!

Finally – and I’m not suggesting that Little Buddy or Jortis is some sort of catalyst here – but last week, we all went to Portland Center Stage to see the final show of Lady Day at Emerson’s Bar and Grill.

Sidebar: if this is playing anywhere near you ever, I suggest you go see it.

Quite.

Amazing.

Anyhoo…after the show, we all cry-stumbled over to Powell’s because Jortis had a book he needed to pick up. None of us, save Jortis, knew what book he was after – and I’ve since forgotten…old – but I was surprised to find our party lost together in the sci-fi/fantasy room. This room is about a quarter of a city block, so don’t doubt me when I say we were lost together.

Plus, I had some door trouble as a result of being raised right. When I held the door for one of our foursome, eighty other people decided that Powell’s was the place to be and I got stuck at the entrance while watching the three people I was with get smaller and further and further spread out.

I caught up with LB in the Orange Room – or was it the Pink Room?

Nevertheless, there we were, waiting.

Maybe a little buzzed.

Definitely feeling the emotional weight of the show we’d just seen.

And it’s Little Buddy to our emotional rescue!

She somehow managed to catch a cluster of book titles that struck her as the perfect indicator that Jortis and I were in the right area. This is probably part of why I think it might have been the Pink Room…

Have you ever noticed how homoerotic fantasy fiction is?

I have.

Little Buddy definitely has.

Bones of the Earth?

This Side of Judgment?

How many titles in that pic have the word Queen in them?!?

Insanity.

Random insanity.

And this just happens to catch Little Buddy’s eye. I mean, c’mon! I have no question why LB is in my life, she’s prepaying her time in purgatory, obviously.

But, if I did…this moment is a perfect illustration.

For my part, not to be out-distracted, I noticed a book about 6″ – seriously, no double entendres intended – outside of the frame of the picture above.

I don’t know who this Belgarath the Sorcerer is, but his name is an anagram for my last name.

How.

Friggin’.

Random.

Ever since I’ve seen this, I’ve been trying to have a dream about Belgarath where we meet, fall in love, get married and then his name is Belgarath bal Gather.

(Like I’d tell you my real last name)

Anyway…hey, look! I distracted myself from my double-disappointing news day! I failed to mention that I’ve been summoned to Seattle next week for a preliminary round of We Hired An Internal, causing me to cancel a trip to The Gorge to christen LB and 2.0’s new wine country escape and Jortis’ birthday.

How’s that for crap timing?!?

But, like I said…channeling funny stories into my psyche in order to drive out the demons of bad news.

And it worked.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I also picked up a grocery bag of junk food earlier today as I wandered the aisles of my local RiteAid trying to figure out what it was I went in for.

Imma go comfort eat all of that.

Because, what could possibly go wrong?

It was dishwasher detergent, btw. And, no…I didn’t remember before I left.

What Could Possibl…

Birthday: Love

galby68, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , 2 Comments

Impressing myself with my own delusional contortions while writing about all the food I consumed over my birthday weekend yesterday, I mused that I wasn’t full from overeating.  No, rather, perhaps my heart was over full from all of the birthday love I had gotten.

Let me set aside the amount of food I consumed – it was all of the food – and tell you how that little bit of pithiness has managed to kick around my noggin for the last day.

Can one be so full of love that they feel physically satiated?

Well, there’s a thought dripping with derp.

The sincerity that I experienced over the last weekend has probably (definitely) always been there with my friends, I’m sure this birthday of mine was just such a focusing agent that the emotions are lingering.  Definitely more present, even 10 days later.

But it’s been coloring my life view lately, too.

Moms with their kids.

Hell, families.

Young couples.

Dogs.

Old couples absolutely take the cake, though.

Mmmm.  Cake.

Seeing old couples tottering through the airport together makes me smile.  Always.  Moreso this last week, though.

Feeling it, I am.

Strangely, I can’t even imagine or conceptualize the type of committment and discipline that’s required to nurture a decades long relationship.

Check that.  I can conceptualize it, actually, it’s the life long partner that’s difficult to imagine.

You have to forgive me, though.  For 10 of my 30 years of adult dating life, I’ve been not dating.  That’s a measly one-third success ratio.  That may suffice for a pro baseball player (I dunno, does it?!?) but in relationship terms, that seems to lack any certain luster.

Especially when spread over two relationships versus one.

Fail.

Yet…

I did end my last relationship with the forethought that I may have been ending what was – and has certainly proven to be this far – my last chance at a relationship.  That wasn’t reason enough to try and hold on to something that wasn’t mine, though.

And I think we’re both better for it.  The last thing – in retrospect – that I wanted to do was hang on until Rib woke up one day and asked himself how the hell he ended up with an old boyfriend.

Oldie Hawn, he would call me…and I kid you not when I say I loved it.

But me dying alone or not, at Myrtle’s whim or not, is not the issue that’s been on my mind.

Right, Myrtle?

For once.

Rather, it’s been…surreally, can one be so fulfilled with the experience of loving another that it sustains them through their lifetime?

Whoa.

Now, there’s a derp-full thought.

Tangentially, can one be sustained by less intimate love?  Without asking the question directly, I assume that’s what the cool septua and octa genarians are rocking these days…although Grace & Frankie would have me doubting that assumption.

Personally speaking?  I’d say maybe.  I knew Rib might be my last shot and I did what I thought right for us both.  Since then, I think I’ve followed my Orangatan spirit animal – which is often misconstrued as grumpiness – and just not tolerated foolishness in dating.

I’m starting a movement, too…there’s a legacy.

Sure, I’ve been hoodwinked a couple times. Mostly cuz I’m dumb.  And slightly weak.  I blame my penis.

But I still have a ripcord that I pull when shit gets too bovine.

But I find comfort in the comfortable warmth and familiarity of my Chosen Family…when sincerity sustains more than postcoital pizza or Ben & Jerry’s, I think you’ve stumbled onto something.

It’s made me take a longer, more thoughtful look at young widows and widowers who never remarried.  What is it they know that the rest of us haven’t had the misfortune to figure out yet?

It’s definitely food for thought.

By the way, after all the food I ate last weekend?  Look at what “holiday” my traitorously supportive calendar told me fell on my birthday.

Birthday: Love

Gay-bonics

galby68, , , , , , 10 Comments

I’ve been sitting on this draft for about 18 months.  With the clock winding down on the applicability of the adjective “early” to my grumpy, old man shtick, I figure I better either throw this out there or abandon it forever.

I’m no quitter.

In addition to being a grumpy, old man, I’ve also been described as a Grammar Nazi.

Me.

With my ellipses abuse and run on sentences.

That’s just how stupid people can be.  Essentially, I believe it’s all good natured fun because I have such a defined reaction to people using words like “aks” and “Warshington”.  (Sorry, Mom).  Instead of  acknowledging that those aren’t words and – oh, I don’t know – attempting to use the correct pronunciation, I’m the Grammar Nazi.

Sidebar:  I went to diction classes after school when I was young because of a speech impediment.  My Rs came out as Ws.  

Pretty awful when I pronounced my own name as Cwis or Cwistofuh.

But my parents cared enough to make sure I didn’t go through life sounding unnecessarily stupid.  But yet I’m the Grammar Nazi.

Did I mention this class was run by nuns?  In the 70s?  There were motivational rulers involved.

So, yeah…my grumpiness came early.

But on those same lines, my subculture does some shit that really bugs me.  It’s the polar opposite of what my parents tried to spare me, I think.  My people are dumbing themselves down and calling it cool.

Not, it is.

I call this Gaybonics.

I’m not saying gays made each of these so-called words up.  But once the gays got hold of them, it was off to the races and suddenly you can’t get away from them.

Don’t get me wrong, in my day – no, wait, I can do better.  When I was young we gays weren’t exactly the paradigm of maturity.  We called each other “Mary” and “Queen”.  But we didn’t make up words to differentiate ourselves.

So let’s see what exercises in nails on a chalkboard that today’s gays are committing, shall we?

Qween.

I don’t know.  I really don’t.  It’s like they have to re-reappreopriate this word from the earlier generation of gays.  What next?  Need to reboot Stonewall?  I know, history is so dated.

Yaaaas.


I’m a complex creature.  I hate this word and love this meme.

The kid reminds me of my juvenile self.

I think that it’s funny, I use it in texts and comments as shorthand for my enthusiastic agreement for something.

It.

Should.

Never.

Be.

Spoken.

I overhear gays talking and instead of “uh huh” and “mm hmmm” as the lazy active listening cues that accompany head gestures, I hear varying degrees of this fucking word. 

So, my dinner date the other night was fine.

Yaaas.

But then at the end, the check came and we both just sat there.

Oh, gurl, uh-uh.

And I’m just thinking, like he invited me.

Yaaaas.  Right?

But he’s not treating, and I’m all…WTF?

Yaaaaas.

(It’s approaching orgasm intensity at this point)

So I reached for it and then he offers to split it!  And I’m all thinking, I could have taken myself out to dinner with a good book and not have to listen to your boring ass for an hour!  

Yaaaaaaaas, Qween.  Tell it!

So, we split it.

Well, at least you didn’t have to put out.

I didn’t have to.  But just cuz he’s stingy doesn’t mean I have to be.

Yaaaas, gurl.  You do you.

It’s like we’ve all become caricatures of drag queens versus having our own personalities.

Extra.

Over the top.  Too much.  Way to much.

Really?  From gays.

How do we say this about one another (I don’t) when we collectively embrace a coded – yet juvenile – language of our own?

Irony, we are all extra.  Why we must use it perjoratively against one another…well, it doesn’t boggle my mind, unfortunately.  It’s the old “tear another down to build yourself up” mentality.

Very mature.

Of course, most of the crap we make up has to do with sex.  We’re like OCD when it comes to labeling one another.  If only that tendency to label enabled us being organized enough to have our own shit actually together.

Some of these I actually think are cute or quirky in a fun way,  Others, not so much.  The ones I really don’t enjoy tend to be the ones that infantillize – is that a word? – sex.  My $.02, if you can’t say it like an adult, maybe don’t do it…you’ll only end up getting hurt or – more likely – hurting someone else.

(Mom, you might want to skip over this part…not sure of the depth of detail yet, fair warning)

Zaddy.

I hear this word and cringe.  

Outwardly.

Gays didn’t create nor did they sexualize Daddy, and I’m not crazy about it.  But Zaddy is gaybonic for someone with all the characteristics of a Daddy, minus the age.

Ok, first of all, having a Daddy boyfriend – regardless of the gay/straight filter – connotes you need to be taken care of, most likely financially.  As a man of a certain age, I think that should be a temporary situation and that the younger person in this scenario should be working toward becoming a fully functional member of society who happens to have an older boyfriend.

Let’s call that Why I’m Single #44.

So this Zaddy person is likely a peer.  Getting this straight, your shit isn’t together enough to the point you need the guidance of a sexual parent.  It is not at all hard to believe you’ll give someone from your peer group responsibility for your well-being.

When I cringe at this word, I also mentally make a note to never accept this person’s judgment as reasonable.

Boi.

Someone who usually needs a Daddy but settles for a Zaddy.  Someone who will probably still be looking for a Daddy when he’s my age.

When I was young, we called bois “twinks”.  The worst thing that could happen to a twink was to still be a twink at 29.  

God forbid.

Nevertheless, we handled these situations with the correct verbal and public pergatory…by calling them twunks or twonks.  These two words are basically an onomatopoeia for an expired twink.

While we are kinda on the topic of baby talking sex – ok, we were a paragraph or two ago, just go with it – there’s a lot of probably misogynistic in origin words for female body parts.  Gays have collectively embraced terms like “man pussy” and “mangina” in reference to their ass.  

This is not hot.

No, Paris.  It’s nawt.

Someone please explain to me how two gay men referring to a mangina is sexy sex talk?  It’s kind of not sexy to bring up a bastardized version of the opposite sex’s sexual organ in any manner during a homosexual sexual encounter, isn’t it?

Am I somehow out of touch with hot bedroom talk?

I have a hard time envisioning lesbians talking about their “lady boners” in any sexualized manner.

These words make us frivolous…and there’s a time and a place for that talk.  I just don’t like it to be the bedroom.  Let’s play like adults, boys.

Cake.

As much as I bemoan the existence and usage of these words…I don’t loathe them all.  Some of them I even find cute.

I wouldn’t go so far as to say I find cake cute…but when I hear it, I don’t die a little more inside.  My self-analysis is that I give it a pass because it refers to something I envy:  namely, a shapely butt.

Now, when I was young…we called this shapely bum a bubble butt.  Descriptive, but not codifying the subject.  Now, heaven forbid anyone talk about an erogenous part of the body like an adult, so we have cake. 

It does make openly discussing analingus a little less daunting, but it’s my birthday weekend and I’m going to be old…so help me god, if I get confused about the concept of birthday cake and end up in bed with baked goods – well, I mean, that doesn’t actually sound too bad.

THOT

This is gay-speak for That Hottie Over There.  Hearing two people use this word in a gay bar is disorienting.  A couple of years ago, I heard it so many times over the course of one beer that I momentarily thought I’d wandered into a smart gay bar.

Alas.

Now when I hear it, I kind of want to chat the subject up just to show these all talk kids how the art of conversation works.

Thirsty.

And…we’re back to perjorative language.

Maybe I could just not be so grumpy.

Possibly.

Maybe others could just not be such judgy bitches.

It’s truly a toss up.

Not sure it’s easier for me to be less grumpy or to change all of gay culture.

So, this translates to desperate in normal American vernacular.  I’m not saying it’s not a part of reality, some people are desperate.  

At least they know what they want.

My favorite occurrence of this is when I see someone use it in the same conversation that they personally reference a THOT.

So rewarding.

Thicc.

Some of the words gays make up and use at one another are mean.  Just mean.  Thicc is a standout compliment is the made up gay vernacular.

When someone has a solid core, six pack abs, defined obliques – crassly referred to as cum gutters – and the like versus a wasp-like 28″ twink waist, they are thicc.  Ditto tree trunk like thighs.  Thicc.

Nice to know we can be nice to each other on occasion.

But, in true bitchy qween style, we’ve misspelled it to drive home the point that anyone that spends that much time on their physique has a box of rocks between their ears.  It’s my supposition, at any rate.  I was, after all, just a bitchy qwueen.  

In less than a day, though, I’ll be a legit grumpy old man.  Since the 80s and 90s wiped out the better part of a couple generations of potentially old gays – and since gays over 40 are pretty much invisible anyway – we haven’t gotten around to creating a gaybonics word to describe what I’ll be tomorrow.

Wait until the world gets a dose of me.  

Muahahaha.

Gay-bonics

Cuba

galby68, , , , , , 2 Comments

So…here I am, abandoned by the Silver Fox.

Again.  

This time on a month-long adventure to Spain with Sallory.

Me, with no one to drink wine with but Mistress Myrtle the Mean.  All that’s left for me in life is sharing my gift of Oregon-bred passive-aggressiveness.

Er…I mean, write.  Nothing to do but write.

I figure there’s no better time to flesh out this placeholder draft that is earmarked as a guest post for him to share their Cuba adventure from last January.  Yeah, the one he went on instead of sitting around with me, doing nothing on my birthday.

Who’d want to miss that opportunity?

Anyway, as it turns out, not only is Cuba a cool place to visit, but in the near-year that The Fox has been procrastinating (just kidding, he’s not doing it…I just never deleted the post) this, our be-loathed President has undone the work Obama did to open Cuba up to American tourism after a half century of it being a big no-fly zone for vacationing Americans.  So once again, only Americans traveling under certain strict guidelines – like as part of a cultural tour – can travel to this lost in time country.

It’s amazing what changes a year can bring.

Anyway, I can tell you, from the stories I heard, this little island nation could turn American sensibilities – ie: capitalism – on its ear.

Sure, the beaches are amazing in a non-resort-y type way.

Yeah, the cultural arts are untapped treasures.

The architecture is beautiful, albeit in an increasingly decrepit way.

And the people!

The Fox couldn’t talk enough about them.  

There’s the hybrid of tourists from every other nation in the world – well, Canada and Europe, anyway – since we are the only holdout with a travel embargo.  

Again. 

All the way to the juxtaposed relative poverty of doctors and lawyers by comparison to the prestige and wealth those vocations have in our culture.  Many of the cab and bus drivers they he and Sallory encountered were actually moonlighting doctors, which came in particularly handy in the case of the tour bus driver/doctor who was able to render some first aid on a tour he was driving for…wait, now I’m confused about whether that happened on their tour or one of my other friends’ trips.

Nobody ever takes me anywhere nice.  Hehe.

I am sure, though, that it was The Fox that told me about the lawyer moonlighting as an ambulance driver.  

Lawyers…in Cuba, they drive ambulances; in America, they chase them.  

Hashtag: irony.

Then there’s the residents.  In every story I heard, I was impressed with how unaffected they were by the tourist trade aspect of their economy.  Well, mostly unaffected.  I heard countless stories of restaurants where travelers were treated like family, with an unfakeably sincere hospitality.  Or how knowledgeable the tour guides were on history and how easily they shared the culture of the people.  You can’t put a price on that passion.

But for each of those stories, there was a less subtle eschewing of the tourist trade.  Like the men who “entertained” – without judgment – travelers for cash.  Again, though, being a genuine population, they were known to share their life stories with their guests…telling their male and female clients equally about their families – including their children.  Can you imagine the sensibility and life circumstance that affords you the opportunity to turn tricks to provide for your kids and family without simultaneously being anything other than genuinely grateful for the financial resource?

I don’t even know how I feel about that, and I’m from liberal Oregon!

A little less conflicting is the story of the 90 year old woman, sitting in her doorway and smoking a Cuban cigar like she had no fucks to give…and charging tourists for the privilege of a photo op with her.

That’s a slightly less dire example of how this somewhat upside down culture was embracing capitalism.

And then there’s the cars.

We all know the island is basically a classic car museum…but why not take it one step further and let Disney turn it into an amusement park?

I mean, seriously, by all accounts, the infrastructure there is severely lacking.  From buildings on the verge of collapse to an airport that can barely handle three planes at a time.

Think about it.

Flotilla rides.

A Haunted Soviet Mansion tour.

The Bay Of Pigs Mystery Dinner Theater.

Tobacco Picking and Craft Cigar Workshop.

The people are definitely accustomed to the hospitality trade, all we gotta do is teach them to run rides and we’re set.

I’m sure we could ruin that island in no time…maybe our Bigot-in-Chief did them an inadvertent favor by shutting the island off to us again.

Oh well, I can always use a good excuse for a quick trip to Vancouver, BC…gotta get done of them Cuban cigars!

Cuba