Dating Into Oblivion: episode 9

December 16, 2018December 16, 2018 galby68#beer, #coffee, #dating, #datingintooblivion, #diezel, #earlyonsetgrumpiness, #gay, #grumpyoldman, #lostboys, #portland, #relationships, #rib, #thebiglegrowlski, #thesilverfox16 Comments

So, I met this guy.

Oh, wait…can you believe that it’s December and I’ve only managed 9 DIO entries on a goal of one per month?

I can.

And one is still in draft form. Maybe I’ll mothball it. Heck, maybe I’ll finish strong! January had four bachelors – even though they were all no shows, if I recall correctly – so I’m giving myself partial credit for that effort and saying that right now, I am at 12/12 on the year. Plus, there was my Halloweentime attempts at dating that resulted in multiple ghosts and/or false starts, so I’d put my attempts on the year closer to 14…

Still, just to goose actual in person failures – er, attempts maybe I’ll go ask out both of the cute baristas here at Nossa Familia and then go shopping for a New Years Eve outfit.

Just kidding, I’m not going out on NYE! Way too crowded. Way too many amateurs.

I ran across our latest potential late one evening late last month while swiping left on all of the jokers OKStupid thought would be good matches for me.

Sidenote: Seriously, OKC, “opposites attract” is an irony. Stop sending me emails about guys that managed to score a 60% compatibility using your algorithm. Either they were too lazy to answer enough questions to generate a legitimate compatibility score or we aren’t compatible. I don’t need to be reminded by you that I’m a tough sell. As a matter of fact, I think there is a bar one must clear to activate a profile on OKC, but it’s ridiculously low, like answer five questions. If you’re trying to set yourself apart from hookup sites and apps, maybe raise that to 50 and set it up so that they have to answer at least five questions from each of your ethics, dating, lifestyle, sex and other buckets before they can activate a profile.

Mkay?

Thnx.

Anyway, furthering my quest to prove or disprove my Rib Theory that getting a guy fresh off the boat in your town is a solid plan, I swiped right on this guy. He’d actually mentioned in the first line of his bio that he’d just moved to Portland.

For all you readers that closely monitor the ages of the (almost, in a completely unshocking double entendres) men that I date, he is also 33, which puts him squarely in the Damn Near Old Enough to Not Be My Son category. I actually can’t even wrap my head around a scenario where someone my age has a child his age, but I know that it’s biologically possible.

I actually enjoy the heaps of shit people give me for dating younger guys. Linda Belcher refers to my dates as being “from the half-off rack”, another pretty legit double entendres since they are much younger than me but also fairly scratched and dented. Another pointed out that this new guy was “one whole year” older than Rib and then drily complimented me on my growth…they failed to take into account that Rib was merely 24 when I met him, though. He’s 32 now, so really I think I earn a prop or two for starting in with someone a third older than him at the starting line.

Feel free to take a minute to regroup after that epic rationalization. I have a lot more experience with my crazy than you do, friends. Trust me, though, I know my mental contortions can result in dizziness. Possibly nausea.

Anyway, I decided to check out this guy’s bio to see what a 94% compatibility actually looked like. He actually answered a lot of questions. Hundreds. After ascertaining that we clicked enough minimal boxes to invest, I messaged him.

So, when you say “new to town”…how long have you *really* been here?

To my surprise, I woke up to a new message from him. He’d been in town six days…and I was off to the races. We traded messages on OKC for the rest of the week and on Friday night, he started putting out – not that way, Diezel – messages that I should ask him out.

So I did.

He declined.

Little psychopath.

Just kidding. He legit had a good reason, and a bad one.

The bad reason was just lame. Not that I cared. He’d been working on his bedroom at his new apartment and all of his going out clothes were back at his hotel. Again, not that I cared how he was dressed…this is Portland, after all. Plus, I’m probably the jeans and tee-shirt guy prototype, so really, I didn’t care how he was dressed.

But on the other hand, his pod was arriving the next day, so going out the night before moving day wasn’t the optimal situation, obviously.

But when I checked in the following Monday to see how his first day on the new job had gone, our texting led to me inviting him out to try what I call the best beer in Oregon, Barley Brown’s Pallet Jack IPA. You can only get it on tap and I know the one bar in the area that always has it on tap.

It isn’t Big Legrowlski.

It’s this dive bar that I’ve gone to off and on – more on now that it’s only about ten blocks from my place – for about 20 years. It’s called Kelly’s Olympian, and it’s pretty cool. There’s motorcycles suspended from the ceiling and neon gas station and repair shop signs hung on the walls. And they always have Pallet Jack. The one time they blew a keg while I was there, they had a back up keg to put on.

Anyway, he accepted the offer. Not only did he accept, he countered with meeting up the following day. I had been trying to veil my invitation to weeknight drinking with a drink – or two, as it happened – with the weekly cubicle dweller holiday known as Hump Day. But it’s not like I had anything else going on a Tuesday night, so game on!

Of course, Tuesday started five days of rain. The biblical type, too. Our first real inclement weather of the Fall season.

Talk about a harbinger.

But we each arrived, a little damper for the pedestrian transit. Turned out, he liked the beer…which didn’t surprise me a bit. We chatted comfortably for a couple hours and each enjoyed two Pallet Jacks.

Our conversation was alternately serious and fun, not a bad way to get acquainted. He talked about not assuming others’ intentions, but seeking to understand before reaching a conclusion. I really like this challenge. I call it a challenge because I also struggle to live that ideal. It’s hard. I’ve been a wise-cracking asshole for so long that it’s hard for me to let people prove themselves before judging their intent.

Actually, if the Myers-Briggs personality tests are to be believed, I’m a perceiver not a judger.

Following Myers-Briggs down their rabbit hole, I’m an EFNP.

Go ahead, look.

The long and short of it is that I’m a dating nightmare. Not to foreshadow, but that intuitive versus sensor bucket really works against me.

One of the other conversations we had came up when I mentioned that I’d been single following Rib for four years, roughly the same length we were together. I think he had assumed that it was a bad break up. I’d said something about still seeking a successful relationship. I clarified that Rib and I still enjoy a very nice friendship, a success in its own right. Then he said something that I found really interesting.

Why do people think of a relationship ending as a failure? If you tell someone you were in a rock band for twenty years, they’ll probably think that you were pretty successful musician. Why is it different for relationships?

Ok, that flipped a mental table. I really enjoyed that analogy.

Maybe we were talking about his parents or the Silver Fox, who were each divorced after decades of marriage. Memories get a little fuzzy midway through a second beer for me.

My only counterpoint was that maybe it’s in how it ends. Someone in a rock band for two decades is likely left with a moderate amount of wealth. If they truly were successful. People leaving a marriage after two decades are left with an intimacy vacuum.

At the very least.

Money doesn’t fill a void like that.

Still, I did enjoy the analogy.

We parted, in a drizzle. He hugged me and kissed my cheek – I’m not usually one for kissing on the first date. If we only end up friends, now I’ve kissed a friend, and that’s not a usual behavior of mine. So, the kiss on the cheek was an unexpected surprise.

He promised to send me his number on OKC so we could get together again and then said I didn’t have to walk him to his bus stop. He’d demurred on both of my offers to pick him up at his office for our date, so I was forming the opinion that he was either reserved or independent and wanting to find his own way versus being shown. I actually hadn’t intended to offer to walk him when I asked him where his stop was. I was trying to figure out if we were heading the same direction. When he told me where he was heading, I said I was heading the opposite way and said good night.

When I turned in for bed that night, I sent him a thank you message on OKC while resisting the urge to assume anything about how he didn’t use his 20 minute bus ride to send me his number. My message was really just a way to indicate that I’m not one of those dating game types that thinks waiting X days after a date is the cool way to date.

He responded pretty much immediately.

I pushed down the impulse to label his behavior and replied that I’d shoot him a text at a more reasonable hour and clicked off my nightstand lamp.

The next day we texted a lil bit.

The next day, I offered to take him out for a little bit riskier drink. The dive bar happy hour date had come in right at my $20 first date limit. Well, excluding gratuity. My second date idea was Portland City Grill in Portland’s tallest building – actually, there might be a taller structure now. Regardless, it has views like this

…from about 30 floors over Portland, which I think any newcomer would surely appreciate. That said, this ain’t no $20 date. He had said that he liked martinis, particularly, real martinis with vermouth, dirty and with onions instead of olives. A twist in the summer versus onions.

We laughed at how people who made martinis without even a trace of vermouth were just drinking vodka, but I made note of the order. I’m attentive like that, despite how I struggle with how ordering a date’s drink could be misconstrued and #metoo-ed.

Anyway, Portland City Grill’s cocktails are probably $12-15 each, so…yeah, this wasn’t a $20 date.

He suggested the following day, Friday. Yesterday. I agreed, which was followed up by him offering to wait til early next week to avoid the crowds I loathe so much. I found that kind, and attentive in its own right but committed to perseverance.

It was just one drink, after all. I wouldn’t mind two, but I was cognizant of the fact that he was both coming from work and had mentioned he was a lightweight. My intention was neither to pour him onto a bus nor end up with him at my place…so, probably just one drink.

I sent him a confirmation text at noon-ish the next day to make sure we were still on for that evening.

He responded immediately with

Can we please reschedule for Monday?

Turns out that some co-workers were going out after work and invited him along. Setting aside my grumpy old man-ness, I told him we could reschedule and to go get his networking on.

He read it immediately, but didn’t respond.

Why do people leave or turn on read receipts for their texts? Seriously, the only reasons I can think of are that they are clueless that they are on or it’s so you know they’re blowing you off.

Anyway, this is where being an intuitive type works against me: I’m prone to noticing patterns.

It was one thing to reschedule. It was another to not say “thanks for understanding” or even “sorry” when he did so.

I’d enjoyed meeting this guy. He and I were a good match according to the folks that wrote the OKStupid algorithm. He was fun to talk to, seemed to have some good life experiences under his belt and just engaging.

That said, I’d decided not to write this until today so that we’d have two dates under our belts and I’d have an idea how I felt about him. What direction I hoped this to go in. You see, algorithms aside, he’s an attractive guy…but hairy.

Generally, I’m attracted to smooth guys. I’m getting past guys that aren’t clean shaven, I live in hipster-ville, after all. But I haven’t really gotten into being attracted to guys with chest hair. And this fella is a hairy motherfucker. But, I am challenging myself to set aside that immediate spark qualifier that I’ve relied upon when meeting people. Look where it’s gotten me, after all.

Yet, here I am…Saturday. The day I intended to write this entry, if for no other reason than my December output has been meager. Only, I hadn’t successfully crossed my two date threshold.

Since it seemed like a pretty arbitrary goal – two dates – I decided to write this entry anyway. As I’m sitting at Nossa, sipping my coffee and tapping this out, I jump over to OKC to double-check a quote from our messages there.

He’s on.

Now, I can’t fully explain why this wrankled me so. I think it was because he’d never thanked or apologized to me for post-poning on me yesterday.

So, I just sent him a text message.

Your actions are giving me a “not interested” vibe.

I know that this is more than likely to offend someone, in the case that they aren’t interested and aren’t being clear. On the other hand, if it’s not intentional, it at least opens the door to conversation about how I ended up at that…perception.

Being a native Portlander, I take a lot of guff for our reputation for being passive-aggressive. I offset this through my actions, namely: being direct in my communication.

Of course he responds immediately.

Now he chooses to be in the moment. Surprising no one he says he had fun and would like to be my friend.

Oddly, he still didn’t apologize that I felt that way or take any accountability for how I’d gotten that hint. My least favorite language, right there: hint.

One of the patterns this intuitive person tends to recognize is that pattern where people fail to accept responsibility for their actions. I’m responsible for my feelings, and try to be equally responsible for my actions…so expecting others to acknowledge their own actions and their fallout seems pretty fair to me. I’m also not one who is going to get all butt-hurt about someone makes me feel. I gave them the power to make me feel hurt, I can easily take it away.

Something, Felicia…

What he didn’t know in his offer of friendship – genuine or simply another sentence in hintonese – was that I expect more of my friends than my lovers. Relationships come and go – successful, as he frames them, or not – but people I call friend are in my life indefinitely. We may not see each other every day or every week. I’ve some friends I only see once a year, but we know each other and when I see them, it seems like yesterday.

I told him his actions yesterday didn’t seem like he’d make a good friend for me. After explaining why, I said

If you’ve got the balls to not be offended by that, then the <ahem> ball is in your proverbial court.

He texted me back, but I’m not in any hurry to read it. So far today, his texts have shown that he’s more interested in preserving the perception that he’s a good guy versus actually – y’know – being one.

If he wants to show me he’s someone else versus another typical lost boy, he’ll put some effort into it.

In the meantime, this is me…not holding my breath.

Oh, Bother…

October 12, 2018October 12, 2018 galby68#blogging, #chrisism, #coffee, #earlyonsetgrumpiness, #grumpyoldman, #stupidamericans, #thesilverfox21 Comments

I think being bothered is a good thing. Keeps you present.

That just fell out of my mouth earlier this week while The Fox and I were at coffee.

The cafe manager had stopped by to talk while he grabbed a quick break. We always have enjoyable chats when he can take a moment like that with one or both of us. He and The Fox have actually had beers together a few times, too. When I get the download from those conversations, I’m not jealous of them…but I can appreciate that I missed something good.

But, to be clear, my bother in this particular conversation isn’t the same as our childhood pal

…and while I have friends and colleagues who have referred to me as Pooh’s human friend, I think over the years we’ve known each other that has congenially morphed into Grumpy Old Xtopher.

Since that moniker doesn’t lend itself to Pooh’s famously mild expletive, you can call me Whiny the Pooh for this post.

Because that’s more my style!

While I think my state of botheredness fluctuates depending on my real or perceived infraction, these moments really do keep me present. Both in my surroundings, but also in my own behaviors.

Who knew being the non-violent version of Hannibal Lecter would actually not only help me be a better person personally but also hopefully help me to be a better part of my community? Hopefully, if I’m bothered by someone else’s behavior, I don’t go on to become guilty of the same thing.

Sadly, as low a bar as that statement represents, I think more often than not, that’s actually what enables others to validate their own poor behaviors. Welcome to the United States of Kindergarten.

Yesterday I went to the Apple Store with my parents to get help with my mom’s new iPhone. They had an appointment for 2:10 and we showed up around quarter to 2:00 to check in. The associate checking us in told us that their appointment was actually 2:20…but said we were welcome to wait. We asked if that would end in us being seen sooner and when getting an uncertain reply, decided to go across the street for coffee and come back.

For as smooth as the process of checking us in and getting us staged went – maybe we just didn’t really care since we had coffee – we ended up at the Genius Bar just about on time.

I guess not so for the woman next to me. I heard her complaining to an employee she shanghaied about their wait, and “how much longer it would be?” The associate checked his iPad and said, “Looks like your appointment was at 2:30, and we’re only a little behind, so it shouldn’t be too much longer!”

I checked my phone.

It was 2:35.

Really, lady?!?

“Ok, well my son has another appointment across the river at 3:00, so the sooner the better!”

Nonono.

This is not ok. Now, we were only about seven blocks from the river, but our evening rush hour starts as early as 2:00 and we were smack dab in the middle of downtown. Even if her son’s appointment was literally just on the other side of the water, the bridges become a pinch point during the evening commute.

A half hour drive time would not be unreasonable.

What was she thinking?!?

I don’t know, it probably sounded a lot like “me, me, me”, though. Now what she was doing was making this someone else’s problem when it was completely her own doing. Even worse, in taking an appointment slot that was unworkable for her, she took a slot that could have worked for someone else.

Now she was trying to manipulate this poor guy into jockeying around the customers so she could go first. To his credit, he held firm with, “Well, it looks like there’s just one iPhone ahead of yours, so it shouldn’t take too much longer!” in a cheerier voice than I would have given her.

At least mentally.

This reminded me of another instance from earlier in the week. It actually made me take a picture as it came hot on the heals of my quote at the beginning of this blog post.

This basic is demonstrating what it is to be not present.

Which, in turn, bothered me.

The sign she is standing right next to says, “Please Wait Here…” as I’d been watching her, two people had walked up and asked her if she was waiting – one of them was the Silver Fox, who was excitedly awaiting his flu shot – and I’d only been watching her for a couple of minutes. Now, she could have certainly chosen to sit in the waiting area while she waits for her Rx to be filled. She knows the chairs are there, she set her tablet and handbag in one of them.

Having chosen to stand in line instead, you’d think after enough people asked if she was in line, perhaps – just maybe – she’d think to herself, “Self, I think I should get out of the way”.

No…not our girl.

She’s so unpresent that she didn’t even notice me overtly taking her picture from about 5 feet away.

This seems like a good moment to check in with my Drag Queen Spirit Animal.

Now you know why she’s my Spirit Animal. Every other homo – of a certain age – remembers her infamous cameo/quote from the pre-turn of the century gay film festival darling, Trick. She shared her wisdom with us there, giving that entire generation of gays the 411 on the perils of getting semen in your eye…

So, yeah…that’s good to know if you’re some run of the mill Stupid American. But this gay guy didn’t need to be told that was an experience best skipped.

What can I say? I have uncommon knowledge as it turns out.

So, as entertaining as Coco is, whether in a cameo in Trick or Will & Grace or even my beloved Arrested Development…my love for her was cinched the first time I saw her “That bothers me” schtick on stage. There was a mental click when she stated it, so simple. It’s when it hit me that shit is gonna bother me, but screaming and yelling about it – tilting, if you will – is just gonna make me look like a crazy Don Quixote type. I can be bothered and still lead a relatively normal life.

Shut up, Everyone That Knows Me.

Moving on…

Oh, look! A story about the least present people on the planet! One whose headline tells me that basically, I already know everything that story has to offer.

I’ve long lamented the influence those people have over American culture and the direct influence they have in making our culture an increasingly frivolous and anonymous one.

They have simultaneously taught us to be vacuous while managing to keep us incessantly keeping up with them.

Not me, just to be clear.

I wouldn’t watch them hold hands and jump off a cliff…because, they bother me and could even prove annoying to me while doing something that was inherently a net positive for the world.

But, an unexpected side effect of the bother they add to my life is that they keep me present in not ignoring the things that matter in life like they seem to as a family. When I say “the things that matter”, I mean everything beyond their “me, me, me” behavior.

Meanwhile, back in WordPress Land, I just barf these amusing yet niggling annoyances of mine into the void and walk away. And it’s not like them there Kardashians…for me, it’s not about “the likes” here. WordPress is a group of people that want to write for the sake of creating, or educating, or entertaining…or, yeah, like me: therapy.

That said, I do like the likes and comments because they enhance the experience of writing for me. I tend to try – how noncommittal was that? I need a Yoda, “There is no ‘tend to try’ only tend or not tend” – to participate and interact with other writers that I follow to show them the same support and encouragement they show me. But since I follow about five dozen other writers, I often get behind and visit my half dozen favorites more than the rest.

Which is why seeing this today on one of my favorite writer’s blog posts kind of bothered me.

What’s missing in that red circle was the feedback buttons. This is another recent entry from her that demonstrates the usual set up:

This woman is a funny writer. She has a great voice and style and usually spells everything correctly. Isn’t it nice of me to blank out her name so you can’t go follow her?

What’s great to me is that she writes about being a mom and living in suburbia – two things that are far afield from my life experience – in a manner that draws me in and amuses me. She makes me understand and sympathize with her struggles…and chuckle along with her as she does her own screaming into the WordPress void.

The post that she turned off feedback buttons for was one of her funniest yet, in my opinion. It involved an improperly stored “lady’s little helper” that her son discovered next to her as she woke up.

Ok, we haven’t all been there, clearly. But just imagine the shargrin that people could have contributed in the comments. Because there’s for sure plenty of fun anecdotes out there, this I know.

Also, shargrin = Share + chagrin = Chrisism. It’s like the opposite of schadenfreude. Instead of enjoying someone else’s embarrassment, you empathize with them and share a similarly embarrassing moment.

Since shargrin is – basically – most of my life, I’m bothered to not be able to participate in this post. But also, it bothers me that she deprived herself of the opportunity to salvage her parental dignity by closing off comments. It’s like she tossed her story into the void and walked away from it.

That’s not very present.

But I still liked the post…I just think that the feeling of forgiveness she cost herself by not hearing her readers’ shargrin ultimately sold herself short. For the record, though, she was present where it counted most: helping her son understand his feelings about what he witnessed.

I guess, ultimately, that makes her a lot like me: not perfect, but present and accountable enough to bother trying to be better. The kids I had coffee with today gave me something that was an unexpected gift.

Try to be 1% better today than you were yesterday.

“Like…every day?”, I asked.

Yup!

“But that’s – like – a 400% improvement over the course of the year”, I whined.

Yup!

These two cheery motherfuc…I don’t need that type of positivity in my life. Do you know the damage that could do to old Whiny the Pooh?!? Later, they set me back in balance by sending me this

I got a good chuckle out of that. And that’s what motivated me to sit down and tap this out. We don’t have to be perfect or put on a show of false happiness to be good people. We just need to be aware enough of our own shit to be able to know the difference between how our actions affect others and the world around us.

Are you the shit or a shit?

People…

September 4, 2018September 4, 2018 galby68#blogging, #earlyonsetgrumpiness, #grumpyoldman, #pearldistrict, #portland, #stupidamericans, #thesilverfox8 Comments

When people get on my nerves, I try to do something intentionally nice to make up for my general grumpiness.

Case in point:

I wandered out for a little dinner this afternoon and ended up at Laughing Planet, a few blocks from my house. It’s kinda a nice treat for myself. Super flavorful but healthy food.

Right across the hall from Hot Lips Pizza – well, more a gauntlet than a hallway for yours, fatly – so getting there was a victory in and of itself.

I’d been to coffee with the Silver Fox, where he spent some time on my favorite topic to not bitch about: e-scooters. Everyone else has the topic covered for me, so I can just effortlessly absorb the outrage.

So I’m standing between the two doors at Laughing Planet waiting to order when I realize there’s a woman at the other door. Since I’m only pretty sure that I was first, I let her go first, after asking if she was ready.

“I think so! Thank you!”, she says, bouncing her toddler on her hip. Her hubby and other child had just taken off for Hot Lips after making their plans to order and regroup.

This lady gets to the counter and then pulls a menu out of the holder, contrary to all things “ready“. In case I missed that maneuver, she then proceeds to ask multiple questions about substitutions, complete her order, add an entire second entree – with additional questions so extra that the associate has to go ask a co-worker for an answer, interrupting his lunch break – to her order, then tell the counter person to wait while she runs across the hallway to get a coupon from her husband’s phone.

This fucking bitch.

I’m getting hangry at this point, so I don’t step aside as she tries to pass by me in the doorway.

Her husband comes back with her to show the coupon and I kind of feel bad for her, this mother of two with the husband that won’t allow her unsupervised access to his phone.

But that’s just my defective brain.

Once they’re finally settled up, the woman turns around and mouths “Sorry!” at me, dramatically.

I keep mentally repeating my order to myself and give her this face:

While thinking this:

In my defense, in addition to the aforementioned hangry, it’s been a taxing weekend of people.

The e-scooters.

Art in the Park is happening as it does every Labor Day weekend, the park being my front yard. Art being an excuse for Stupid Americans to aimlessly mill around and ruin my grass.

Seriously, I haven’t seen this many straight men tagging along behind their female counterparts since my last Indigo Girls concert. My thoughts are the same: the women are nesting and creating a sense of relationship; the men are putting in their time, hoping this somehow leads to sex.

In addition to hoping to spread their genetics, these people are here capriciously spreading their excessive bridge and tunnel-ness. On my way to Laughing Planet, I watched a large group of people jaywalk against a walk signal. I’ve no problem with jaywalking, I simply prefer to do so mid block and on the diagonal. It’s convenient and prevents what I witnessed from happening: this large group paraded onto the far corner just as the pedestrian with the right of way arrived, but instead of altering their pace or trajectory, meandered carelessly onto the curb while the legit pedestrian stood in a traffic lane.

Nice.

After all of this within a 20 minute timeframe, I leave Laughing Planet with my to-go bowl. Just as I walk out into the hallway, my eyes run into the table across the hall. There are three people eating pizza and I see one of their heads split completely in half, Pac Man style as he tries to chew and simultaneously tell his story.

That takes care of my appetite.

Fortunately, as I arrived home, I was greeted by the sight of artists packing up their damn tents and getting out of the park. Tomorrow morning, life returns to its tolerable normalcy.

Thank gawd.

But I’m left with the feeling that I need to make a point of doing something nice for someone…

I Took A Break

August 18, 2018August 18, 2018 galby68#earlyonsetgrumpiness, #escooters, #grumpyoldman, #pdx, #portland, #portlandia, #stupidamericans, #thesilverfox3 Comments

From being grumpy.

Don’t worry, I’m sure I’ll be back to my normal Grumpopotamus self in the morning.

For today, though?

This has been me:

You see, e-scooters have come to Portland. You’d think I would have strong feelings about them, but I feel like the cacophonous complaints from the rest of the city has drowned me out so completely that I don’t even care any more.

Well, check that. I can still muster a sympathetic lil eye roll when someone else mentions the subject. But otherwise? Meh.

I’ve got 99 problems. E-scooters can be everyone else’s. I’m kind of just glad people are demonstrating an ability to experience the combination of low grade anger and impotence to effect change that is my daily struggle.

Go ahead, shake your fists in the air as these e-scooters silently and quickly surprise you from behind.

Rage at those windmills as people leave them scattered about without thinking of the impact their actions will have on anyone else.

Cluck your tongue in disapproval as you witness obvious violations of the simplest e-scooter operating guidelines.

…for all the good it’ll do you.

To their credit, Lime has made their operating guidelines pretty idiot-proof. To their fault, they seem to have willfully failed to realize that there is no bar so low that a #StupidAmerican won’t try and crawl under it.

Here are the rules, presented as pictographs so you barely need to know how words work to understand.I’m a little bothered that this handbrake thing needs to be explained.

There was one more about avoiding obstacles in the roadway, like potholes. I’m not in love with that one so much because I’m usually rooting for my pal Darwin anytime Stupid Americans are involved.

Hey, I don’t want bad things to happen to people. I do, however, expect their actions to support that they don’t want bad things to happen to themselves either, though.

Anyway, I’ve been listening to people carp about this or that e-scooter issue for a few weeks now. Most of the complaints tend to be one of three things:

1) Helmets

2) Riding on sidewalks

3) Scooter parking

I pretty much keep my own counsel on these conversations because, Darwin can use a win and I think these scooters can help take some of our bigger idiots out of the gene pool…I know, that was pretty savage. That said, I don’t want that win to come at the expense of some oblivious everyday Joe that’s texting as he walks down the street and trips over a carelessly parked scooter.

AKA: me.

If you remember the picture rules above, you’ll recall that there isn’t anything in the pictures that says “don’t ride on sidewalks”. As a matter of fact, I mistakenly believed that e-scooters were supposed to be used in bike lanes and sidewalks as opposed to traffic lanes.

I think I was wrong. But, aside from the stoplight picture, I only know that because I watched the maybe-minute-long instructional video on the Lime website.

How many people are gonna do that? Certainly not too many of the people complaining about the scooter users.

From what I gather from said video, you shouldn’t use e-scooters on sidewalks. I’m discerning that mainly from the demonstration video, where all scooting was done on the road and sidewalks were only shown with parked scooters. Riders were also told to obey all traffic laws and the helmet advisory was repeated.

Sorry, Darwin, old pal. If riders bother to watch this, you’re gonna get screwed.

Nevertheless, I’m just listening in on these conversations. I’m also assuming that when I complain about my grumpy old man triggers that I look like the sane e-scooter haters and not the frothy-mouthed versions.

It’s my blog, I can delude myself if I want to.

But my voyeuristic pleasure took an upgrade this week when I subscribed to Nextdoor. I’ve been hearing exasperated sighs from the Silver Fox lately when his phone Pavlov’s him and it’s not anything exciting like a text or a juicy news tidbit to fuel our coffee clatch conversation. “It’s just Nextdoor” hell say dismissively, without explaining.

So I joined.

At first, I totally got his exasperation:

Lost cats.

Inconsiderate dog owners.

People seeking recommendations.

But, then…the scooters!

Here’s a little snapshot of the conversation that’s gotten me through the last couple of days. Just my favorite parts, if you’ll pardon my editing out the repetitive stuff.

Hehe…that second guy kinda turned on the Original Poster by telling her that complaining on Nextdoor was pointless.

That last one really gave me an inner tee-hee moment. Not ten whole violations in a single hour!

The scoot-manity!

I just imagined that cranky lady sitting in the Adirondack chairs outside Lovejoy Bakery barely able to enjoy her luxury pastry and alternative milk latte for all the fist shaking she was doing. She sounds like the type that might make the staff make her a new latte since her first didn’t stay hot.

These scooters…they’re like Christmas!

Icing on the cake?

Our local free weekly rag, Willamette Week, ran a story after week one with a headline that basically congratulated us citizens for the fact that only one scooter had ended up in the Willamette River in the first week of use.

Seriously? What did they think would happen?!?

Stupid Americans.

Motivation Monday

August 6, 2018August 6, 2018 galby68#bottledrop, #cardio, #ccslaughters, #coffee, #earlyonsetgrumpiness, #fitness, #forestpark, #grumpyoldman, #hiking, #pdx, #pdxweather, #pearldistrict, #portland, #spin, #thefabulousbakergirls, #thesilverfox1 Comment

There’s a reason I include “What Could Possibly Go Wrong?” in just about any conversation that I can.

It’s hilarious. Even if only in a What About Bob way.

However, there’s a very real answer to the question, too. As I found out today, shortly after leaving the house all amped up to check a few errands off my to-do list…my goals:

Get my recycling dropped off and go to the bank.

Simple, right? I just wanted to get them done before it got too hot.

What.

Could.

Possibly.

Go.

Wrong?

I’d slept amazingly well after popping a melatonin – courtesy of the Silver Fox – around midnight last night. I slept straight through the night and woke up at 9:00!

Seriously.

I’ll take those results.

The Safeway where I drop my recycling and the credit union I bank at are equidistant from my house. In completely opposite directions, of course. I’ve been procrastinating these tasks for close to a week each, so after a great night of sleep, this really seemed like the day to tackle them right off.

I was even leveraging my coffee against completion of the task.

I could go to OnPoint first thing and then stop by f&b – my usual coffee haunt – on the way back. More than likely, I would run into someone outside f&b on my way to the bank and get sucked in, derailing everything.

With that in mind, I was leaning toward recycling first. Originally, I planned to take my recycling with me before my lunch time spin class and drop it off beforehand, since the Safeway is right next door to RevoCycle.

There’s no lunch time class today.

See? This is one of those many possible answers to my question-slash-mantra.

Deciding against putting off my recycling until tomorrow, I bribe myself with coffee fresh from my favorite roaster – Nossa Familia. It’s what they serve at f&b, but they just brew better drinks at Nossa. It’s across from the Safeway in the opposite direction from my spin gym, so very adjacent to my errand running.

I slap my ID label on my green BottleDrop bag and head out.

I have an ongoing struggle with recycling through BottleDrop.

It’s easy, since I don’t have to jockey for position in line with Portland’s homeless to use a reverse vending machine to redeem my bottle and can deposits. I just label my bag, hoof it across the Pearl, scan my card, drop my bag and wait 3-5 days for them to process my redemption refund.

It’s about $.01 per can or bottle, but it’s not too high a premium to not have to do it myself.

I think I made myself dizzy with that last sentence.

Here’s the wrinkle: they lose track of bags all. the. time.

Seriously.

I think they’ve correctly counted and credited three of my bags this year! The rest, I’ve had to wait 7-10 days to make sure they weren’t just behind, email them, wait about 5 more days for a reply and then – like this morning – get an email saying they credited me for my “average bag” value.

I didn’t say it was convenient, right? Here’s what bugs me, if they’ve only credited three of the dozen or so bags I’ve dropped this year…doesn’t that dilute the accuracy of my “average bag”?

I think it does.

I also think one of their processors is stealing bags and selling them to homeless people. I have a jaded, criminal mind.

So, that’s what can possibly go wrong when using BottleDrop.

Also, in a new twist, this can go wrong.

Ok, that I did not see coming.

Also, I just said “not see”…

I pulled a Basic White Girl move and went inside to talk to the manager. Turns out, the drop door is somehow broken. I decided to believe someone tried to break in. He offered to do a manual count for me and immediately followed it up with “I’ve already called someone to do a hand count for another customer”…so, not for me, then.

I decided to accept his co-op offer, knowing the other “customer” he was referring to…the homeless guy I passed on the way in. Then I decided to go across the street to Nossa for my coffee, knowing from prior experience that I had time. If the employee that the manager called to help the other guy showed up while they made my coffee – iced, as always – I’d go back over. Homeless guys, I also know from experience, usually only have about 50 cans at a time to recycle. I learned this during my time working in grocery.

I was telling this to my barista, who then wondered aloud what my plan was if the associate the manager allegedly called didn’t show up.

I told her I’d just run up to Freddy’s – our local branch of Kroger.

To understand why she was amazed, you have to know two things:

First, remember that I don’t drive, so I’m literally hoofing across town,

Second, the Pearl District is part of what Portland calls the the Alphabet District, which is pretty much all contained in the NW quadrant of town.

East-West streets are named sequentially from B-Y, excepting for X and Z, which have no streets. “A” – Ankeny – is on the other side of Burnside, which is in the SW quadrant of town since Burnside divides Portland’s North and South sides.

The North-South streets are pretty much numerical. There are a few standouts like Park, which I live on. My street is between 8th and 9th on Park at Everett.

So, my barista – who is hipster versus lazy – was standing behind her La Marzocco espresso machine at the corner of 13th and Lovejoy. I’m five blocks West and seven blocks North from my place. Her amazement is in my declaration of intent to go from 13th and Lovejoy to Freddy’s which is at 20th and Burnside.

What’s that…seven blocks further West and 10 blocks South? Remember, hipster not lazy. I chuckle and laugh as I grab a napkin to wipe the sweat off the head three feet over my fat gut.

I can use the exercise.

I take my iced, quad shot hazelnut latte and head out, noticing the homeless guy is still waiting for his hand count. Plan C, it is!

I am buoyed by the recollection that there’s an OnPoint Credit Union on the same block as Freddy’s, so this isn’t all bad! I won’t have to hike into SW to do my banking.

Bright side, right?!?

Riding my frustratingly endless wave of no income, I don’t have much reason to visit my credit union these days. But last week, I decided I wanted to rearrange my furniture to open up my lil one bedroom condo and make more room.

The only problem?

I have too much furniture. Well, technically, I probably have just enough furniture. Unfortunately, my bedroom has these really user unfriendly built ins that displaced my dresser to the living room.

It’s a TV stand now.

Luckily, I have – had – two dinner tables. One folds down and converts to a side table. I figured I’d sell that one initially. Once I started rearranging, though, it made a better flow to get rid of the other one.

So, I did.

Then I finished rearranging my living room and went out to treat myself to a congratulatory beer. I actually only had time to do this since one of the Fabulous Baker Sisters had had to cancel our plans to get together that afternoon. Since I was flying solo, I went to a gay club in Old Town I don’t get to too often. CC Slaughter’s is one of the closest gay bars to my home – 3rd and Davis, in case you want to do the math – and the least douche-y. It’s also home to an acquaintance of mine, one of only three drag bartenders in the country, Madame DuMoore. This was her look the day I visited.

But, she changes it up every damn day, so you never know who you’ll run into when she’s behind the bar.

And she’s just an amazing person and persona, so when she’s not busy, she’s fun to talk to, too!

That wasn’t the case this visit, left with no one to chat with while I drank my beer – I went into the video poker lounge. Truth be told, I was chatting with the guy sitting next to me, my usual MO…only this ‘mo was starting to get a twinkle in his eye, so I decided to make myself scarce.

I had a $50 that my table buyer had used as part of his payment. I mentally waved goodbye to it and slipped it into the machine.

I won $300.

I celebrated with another beer.

And then another.

I had paid myself back my $50 and kept playing with the rest.

Kept.

Winning.

Feeling full, belly and pockets, I left the bar with $1200. Being slightly – what’s the word? – buzzed, I made it a block toward my place before thinking, “Hey, $1200 is almost my rent money! I should keep going.”

Drunken Logic is so prudent.

I leveraged my “wisdom” with a limit of one beer and headed over to a dive at 5th and Couch.

Well, that beer turned out to be too expensive, so I stayed for another. Boy, that beer was all over the map. I ended up only managing to leave with $1000 still in my pocket, but still presenting me with a too rare reason to visit a bank.

Long stories for two tasks, eh?

Well, this is my life…I can usually find something funny in even it’s most mundane tasks. Or something to grump about…while still chuckling at my frustrations.

Feeling accomplished, I decided to keep my Monday motivation going. At 20th and Burnside, I was pretty close to Washington Park, where I don’t get to that often. I know it somehow connects up to Forest Park, though I’ve not managed to get lost enough to figure out exactly how or where. Since I’ve only been there once this year, I decided on an urban hike.

I cracked out a nice lil sweat and a five mile hike. But that’s s blog post for another day. Time to fold laundry!

I Had an Idea On My Way to a Tiny House Warming

July 30, 2018July 30, 2018 galby68#biketown, #blogging, #chosenfamily, #earlyonsetgrumpiness, #grumpyoldman, #pdx, #portland, #portlandia, #samadams, #theyesgame, #unipiper7 Comments

107-ish weeks ago, I posted an entry about a party that I’d been invited to and to which, I had actually gone. What was unique about it was that it was an invite from someone outside my inner circle, so my comfort was not necessarily assured.

This party was part of the impetus for my writing project that year. I called it #TheYesGame and the goal was…well, fairly obvious.

Well, I’m proud (?) to say that yesterday, I said yes again! While I’m sure there were additional moments of success in The Yes Game in the intervening 107 weeks, I’m still a grumpy old man at heart. What that means is that my reply to an invitation is more likely to be “maybe” versus “fuck, yeah”.

Still, yesterday’s party in question wasn’t too risky compared to the Garden Party of 2016. Back then, I only knew the host, not any guests. As a matter of fact, I really only knew the host as a service provider…he was my hair guy. I was confused about whether he was inviting me as a date or simply a guest. My confusion was enhanced because I really wanted to coitus him like a white guy.

None of these factors was in play yesterday.

The hosts yesterday are known to me through my inner circle friends. I guess that makes them second ring friends, right outside my Chosen Family. So, I really like them. Additionally, without confirming with any of our mutual friends, I had a high degree of certainty that I’d run into someone I know at the party besides the hosts.

That didn’t happen, but just like in the Garden Party of ’16, I had a really good time!

In both cases, I was able to find people to chat with and just be sociable. Plus, I got to see the hosts’ new Tiny House, which was the whole purpose of their party.

One thing that was different and surprising this time around was the getting there. Proverbial wisdom suggests that it’s half of the actual fun, right?

Well, yesterday I had to choose a means of getting there. Since it was hotter than Hades yesterday, I chose Uber over the bus.

The hosts aren’t MAX adjacent, so I didn’t have the option of taking a train. On a really hot day, I can tolerate a train…buses, though are kind of ugh on a normal day.

Anyway, as I’m wont to do in most situations, I just started chatting with the driver. Well, it’s that or attaching my face to my phone for the duration.

It’s my experience that most Uber drivers drive part-time as a means of supplementing their income. Yesterday, I had an Uber Unicorn – a full-time driver!

He went on to say that if anyone ever did an Uber Driver Reality Series, he was going to be on it.

…and, my imagination was off to the races.

I started with suggesting that the series could follow a Real Housewives type format, but that my preference would be to have more of a Portlandia vibe to the production.

Sure, it would be cool to give these featured drivers a communal garage and/or living space. But that latter feature feels kinda Real World-y. The Pacific Northwest hadn’t really embraced those types of shows in the past, though.

Additionally, Uber’s vehicle standards is kind of elitist, but only inasmuch as they want to protect the value of the experience their service provides. That standard lends credence to more of a Real Housewives-type luxury. Again, not very PNW-y.

For those reasons of exclusion, my gut said a Portland based reality show would have to come from a more quirky concept.

So, we’re back to Portlandia.

Obviously we’re gonna have to design our own app. The benefit there is that you can work in the usage waiver for appearing on camera to the Terms and Conditions.

No blurry faces on my show!

The point of the app is the same, basically. My vehicle standards would just be appropriately Portland-ized. Less this

More this

Imagine finishing up with your date, a great dinner or show or what have you and opening up the Uber app only to find it’s surge pricing.

Screw that!

What better reason do you need to open up the Portland version and get a ride? Sure, you’ll be on TV – and probably a lil buzzed – but you won’t get gouged by da man.

Then this guy pulls up

That would make for an interesting ride home.

The next day you could ask yourself, “Did I not get any because I’m cheap or because I traumatized my date by making her get into that car?!?”

But the real twist on my program wouldn’t be weird cars. It would be alternative transportation.

Maybe even a power share vehicle…our own version of a fare split.

We are kinda famous for our weird means of getting around. Electric Scooter shares just launched in town. We’ve got BikeTown stations all over the place. Segue commuters are as common as our Segue Tour service.

The person skateboarding down the street is equally likely to be a 50-something as they are to be wearing a wedding dress. I’m just saying we take it to its next illogical incarnation with a ride share app that is distinctly us.

Of course, there’s only a couple of options for moderators that come to mind. It’s got to be either our controversial and quirky former mayor

Or this guy

Obviously.

Because, like I said earlier, getting there is half the fun!

So…anybody know Andy Cohen? Hook me up.

A Funny Thing Happened On The Way To My Disillusionment

July 23, 2018July 23, 2018 galby68#aging, #asocialmedia, #blogging, #chrisism, #earlyonsetgrumpiness, #gay, #grumpyoldman, #pride, #stupidamericans6 Comments

No secret here, I love social media. It’s a great source of entertainment and usually makes me think more and allows me to engage more than just watching TV.

It’s also no secret that I loathe certain aspects of social media. Particularly the dating apps – which I call asocial media – that I believe are undermining our humanity as an American culture. Pretty much I blame the gays for turning dating apps into hook up apps and the straights for falling for the notion that it was a good thing.

Then there’s the Trolls.

And the social media sites that are just testimonies to ignorance or racism or bigotry.

So much ugh.

But there’s also snarky and amusing private groups on social media that I love being a part of. Places where the goal is just good fun, from who can be grossest to inappropriate-but-equally-not-serious racism and sexism to meme commentary on our political backslide.

I saw this the other day on one such page that’s called Seriously, Don’t Be So Serious. I can tell you the name cuz you can’t get in without a sponsor, so neener-neener-neener.

There’s a lot of layers going on here. That’s a key component to good humor in my mind…not that there’s anything wrong with a good Dad Joke!

First, this is a still from Mommie Dearest. The film version of Christina Crawford’s story of growing up as the adopted child of Joan Crawford, a notorious Hollywood monster from the days of the Silver Screen. She’s played to camp perfection by Faye Dunaway, who earned a couple of Best Actress nominations for her work. But the real validations were the Razzie and Stinker awards and nominations this film garnered. As a matter of fact, I don’t think it lost any Razzie or Stinker award that it was nominated for, including Worst Actress, Worst Supporting Actress, Worst Film And Worst Film of the DECADE!

It was destined to be a camp classic. Completely embraced by the gay community for Dunaway’s scenery chewing acting, but on a deeper level for the story it represents. Not Crawford’s fame and narcissism, but for the fact that her adopted children were able to survive it and find a life beyond it.

That last bit is something that anyone who struggles with adversity in their young lives – like accepting their sexuality and coming out – can relate to. At least those generations when coming out was an ordeal.

Not today. Gladly!

But on the other hand, it was funny because it exploited Trump being forced to walk back his support of Putin over his own Intelligence Community by saying he misspoke and meant to say he couldn’t see why it “wouldn’t” have been Russia meddling in our 2016 election when he had actually stated that he didn’t see why it would have been Russia. Even in his apology to America that wasn’t, he still managed to say that it could also have been so many other people besides Russia.

The internet lost its tenuous grasp on civility.

Twitter was aflutter with memes and commentary depicting the ironic opposite of things that have happened. Christina Crawford’s quote from Mommie Dearest was “I’m not one of your fans, Mother!”

And it was sublimely hilarious since – by her account – all mama Joan ever wanted from her adopted children was an extension of the same blind love and adulation her fans provided. She was represented as a true Covert Narcissist.

The comment thread was an amusing and harmless bit of cattiness and snark.

It was all good natured and in good fun, until this one.

What bugged me about this was not just that people had already posted a link to the movie for those folks who weren’t familiar – so he was commenting on this without reading the whole story – but that he seemed to go out of his way to age shame those of us who did understand it.

My response:

Maybe my frustration at the flippant and dismissive “I’ll ask my 70 yr old mother” is too serious for this thread…especially since the answer is in the thread.

Worse yet would be someone who truly might not know about why Christina Crawford’s story is important to the gay community as more than just a throwaway campy quote not having a peer group outside his mother that could help illuminate him.

That’s on all of us in the LGBTQ community.

What a tragedy it would be if gay culture had a shelf life of only a decade or so. We need to understand and embrace icons that do more than *read* each other for ratings.

Why people that had to overcome things like abuse – even losing their lives in some cases – provided us the visibility, representation and freedom we have today and not take it for granted.

If we allow our community to blithely joke about their own lack of generational continuity, we’re gonna lose sight of what our community is outside our own cliques.

So, kudos to everyone on this thread who said it’s not ok to not know stuff and bothered to share the knowledge.

Bigger kudos to anyone who was curious enough to want to understand and educate themselves.

Sorry…like I said, maybe too serious a thought for this group.

I’ll sashay away for now.

PS: totally giving a hall pass on the issue to straight people on this thread…😬

…I deleted my comment.

At that point, I felt frustrated and guilty. Also that I hadn’t stepped on a social media landmine by posting a too serious comment on a humor page. But that punk kid was under my skin.

Was he really participating in the dialogue without bothering to read the actual dialogue?!?

I know! I was being too serious. Still, I was bristling at my own pet peeve that if you’re going to bother talking, you have to be aware that listening is the price of entry. This kid not reading the comments before joining the conversation would have just made him look ignorant if he hadn’t gone one step further and intimated that no one under age 70 would understand this.

Too far.

But I edited my comment down to just a basic, “you shouldn’t have to be old to know about this, but maybe gay…and if you’re young and gay then it’s frustrating you don’t know because maybe that’s a sign of how our culture is broke down”.

Shocker, my actual comment was shorter than my paraphrasing of the comment…don’t bother acting surprised.

I also suggested that our culture might have more cohesiveness across generations if we didn’t spend Pride month partying our asses off instead of enriching our young people.

But then again, you can probably infer from my young heckler that there’s not a lot of respect for older gays from the newer versions.

I blame Reagan.

Then, of course, this happened.

It is ok to not like the same things. That’s not what I was taking issue with. I don’t for a moment think that living a life where you “don’t get it” is better than perhaps reading too much context into a situation.

What Could Possibl…

July 14, 2018July 14, 2018 galby68#2.0, #breitbarb, #chosenfamily, #derpthoughts, #diezel, #earlyonsetgrumpiness, #grumpyoldman, #littlebuddy, #mistressmyrtle, #myrtle, #pcs, #pearldistrict, #powells, #thegreatjobhunt, Seattle8 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.

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.

Where Are They Now?

July 3, 2018July 3, 2018 galby68#asocialmedia, #blogging, #earlyonsetgrumpiness, #fitness, #gay, #grumpyoldman, #lostboys, #relationships8 Comments

I’ve actually read a couple of blogs recently that have revived this snarky thought of mine.

It started a long time ago. Before the turn of the century, in fact. It began as a Where Are They Now for the gay “It” idols of the day – Kristen Bjorn porn stars.

Somehow this porn producer had managed to export every superficial SoCal gay attribute and imbue a cadre of Eastern European men with them and <ahem> whip out scores of videos that ruined positive body image health for gay men. Well, not single handedly, to be sure, but it was definitely a piece of the catastrophe.

Of course, the luster was short lived for me and I began to start thinking of these poor potentially exploited boys more like gayveal than physique role models.

Anyway, I just held that random “Where Are They Now” thought in the back of my mind as a reality check for the over- sexualized subculture of which I was a part.

A touchstone for reason.

This morning, one of the bloggers that I follow posted an interesting entry. His blog is a combination of short-form writing and pictorial entries. This morning’s was pictorial and caught me off guard when it included a pic of this guy

who was a gay-world famous underwear model after winning a model search competition from designer Andrew Christian.

To me, he – this model turned nobody – is symbolic of a couple of things:

First, these AC model contests were unique back in the early 20-teens but seemed to occur at the same time that Andrew Christian’s design was jumping the shark.

Suddenly, underwear styles were focused more on push up style structure or peekaboo openings and bare backsides…did we really need to reinvent thongs and jock straps? My gut told me that the marketing campaign was to distract from the functionality or even quality.

You’ve heard me bemoan people who seem to embrace the mantra, “It’s better to look good than to be good”, right?

Well, now you have.

Second, we – and I think I mean we as in American culture, not just gay culture – we’re making celebrities out of people whose only accomplishments seemed to be good genes and a rigid focus on corporeal development versus people with any appreciable skill or talent.

This is alarming in the gay community, particularly, because we already had a propensity to compensate physically for other – sometimes inequality imposed – shortcomings. It was almost like we represented our best selves using our bodies as a billboard.

No big deal.

Except…

We seem to have gotten sucked into the industry of our physical selves and forgotten or minimized the importance of developing our inner selves.

Being good looking and physically fit shouldn’t be a bad thing, but somehow we found a way to ruin it.

Apologies to Michelle Obama.

Good looking men are making a living as go-go boys. Posting admittedly enjoyable pics of them in their underwear in exotic locations for Pride season all over the globe that are riddled with typos.

Redefining the phrase Peter Principle.

During the off-Pride season, too many of these guys end up shooting porn or escorting to maintain their lifestyle and – believe it or not – image.

Now, I’m no prude and certainly don’t condemn porn or sex work. It’s when either industry becomes predatory, preying on the desperate or unadmittedly stupid that I begin to take issue.

That’s not how I want my “Where Are They Now” question answered. I’ve seen too many so-called gay celebrities or community icons die after getting ground up in those industries. Yes, yes…this is all just an extension of my attraction to boys with broken wings.

How I’d like the question answered is with interviews of paunch-gutted male pattern baldness suffering men describing their post-over-exposed-beefcake successes. Six pack abs replaced by a keg sized beer belly and a story of how they built a successful local charity helping homeless gay youth off the street. Flawless skin overrun by a network of telltale drug-addiction scars but an inspiring long term relationship that saved a life by returning someone to not just sobriety but reality.

That’s a documentary that I’d watch.

Remember how this “Where Are They Now” throwback was credited to two recent blog posts that I’d read?

Yeah, well that was the easy one.

The second blog – and more challenging, to be honest – was a piece about good looking guys being shamed.

Didya?

Be honest…did you see that twist coming?

I hate to keep using that meme, but it’s so friggin’ perfect in so many instances.

And I really was not prepared for my thoughts after reading this blog post.

It is short, but in its brevity managed to take to task the people who troll people online that are simply showing off their physical accomplishments.

My thoughts – you know from reading above: slippery slope.

I came away from reading this blog with a yellow flag on my thoughts. I needed to remember that maybe the people who fall down that slope are the tip of the iceberg.

Sure.

I can admit that there’s just a lot of people in the world that are at a more disciplined point in their lives than I am. I’ve been there, I am not there now.

At the same time, I had to admit that I do unfairly criticize these people at times, even if it’s only mentally.

But.

While I’m internally committing to being more generative and appreciative of these physical accomplishments that I envy, I’m simultaneously struggling. Struggling with the reality that there are people who ignore me in my daily online and real life interactions because I am not one of them.

That’s tough.

I know when it’s happening. My less mellowed-with-age self would call it out. If someone ignored me online, I might have sent a final accusatory message that suggested they were bad people for their superficiality.

It wasn’t rewarding because I got to bitch someone out. It was rewarding because the response was usually one of two things:

A) I get so many responses, I can’t reply to them all

Poor thing.

I think the price of entry into the world of social media really should be that one is socially competent. Or at least…social.

It’s a lame excuse and one with an eight keystroke counter argument.

1) Hit Reply

2-7) Hit T H A N K S keys

8) Hit Send

This acknowledges the effort and largely discourages a response by closing the door to further conversation. In doing so, though, it remains social and even more importantly, preserves the self-worth of the sender. Sure, you’re gonna have those few people who don’t speak hint fluently, but that’s the cost of internet fame, eh? Everyone shouldn’t be treated like that worst case scenario.

Alternatively, if that’s too much of a burden, many apps allow you to turn off responses…maybe use those. Problem solved.

B) I’m only here for sex, not friends

Ok, that problem will just take care of itself eventually. Except it will perpetuate the negative and impersonal app-tastic culture we’ve cultivated over the last 20 years in the process.

So the hate and trolling that this guy mentions is familiar, I get it.

Is it a situation where one party bears the blame?

No…not at all.

It’s collateral damage to psychological warfare people don’t even know they are engaged in. I’d wager the majority of the trolls this guy is mentioning didn’t start out as trolls. They probably started out perfectly reasonable and over the course of being ignored repeatedly built up an intolerance that manifests itself by lashing out preemptively at the next sexy guy they see.

How screwed up is that?

Guys aspiring to a physical form that attracts social media attention ignore attention from their less attractive audience building up resentment that manifests itself as what then gets described as trolling or bullying.

Ok, first…make sure you aren’t calling someone a troll because they correct you on the not-overwhelmingly complex correct usage of there/they’re/their.

Second, maybe what we all need to do is infuse our social and real life lives with more compassion.

Point A above goes a long way. Be grateful you’re getting the attention you may not have admitted to yourself you seek. Know enough about interacting with humans to gracefully stop a conversation from progressing. Ignoring a conversation doesn’t make it go away, it alters it’s course.

On the flip side, maybe just stick to correcting real life friends on their grammar. Using the excuse, “They need to know” isn’t any less an abdication of responsibility than “I get too many responses to reply to them all” is when it comes to dealing with people online.

And…after all is said and done here? I realized that I don’t really care where most of these people end up. The great lot of them are Kardashian-esque Lost Boys, so maybe I should just do a little virtual housecleaning and make sure that I’m surrounding myself with people that enhance my happiness versus highlight the things about people that make me unhappy.

It’s been an interesting week in my head, folks.

Love and pizza, yo!

My So-Called Sunny Disposition

June 29, 2018June 29, 2018 galby68#blogging, #earlyonsetgrumpiness, #gay, #grumpyoldman, #sacha, #thegreatjobhunt5 Comments

A funny thing happened on the way to the cafe today.

I demotivated myself.

Again.

AKA: day two…

Earlier this week, I publicly announced my June writing goal of completing my gay themed drafts prior to the end of Pride Month. Yesterday, I gave myself a pass on the four drafts remaining. That pass cut the four to two, because two were really just situationally gay.

And one of those is a really daunting topic.

I don’t need that kind of pressure.

So, this morning, on the way to the cafe, I’m looking at the last two drafts and the last two days of June.

Both of these drafts are about exes. Exes that I still cared about when I ended the relationships.

Y’know, chipper shit.

This morning, my thought was, “Damn. This shit is heavy. If I write about this, I’m likely gonna be down for the day. Maybe I should just worry about one and forget the other…both drafts are at least a year old, anyway.”

This is no recipe for success, folks.

I grab my coffee and instead of sitting down and tapping something out on my phone, I start reading the blogs I follow. Occasionally, I see a theme that motivates me.

This was the case today as well. But then I got all Dad on myself and said no new entries until you finish a draft.

The writer equivalent of “no dessert until you finish your veggies”.

Then I saw this entry from Pace Mind Blog

and clicked on over to give it a read. I’m not gonna lie, he titled his post “Another Award” and it made me chuckle because as much as getting nominated by a fellow writer is motivating, however, it can feel a little

if you know what I mean.

There I was reading about how being nominated for this made him feel like he’s not putting negative content out there since the purpose of this award is to recognize people who inspire and spread positivity…my thought?

There’s no way in hell that I’m getting this nomination!

Imagine my surprise…

But, I’ll confess that it was a pleasant – albeit unexpected – surprise, so, thanks Pacey! Click on the link above to check out his blog. I enjoy living his Aussie life vicariously though his posts.

Naturally, I’m going to use this as a procrastinating device!

Nonono. I’ll write more later, this will just get my writing juices flowing…but first: rules!

Rules, Rules, Rules!

1. Thank the blogger who nominated you and link back to their blog ✅

2. Answer the questions the blogger asked you – keep reading

3. Nominate new blogs and write them new questions – patience, paduan

4. List the rules and display the Sunshine Blogger Award in your post ✅

See? Already halfway done!

Ready? Here we go! And I really like Pacey’s questions, so I’m actually excited to answer!

1. Gay man to Gay man (and the world) favourite Ru Paul Queen?….Wait do you even watch drag race?

I’m way too grumpy for that stuff! And I’m a terrible gay, I know.

I have actually never even seen a full episode of RPDR, can you believe that?

I bet you can.

I have been present in a bar long enough to finish my drink after they started screening the current weekly episode. Does that count?

It’s a little trope-y, but my take on this is a little derivative of the old Groucho Marx quote about not wanting to be a member of any club that would have me as a member. Basically, every other gay person is losing their shit over it, so I want nothing to do with it.

It’s weird, since I do enjoy being around Drag Queens so much.

Upside? I had no desire or care to know what the hell the whole “Vanjie” thing was. I was amused at how crazy it seemed to be making people, though.

2. Why so grumpy?

I wear this adjective like a mantle of pride.

Truth be told, though? I think I’m pretty happy.

I get grumpy when people are rude or even careless about their role in a society.

Just this morning, as I approached the cafe, I had to make a decision about manners. There was a woman approaching the door from the opposite direction. She was a little closer, but I naturally move a little faster than she due to my height.

In my mind, I see my grandmother, standing there waiting for me to open the door for her. I decide that even if I step up my pace a bit, best case is we’ll arrive at the door at the same time.

A) This will allow me to open the door for her, but it opens in the direction she is approaching from, so that would actually be an inconvenience for her.

B) It’s gonna look like I was trying to beat her to get into the cafe first.

So I end up hanging back.

Yes, I’m a little neurotic.

No, this isn’t sexist, I’d have had the exact same dilemma if there was a guy approaching the door.

She looks right at me as she opens the door just enough to squeeze through and let’s it close on me.

Ok…

Inside, she peels off to the left instead of heading straight for the counter. I figure she’s looking for someone or staking out seating before she orders and continue on. Then she abruptly changes course toward the counter so I roll my eyes and slow down – again, trying to not appear like I’m jockeying for position in line.

She passes the counter and I realize she’d been looking for the restrooms as she tries the door and I think, “You’re gonna need a key”…which is conveniently available from the barista station. She grabbed it without acknowledging the staff standing nearby and went off down the hall.

Basically, all of this awkward dancing I did with this woman was so she could deuce out without buying anything. In and of itself, that bugs me – using a business’ bathroom without patronizing the business itself. However, the oblivious manner in which she interacted with myself and the barista just rankled me.

I’m actually trying to work on my reaction to people like this. I remind myself that I don’t know her situation and try to assuage my frustration and head off my judgment.

Still…can’t you even give a sheepish “Hi” to the barista who’s gonna end up cleaning the bathroom? I know you’re doing a pee-pee dance, we’ve all been there, can’t an American ego handle this scenario? After all, we all start off learning the same thing at pre-school story time:

So chill out.

3. Since you are looking for work, if you could do any job what would it be?

Oof. This is a great question! I’ve been in retail my entire adult life, see also: Why so grumpy

Not only is retail comfortable to me because I know the expectations so well, but I also love the social opportunity that the nature of the environment provides.

On top of that, the chaos the job provides is energizing. I can get to work each day with a mental list of what needs to be accomplished that day. My expectation is that that to-do list goes out the window the first time I pick up the phone or as soon as I open the door. Taking care of my customers’ needs and still accomplishing my deliverables for the day is a fun challenge.

Frustrating as it can be, it’s hard to imagine a job without that chaotic nature. It allows me to leave with a sense of satisfaction every day that is more rewarding than the validation payday provides every two weeks.

That said, I’ve tried to escape the retail grind a couple of times in my career. Nothing fulfills me the same way.

I think writing would.

I started this blog to develop my writer’s voice. I’ve learned that my inner writer has quite a foul mouth. It’s hard to monetize that as a copy writer without a filter, so that can limit paid writing opportunities.

As far as writing a novel?

Well, that doesn’t really pay that well, but I’d still like to do it. I’m just struggling with the reality that my style lends itself to more of a David Sedaris type monologist book and I’d rather emulate a serial type style like one of my writing heroes, Armistead Maupin.

It’ll happen…just not in a “this is my job” type of way.

4. Would you ever be someones sugar daddy? would you ever have a sugar daddy?

Right now, I could use a Sugar Daddy.

Certainly, I’ve played a role as a daddy-type in my dating life, it’s the nature of being attracted to younger guys.

However, admitting that I’m attracted to younger guys – despite their inadvertent behavioral attempts to make themselves supremely unattractive to me – rules out having a Sugar Daddy myself. For the same reason that I won’t be someone’s Sugar Daddy: respect.

When I’m dating someone, I need to be able to respect myself and my boyfriend as an equal partner in the relationship. Dating someone for what they can provide financially or for the lifestyle upgrade goes against my ethical grain.

I’m single because there aren’t a lot of guys out there that see me beyond that filter.

Also, because the last guy that could see me beyond that filter proved out the other potential of inter generational dating: staying with me was beginning to retard his development into a fully functional adult.

My golden rule for dating younger guys? Leave ’em better than I found ’em.

He’s actually the subject of one of the two drafts that I mentioned earlier, so you may be reading more about that situation soonly…

5. Where in the world have you travelled? and where do you still want to travel to?

Last part first: Australia has been on my bucket list since before the turn of the century. I was actually planning a tenth anniversary trip with Sacha, but we crapped out at the six year mark. Since then, it’s lost its luster to some degree, but I’m planning to reclaim the trip on an individual basis at some point in the next decade!

I’ve been to a good chunk of Europe, but Spain and Portugal are still on my list. I’d like to go back to Italy for a month-long immersion, but I think that’s a post-60s trip. Oddly, the eastern parts of Europe have never really had much of a pull for me.

My first trip off the North American continent was to Northern Africa, mainly Egypt. I think there’s still some exploring to do in that region, but I definitely want to experience South Africa before I die. Or after, maybe disembodied travel is cheaper!

Now…the hard part, paying it forward. Who to nominate…

What makes this hard isn’t just a matter of who to nominate. Every blog I follow, I enjoy. Choosing would be easy through that filter. The tough thing is, who would appreciate it? I joke about these awards being “Everybody Gets a Trophy” affairs and call them Montessori Report Cards, but they do mean something to me…they motivate me to keep going when the goals I set for myself are difficult to achieve or when my own inertia is proving difficult to overcome.

That said, I think I’m passing the baton to Ben over at My Casual Trainwreck Life because – like this peer wreckognition type of award, reading his blog can motivate me. We’re a little similar and a little dis. I think he’s a better writer than I am, simply because he seems more disciplined in his style. That makes his writing slightly aspirational to me because it makes me think about how I write and whether I can or should look for the next evolution of my style.

Check him out.

Here are my questions for him, if he chooses to play along:

1) Give us a quick bio to introduce yourself to us. Mother’s maiden name, social security number…just the basics.

2) What’s your end game as a writer, do you have writing aspirations beyond the blog?

3) How do you motivate yourself to produce content?

4) Tell us an embarrassing story.

And…

5) I liked Pacey’s question about where I’ve traveled and where I still want to go, so I’m ripping that one off for you, too!

Thanks, again, Pacey for the nod.

As always, if you like what you see, let me know with a comment or just feel free to share on your own platform.

Cher-ing is caring, as they say!

atleastihaveafrigginglass

What could possibly go wrong?

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