#fitness

KGAY TV Takes a Dip

galby68, , , 10 Comments

When KGAY TV does something, it may be half-assed but trust it’ll never be done by half-measures. Despite my best efforts.

To wit: I spent two full weekends on the couch.

Watching movies.

Psychotically.

In my defense, this was all to avoid watching the Twilight movies, but maybe I should have just taken a walk.

By Sunday on the first weekend, I felt bad about wasting the weekend on the couch, so I watched a pick me up movie: 13 Going on 30. That made me feel better, so I made myself a nice dinner and watched Peppermint while I ate. Disgusted by my accidental Jennifer Garner-palooza, I went to bed before I ended up watching Elektra.

The next weekend, determined to not repeat the sins of the prior weekend, I started out with a nice ride on the Peloton.

…and that’s the end of my accomplishments.

Somehow I ended up on the couch again. Wary of the prior weekend’s psycho binge-ing, I put Notting Hill on the TV while I cooled down and ate breakfast. The rationale was that I’ve seen this movie enough that I can turn it off halfway through without feeling deprived.

Once I finished the movie, I showered and sat down to write.

Nope. TV on again and equally accidentally I ended up watching Runaway Bride. It wasn’t until I caught myself thinking that I should watch the original Gere/Roberts pairing (Pretty Woman) midway through that I realized my mistake was already made: Julia Roberts double-header.

Dejected, I did some chores and then sat down with leftovers for dinner, determined to break the mold. My solution was to watch something more substantial. Not in the headspace for true crime or a documentary, I compromised and settled into the then-newly released Netflix biopic, Nyad.

I remembered Nyad being in the news when I was young. Most notably, her swim of the English Channel. I didn’t remember much about her Cuba swim other than it was an attempt. I remembered her Cuba: redux only inasmuch as it was a success.

Suffice to say, I was in for a deep dive (pun very much intended) on Diana Nyad.

Worst things first: the Nyad ‘do.

Dear sweet Jesus…get this woman a homosexual.

Next scene: Oh, she is a homosexual. Now it’s almost understandable.

We find out early in the show that Nyad and her best friend, Bonnie Stoll (played by Jodie Foster) were briefly lovers before their relationship segued into its lifelong friendship. This was handled in an interesting way, in my opinion. My experience has been the assumption of homosexuals having a close same-sex friend automatically being a relationship is usually a heterosexual presumption.

It’s a trope, don’t yell at me about it.

But here, they handle it as the same assumption, but by another lesbian…that Stoll steers Nyad toward. It’s the potential love interest that makes the assumption. Respectfully, so as not to end up the other woman or in a thruple situation – which is why this movie could never be about gay men. But let’s not get me started on those idiots.

Speaking of Jodie Foster, I was inordinately distracted by the thought, “What is up with her character’s wraparound glasses?!?” They (pictured above) are on in dang near every scene. And just what does that sartorial choice remind me of?

Turns out, though, that this is a very real representation of the actual person.

Stoll, not Bono. However, it turns out the glasses have a real purpose. For both. Bono has glaucoma, which makes his eyes sensitive to light, hence the ever present tinted lenses. Stoll, on the other hand, had been a professional racquetball player and her large specs likely started out as eye protection. I assume they morphed into prescription lenses by the end of her career and then just stuck. It’s not mentioned in the movie and I found nothing to explain it on a cursory search of the web, so I’m just assuming.

Not that I wasn’t enjoying the movie, but this was my mindset – distracted, perhaps desperately trying to feel productive after the past two weekends – as I watched. Which is how we ended up back at Nyad’s haircut. Just like Stoll’s glasses, its horror reminded me of something. Then it hit me:

Fucking Spike from Notting Hill the day before! I love that I got a pic of him in a wetsuit – even though it doesn’t show off the hair as best it could.

Next scene:

Well, I’ll be a motherfucker…the actor that played Spike in Notting Hill played a fairly large part in this movie, too. So much for free will. Guess I was meant to spend the past two weekends in movie rabbit holes. It was preordained…I’m just a victim.

Mental misfires aside, I truly learned a lot about this feat and the person and the team behind the effort. I don’t want to give away too much, but about 45 minutes in, the swim is underway and I didn’t really see how they stretched a ~70 hour endeavor into another ~75 theatrical minutes…and that’s where my learning began.

At the end, I’m not gonna lie: I was crying. Triumph of the human spirit and all.

But the experience of seeing the movie elevated Nyad to a new level for me. Instead of some obscure sports figure, she became an example of determination.

A pioneer. A survivor. An unsung hero.

Good for her.

If you haven’t watched it, maybe do. Because I’m not telling you any more – except they all die at the end.

Oh, alright…they don’t all die at the end! And as I sit here writing this, I have a heightened awareness that I have crossed the mid-point of my 50s. This movie picks up Nyad at her 60th birthday. She comes to it with a determination to finish something she’d left undone in her past.

And that’s maybe my real lesson here. Not the history lesson into something I was only tangentially aware of, no. Rather that things that I didn’t accomplish when I was younger don’t have to stay that way. That’s something for me to chew on as I careen toward the inevitable.

KGAY TV Takes a Dip

Decisions, Decisions…

galby68, , , , , , , 17 Comments

I had everything planned out for the week. To a literal T. But you know the old saying: If you wanna make god laugh, make a plan.

That’s all the god-talk you’re getting from me.

I had my two-part “Having it all” post for mid week and weekend, sandwiching a fatness fitness post, and that was my writing week.

But then I won tickets to a pre-concert private show from a local radio station and now that’s all I wanna write about!

But I’ve gotta stick to the plan, right?

<crickets>

Anyone?

So, it’s the fitness post, then. Chalk it up to underwhelming demand.

Plus, it’s quick and I’m tired.

I don’t write about my Peloton often. It’s such a cult-y thing, so I try to be low key. Although, since I dropped 30 lbs in the first two months and then likely gained it all back over the holidays, maybe I’m pissing away a potential Peloton payoff by not being more vocal. Surely their brand can’t stand the scandal of my Delta Burke-esque results.

But I digress.

Yesterday was my one year anniversary with my bike. I was kind of jazzed about that and kind of blues about it, too.

I know in the dark attic spaces of my mind lives the remnants of my insipid narcissistic younger self. He still thinks with a twink metabolism – you know the kind, the type of metabolism that burns more calories thinking about exercise than I do in a 30 minute spin class. That guy figured length of bike ownership would produce results. Like, simply by passing the one year anniversary, I’d magically transform my flab-ulous center into fabulous abs.

Well, lemme tell ya, the only things of steel on me are my jaw muscles. And it ain’t just from flapping them. It’s also due to all the masticating I do, too.

On the other hand, there’s the guy who currently lives in the biggest rooms in my head. He’s the guy that decided I deserved ice cream tonight.

So, yeah…he’s a coin toss between self-care and self-sabotage, that guy.

He’s the one that enabled my weight gain over the holidays when I was recovering from a bruised tailbone. And compounded that with an overly-permissive attitude about getting back on the bike once I healed up.

He was finally vanquished in late February by a coalition of all of the other Chrises I keep locked away upstairs. Led, of course by Twink Chris.

Getting a largely work from home temp assignment didn’t hurt those efforts, either. I found I could wake up early and workout, shower and be “in the office” by 8 or wake up at 745, grab an energy drink, brush my teeth, be at my desk at 8, then workout and shower during my hour lunch break.

Which do you think I do more?

Regardless of my shiny-skinned, baseball cap wearing mornings, I was relieved because I’d been bracing myself for the defeat of not making it back on the bike by my one year anniversary. Let’s face it, that was a real possibility, given how seriously I take my health and fitness.

I mean…what kind of asshole buys exercise equipment on April Fools Day?!?

That’s the bullshit attitude I’m talking about.

Fortunately, that didn’t come to pass.

As much a fact, I made progress that once again even impressed my favorite person. By mid-month, I realized I was on pace to hit my 200th ride by my anniversary. It’s easier than it sounds, racking up ride numbers – think cool down rides after each ride and you’re looking at an easy two-fer scenario.

Heck, I realized I was also in striking distance of hitting my centurion strength workout and my 25th yoga class.

Clearly, none of those accomplishments mattered in the company of my stretching results. And I’ll be goddamned if I’m gonna look at a sore thumb result like that and not choose to give myself a stroke versus a pat on the back for everything else I achieved over the course of the year.

That’s a healthy attitude.

So in the last 8 days before my anniversary, I finally started taking the advice of the trainers and replaying my 5-minute post-ride stretching classes. Since I know that’s kind of cheating, I punished myself by making myself do at least a 10-minute morning stretch class on the days I didn’t ride – which was, yeah…also kind of a cheat.

But in this case, those particular two wrongs did make a right.

Here’s what I’ll say about my drive to sync up these milestones with my first anniversary of ownership: It was kind of a “Go big or go out like Mr. Big” mindset, and if you know what I’m talking about, you know that was a perfectly Xtopher thought to have.

Talk about your Red Shirt Diary topics!

Ok, that’s all I’m saying about the cult. But here’s a couple pics of the instructors that keep me cumming coming back to the bike.

I ride because I secretly would love a sexy man to make that face in my presence…even if I couldn’t see it.

And since you just had to endure that mental imagery, here’s a pic from one of the ABBA themed rides, just for a fun mental palate cleanser…

That’s my towel on my handlebars and a collar so big and 70s fabulous on her top that it looks like a towel draped around her neck. And now I’ll wrap up with some sweaty old Xtopher pics so you can experience a fraction of the emotional pain that I inflict upon myself…

All in pursuit of keeping my <ahem> pointer visible in my own line of sight and this pointer consistently on the right side of 200…

Namasté, bitches!

Decisions, Decisions…

Well, Now I Feel…

galby68, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , 9 Comments

Something.

Bad?

Nostalgic?

Accomplished?

Formerly accomplished?

Probably that last one. So…thanks, Facebook Memories.

Three years?!? How has it been that friggin’ long already…since I’ve had a date?

Kidding. Trying/not trying.

But I guess it’s just one more reminder that it’s been a long pandemic. If we factor those two years out, then it’s only been one year!

Don’t get me wrong, I tried to make hay out of the forced free time we all gained with the 2020 lockdowns. In April, I started NaNoWriMo – despite having two WIPs from prior NaNos still waiting for completion, then didn’t finish. Again.

I think I got derailed after a Twitter battle with a local stripper, who I’m sure knew nothing of my existence until I dared to correct him on his feed. Then I was all he could focus on, earning me featured status in his social media stories where he called me old and ugly. Not to mention a failed writer.

The young people are so woke – which seems to manifest with being disagreeable and combative. That’s regardless of the validity of their initial point. What moxy.

Sure, I’d only finished three books at that point, clearly, that’s failure in the eyes of a stripper who leaves the stage in a thong.

I actually finished all tasks associated with my job title, son. I have to imagine that a stripper’s job isn’t complete until they are clothes free. But what do I know? When I was a young man, tracing on one’s flesh was viewed differently than it is today – and I appreciate the evolution of sex work from villainized and humiliating to artistic expression and empowering.

This kid was – pardon the entendres – a dick.

Ultimately, that all stopped when he blocked me – the penultimate admission that he was wrong. The ultimate expression being actually saying it. But this is hardly the United States of Accountability, let alone Admittingyouwerewrong.

Anyway, as this was going on, I flirted with the idea of going to one of his shows and tipping him one of my books – yeah, I’ve got a few copies laying around. My overt grumpapotamus self imagined reading wasn’t high on his hobby list, see also: how he got to his current level of misery in his life.

Judgy.

The women strippers I meet driving with Lyft are all – every damned last one of them – such interesting people. Very engaging. Great stories. The male strippers I meet are all cunts. And not in that cool English slang type of way. At best, they look at me, and treat me like, I’m an ATM. Not that I go to strip clubs often…none of them have palatable beers.

I also considered going and tipping him $.02, since me giving him my figurative two cents was what set him off in the first place. Ultimately, I decided my absence was the best action for me.

Still determined to make some productive hay out of the lockdown, I pivoted to another project I’d been kicking around. When I finished my third book, it came in at a whopping 530-ish pages. I hardly consider myself a gay George R. R. Martin, so I sought out opinions from a few beta readers. They all told me it was fine.

But that length made printing costs pretty high and I think the lowest price I could charge was $19…and that was with me making less than a buck a copy. I knew there was a logical plot break that I could use as a kind of cliffhanger if I chose to split this into two books, I just hadn’t.

But with one half finished draft from April’s NaNo making me feel guilty, I decided this was the perfect time to tackle that split.

Obviously.

And I did it!

Well, “did it” so long as completing the split and edit of the first half. I knew I needed to flesh out the second half to beef it up a bit. It had originally suffered under the pressure of me knowing the page count was running high for one book. This was my chance to flesh it out.

But my first goal was to get the newly shortened second installation in my No One Of Consequence series back up online. Then I hit a formatting snag. Just a teensy one, but it proved to be overwhelming to my lockdown self and I never went back to finish it. I couldn’t imagine jumping to the third installment to get that story wrapped up, it just seemed wrong.

Four frustrating months go by. I spent a lot of that time considering the optics of dying during a pandemic with unfinished works. I thought it looked pretty good. Other artists somehow pull it off.

Margaret Mitchell.

Elvis.

No, wait…Hemingway! That’s a better comparison. I’m a drinker, not a druggie. And we’ve established the fact that 500+ page books are not my style, so…yeah. Hemingway.

That was probably my biggest self-soothe of the pandemic.

It carried me through the next three months. Right up to the next NaNoWriMo event, the big one in November. Now I can finish!

Or…start another work.

The following April?

Ok, this was pure motivation. And adrenalin.

I had just gotten my Peloton and was jazzed to pick up the autobiographical trilogy I’d fancied when I wrote Dating Into Oblivion. When I wrote that, I was nearing the end of a year long blogging theme that had resulted from a friendly intervention at my 50th birthday party.

Rude.

As a result of the collective will of my well-intentioned friends, I leaned into a blog theme I had just finished that I hashtagged fitfy. It was a play on fifty, an age I had been determined to reach with some progress toward accepting my aging self with a healthier attitude toward diet and exercise.

I’d been having trouble forgiving myself for not being able to eat and exercise like an idiot twenty-something. Naturally, my 51st birthday had involved me tapping a keg of my favorite beer at my then-favorite bar.

Anyway, knowing I had that “fitness in my fifties” notion in the back of my head, I decided to tackle dating in my fifties. It gave me something to do, at any rate. I figured the trilogy could round out with working in my fifties. It was a notion I rather fancied.

The problem was, there wasn’t much I could actually do since I’d just gotten my bike. I considered harvesting stories from my year of fitfy blog posts, as I had when I put together Dating Into Oblivion. But I considered that would have been only a portion of the project. I needed new content to complete the story.

Another partial credit NaNo for old Xtopher. PaCreNaNo? Kind of sounds like a pancreatic medical crisis.

Maybe that stripper was right.

Shudder.

Possibly, but improbable. Maybe what I needed was the motivation of writing something people might be attracted to en masse. My current accomplishments and WIP library all featured what I call gay shit – and I hate to break it to you, but The Gays aren’t known collectively as big readers.

It’s the pandemic – everybody else was pivoting, why not me? That sounds like a riff of a Cranberries album.

I picked a theme close to every Portland NIMBY’s heart: the homeless. Came up with a mystery plot. I even created a nom de plume based off of my parents middle initials and old world naming paradigms – JT Robertson.

Finally…in November of 2021, I completed a NaNoWriMo! Have I published? No. I’m mentally kicking it around, polishing it up. Completely retooling the voice. Flipping the plot 180 degrees.

Y’know…the basic writer’s nightmare.

April’s NaNo is weeks away.

Weeks.

I’m determined to finish something from my WIP list before adding anything else to it. I figure at this point, if my goal is to have a WIP library consisting of a prime number of works – it isn’t but I need to set boundaries of some kind – then I either need to finish one or add four!

I think seven is enough of a library. Let’s see if this Facebook Memories shaming is enough of a motivator to get NOOC2 published and back online. Lord knows that providing airplane reading material for a friend’s trip to Africa last month wasn’t it, so fingers crossed.

Sure enough, I woke up this morning, uncovered my laptop…and started organizing my tax receipts. Then I got this text

RUDE!!

So I wrote this, instead. I refuse to be so known by my best friend.

To answer my original question: seen. I feel seen.

Well, Now I Feel…

I Can Do It. I Can Have It All!

galby68, , , , , 6 Comments

Not to steal Liz Lemon’s thunder, but…I can. The Silver Fox even said so.

What is “it all”?

Well, nothing but kind of everything? Situationally, to me, at least.

First, there’s the Dry Happy Hour that I call work. Driving for Lyft. Seriously, I just sit around and chat with strangers. How is that work? Legitimately, if we had drinks it would be exactly what I do at Happy Hour when my friends aren’t around to join.

Well, I’ve struggled to get my mojo back since vacation in early October. I usually put in around 25 hours a week, but the second a third weeks of October, I didn’t always manage that. Plus, before vacation, I’d been putting in more hours to allow me to save for…a new condo next Spring.

I’m no longer sure that’s my goal, and I know that is part of my recent apathy: no clear goal. So the bonus that Lyft runs occasionally was a welcome jump start at the end of October. It’s an up to $377 bonus for giving 135 rides in a week. It usual means a 45-50 week of driving.

Then there was this day to ice that cake:

Yeah, I drove all night on October 30th and earned $1031! Not bragging, specifically, but I’m too amused y earning “Halloween” dollars on Halloween Eve.

Then Lyft dropped the same bonus for a second consecutive week. I was pretty wiped out from last week and only managed 16 rides Monday-Thursday. I’d kind of resigned myself to not meeting the 114 ride minimum threshold for the first tier bonus. Then I had an epic Friday night, where I “one more ride”-ed myself to a personal record of 40 rides in one night and suddenly the first tier was within my grasp.

Gotta love rainy weekends for lots of short rides.

I’m on my way out to wrap up the final 24 rides…but then I saw this in my app this morning.

A third week?!? Here’s what I sent to The Fox that prompted his all-caps support.

Ten thousand dollars in four weeks? It’s within reach, and would certainly help me get October’s derailing back on track.

Except…

There’s the whole exercise thing. Since getting my Peloton, I’ve managed to work out about 5 days a week. Even during my vacation! But looking at my October results, you can see the struggle.

Ugh.

So my balancing act challenge has been to get in some exercise and drive. Pretty achievable…except October.

And now I think I can add in a third objective: NaNoWriMo.

Oh, the absolute hubris.

Fifty thousand words on a novel project in the month of November. I sat it out last year – because I struggle to do anything that I think of as “work” at home.

Writing straddles that line between work and hobby.

Blog? No worries.

Novel? Nah, that’s work…other people make money doing that type of thing.

But, while I haven’t been able to manage working on any of my story ideas at home, I’m capable of kicking around ideas all day long, no matter where I am. I hit the ground running – kinda, you should read that as proChristinating – with NaNoWriMo. Five thousand words in the first two days. Then I got back into gear with driving on Friday and have only added a couple thousand words since then.

It’ll come back, though. I wrote 50k on my first NaNo in two weeks. I’ve still got three weeks left in November, so I’ll definitely get across that finish line.

But the next week is gonna be a frenzied hell trying to manage all three of these goals.

Remember, though…I CAN HAVE IT ALL! At least for a week.

I Can Do It. I Can Have It All!

I Joined A Cult

galby68, , , , , , , , , , , 9 Comments

What? I’ve had free time, what did you expect an unsupervised, grumpy, old Xtopher to do…watch Mrs Doubtfire until 3 AM?

Ok, I did that, as well.

Phair warning, Fill – wait, that doesn’t look quite right – you might want to stop reading now. Just this post, though…tune in again next week.

I bought it. I’ve talked about it a little here before with mixed to neutral reactions…but I bought a Peloton.

Because it’s me…well, several things:

Alpha) I bought it used, because I’m cheap – which goes well with me being poor. Well, poor for a gay white guy. Privilege acknowledged.

Beta) I picked it up and took my first ride on April 1st…again, because it’s me and my fucked up sense of humor wouldn’t have it any other way.

Gamma) Crap. I’m having a C.R.S. moment…hopefully, it comes back to me in proof mode.

I’d planned this post for the first of July, just to give it a quarter to get some results under my belt. Then I lost 20 lbs in my first month of riding and could barely hold back posting about it then.

Luckily, my natural apathy and proChristination allowed me to resist that impulse.

But I really felt I needed to give myself a full quarter to develop consistent habits. Seemed fair enough, since I’d been holding the purchase out as a reward for consistency on my New Year’s Resolution of being more active and eating better.

Oh, it’s back!

Gamma) Since I am a grumpy, old man, I wasn’t going to wait 60 days for delivery. I was low-key scouring Craigslist for a used bike to jump the line. Like hell I was joining a club with a waitlist. I don’t do lines.

Anyhoo…slap my ass and call me a meteorologist, because I manifested a perfect storm. I got my bike without waiting and saved $800 by getting it second hand. The poor schlub I bought it off had decamped to his house in Hawaii over the pandemic and couldn’t find a moving company to take his bike from the she-she West Hills to Hawaii…so he just bought a new bike to be delivered there.

Glad I don’t have his unmitigated gall problems.

So, like I mentioned, I dropped 20 lbs in the first month, which I was very happy with. Month two got me to the right (for me) side of 200, which made sense as I started putting mean mass back on in my lil toothpick legs.

Definitely a trajectory I wouldn’t mind holding. That, of course, put me at my colonoscopy month. If you know the prep routine, you know…if you don’t know, I won’t ruin the surprise.

I didn’t expect to hold this weight – again, if you know… – but I could see it on the horizon. Today’s weigh-in put me right at 195.

Not a lot of wiggle room. But I’m getting plenty of salads and veggies – by comparison to the Before Diet, I’m sure my doc and mother would still happily see me eating more – so I expect between that snd continued consistency, sub-190 weights are within reason over the next 2-3 months. It would be great if I could get into the 180s by the six month mark.

See, we shall, hmm?

It’s been a fun <ahem> ride this far. I’m still excited to get on my bike, whether it’s participating in the monthly challenges, following specific crushes instructors, taking Artist Series rides or just the dreaded schlep to the scale that gets me there is a variety I can appreciate. Keeps my motivation from stagnating.

For instance, the first month I rode, I focused on getting Gold Medals in the Miles Rode and Days Active challenges. The thresholds are 50/100/150 miles ridden and 10/15/20 days active. Even taking Bronze in either is a win for anyone, regardless of one’s fitness level.

Month two, I was focused on streaks. In April, I managed a couple low streaks of active days. This was mainly due to my focus on riding versus other classes offered. They offer strength, stretching, yoga, boot camp and…probably some I forgot. In month two, I made sure to add in some strength and stretching classes. And I really needed the stretching! This also enabled longer active days streaks. I set a goal to get to a 10 day streak, and then took a couple days off and went into a 20 day streak.

Which took us to month three. And I’m just gonna say that a 20 day streak may have broken my mojo a tad. My active days dropped by half in July. But like I said, a Bronze Medal in my monthly challenges is better than nothing.

But after a month of “rest” – ie: active 14 days instead of 26 – I relearned something. Rest is a good thing! For the first week of August, I PRed four times out of four active days.

Apparently, not resting on my laurels equated to…

And, yeah…

So, between joining Peloton and doing an Artist Series ride featuring Justin Bieber music…I’d say I joined at least one cult. But considering I’m a native Oregonian, I could have done worse.

Again, if you know…

Alright, now that I’m “out” about it, I’m accountable to people other than my own inner voices – who are also totally real people. Even if that also means getting filleted by Phil in the comments. Hehe…I’ll take it, because that also comes with the Silver Fox telling me that if I lose any more weight, I’m gonna need new clothes. Better that than the reality that I had one pair of jeans and two pairs of shorts that fit at the beginning of April…and a whole drawer of tee shirts that didn’t fit. Still working on the fit looking good, but I’m enjoying the “fresh” wardrobe options after burning 30 lbs.

I Joined A Cult

Influencers Behaving Badly

galby68, , , , , , 5 Comments

I know, what a shocker, right? Pretty people being petty or selfish?

You can probably guess my feelings on the influencer phenomenon simply from the title. In case you need more, I actually think they have a potential function in society. Sadly, we seem to lack creative independence in this capitalist country, so when influencers worked in a few niche marketing outings, every corner of industry tried to cram itself into that niche concept.

And it was all downhill from that bastardization. Some, I don’t mind – like ginfluencers, who are generally pretty fun to be around and are simply looking more to monetize fun for all. But then there are the ones I call sinfluencers. These are the folks who have gone the completely opposite direction and are basically monetizing erections.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m fairly certain a barker isn’t getting off the ground in the influencer industry…being pretty is a prerequisite.

Fine.

But the folks who think being hot translates to perquisite wealth…hold on, I’m looking around for an innocent bystander I can slap therapeutically. Yeah, those people are the sinfluencers.

And it’s just getting more and more democratized. Our culture has gone from the blithely sexist “Anyone can be President” to a close call with that not being the implicitly sexist case anymore to a swerving into a tree example of just how tragically fucking literal that saying was.

But who wants to wait five, six or seven decades to gain that kind of attention influence? Let alone work for it.

Let’s tilt that trope a bit and look at a similar phrase…“In America, you can be anything you want to be”.

Did anyone see the answer to that careening from Doctor, Lawyer or Fireman to porn star?

I sure as hell didn’t – and, like I said…it’s just getting easier and easier to do. In the old days, you had to run into the wrong guy or get caught up with the wrong crowd. Nowadays, you just need a vague tether to a guy named Bezos.

That’s right, anything you need to shoot decent selfie-porn is available on good old Amazon. Camera mount, ring light, maybe some sexy undies or toys.

Oh, and a trash can for your dignity.

Why am I stuck on this?

Well, a couple of reasons.

First, I spared you any of these thoughts during Pride month – because I find this phenomenon to be particularly rampant in the gay community. Or what passes for community these days. Too many people I follow on Social Media have updated their profiles to include links to their OnlyFans or JustForFans – because, of course this is now a competitive industry – and sought to monetize their hookups and masturbatory habits. And when that doesn’t happen…

(Un)Fortunately, these ventures don’t always fail. I think that’s bad for everyone – the sinfluencers, their “fans” and even the public in general, since this changes what people consider appropriate behavior.

Behavioral changes that I’ve witnessed on Social Media range from starting an OnlyFans to raise money for “moving expenses” after a GoFundMe for the same reason fails. The GoFundMe was aiming to raise $6000…to move from one apartment to another in the same damn city!

Then there’s the more toxic behaviors that occur as an after-effect of these endeavors. These Social Media accounts tend to become less about what used to be a cute or entertaining person and more and more a billboard for their sinfluencer persona. They’ll start using their Instagram stories like a Reddit Ask Me Anything, and when someone asks them a racy question, they tell them to subscribe to their OnlyFans.

Well, that’s just frustrating on multiple levels for me, as a former retailer and as a consumer.

Didn’t expect that, did ya?

But, seriously, those are the fronts on which I’m offended. If someone is trying to sell something and a potential customer asks a question, “Buy it and find out” is not the proper answer. Someone who wants you to pay for something you might not like is merely a charlatan who is counting on you being a rube.

This has all been on my mind lately because one of the few sinfluencers that I still follow on Social Media had a pretty sad comeuppance. I like this kid. By all appearances, he’s a sweet kid – turning 30 next week, so not a kid-kid – that I automatically credit as being smarter than me since he’s Polish and speaks his native tongue, English and several other European languages. He seems to be rather accomplished outside his OnlyFans, too. He owns a photography studio in Poland and is apparently quite the photographer in addition to his work in front of the camera. He also publishes a calendar annually that he sells for…I dunno, $20 that you can pay extra to have signed. That, I find industrious. Not so industrious that I buy one, mind you – where would I put a calendar…by my landline? Hehe.

I started following him a few years back when I was writing under my Fitfy theme because he drinks beer and has abs. Plus, he’s charming.

He also fed my withering wanderlust, since he travels rather extensively. I’d put the estimate at 4-6 trips per year. Some, just around Europe, but others are overseas.

You can do that when you have a thousand and change subscribers at $9.99/month!

Well, last week he and his traveling companions came home to their Spanish vacation villa to find all of their possessions stolen.

Nice humblebrag at the end, there. I don’t think I own $50k worth of possessions in total, let alone enough that would fit into suitcases to move from Poland to Spain for a couple weeks.

The real tragedy to me is that this kid literally hasn’t become an adult. Not only has he not had to deal with adversity in life that would afford him the emotional base to handle this type of left field tragedy

He’s also been released into the world without being shown how to budget or manage money. This guy makes over $10k per month off his OnlyFans, not to mention rent income from his photography studio. Who failed him? Parents? School? Gay Kulture?

I’d be a little embarrassed to pull in over $100k a year and have to beg for money to replace stolen property. Then again, maybe that’s just me falling for his charm and assuming he can’t when the reality could be more that he doesn’t want to pay out of his own pocket to have it replaced.

What’s a 29 years and 51 weeks old guy to do in a case like this?

Obviously. And, I guess you better start plugging that calendar…although if all your photos and computers were stolen, it’s gonna be tough to pull that together in the next eight weeks.

And, finally…

Of course! You can’t even afford a new toothbrush…better leave Spain and head to Germany!

Can you tell his charm has started to fade?

Sadly, I think this is becoming an all too dominant trend. Making others accountable for your actions and problems. And they take cash in a variety of forms, just don’t offer advice or ask questions. They don’t need that kind of negativity.

Influencers Behaving Badly

Betrayal!

galby68, , , , , , 2 Comments

…and other petty nuisances.

Just thought I’d pop by and demonstrate my innate – and inane – ability to offend pretty much everyone.

Effortlessly and equally, because I’m all about equal opportunity. Or aboot for my fine amis Canadiens.

See?

Anyhoo…or anyhooha in this instance, I’ve already seen one vagina today. From behind, no less.

I’m not bragging. Not by any means. But that is basically one whole vagina more than my daily average. I would barely have to round up to drop the qualifier on that…whatever opposite form of “brag” would work here.

My rolling 12 month cumulative total is two. Well, three – if you count Sharon’s moneyshot in Basic Instinct.

Which was far more palatable than my in real life misfortunes.

Somehow, these real life occurrences seem to happen while I’m driving. If this trend keeps going, I may consider quitting. Or running for public office and doing something about/aboot Portland’s homeless and mental health crises. I mean, surrealiously, if Matt Gaetz can get elected…

The first occurrence was last Fall and I was driving up SE 7th where it turns and becomes Sandy. I saw a woman waiting to cross the street. As I slowed to let her cross, I had an abortive thought about why women wear skin toned leggings.

Oh, Gawd…those aren’t leggings!

…and I decided to punch it instead of letting her cross.

Back to today, it wasn’t yet noon and I’d decided that I needed a caffeine hit. Because I’ve been exercising on the reg and pulled two driving shifts yesterday that were long enough that the app cut me off, I decided to be a lazy pants and drive.

I’m undecided on whether that was a blessing or not. Pretty sure it had to be a universal kindness for my old, gay eyes since if I’d walked, I’d have taken the same route and not had the ability to floor it when I registered what was happening.

Suffice to say, even a homeless person should have the <ahem> “wear with all” to decide to change anywhere but a parking space. I mean, she was one block over from the Park Blocks, where there were plenty of hundreds of years old trees to provide at least some privacy.

But, here she was, shielding her…modesty? Sure, we’ll call it modesty, by turning away from traffic while she changed. Bending at the waist, mind you, so I got the full “fur diaper” experience, as my beloathed Black Sheep Bro used to refer to his lovelier-than-he-deserved girlfriend’s preferred natural state.

For my gay ass – careening away from this visage at, frankly, rather unsafe speeds for a surface street – I couldn’t imagine how society’s misogynistically imposed feminine grooming norms would have improved this experience.

At. All.

Now, to balance my offense…with a more personal touch, no less:

I realized this week – on successive days – that I have two pair of undies that have reached a level of wear that I like to call “blown out”. I’m honestly afraid to shower snd dress today, lest this become a three day streak. For the unfamiliar, I usually refer to a ripped crotch seam as a blow out.

And, let’s all take a moment to admit that – unless it’s happening to you – the sound of a crotch seam ripping is a rather soothing ASMR- type experience.

Because I’m me, and because my mind is an amusing sort of defective, I view these two instances differently:

The Betrayal

My panda print briefs are ripping at the waistband. A particularly heinous betrayal – despite the reality that I bought these a couple pant sizes ago.

Hey, I’m working on it, ok?

The tear is in a place that makes it too easy to make the shituation worse, too. My damn finger finds that hole every time I wear them and I can feel it getting bigger.

For my mental health, I should probably throw them in the trash instead of the laundry, but: pandas!

On the other hand…

The Contorted Flattery

The other pair of undies that have blown out are a pair of…boxer briefs? I dunno. There’s no real inseam to speak of, as you’d find on an actual pair of boxers. But the style is definitely an homage to 70s era gym shorts. Well, except the backside is a tasteful mesh.

No, I’m not a pole dancer.

And I’ll have nothing to do with tasteful on this blog post, damnit!

The blow out on this pair is on the “pouch”. Ok, that was semi-tasteful. Apologies.

Once again, these undies are two pant sizes old, but I’m not letting that reality get in my way. Obviously, Big Ed and The Twins are simply too much for this pair of pants to contain.

Again, I should toss these. But since they are cute and no one sees them but me, you know I’ll wear them in a fit of “why I’m single” defiance until one of The Twins fully escapes.

You. Are. Welcome.

Betrayal!

I Am Unresolved

galby68, , , , , , , , , , 5 Comments

But, still…one (this one, anyway) does like setting and achieving goals. Especially if they are fun or don’t require too much work.

That said, my goals are a mixed bag of those two…adjectives? Qualities?

I dunno.

Nonetheless, here’s a brief accounting of the goings down to date:

1) After Chadwick Boseman died last summer – suddenly, to out of the loop fans – I started putting pressure on myself to get my mind sorted on the Coming of Age test that my doctor had been pestering me about for several years. It’s cute that he thought getting ahead of my fiftieth for the test would provide results. He plied me with mail in poo test kits on every visit for a couple years, trying to sell me on “new and improved” collection methods.

Bless his heart. He’d only known me a couple of years at the time and was unfamiliar with my stubbornness.

When T’Challa died, I finally pulled one out of mothballs my pile of unread mail and stabbed a floater before sending it in.

Of course, I failed.

Since it tests for trace blood and I have ROH (randomly occurring hemorrhoids), duh…blood.

When he calls me with the results, I’m talking to a doctor that finally knows me.

I’m going to write you a referral. When they call, *please* answer your phone.

Hehe.

I replied by asking how many years he’d been chasing me about fondling my feces, which amused me way more than him.

It’s not funny, it’s just funny.

Anyway, my colonoscopy is the week after my birthday. AKA: at the end of this month.

2) At Christmas, after my mom unwrapped a bird feeder from her Secret Satan Santa, I remembered what I’d forgotten: I wanted a bird feeder for my Juliette balcony. Mom directed me to the shed, where there was a hummingbird feeder they had decommissioned some time ago that I was welcome to.

I’d posted about the minimal effort required to install it – basically a trip to the local hardware store.

Side Note: my local hardware store is the one that Anastasia Steele (what a douchey name, but what does one expect from such a masturbatory story?) worked at before becoming involved with the titular character in Fifty Shades of Grey.

Anyway…I finally got around to that. Now the waiting game begins.

She’s a meany. But I’m sure she’s nice enough to invite any takers into her Red Room.

3) And no Resolution List would be complete without a diet or exercise entry.

Diet is not that entry. Although, after reading about the prep for the impending ol’ tooter rooter, I’ll consider that diet.

But I’d seen the latest greatest resolution challenge floating around on social media – something about 100 Days of Motion or some such nonesense. While I consider goals to be a great thing, realistic goals are the ones you attain.

Somehow, 100 Days of Motion for this old bag of bones didn’t seem likely. Unless, of course, one counts getting out of bed as a sit up, on to or off of the couch a squat or some similarly unlikely rationalization a success.

I don’t.

Nonetheless, I committed to being more active, minimum bar for success set at five days per week.

I started with three sets of weighted exercises at home – my only real option in Lockdown 2.0 – and had at it. Any movement feels good after months of rather unfocused but still highly effective neglect. So I was satisfied…and increasingly motivated through my own accomplishments.

Then I did a mile of stairs in my building.

It was the end of the second week – which seemed reasonable. But my body informed me otherwise.

I mean…it seemed so reasonable. Then I walked weird for a week. Nevermind the reality of wheezing my way up and down six flights of stairs dozens of times in a mask.

In a fit of frustration over my soreness and lack of saw ownership, which would provide me the ability to cut off my legs, I ordered an e-stim massage unit for a little relief…I hoped.

I have a friend – who I will allow to remain anonymous – that has one he uses for personal massages. That particular endorsement doing nothing but sending my nuts fully back into my torso whenever the topic comes up, I also had one from Bubble Boy.

Not that his was much better. He’d found playing the part of “cowboy” to my “bull” (Ha, I wish) taxing after falling asleep with his attached to his rear a couple of days before one of our assignations. Not that his rear needed a workout, but the results of his nap on a high setting gave me hope for a therapeutic result on a low setting.

It most certainly did the trick! Not bad for a $30 solution to my million dollar baby problem. Here’s a video of the above situation if you want to see ol’ Chicken Legs McGee twitch…

I’d also seen a former colleague hosting outdoor fitness classes, reminiscent of my uber-fit days in Seattle, when I’d wake up at the crack of dawn and go to a boot camp overlooking the Puget Sound and then grab a doughnut before 7.

Anyway, she was doing Saturday morning classes (at a non-crazy hour) for $10 and I thought maybe I should participate. I missed the first week, but the second week I took my Jabba-esque physique out for a trundle. Hell, for all I knew, it would kill me and spare me the colonoscopy.

Upside.

Here is my post following the completion:

And I should be back next week. I was gratified that my former colleague bemoaned being 43 as we caught up, trying to decide “how long it had been” while also laughing at how long it had been. That’s aging for ya, it’s kind of amazing. Additionally, with her being probably exactly middle-aged for a woman, that lent itself to the majority of the participants being only slightly younger than me. So I felt comfortable.

On the other hand, the single attendee who was young-young was someone I was fairly certain that I’d chatted with on asocial media several years back and maybe only unfollowed this past summer. It’s hard to tell with masks and all, but I recognized some thigh tattoos and distinctive guybrows.

I’m pretty sure he didn’t recognize me – or my less-than-impressive thunder. Because, of course the class I went to so that my clothes would fit better started off with midriff-baring downward facing dogs. While that’s a position I would enthusiastically put him into, no one needs to witness my shituation in that same posture.

All that said, the class was great – despite the humbling nature of the endeavor and one errand exertion related fart – and I will be back next week. And I can still walk, thanks to my e-stim buddy.

4) And I nearly forgot this one: I raised my weekly Lyft goal by 50%. When I’d originally set it, my goal was just to minimize street parking expenses, since I don’t have a garage. I usually made that goal, but now that I’m not doing any part-time office gigs, I’m on the street whenever I’m not driving for Lyft.

Honestly, I normally blew that goal away, but officially resetting my goal to the 50% increase was daunting.

So far, mixed results. I’m averaging my new goal over the first weeks of the new year, but I have only achieved the goal itself two out of three opportunities.

There still work to be done. And 49 chances for success!

So that’s what I’ve got going so far this year…I still have my new InstaPot as an open/unopened goal to tackle. I’m sure anyone who follows me on social media will be assaulted by result pics know as soon as I start executing on that goal. I’d like to put it into weekly use…it’s just finding those recipes that will produce leftovers I’ll actually eat or that can be cut into halves easily.

It’ll happen.

How are your resolutions going? Tell me in the comments…

I Am Unresolved

Break Time!

galby68, , , , , , , , 6 Comments

This might be more of a Hail Mary post than an actual blog entry. So expect to be appropriately underwhelmed.

That said, this email from yesterday caught me off guard, enter the Hail Mary portion of this entry.

About a month ago, I skeptically clicked on a link on the Facebook that I fully expected to create a full blown spam implosion of my account. It was from NORC, the National Opinion Research Center at the University of Chicago. As best I can tell, they are a legit entity, even though they are new on my personal radar.

They were offering a paid opportunity to participate in their election survey, specifically the influence social media has on people during an election cycle. The whole 6 week enchilada pays about a tenth of my monthly nut, so it’s not significant, but it’s also not nothing.

But it is a 6 week break from the BS that is Facebook, so I happily signed up – after doing my due due diligence.

Haha. Doodoo.

I was just surprised to get the email yesterday that said “Boom, bitch, it’s now!”

Well, maybe I’m paraphrasing.

The long and short of this Hail Mary is, basically, maybe they signed me out of the Facebook, but maybe that act does not keep any of my tethered accounts – such as WordPress – from syncing up. If that’s the case, my ALIHAFG followers there will see this entry and understand my silence. I mean, I only had about a month to get ahead of this thing and failed…

So either this works, or people come to the understandable leap of logic that I’ve obviously died. More on my personal experiences with that later.

Maybe.

In the meantime, I’ve apparently got to go be asocial. Also in the meantime, I’m using my one-less-distraction existence to get shit done. I’m halfway through editing – and I humbly discovered a few obvious typos in doing so – my revised book two of No One Of Consequence, splitting book two into books two and three to keep my price point palatable and my earning equally low, I’m sure.

Hehe.

Gulp.

<starves to death>

Kidding, I’m very lucky to have parents – in my damn fifties that would never let that happen! In the interim, I look at this social media break between now and November 3 as freeing up my time to complete this book two rewrite and wrap up a tangental project called Longtime Survivor – which will probably result in a Cease and Desist order coming my way – ahead of November’s NaNoWriMo event…in which my plan – such as it is – is to get a first draft of what I’m calling Fifty Gig – my second non-fiction entry in the Oldie Hawn trilogy. The first of which was dating. Fifty Gig is work and the third entry will be (I think) fitness, now that COVID has iced my physical shitness cupcake.

We’ll see how that optimistic planning plays out.

Break Time!

I’m Not Dead

galby68, , , , , , , , , , , 7 Comments

…just very badly burned…out.

I guess that’s what you could call it.

I hear people referring to COVID-Fatigue or Lockdown Fatigue. Maybe this is a little bit of that?

Maybe I should do what the cool kids all seem to do and self-diagnose with Anxiety? Nah, I’m sure it’s not that…the 20-teens version of Epstein-Barr Syndrome. Which I guess is no longer a syndrome but a virus from the herpes family, believe it or not. Who knew that would end up being a real thing? Suddenly, though, I see how that could have spread as widely as it allegedly did among self-diagnosticians.

No.

Not dead.

Not anxious.

Just…quiet.

I hope you enjoyed the respite from my bullshit.

Self-effacing, but make it poetry.

Anyway, in my self-imposed solitude, I’ve been getting out of bed for several hours each day. Which is good. Most days for a few hours of driving, that affords me some easy, no muss-no fuss socializing during the week.

But I’ve also been sneaking out – under cover of darkness, for the most part…for blobvious reasons – to run a few times a week. This will be week three of that endeavor, and while it’s certainly humbling, it feels good.

Ish.

Notice, if you will, that no one *liked* my activities. I can tell you that I pretty much felt the same.

Because this is me, I have some observations after my inaugural return:

First, ow. I need new shoes. I meant to run yesterday to kick off the week – even though my brain told me that it was probably a bad idea: running consecutive days – but I got stuck in an eight hour drive hole after heading out to catch a ride in a bonus zone that just happened to land on me like a house on a wicked witch.

Starting off innocently enough with what turned out to be a $50 24-minute ride…poof…eight hours went by like nothing. My ass didn’t even really complain, which is something it usually starts doing at around three hours normally. I blame it on my gluteus minimus getting a lil swole from running.

Second, in a fit of what I know now to have been prescience, I woke up with a complaining ACL on my left side. You may or may not recall something which I certainly try to forget, which is my doctor retiring me from running a few – seven is “a few”, right? – years back after I fractured my tibia while training you run a marathon. Well, it took two more fractures – but c’mon, they were just micro fractures, who takes those seriously? – before I believed him. Now, seven years and about 30 pounds later, I’m revisiting the advice. Tempering my activity with a return to shorter distances, a cushiony track versus asphalt roadways and a shockingly low level of endurance that puts me in a run a half lap/walk a half lap cadence…hence the double-digit pace. So if a bit of whining from an ACL is the damage, I’m willing to pop an ibuprofen and push on…tomorrow.

And, third and especially because it’s me, during one of my late night wheezes runs, there was a photo shoot going on in the field inside the track.

Picture it: a perfectly dark night and a 10×10 square of the field exploding with lights set up in what I initially thought was a trap that caught a shirtless, well-oiled musclebound specimen of male pulchritude. You might wonder what kind of idiot would wander into such an obvious trap. Clearly, a muscle head, but to his credit, they did obscure the trap with several smoke machines.

The aesthetic perils of running on the UnderArmor track. Another reason for my choice to run at night. Seriously, though, this being 2020, I shouldn’t assume he was doing a marketing shoot for UnderArmor – it could have been for his Instagram page for all I know!

So, yeah…running. Standby on how that goes. My current goal is 2x/week until I can comfortably run a full lap consistently. This far, I’ve managed that twice, both laps resulted in an internal argument about whether my struggle was because I was that out of shape, had COVID or if this was a post-COVID long-term side effect.

My psyche is a psychotic place. Still, I’m betting it’s option three…

The last year or so, I’ve been commenting that I only really have three activity pillars in my daily life – aside from my number one pastime, socializing. That may sound like I’m either not living a very full existence or that I’m pretty low-functioning, since I usually follow that up with “I can really only succeed at two of the three pillars each day”.

Work – which nowadays consists solely of my Lyft driving. It’s a definitely struggle to make ends meet, more fail than win. But I’m really not sure that a return to 50+ hour professional workweeks is in my future. It’s something I need to work out in therapy, I know. I’m not able to objectively determine if I e left my last posts for legitimate reasons. My friends and family will tell me that I had valid grounds, but I don’t know if that makes us all smart or them loyal. Neither is bad, but I need an outside diagnosis opinion.

Exercise – which has been the first of the three to be sacrificed, obviously.

Writing – and if you think I’ve been eschewing my blog for working on a book, allow me to dis you from that illusion. I mean, I’m kind of joking, but the reality is…no.

So, on that note, let me wrap up with an update on my creative endeavors.

I’ve got a first draft of a WIP sitting on my laptop waiting for edits that I’d wanted complete by April. Alas. I’ve also decided to pull my second novel off of Amazon to rework it. At 550 pages, my initial impulse was to split it in two. The feedback I got from a beta reader and a couple of folks that bought it early on was that it was fine at that length. However, the costs of self-publishing a book that size puts a hefty $17.95 price on the book just to make me a buck on the back end. I’ve decided that I’d rather be able to price my books at $9.95 to make them more easily marketable.

Sidebar: I recently bought a copy of a friend’s book – called Gay and Tired – in a show of support for a fellow writer. Like my goal, his was priced at $10, so I figured it was an easy show of support. It’s sixty pages. It better be the missing chapter of either the Kama Sutra or How to Make People and Influence Friends (wait, that doesn’t sound right) for that price. But suddenly, my 300-ish page books for that same price seem pretty much like a steal. My initial surprise at the shortness made me a little…conflicted, so I’ve yet to read it.

At $9.95, my royalty is about a buck – which is why my initial novel was priced at $12.95, I hoped it would be read and a potential income stream. However, I would prefer to have my story read more than build an actual income stream, which is why I decided to split book two into books two and three. There’s a super logical cliffhanger to end up book two and then start book three. And I think it will be an easier purchase impulse to enable at $9.95.

Now, if I could just cut it down by a couple hundred pages, I could probably apparently make a 600% increase on my royalty.

Anyway, one of the other things I decided to do for book one was to buy a few author copies to drop into neighborhood lending libraries around town.

What? Your city doesn’t have neighborhood lending libraries?

I love this about our lil burg. Of course, since mine has a few racy chapters, I’d probably focus my contribution to libraries in front of houses with gay pride flags hanging on them – there are plenty, trust me – versus those with toddlers standing in the front yard, like in the first picture.

I don’t expect anything in return for this contribution, it’s just something I wanted to do when I first published the book last year – I just never had the discretionary scratch to do it before. Frankly, I don’t really have it now, but given the social climate of 2020 I felt like it was more important than ever to do it. You see, the impetus for writing this was to show an imperfect slice of life between a group of diverse gay men and the bond of friendship that allows them to lift one another up in life. Given the widening chasm between people today, it seems we may never successfully manage to “meet in the middle” on anything again.

This decision was brought front and center again for me yesterday as I observed – and then engaged, which I probably shouldn’t do if I’m going to publish under my real name – on a Facebook thread between a local owner of a queer bar and…I dunno, the public. The issue stems from his decision to shutter the bar in the early days of the pandemic. It was a decision that preceded the governor’s own by a few days, but apparently that was a catalyst for a disenchanted group of workers to air their grievances. Without going into the specific drama, this post was his apology and affirmation of support for the queer community.

The issue I had was how many fringe members of the community decided to shove a spit – not that kind, Diezel – up his ass a absolutely roast him in the comments. One person is a trans individual who took issue with this owners decision to call trans people brave. In a fit of biting the hand that feeds you, this person decided to speak for their entire population by saying they aren’t brave, they’re tired. Tired of fighting for equality and the right to live their lives as their true selves.

Ok, I get that. I remember when attending gay bars was something I felt was dangerous. My favorite bars didn’t have normal windows – they were either painted over or obscured by shutters to conceal the bar-goers. Even participating in AIDS marches and Pride parades made me feel like I was putting a bullseye on myself. But I knew it was important to have that visibility to usher my community into the mainstream.

And I felt it was brave.

Flash forward to the Pulse Massacre and you can imagine how I feel the need for bravery in my community is still important.

But, no…this trans person needed to provide us with an example of the entitlement of their generation by disagreeing with the praise that was levied upon them. They aren’t brave, they’re tired.

Ok, maybe they wouldn’t be so tired if they confined their battles to actual enemies instead of making enemies within their own community.

Just write a fucking book and shut up. Well, not shut up so much as get the impulse to attack your own out of your system. Here’s a title suggestion: Trans and Tired. Imagine how much faster rhinos would have gone extinct if they attacked their own versus just letting poachers take them out. <exasperated eye roll>

I mean, how immature must the queer community be ~50 years after Stonewall? We don’t exactly ooze maturity based on the most visible components of or ranks. I have been referring to The Gays as Lost Boys for decades.

Anyway, I feel like that’s veering off into a different post. Suffice to say, if I’m going to write under my own name and speak my Voice of Treason truths on social media, maybe success isn’t something I should hope for. But it did make me glad I had arranged for these author copies to spread around. Maybe someone will read my imperfect story and take note. Given the Facebook post from yesterday, that seems more unlikely than one of The Gays finding it and actually reading it, but it clearly needs to happen.

Now, to come up with an inscription for the inside flap…

I’m Not Dead