tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19398873392773742132024-02-20T00:58:46.826-08:00What I Didn't Say (Yet)Markhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08560859688282860180noreply@blogger.comBlogger74125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1939887339277374213.post-44228202688527926702012-07-03T04:20:00.001-07:002012-07-03T11:40:59.645-07:00Analyze This!I had a dream in which my father lost both his last female lover, and his last male lover, on the same day. <br />
<br />
For some reason, we could, or did not, attend their funerals, but went to their graves. I went first, though I don't know why, and thus knew where to find the gravesites.<br />
<br />
There was some sort of fight with my father when I returned home from visiting the graves, and I felt weak. I was lying on the couch - smoking a pipe. <br />
<br />
It tasted like exotic berries. And cardamom. I remember thinking that I didn't know what cardamom tasted like.<br />
<br />
We drove out to the grave-sites, located in this utopic little garden behind waist-high wrought-iron fencing. We drove there in a Miata.<br />
<br />
I think it was mine.<br />
<br />
The road to Fiesta Texas was a quiet little lane, like the streets around UTSA when I went there in '97. The cemetery was just off that road, two blocks from Six Flags.<br />
<br />
We went in, found the graves, and my father asked me to give him a moment ... of peace. <br />
<br />
And we started crying. I hugged him. And then, I woke up.<br />
<br />
I felt empty.<br />
Markhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08560859688282860180noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1939887339277374213.post-61760468746327164182012-02-20T07:53:00.000-08:002012-02-20T08:54:20.933-08:00Toilet humor ...First job of the day? Investigate the smell of "flower-scented death" in one of the bathrooms downstairs. I am only grateful I was not the one to have to scrub the tagging off the toilet paper dispenser in the men's room. The staff outside my office asked for Glade plug-ins, because the men's room - upstairs - smells like urine, and the ladies' room smells like G-d only knows what.<div><br /></div><div>And speaking of going down the drain, my love life took a nose-dive this weekend, which - all things considered - is really saying something.</div><div><br /></div><div>I suppose it could be that <i>the Frenemy</i> and I got together for the annual audit - the yearly tradition during which he plies me with alcohol while I go through a printed out (in color, with pictures) journal of his previous year's sexual exploits. It is typically a grand tour of all the men from various websites (e.g. Craig's List, adam4adam, Grindr, etc.) that turned me down and happily hooked up with that fat, aging whore. </div><div><br /></div><div>It is that typically; however, this year was a bit different. I am no longer on those sites (having turned my tastes toward bisexuals with mental disorders and/or looking for love on match.com and Compatible Partners), so I didn't find myself drawing comparisons, and coming up short. This year's journal - though fraught with fornicatin' and bamboozlery - read like a twisted Twilight, a sad exploration of codependence, abuse, and desperation. And those were the good parts.</div><div><br /></div><div>I would say that I found myself wanting more - but more would have only been more of the same, and - frankly - after the second bottle of wine, I have very little recollection of wanting anything at all, other than sleep.</div><div><br /></div><div>And so it was that I awoke, hours later, and - after a conversation with <i>Ova the Top</i> re. getting peed on in the dark back-room of a New Orleans gay bar (he's into that sort of thing), I texted <i>the guy with PTSD - who is only bi when drunk or high</i>. Thankfully, he was drunk - so, he rushed right over.</div><div><br /></div><div>We wound up cuddling in my bed, and though the chemistry was great - none of that awkwardness about where to put arms, legs, or what to do with that erection when you're spooning with a straight guy - it did leave me wanting more, both an orgasm, and a partner who is not too straight to give me one. </div><div><br /></div><div>But those are the breaks when dealing with bisexuals.</div><div><br /></div><div>And maybe that's the place from which came the dream. I woke up crying Saturday morning, having spent Friday night sleeping fitfully and suffering through a dream in which I cashed in my 401(k), had a sex change, and went to Planet Fitness for a Body Pump class - all in the span of hours. One of my more hateful acquaintances wisely suggested that I was crying because I went to the gym ... but, all kidding aside, the feeling of worthlessness lingered with me all weekend.</div><div><br /></div><div>It felt as though every choice I made for the past 15 years - since I stopped living as a woman, and including the cosmetic surgery 7 years ago - was the wrong choice. Jail, rehab, et al. notwithstanding, I don't believe that, but it seems my subconscious does. </div><div><br /></div><div>Dreams allow us to work through, if only in obscure and occasionally deeply disturbing ways, the things we do not take the time or have the perspective to analyze in our waking worlds. So, that dream was, pardon the pun, a wake-up call. </div><div><br /></div><div>Meanwhile, it's another day at a job that poses challenges and opportunities for growth every single day ... the toilet in the break-room is broken, and someone clogged a drain downstairs.</div><div><br /></div><div>Mark</div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div>Markhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08560859688282860180noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1939887339277374213.post-21359529106289493542012-01-30T13:00:00.001-08:002012-01-30T13:01:02.139-08:00Zombies: Or, Getting Live in HereI spent the weekend in bed, at least partially because I was sick (and tired), but largely because I pay for cable, and I'll be damned if the Trinity Broadcasting Network (i.e. all church, all the time) is going to cost me $60 a month.<br />
<br />
I fell asleep last night to "Zombies: A Living History," and found myself thinking that while romantic comedies, sitcoms, and Freud may observe that our beds are haunted, the truth is not that there's a ghost town in my pants, though I swear I caught sight of a tumbleweed the other day.<br />
<br />
No, those aren't ghosts - friendly, translucent phantasms, hovering just outside reality. Those are not spirits of my exes. And those bastards did not, I tell you, have the decency to up and die. No, as I lay in bed - warm and cozy in a house that, my nearly dead octogenarian father's health necessitates I keep at a seasonable 76 degrees - I found myself thinking that it was not the ghosts of my past that cause me grief. It is the rotting, stinking, sad-sack, shambling, withered and dying, festering corpses of my lost love that keep trying to eat my face off.<br />
<br />
The 21 year old I was briefly doing during the Old Black Man's hospitalization - a period I affectionately call, "free at last, free at last ... Great G-d almighty, I am free at last ..." - recently sexted me at 5AM. This prompted me to think, both that I am too old for sexting, and also that he must be high, because booty calls take place between 11:30 and 3AM, unless otherwise established (or you're a stripper).<br />
<br />
Nevertheless, hoping to rekindle the "free at last ..." magic, by sneaking his skinny ass in through the broken screen on the back door, I responded. We were just getting to the point of making arrangements when Wally told me he was going to charge for our next encounter. <br />
<br />
Y'all may not have heard the story, but this is the same boy who, in a foolish fit of ambition and hormones, plunged himself onto my manhood ... and, promptly, yelped, hunched over, and fell off. He left a broken man - talking wistfully about a hot bath, and this is the no-'ccount small child that wants me to pay for another case of blue balls!?!<br />
<br />
He was only the second in as many days to ask for a donation. <br />
<br />
The 19 year old with whom I passed one lovely, short afternoon, and who subsequently stole my father's pain pills, called me up and asked to meet, with the understanding I'd 'help him out' afterwards.<br />
<br />
The architect with whom I had two dates, and with whom I cannot fathom a third, didn't ask for money. He just didn't have any cash and was slow on the draw with his credit card. Real slow. <br />
<br />
Of course, he made up for it by being quick with the quips, the chides, the insults, and the comparisons to his dear friend - of whom I reminded him so. The dear friend, when I saw a picture, was nearly 60, fat, and wearing a caftan. Not even ironically.<br />
<br />
And then there is that long-time plus one, who is himself pushing 60, and who I dumped - quite ceremoniously - just the other day. Like the undead before him, he won't stay down. I'm supposed to 'save the night' for Thursday, when he gets back into town.<br />
<br />
Now, I've never seen "The Walking Dead," but I watched "Zombieland" three times. In the absence of a shotgun, or an Escalade, do you think garden shears will get the job done, or do I need to drop a piano on somebody?<br />
<br />
In the battle of the rotting corpses of desire versus my sanity, someone's going down - and they're already halfway there!Markhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08560859688282860180noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1939887339277374213.post-1196002551942445192012-01-09T07:54:00.001-08:002012-01-09T07:55:00.198-08:00There are some mountains so majestic ...A dear friend noted, on the drive to a New Year's Eve bash, that all of my stories ... and there are a lot of stories ... start in a bar. She asked me if perhaps that was something in which I might want to work.<br />
<br />
I responded that I had enough stories involving church, passing the collection plate for the pastor's sick and dying Cadillac, and my father throwing a poodle at my head. I drink to forget those stories, and - in the process - acquire a few more.<br />
<br />
Can I help it if people like to talk to me?<br />
<br />
Case in point, last night - while minding my own business at the often mentioned popular hell-hole - a very attractive shrimp hit on me. It started off innocently enough with him asking me if I liked to f@!?, to which I replied, "Sure - why do you ask?" <br />
<br />
What ensued from that moment can only be described as a calamity. Paul - like the apostle - proceeded to explain his theories about the universe, his three DWIs, and how he'll take it from pretty much anyone with a penis, as later evidenced by his casual comment that the 350 lbs. man on whose couch he was crashing last night wanted him, and Paul planned to put out. Not for the sake of the couch, or a particular interest in his large host ... but just because.<br />
<br />
He called this morning to ask me out.<br />
<br />
Meanwhile, in a moment of colossal weakness, mild drunkenness, and because he smelled really good ... I made a date with my ex. <br />
<br />
That he is seeing someone else is neither here nor there. That he dumped me - unceremoniously, ignominiously, and tragically - a week before Valentine's Day, and via text message, is what really gets my goat. Frankly, I have half a mind to stand him up.<br />
<br />
The other half remembers fondly how incredibly, surprisingly, flexible he is and that he has a prodigious amount of stamina for a man the same age as my mother. <br />
<br />
Say what you will about me, but I do have my standards. He's paying for the cheap motel.Markhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08560859688282860180noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1939887339277374213.post-23963843220336697762012-01-07T12:37:00.001-08:002012-01-07T12:37:53.279-08:00Feast, and FamineHappy Hour is such a complicated process in this town. It's feast or famine, given that bars are either packed to the gills, or empty to the point that it's just you and the bartender.<br />
<br />
Admittedly, this has led to free drinks, doing lines off the bar (or the bartender) and some very interesting, if rushed, interludes in back rooms.<br />
<br />
This was not the case yesterday, when<br />
I wandered from the dark, wood-paneled 'gay-Rish' pub to the seedy hell-hole next door. The drinks are cheaper, and - despite the hint of vomit - it's the most popular gay bar in town. This would probably explain why I ran into my ex, Mount Gay, his fag hag, and his new beau. And watching Mount Gay and the toad make out might possibly have influenced my third and fourth drinks.<br />
<br />
Nevertheless, when I got an eager phone call from a long-lost fling I recently friended on Facebook, I had the sense things were looking up.<br />
<br />
That enthusiasm lasted until he showed up, eyes swollen from crying, bouncy through a veil of inebriation, and with a friend in tow who wobbled and said he wanted to throw up.<br />
<br />
That I went home with them has more to do with the memory of what my old fling looked like naked, and that I had nothing better to do.<br />
<br />
I should learn not to make decisions in this way.<br />
<br />
The next two hours were spent fending off an amorous Chihuahua, taking shots from a gallon jug of Absolut, and letting the guy I was picturing upside down and ... well, anyway ... cry, whine, or sob on my shoulder while he quoted Billie Holiday songs.<br />
<br />
Shortly after it became clear I was only going to get more of the same, I called a cab. Out of which I fell upon getting home.<br />
<br />
Other than a bruise, and a $25 cab ride, to say nothing of blue balls, it was the usual sort of Friday night for me. <br />
<br />
And then, in the course of crawling to the kitchen - for orange juice, grits, and aspirin - I got the impression my father was dead. He was still in bed at 2, and hasn't moved in hours. It took about an hour to work up the nerve to make sure he was breathing.<br />
<br />
He is, by the way, so I went back to the kitchen and started dinner.<br />
<br />
Ain't life grand?Markhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08560859688282860180noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1939887339277374213.post-58741884799094977912012-01-05T11:02:00.001-08:002012-01-05T11:04:31.878-08:00Happy New Year, (and thanks for coming)!When I woke up on the first day of this bright, shiny, still had the gift-wrap and the price tag day, the first day of 2012, I felt like a kid again. Actually, I felt like a 13 year old.<br />
<br />
I had a wet dream. I woke up wet and sticky, my just purchased the day before Calvin Klein underpants clinging, and dripping, in all the wrong places.<br />
<br />
I tried to remember the last time I actually had sex - because, when a 32 year old has a wet dream, it is surely time for some kind of accounting, and drew a blank. <br />
<br />
It was some time when my father was in the nursing home, and my 21 year old pot-head paramour, with the oddly sexy BO came over and injured himself on my penis. Since he fell off of it do quickly, I clearly didn't get off that night - but I'd certainly come since then. While alone, and listening to Thelonius Monk, with a glass of wine and a burned copy of "Bad Boys on Duty," or in the quick, hurried, beneath the sheets, fevered style of the 13 year old lying alone in the dark. <br />
<br />
Nevertheless, there I was at 5AM, January 1st, creeping out of bed at a Hilton Garden Inn and trying to shower and change into boxers without waking my sleeping, snoring, female dear friend. This was both out of courtesy and a hint of shame and/or confusion<br />
<br />
So, my accounting came up short, and I wondered what it said about me that I spent the previous evening - New Year's Eve - at a sedate, suburban party, with pink champagne and kisses on the cheek at midnight.<br />
<br />
I rang in 2011 by jumping on the bed in rehab, while my fellow inmates clanged lockers and blared gangsta rap. I'd say fireworks on the 9th hole of a golf course while smooth jazz, and children, played in the background is a definite step up. <br />
<br />
Between the high-end suburbs New Year's Eve, and the drinks by the pool at the hotel bar where we started our weekend, between the crab and spinach dinner, and the smoked salmon breakfast, I found myself feeling luxe. I think 2012 will be a very good year, for shopping and eating, working, and travel. Houston taught me more about myself than I would expect to learn in two days. <br />
<br />
Like most lessons, I get the feeling it's going to be bittersweet - money, yes ... sex, no. To paraphrase Robin Leach, I anticipate champagne wishes ... and wet dreams.Markhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08560859688282860180noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1939887339277374213.post-20309737951480570982011-12-23T11:21:00.001-08:002011-12-23T13:11:13.618-08:00He Was Born With a Heart Two Sizes Too Small<div><p>It's damned near Christmas, and - give or take a little misplaced optimism - I am a tad shy of Christmas spirit. I am light of merry, and bereft of cheer. I am, however, Southern and thus possessed of a certain natural grace and wit, capable of making even my most bitter moments into a source of mirth and good humor.</p>
<p>Vodka helps.</p>
<p>So, I put on my best Southern the other day when one of my father's exes, a woman for whom I never particularly cared, and who at one time scandalized even me, called to say hello. My father dated her aunt, who I adored - until she suffered a  stroke, at which time the Old Black Man moved on to Mel. He also briefly dated Mel's mother - once Mel's father died, or at least when he was real sickly.</p>
<p>In any event, I was wandering in and out of the kitchen, frying bacon-wrapped egg rolls, and doing laundry - so I only caught snippets of the conversation. There was definitely flirting going on. I recognized the signs - the Old Black Man was sitting up, something he seldom does these days. He was smiling, and he was laughing with that hyperbolic 'hee-hee-hee' Morgan Freeman used in "Driving Miss Daisy," the one that's halfway between a guffaw and a donkey getting branded.</p>
<p>I recognized it as flirting, and yet the words were coming out all wrong - which is not to suggest he was slurring, though at nearly 90, with a regular supply of Vicodin, and a sharecropper's drawl, who could discern a slur from a Sunday morning come-to-Jesus? My father was somehow turning a conversation about sons in prisons, arthritis, and dementia into a grand ol' time.</p>
<p>Perhaps it was that that conversation went so swimmingly that has me twisting a lemon in the sweet tea of life. The next night, Sunday, I begged out of a family function to go tie one on with my plus one - a sweet, dapper man of a certain age (50-something, since you asked nicely) with whom I've been keeping company since before I went to rehab - either time. </p>
<p>We met his friends - all younger, thinner, and more gainfully employed than either of us. Hipsters are always good for a laugh, and a cheap thrill - which is how I wound up seeing the penis, and prodigious bush, of a recent college grad who, I'm fairly sure, had been drunk since Spring Break. And my plus one tried to fix me up with the only other gay guy in the room, a pale and bird-like fellow with a Jew-fro. </p>
<p>That Jew-fro and my plus one nearly dated sometime ago, but for mixed signals - not lack of trying - put a mild damper on things. Things were downright moist when, after Jew-fro and I exchanged numbers, my plus one voiced his thoughts on trying to make something happen with Jew-fro. And they went to monsoon when Jew-fro returned neither my text, that evening, or my call - two days later. We haven't spoken since we met.</p>
<p>And maybe I was thinking about that lack of attention when I gave my number to a Polish fellow from group therapy. He does have the general appearance of someone who used to have a twitch, and possibly a nervous tic - and yet he has the pale, half-dead look that sets my heart to beating. At this point, a person who twitches and has not one but two fast-food jobs seems less like an ill fit and more like a damned good Thursday evening.</p>
<p>The holidays make me all misty. Bah humbug.</p>
</div>Markhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08560859688282860180noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1939887339277374213.post-88375842652376997192011-12-14T13:30:00.001-08:002011-12-14T13:52:55.772-08:00CTRL + ALT + DEL Life<div><p>My posts are growing fewer and farther between - partially because I find myself at a loss for words, and also because - as the old saying goes, "if you ain't got nothin' nice to say, you might as well hold your tongue ..."</p>
<p>For the past few weeks, I danced between - 'oh, thank G-d nothing too ridiculous happened this week' - and 'Please, G-d, just get me through this week.' There has been nothing nice to speak of.</p>
<p>My father had major surgery and was briefly in a nursing home, which gave me an unceasing peace, several nights of damned good sleep, and three glorious half-hours with a 21 year old whose name - Wally - made me giggle, but whose parts and labor made me a very happy homo indeed.</p>
<p>There was even a tryst with a man whose kisses made me weak, and whose story about gunning down an 8 year old suicide bomber left me wrecked. He has PTSD - and just maybe that explains not returning my calls, or maybe it's that he's straight. He just forgets every third or fourth weekend of the month.</p>
<p>I think I forgot what it's like to be kissed - as Rhett Butler once said, "often ... and by somebody who knows how." He kissed me, and I had this vague memory of what it felt like to be liked and cared for, considered interesting and capable of complex, secret, happy things.</p>
<p>It felt like there was a secret passing between us that no one else in the whole world got to know - that even other people, who'd each and all shared kisses with each of us still could neither know nor get what our kisses were, what they contained or conveyed.</p>
<p>In other words, it was good.</p>
<p>And that, I think, is part of the problem. This recent crop of great sex - harvested - is just a memory. Wally, in an ambitious moment, got a little carried away and managed to injure himself. The last time I saw him, he fell off my penis and stumbled out the door - hunched over and promising to try again next time.</p>
<p><i>The Soldier</i>, on the other hand, left with a bang, not a whimper - when - after rejecting me, for a tranny hooker he was attempting to do in my bed - I threw him, his pants, and his hooker with the five o'clock shadow, out at 4AM.</p>
<p>The end of the affair, unceremonious though it was, was still more interesting and, arguably, appropriate than the one-week-before-Valentine's-Day text message that ended my one and only relationship, to-date.</p>
<p>So why, upon seeing my ex, <i>Mount Gay</i>, do I fondly recall the way we slept together - spooning, a tangle of his long, skinny legs, and my short, thick ones? Why do I remember the breakfasts in bed and the naked bacon frying, or the duck a l'orange?</p>
<p><i>the Frenemy</i> met with an attorney yesterday - jumping on the bandwagon of an idea I had, in response to the news my wages are being garnished - because my $100,000+ in student loans are in default. The decision, or option, is bankruptcy, and the idea - at least in the case of filing Chapter 7, is a complete restart. </p>
<p>Given that I work in IT, I really should have considered this sooner. CTRL+ALT+DEL is the first line of defense solution to nearly every problem I encounter. For better or worse, sometimes, our phones, laptops, and PCs need to be reset. </p>
<p>So, why shouldn't it be the same for our daily lives? I realize it's drastic, or seems drastic - but I'm not necessarily talking about the rehabilitative effects of a near-death experience. I do not suggest jumping off a bridge; however, in the face of a hot mess, maybe it is best to find the necessary combination of buttons (e.g. therapy, prayer, cocktails, or moving cross-country) to take us not forward to a future free of trouble, which will never exist, but instead back - to a time, say two weeks hence, before that Trojan horse virus, or wage garnishment letter. Take me back to a kindler, gentler two weeks ago, knowing what I know now ... and watch me shine? </p>
<p>Maybe not shine - but at least manage to open my email and buy some shoes online without a complete breakdown. Maybe <i>the Frenemy</i> went back to his <i>barely legal, bipolar, bisexual, bed-wetting beau</i>, precisely because of those idle thoughts about the times - between restraining orders - when their love was golden. Maybe that's why <i>Mount Gay</i> smelled so good last night. </p>
<p>When we were together, <i>the Czarina</i> was still alive, I had only been to rehab once, and I wasn't blogging in IT metaphors.</p>
<p>Mark</p>
</div>Markhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08560859688282860180noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1939887339277374213.post-32909548271169609662011-08-17T08:26:00.000-07:002011-08-17T08:28:53.479-07:00If the lawd is willing, and the creek don't rise ...<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:"Agency FB";mso-bidi-font-family: Arial"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:130%;color:#663300;">Writing something down is like a conversation with an old friend – a friend who listens and has the good sense to raise an eyebrow, sip a cocktail, and shut the hell up until I’m done talkin’. Those kinds of friends are hard to come by these days, especially here in the South – where one is generally expected to say things like, “oh, sugar …”, “Honey, no …”, and the all-purpose, ever-versatile, and inimitable put-down “Bless her heart …” </span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:"Agency FB";mso-bidi-font-family: Arial"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:130%;color:#663300;">That said, I had more than my fair share of bless her heart moments these past few weeks, and those are to blame for my mysterious absence from the Internet and/or the lives of my nearest, my dearest, my cousins, and <i style="mso-bidi-font-style:normal">the Frenemy</i>.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>It started with the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal">Old Black Man</i> – who is 87 years young, and who I yesterday declared senile and poor – as a means of getting a free window unit air conditioner from the City of San Antonio, or the County of Bexar; frankly, I forget who it was I was calling, but somebody at least halfway believes my father’s plum crazy – and that is almost all the validation I need right about now.</span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:"Agency FB";mso-bidi-font-family: Arial"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:130%;color:#663300;">My father is dying – although he seems to be doing it very slowly.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>He is not all there, but he’s not all gone – and I am not entirely sure how there he was to begin with, so it’s especially difficult to figure out how gone he is now.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>As I told the lady on the phone yesterday, “He’s 87 years old, dropped out of a one-room school-house, where they still used slate tablets, in the 7<sup>th</sup> grade, and has had two heart attacks in the past year and a car accident in the past month.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Isn’t mentally impaired a given?”<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>We decided he’s mildly losing his mind – for the record.</span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:"Agency FB";mso-bidi-font-family: Arial"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:130%;color:#663300;">Between the car accident, which left him unable to work – and made me the primary breadwinner, the brief fear that he had Pancreatic Cancer, the peptic ulcer that went undiagnosed until after the 2400 mg. Ibuprofen prescription nearly killed him, the gout, the edema, the hypertension, and the fact that – despite 32 years of barely uttering a word to me, and damned skippy never saying ‘I love you,’ now he won’t shut up.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>He talks constantly about how much pain he’s in, how bad the pain is, and what a failure I am – how I will never amount to anything, and how I am going to somehow screw up and lose the house, after I inherit it, after his eventual death.</span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:"Agency FB";mso-bidi-font-family: Arial"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:130%;color:#663300;">It’s a gay old time at the ancestral home, let me tell you.</span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:"Agency FB";mso-bidi-font-family: Arial"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:130%;color:#663300;">Thank the good Lord I have a job that takes me away from home for 10 – 14 hours per day; I include happy hour as part of my commute.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>I work within three blocks of a gay bar that employs two men I once slept with, and sells a mean rib-eye, with a baked potato, for $3.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span></span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:"Agency FB";mso-bidi-font-family: Arial"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:130%;color:#663300;">Did I mention that this is <st1:state st="on"><st1:place st="on">Texas</st1:place></st1:state>, and there is no AC in my aforementioned ancestral home?<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>It was 94 in my bedroom last night, and I am beginning to feel like something from a Tennessee Williams production – not one of the sultry, interesting, preternaturally complex, hot leads … not Stella, or Stanley, or Maggie on a ‘Hot, Tin Roof’ … no, just one of those dirty, sweaty, hot, unhappy darkies – too tired to sing (and dance in the background), who just leads a worn-out ol’ horse off into the distance, to get shot, and made into glue and bars of laundry soap.</span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:"Agency FB";mso-bidi-font-family: Arial"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:130%;color:#663300;">The window unit in the den stopped blowing a few days ago, and it was sadly so hot that I didn’t even notice.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>It had been so hot for so long that I considered the window unit a white noise machine that led to a $180 CPS bill but didn’t do a damned thing to make lying in bed any less wet.</span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:"Agency FB";mso-bidi-font-family: Arial"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:130%;color:#663300;">But I did meet my mother – the biological one, who had me at 13, popped up at my high school graduation, and then disappeared for 14 years?<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Uh-huh, that one … she friended me on facebook, and once the shock and awe wore off, we met up.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>We had barbecue and talked about our childhoods – well, my childhood and those of the children she actually raised.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>It was not nearly as bitter an occasion as that might sound.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Actually, it went quite well.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>I found her glamorous and interesting, witty and well-dressed – and then, like a long unseen grandmother, dropping a $5 bill into your birthday card – my mother slipped me some money as we were hugging goodbye outside Bill Miller.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>I questioned the quagmire that that money represented, for about five minutes or so … and then I remembered I had bills to pay and went on about my day.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span></span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:"Agency FB";mso-bidi-font-family: Arial"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:130%;color:#663300;">Until I hit the wall … literally.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>One of the problems with driving my father’s car – a late-model Cavalier, with peeling paint and bald tires – is that my father is of that generation that believes it is a sign of how well-made a car is that it never requires maintenance, and so – in the 5 years he owned it – the Cavalier had none.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>No new tires, no brake job, no maintenance of any kind – save an oddly regular oil change.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>And when I slid into a wall, while slamming on my brakes to avoid a rush hour accident – two months ago, he blamed my being a bad driver.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>When I nearly slid into the back of an Escalade that stopped short on the highway, I blamed my answering a phone call on my iPhone, and even when one of the tires blew, and the guy at the tire shop suggested replacing all of the tires, because they were all “about as bad as the one that blew out,” I still had a general sense that it was my fault.</span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:"Agency FB";mso-bidi-font-family: Arial"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:130%;color:#663300;">But on Saturday, having seen my mother, having had drinks with friends, and having had a veritable feast of really good food, I was in no mood for self-loathing.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>I was in no mood to go home either, which was why I was en route to Wal-Mart when someone cut in front of me, stopped short for a right turn and I hit the brakes and felt the car go out from under me.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>I hopped a curb, bounced across a small expanse of asphalt, slammed into a building, and came to a stop facing the wrong direction and with the engine, the AC, and Trinity’s jazz station still going at full steam.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Somehow, it made sense for me to drive home – dragging my ass, the bumper, and a rear tire turned completely sideways.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span></span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:"Agency FB";mso-bidi-font-family: Arial"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:130%;color:#663300;">I could go on … well, who am I kidding, I will go on … honey, have another cocktail; this is going to take a minute ...</span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:"Agency FB";mso-bidi-font-family: Arial"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:130%;color:#663300;">Mark</span><o:p></o:p></span></p>Markhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08560859688282860180noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1939887339277374213.post-17938771688182980472011-06-13T17:17:00.000-07:002011-06-13T17:27:49.238-07:00“Stark, Raving Girl Friday, Interrupted”<p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 21px; " >I had the initial appointment today to resume – <i>court-ordered</i> – group therapy. Who says you can’t go home again? It was like chatting with an old friend – who makes you pee in a cup before you leave. Really, I had this incredible sense of déjà vu. It seemed like only a year ago (this Friday) that I was biding my time, going through group therapy and pouring out my heart, my soul, my martini shaker … reflecting on a kinder, gentler time which I was, mercifully, far too drunk to actually remember.</span></p> <p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 21px; " >The kindly fellow who did my intake was not unlike loving <i>Uncle So-and-So</i>, who came over when Daddy was working and Mama put on her cha-cha heels. I never had one, of course – ‘cause my mother was a good, decent Christian woman – who never wore cha-cha heels in broad daylight, but I have heard stories about the kind of men this man seemed to be. His snow-white hair was combed into a perfect, shellacked homage to <i>the Czarina</i>’s ancient <i>frenemy</i> – <i>the Fish-Man</i>, whose wife owns “an entire peak in West Texas” and who has a penchant for the kinds of men who will either send you to <i>heaven</i> or send you to Heaven … if you know what I mean. I imagine, if I were a few years younger and a few years thinner, he might have asked me to put on a sailor suit and go fishing in his Dockers.</span></p> <p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 21px; " >Other than the knowing glances and funny little, ‘just between us’ asides, it was a good reintroduction to what passes for DSM-IV these days. As if the problems of a lifetime – the myriad last straws that drove me to the bar (‘cause Lord only knows, I certainly wasn’t capable of driving myself …) – could be unbent by a few months of talking about how drugs are bad.</span></p> <p><span class="Apple-style-span" ><br /><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 21px; ">Drugs are terrible, but boredom, or misery, or whatever the hell else was going on in my head was far worse. They were temporary fixes, to be sure – but they were the only fixes available at the time, because I certainly couldn’t afford therapy before I was an addict, and – for that matter – what I receive these days hardly constitutes therapy. I am too poor to go crazy, and I really prefer the term ‘mad’ anyway. It’s more expressive.</span></span></p> <p><span><span><span style="font-size: 16pt" >So, I returned from my meeting with <i>the Funny Uncle</i> to find my boss back in the office and a mountain of work awaiting me. I have returned to the world of the working girl, and indeed – my office is 95% female. That probably explains why my boss – who is somewhere between hot and adorable – frequently finds himself playing the little brother with whom all of his heretofore unspecified sister’s friends flirt, or on whom they lavish smiles – in order to get free manual labor.</span></span></span></p> <p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 21px; " >And it is then, somehow, fitting I am that guy’s girl Friday. He is - single-handedly - the IT department, so I should technically be classified an IT guy; however, given that I am not entirely sure what all those cables coming out of, and going into, that large metal thing in the middle of the room (I think it's called a server - just like that nice Latin boy <i>the Czarina </i>employed for a while) do, I am nobody's idea of IT.</span></p><p><span><span><span style="font-size: 16pt" >I am getting accustomed to the swing of things, though. I discovered the break-room today, although I hear there is actually more than one. I passed a copier on the way to fix a computer the other day. And by fix, I mean that I installed Adobe Flash Player. I think the owner wanted to play “Angry Birds,” but I cannot be sure.</span></span></span></p> <p><span class="Apple-style-span" ><br /><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 21px; ">I have an office (space), but it is fairly small – a perfectly lovely side table – more commonly known as a night-stand – on which I have a laptop, a scanner, and when I sit at it, I have to put my legs in a drawer. I have moved up in the world, in that I have gone from a metal folding chair to a padded metal folding chair, which is actually very stylish. It's black. Which is beautiful, you know.</span></span></p> <p><span><span><span style="font-size: 16pt" >I really do enjoy what I do – mostly because it is not so unlike those halcyon days when I sat at the very feet of <i>the Czarina Warrenina Joskes</i> – hanging on her every <i>bon mot</i> and propping her up on her bar-stool. I was thinking of her today – as I was using a nail file to remove staples from some paperwork to be scanned. Adaptability, she would say, is key to success.</span></span></span></p> <p><span><span><span style="font-size: 16pt" >All I can say is that I am changin' all over the place – although I still feel like the same ol' me, most of the time.</span></span></span></p>Markhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08560859688282860180noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1939887339277374213.post-54527520148076440962011-05-25T22:06:00.000-07:002011-05-25T22:07:45.193-07:00Project Mondays ain't what they used to be ...<span style="color:#660000;"><big><span style="font-family:Big Caslon;"> At some point in blogs past, I coined the term <i>Project Monday</i>, and much like my then-favorite Bravo reality show that inspired the name, every week some new drama accompanied the new challenge, and - also like that show - some queen was probably going to wind up in tears at some point in the episode.<br /><br /><i>the Old Black Man</i> would casually announce that he was going to <i>a)</i> mow the lawn, <i>b)</i> trim the hedges, or <i>c)</i> build an addition to the house - requiring plumbing, electrical work, and immediate access to a fire extinguisher. I would pretend that I could ignore the subtle call-to-action and would, in fact, succeed for an hour or so of general TV viewing. Then, my father would ring the doorbell. Repeatedly. Until I wandered out to the front porch, to find some heretofore unseen piece of rusted machinery laid out on the sidewalk, my octogenarian father down on his knees, cradling the disassembled lawnmower motor in his lap - like the head of a fallen comrade in the Battle of Winter Grass.<br /><br /><i>the Old Black Man</i> would invariably mumble and drawl some explanation of what he was trying to do, which it was then assumed I would do with relative ease - since he'd loosened it up for me already, and suddenly I am sitting on the sidewalk - with a wrench, a screwdriver, and no idea how the hell WD-40 magically makes everything better.<br /><br />But that was then; two heart attacks later,<i> the Old Black Man</i> has to take his projects as they come, between spells of gout, occasional chest pains, and when it is not - as it is now - over a hundred degrees. It is Summer in South Texas; those moments are few and far between. His aegis egressed, to a certain preference for napping on the couch.<br /><br />The vanity lights in my bathroom have been out for nearly a month, since shortly after I escaped <i>Lindsay</i>'s clutches and returned from <i>the kidnapping</i>. Being (un)handy, and expecting things to be magically fixed when I turned my back, I said nothing about it - for two weeks. It was actually easier just to shower during the day, pee by memory (while listening for the sound of stream hitting pond), and shave in the kitchen. On a particularly dark night, while attempting to shave by indirect light from the hall, I decided to bring up the problem with Dad.<br /><br />As I was dressing to go out - moments later - <i>the Old Black Man</i> opened my door and said simply, "I done fixed that light." I was surprised by the promptness, but not really - until I walked into the bathroom, looking forward to not peeing by Braille. There was light. Dad hung a bare bulb on an extension cord over the side of the vanity and plugged it into the outlet controlled by the light switch.<br /><br />Admittedly, I am fond of indirect lighting ... but that's usually in the context of the subtle charm of the Hotel Valencia's V Bar lounge, not the effect created by this very hot, bare bulb dangling over plastic and 40 years old knotty pine paneling, e.g. "Blair Witch"... in hell. It smolders, and I look like I'm holding a flashlight under my chin when I shave.<br /><br />If anything, my father busies himself with minor errands he can conduct from the couch - while ordering me around; in the past three weeks, I ordered DirecTV, met with plumbers we didn't hire, air conditioner repairmen we couldn't afford, and looked into changing our insurance service, cell phone carriers, and had to explain - twice - that the computer-generated voice telling him his car warranty is expiring soon (on a car we no longer own, mind you) is not his friend.<br /><br />On the plus side, I'm fairly sure I'm in the top 2 on this particular reality TV, but I have the distinct feeling, I am not going to win.<br /><br />Mark<br /></span></big></span>Markhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08560859688282860180noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1939887339277374213.post-83936810157407270192011-05-15T17:41:00.000-07:002011-05-15T17:44:11.670-07:00Are You My Daddy?, Or - What I Did Not Say<span style="font-family:Baskerville;font-size:130%;color:#660000;"> A man can amass a great many stories in the course of 90 days, and my stories include a furtive fling with a man named <i>Rusty</i> - who is five feet tall and reminded me, vaguely, of a hobbit ... but a hobbit that could suck a golf ball through a garden hose.<br /><br /> All things considered, there is little more to say about <i>Rusty</i> (except ... mmm ...) but there is plenty to say about <i>Uncle Counselor</i> - my primary counselor, who may or may not be my daddy. The truth is that <i>Uncle Counselor</i> reminds me of someone I once knew - an unpleasant memory of a rangy black man who used to come over to borrow money from my mother, Charles is my biological uncle, and also - probably - my biological father. So, when I sat across from an educated, recovering crack-head whose last name happens to be the my biological mother's (and father's) last name, I couldn't help thinking that serendipity is a mother-*****<br /><br /> I was fairly sure he was not my daddy, but after he told a story about - at 28 - meeting his half-brother, who was also a crack-head and, in fact, died of an overdose, in Fort Worth - where, I hear, Charles moved when he left San Antonio, I felt I was on to something. I never asked the question. Any questions. Some dogs need to lie, especially the ones you know to be sleeping.<br /><br /> If nothing else, what I learned in 9 months of rehab is that one has to pick one's battles. As battles go, don't fight with family - even if you're uncertain they actually are family; still better advice is to avoid drama with someone who has a hand in determining your freedom. <i><br /><br /></i>I wish I could say I learned these valuable lessons early in life, but<i> the Old Black Man </i>and I are not exactly the best of friends. Since he's damned near a hundred and has mellowed in his old age, to a refined and shrinking Southern gentleman - who still works 30 hours per week and carefully forgets that I'm gay, we reached a stalemate. <br /><br /> I forget, from time to time, about the time he held a hot iron near my head and said, after I came out to him at 13, "Stop it, or else ..." I forget about the time I refused to go to church - the first time, after a 15 year lifetime of going every Sunday. I refused to go because the preacher, the previous weekend, made Sunday's sermon all about the evils of homosexuality. So, my father and I had a fight. He cracked a belt at me, I threw the family Bible at him ... and then, because Timmy was barking incessantly, my father threw my French poodle at me. I ducked and the poodle bounced off a couch. <br /><br />I don't recall how that one ended, but I haven't been back to that church in years.<br /><br /></span>Markhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08560859688282860180noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1939887339277374213.post-34574955173460967732011-05-13T21:07:00.000-07:002011-05-13T21:14:36.180-07:00Rip Van 'Sleeping Beauty,' Or 'What You Doin' with My Winkle?'<div><span >It is as if I awoke from a truly miserable sleep – a mythic, unnatural sleep from which I awakened to find the world a miserable place, largely unchanged ... except in all the worst ways – except in the sense that my father is seemingly many years older, my house deteriorating as it never had before – as Beauty’s palace faded and disappeared beneath thorny vines, during her long years’ sleep.</span></div><div><span ><br /></span></div> <div><span class="Apple-style-span" ><span ></span> </span></div> <div><span >There are no thorny vines, though <em>the Old Black Man</em> put chicken wire up on the front porch, wrapping bars and pass-throughs so that cats could not get in. My father hates cats. The chicken wire – rough and thin, rusted in places – snags my sweaters and tears at my shirts. It pokes out menacingly when cats, or those foolish enough to visit, attempt to come in ... and, given my very special allergy to Tetanus, threatens to kill me at every twist and turn.</span></div><div><span ><br /></span></div> <div><span class="Apple-style-span" ><span ></span> </span></div> <div><span >I turn often, or am I twisting? I get myself out and about as often as I can, in <em>the Old Black Man</em>’s carriage – with the peeling paint and persistent, American-made whine. I get out often, and yet I run the risk of running into the wicked witches whetting whistles at all the usual haunts. Because I cannot seem to think of new places to go. Nor are there any.</span></div><div><span ><br /></span></div> <div><span class="Apple-style-span" ><span ></span> </span></div> <div><span ><span ><em>the Frenemy</em> and I wound up at a whistle-stop just the other day. I wanted to see if I could pull off ‘just one drink,’ and that <em>Fat Mattress</em>, largely reformed from her back-alley ways and attempting (shacking-up) bliss – give or take the restraining orders, wanted to sip, see and be seen. By way of the law of averages, of course we ran into someone he slept with ... but he wasn’t the only one.</span></span></div><div><span ><span ><br /></span></span></div> <div><span class="Apple-style-span" ><span ></span> </span></div> <div><span >Though I have neither been as carefree nor as energetic as <em>the Frenemy</em>, I have my share of former flings – a few of whom were fly-by-nights, and a few others who lingered – whether I wished them to do so – in my heart, or on my avocado green antique couch longer than they should have. And so it was that I was in mid-margarita when in walked <em>the Hooker on my Couch</em>, and his sugar daddy du jour. That last time I saw <em>the Hooker</em>, he was selling drugs and acting as a part-time hit-man for a heretofore unnamed mafia entity, who happen to think I ratted them out before absconding to <em>the photo-shoot with Lindsay Lohan</em>. He had the grace not to kill me, and he was still feeling gracious – apparently – when I ran into him the other day. He and his sugar daddy waved at me across the bar. We raised our glasses in a universal gesture of acknowledgement, and so that we could see that there were no weapons in anyone’s hands.</span></div><div><span ><br /></span></div> <div><span class="Apple-style-span" ><span ></span> </span></div> <div><span >In accordance with the general rule of exes and bar etiquette (‘I was here first; you stay for one drink ... and then promptly leave and forget you ever saw me ...’), <em>the Hooker on my Couch</em> and friend beat a hasty retreat to the next new drug deal, and I kept looking for the bottom of my too-sweet margarita. So, it was only happenstance – and <em>the Frenemy</em> trying to convince me he was happy with his bed-wetting, bi-polar, bisexual beau by telling yet another ‘isn’t it cute how he ...’ story – that had me looking up when <em>Mount Gay</em> walked in.</span></div><div><span ><br /></span></div> <div><span class="Apple-style-span" ><span ></span> </span></div> <div><span >I only managed one boyfriend in my 30 years. Some would see this as a failure. Some would see it an accident of fate. I tend to see it as a divine joke that my prince – far from charming – and I shared a mutual fondness for <em>Ms. Lohan</em>, and little else. My ex was in the closet, a rather impressive feat given that he is nearly 7’ tall, and his affection for me was based on a vague desire to recapture his long lost lust for the fat black man who molested him when he was 15. I nearly choked on my drink, but managed nonetheless to put on my best fairy-tale smile. We were civil, shared a lingering hug, adhered to the aforementioned etiquette – and both of us left that whistle-stop after the one drink and the obligatory glances from across a rather dead bar.</span></div><div><span ><br /></span></div> <div><span class="Apple-style-span" ><span ></span> </span></div> <div><span >I may have been asleep for nearly a year, and things may have gone from mundane and mediocre to miserable and macabre, but my ex smelled like sex walking and got a promotion. He has a new car and a teenager. Talk about thorns.</span></div><div><span ><br /></span></div> <div><span class="Apple-style-span" ><span ></span> </span></div> <div><span ><em>the Frenemy</em> says it’s normal that I wanted to know more. But then <em>the Frenemy</em> also thinks it perfectly normal to go through his beau’s phone and follow his tricks home. So, I take his concept of normal with a grain of salt, and yet I went to the next whistle-stop, where I knew <em>Mount Gay</em> would be – ostensibly to carry on a conversation. <em>Mount Gay</em> was moving on ... right there in public, with a man old enough to be my father, and there went my 'just one drink’ idea.</span></div><div><span ><br /></span></div> <div><span class="Apple-style-span" ><span ></span> </span></div> <div><span >The overall evening was a blur – not because I was so drunk, but because it was like so many other evenings in the same spots. There are plans to revamp the enchanted forest that is the gayborhood, plans that include a wine bar, another dance club, and a wishing well where old queens will go to pretend they’re young princesses ... but Pegasus redux hasn’t happened yet, and that night was no different. I ran into a former customer who, on occasion, also lingered on my couch.</span></div><div><span ><br /></span></div> <div><span class="Apple-style-span" ><span ></span> </span></div> <div><span >While I was dreaming, rumors mounted that I was dead; I may have mentioned this before, but the more I learn about my demise, the more intrigued I tend to be. I suppose death does that to people – well, assuming they’re not actually dead. A past paramour informed me that I was dead ... said that he’d heard from <em>the Mad Man</em> and <em>the Crazy Russian</em> that I died – in prison. Suicide. There was no word on exactly how – though I personally preferred the hanging theory, which – of course – indicated that I was ‘hung.’</span></div> <div><span class="Apple-style-span" ><span ></span> </span></div> <div><span class="Apple-style-span" ><span >But my former fling, who would surely agree that I was hung ... told me his side of the story, or what he heard. It seems I did not die in prison, but in a local crack den. Someone said he was sure I was dead, because he saw my body being carried out of said den. Someone else was equally certain, as he attended my funeral. </span><span >I must find this yellow journalist and ask for pictures.</span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" ><span ><br /></span></span></div> <div><span class="Apple-style-span" ><span ></span> </span></div> <div><span >My sleep was miserable and my death merely a dramatic rumor; nonetheless, the world – though changed – is not all bad. Dragons have been slain, at least two or three witches are dead, and <em>the Old Black Man</em> went to a dance / fish fry this enchanted evening – leaving me to worry over both his sex life and his cholesterol, but giving me a damned good reason to smile.</span></div><div><span ><br /></span></div> <div><span class="Apple-style-span" ><span ></span> </span></div> <div><span >And be jealous. I have not been to a ball in a month of Sundays, and while I was awakened by a prince – not all princes are charming. This one is – but his was a long-distance kiss, and in this modern kingdom, romance can blossom via Gmail – but doesn’t ‘happily ever after’ still require at least one slow dance, cheek-to-cheek?</span></div> <div><span ></span> </div> <div><span ></span> </div> <div><span ></span> </div> <div><span > </span><span > </span></div>Markhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08560859688282860180noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1939887339277374213.post-32496994489761153072011-05-06T00:17:00.000-07:002011-05-06T08:30:40.235-07:00While I was gone ...<div class="moz-text-html" lang="x-western"> <span style="color: rgb(102, 0, 0);font-family:Baskerville;" >While the last time I disappeared for a while was for <i>the photo-shoot with Lindsay Lohan</i>, this time around the hateful heifer kidnapped me. There I was, minding my own business, mourning the loss of the <i>Czarina Warrenina Joskes - Keeper of the Faith, Queen of the Steppes, Empress of all the Russias - a Living and Breathing Deity Who Deigns to Walk Among Us to Bring Us Grace and Beauty</i>, mourning her in appropriate fashion - hitting every bar in town, when all of a sudden, in the midst of some illicit activities with <i>Leopold</i> and <i>Loaded</i>, la Lohan came along and suckered me down her primrose path.<br /><br />Now, admittedly, she only <i>inspired</i> me to be bad, rather than making me behave badly, but the damage was done - and my PO was none too pleased. All things considered, the kidnapping went smoothly. I was briefly in Bexar Co. jail, where they were staging "'Oz': the Reunion Special - a Gangsta Rap Musical," but after a limited run there, I took the show on the road - to San Diego, Texas and a little slice of heaven run by the Texas Department of Criminal Justice. It was like prison - replete with white uniforms and open-air toilets, but with counselors and an over-arching theme of <b>recovery</b>.<br /><br />It is typically true that wherever I go, there I am ... and I say that not to be philosophical but to make the point that I am <b><i>a bit much</i></b> in a big city. I am a whirlwind of gay and wit, not unlike a Noel Coward production, and no one was putting on "Blithe Spirit" in San Diego, I assure you. It was just south of Hell, 105 degrees when I got there in August, with no air conditioning and a prison full of overweight Hispanic prison guards with small-town attitudes and a tendency to giggle when I walked into a room.<br /><br />Personally, I consider it a gift that I can make people smile wherever I go, but I am less thrilled about it when, rather than smile and move along, they decide to tell me I'm going to burn in hell. And there was the sergeant who asked me if I was a plumber, in the free world ... because I "obviously like to handle pipes." And there was the female guard who said "you shake your ass more than I do ..." and referred to me as "girl" in front of a long line of prisoners, who then took it upon themselves to jeer, cat-call and do very rude things with their hands.<br /><br />A few grievances later, the sergeant who said - of the way I walk - "You're here for treatment, not to look for love ..." got fired and the guard who called me girl got moved to a shift where I never had to see her. Three months into my 6 months stay in San Diego, I became the Program Director's personal assistant - a handy job that meant I got get out of groups, had limited access to a lot of power, and my days in an air-conditioned office, writing speeches and designing presentations while my boss played guitar and sang country songs.<br /><br />This particular kidnapping was a two-phase process. The first phase was the gangsta rap musical in San Diego, but the contract called for another 3 months run in Houston - at a little theater/halfway house called Cheyenne, the <a href="http://www.blogger.com/www.cheyennecenter.com">Cheyenne Center</a>.<br /><br />A gangsta rap musical was a bit more fitting in Houston than it was in San Diego, but - as the Cheyenne Center banned radios and, in essence, all music - my plans to hoof it next to Lohan three nights a week went down the drain, and all I got was the lousy treatment.<br /><br />The truth is that I had high hopes, when I got to H-town, of finding work and starting my life all over - sober and in a new location. Times are tough, even for a star with comeback plans ... and a hell of a resume. Give or take one job interview - to which I arrived an hour late, because of one bus arriving four minutes late, and the connecting bus being three minutes early - each bus only running once every hour, and the whole trip taking 138 minutes in the first place, I only managed to secure one interview in 90 days.<br /><br />And, I should mention, that upon arriving to that interview - an hour late, I had to cross a rather large lawn to get into the building. The gardeners working to maintain this beautiful, enormous yard, couldn't have known I am allergic to fresh-cut grass, and yet I still recall the look of general bemusement on their faces when, my eyes watering, I fell into a ditch.<br /><br />It was a small ditch, so I was only down for a minute or two before - brushing the grass from my facial hair and off my leather jacket - I emerged, some vestige of my pride still intact and ambled into Bank of America to get to my potential temp agency employer. Needless to say, I was not impressed. The woman I was there to see came out, asked me why I hadn't called (cell phones were also banned in Cheyenne), and was mentally rolling her eyes as I tried to offer an explanation - while picking an errant piece of grass off my Armani shirt. Ultimately, she said - rather kindly, "Why don't we reschedule? You can come back ... when you're more <i>together</i>."<br /><br />But I didn't go back, which would perhaps suggest that I never got it together. In fact, my brethren at Cheyenne - who I lovingly referred to as the <i>homeless, illiterate, and not quite right in the head</i> - tended to get in a lot of trouble. It started with cussin'; the staff complained that too many people were walking around casually cussin', which was dubbed "disrespectful to the female staff." Apparently, the male staff were fine with it. And then there was the epidemic of sagging pants. None of us took any of this seriously, until someone got bitch-slapped in an AA meeting. Two back-hands later, Cheyenne locked us down - no phone, no job searching, and no movement.<br /><br />I spent my last 5 weeks in Houston doing nothing productive, but the last 4 weeks I was in charge. The <i>homeless, illiterate, and not quite right in the head</i> elected me their leader, and between my micro-managing attention to detail, and yelling at damned near everyone, I got us off lock-down - effective the day<b><i> after</i></b> I left town.<br /><br />After all the hard work, all the (proverbial) blood, sweat, and tears, I left Cheyenne with a messenger bag full of designer clothes, wearing four pairs of shoes, and with one word, "'Bye."<br /><br />I crept back into San Antonio on Greyhound, 'round midnight. And while I can't say that I'm entirely happy to be home, I've certainly been worse places. I know one thing for sure, I ain't goin' nowhere with Lohan no mo'; that white girl is hateful.<br /><i><br />Mark</i><br /></span> </div>Markhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08560859688282860180noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1939887339277374213.post-90607944521993685292010-06-12T23:37:00.001-07:002010-06-12T23:38:24.283-07:00Fat Mattress<span style="font-family:Bodoni SvtyTwo OS ITC TT-Book;color:#006600;">Various and sundry friends, casual acquaintances, 2 guys I screwed, and occasional strangers tend to comment how nice it must be to sleep in, to have time to do whatever I wish, how very nice it must be to read all day ... and, frankly, though boredom, tedium, malaise, and ennui are my words of the day(s), it is. I do enjoy reading. I am becoming extremely well-acquainted with the prison rape story-line on "General Hospital" and developed more than a reasonable interest in the half-hour soap, "The Bold and the Beautiful."<br /><br />My trips to the local library swelled from once or twice per week to daily meandering to the unfortunate branch on the East side, the very media-friendly Central Library - where I actually managed to find 5 copies of Gogol's <b><i>The Overcoat</i></b>, or my favorite (home) branch, Landa - another local institution, like the McNay, built within, and from, a long-dead socialite's palatial home. I seldom speak to anyone, tend to have books on hold and usually know exactly where to find whatever else I'm seeking (mysteries, mostly - lots of mysteries). My computer's old and thus not wireless, so I don't even spend the lingering hours pretentiously tending to my great American novel. Essentially, the libraries provide me a place to go - not my own bedroom - without TV but with air conditioning.<br /><br />And then there's the sex.<br /><br />I was reading the dust-jacket of a book on Michelle Obama, in the political biographies new books section at Central, when I caught a glimpse of something out of the corner of my eye. The homeless-looking man, with a laptop case, and scraggly hair, who I'd seen earlier in the stacks, stood at the end of the aisle - his fly down and his erect penis hanging out ... and waving at me. He seemed quite proud of himself, as men with hard-ons tend to be; I would imagine he was less than thrilled that I finished reading the dust-jacket and wandered off to validate my parking ticket. Perhaps as a hormonal teenager, I would have enjoyed - or rather he would have enjoyed - my appropriately porn star reaction ... but, at 30, and minus a drink first, I was non-plussed.<br /><br />Meanwhile, <i>the Frenemy</i> is presently stalking 'truck full of Mexicans' - a designation given to at least three separate listings in his BlackBerry. Tori has been on a roll of late, if one considers 6 tree trimmers a roll, but that was last weekend. In anticipation of this weekend's newfound freedom (unemployment - and the unemployment checks that accompany it), the transexsite I've come to think of as <i>Fat Mattress</i> went to get her nails done and acquire a new wrap - something along the lines of a pashmina, only cheaper and for the express purpose of hiding her hairy back. This being summer, there were no wraps at Wal-Mart, only scarves - all deemed too small for <i>Fat Mattress</i>' purposes; in jest, I suggested a chenille throw. She was nicely sold on the idea, but there were none of those around either - this is, after all, summer in South Texas. Eventually, a trip to a fabric store yielded the necessary item - 5 feet of polyester, vaguely floral and two shades shy of Blanche Devereaux; I looked on in some horror as <i>Fat Mattress</i> nee <i>the Frenemy</i> preened and tried to fold, drape, swaddle and wrap his new wrap as it blew in the wind in the Brooks City-Base parking lot.<br /><br />He never needs a drink first. I am (so) often non-plussed... but the stories just keep coming.<br /><br />Mark<br /></span>Markhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08560859688282860180noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1939887339277374213.post-38100472389320347262010-05-26T14:52:00.000-07:002010-05-26T14:55:13.893-07:00Ghost(s) in the Machine<div class="moz-text-flowed" style="font-family: georgia; font-size: 13px; color: rgb(0, 102, 0);" lang="x-western"><span style="font-size:100%;">As a Southerner of a certain age - a comfortable place between 30 and 60-somethin' - I am accustomed to death, tragedy, and very efficiently turning funerals into family reunions, since all the same players are involved. And we eat fried chicken and watermelon on both occasions.<br /><br />I was not aware we had a Gladys in the family, but then I was not aware we had an Aurelius in the family either, until he was in the family plot. Aurelius died a year or so ago, and the very long funeral in the very small church with the choir consisting of three very large black women marked the last time all the surviving Hardemans (and our kin) were in the same county, bathed, and dressed up. There is a long line of country in my adopted blood.<br /><br /><i class="moz-txt-slash"><span class="moz-txt-tag"></span>the Old Black Man<span class="moz-txt-tag"> </span></i>just opened my door to inform me that Gladys, whom he thinks I should remember because I met her briefly, when I was 2, is dead. She attended Aurelius' funeral and was "the old woman hunched over sitting at the back ..." Given that Gladys was "just over a hundred years old" I am somehow not surprised.<br /><br />Neither my father or my cousin will attend the funeral this Saturday, in Luling - our family seat. I suppose it is the thing about being a certain age that one gets my invitations to funerals than parties - though again, the line tends to blur at this stage. Another relation graduates from high school this weekend, which is still a big deal in my family ... but which we not be attending either.<br /><br />It occurs to me, given that <i class="moz-txt-slash"><span class="moz-txt-tag"></span>the Old Black Man<span class="moz-txt-tag"></span></i> is the last of his line, and given that all of his brothers and sisters who preceded him to the great hereafter were in their 90s or so, that my father probably has a good decade left in him. I've noted before that he cannot seem to quite get when things stop working, which usually leads to some very interesting conversations.<br /><br />Of the ceiling fan in his bedroom, which stopped working shortly after our first 90 degree day - in early March - my father's simple solution, a can of WD-40 and me on a footstool trying to aim a needle nozzle into the fan motor. I considered this unlikely and slightly dangerous maneuver right up to the point when he mentioned that the fan worked for five minutes the night before - shortly before it stopped working, started smoking and shot sparks onto his bedspread. This bore too close a resemblance to the ceiling fan I helped him install a few years ago, when he forgot to switch off the circuit breaker. In that instance, sparks flew and I was thrown from a ladder.<br /><br />I have sense declined to install ceiling fans when he is in the room and have informed him that there is no point in trying to fix the two broken fans (in the kitchen and his bedroom), each of which is around my age. <br /><br />Money's tight, and it is 87 degrees in my house, so my father's solution is quite similar to his solution for not knowing how to operate the cordless phone - a very long cord. <i class="moz-txt-slash"><span class="moz-txt-tag"></span>the Old Black Man<span class="moz-txt-tag"></span></i> bought a 50' telephone cord and carried a rotary dial princess phone from room to room, until - that is - I showed him where the talk button was and how to properly hang up the old and large but perfectly serviceable handset. In this case, Dad strung together two extension cords and drags a floor fan from room to room - causing me some mild consternation as I occasionally leave my room and trip over the cord running down the parquet floors in the narrow hallways between our rooms. And given Dad's tendency to turn off lights even when he is still in the room, I sometimes walk into the fan when going to the kitchen. At some point, one of us will have the spare few hundred dollars to install the HVAC unit that fell off the back of a truck, but at this point the only options appear to be the constant and sometimes comforting cacophony of fans going full speed ... and the not so comfortable roll of a bead of sweat down my back.<br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">Mark </span><br /><br /></span> </div>Markhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08560859688282860180noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1939887339277374213.post-76925017703026406222010-05-26T14:49:00.000-07:002010-05-26T14:51:35.187-07:00Night of the Trans-sexsite, a Moral Tale<div class="moz-text-html" lang="x-western"> <span style="font-family:Baskerville;color:#663300;"><i>the Frenemy</i> came by the other day - begging for food and with a fresh story - and the faint stain of the previous night's Revlon - on his lips. He prefers to tell his tales over a cold, fast-food cup of Dr. Pepper, so I got into his new car for the first time since the test drive. True to form - and function - the passenger seat was fully reclined and upon the seat, a lube stain ... and beneath it, a cucumber. I was seconds away from asking a question the Good Lord knows I did not want answered; unfortunately, upon catching sight of my raised eyebrow, <i>the Frenemy</i> gleefully launched into a night's tale.<br /><br /><i>Tori</i> discovered a halfway house, somewhere in the endless reaches of the West side. And between the bad lighting, and the fact that these men haven't seen a woman in nigh-on 5 to 10, the one 'woman' sex show into which <i>Tori </i>launched herself apparently got them going. Fellating a vegetable is not exactly my idea of a good time, but I stopped the story when the subject came 'round to the topic of insertion.<br /><br />I was low on cash two weeks ago, so when <i>the Frenemy</i> offered to buy me a martini and a pack of cigarettes, I agreed to split his wig ... well, cut it down anyway. Owing to the types of activities in which he engages, the ill effects of spilled beer, spit, et al. on synthetic hair-pieces, and the fact that once done, <i>Tori </i>kicks off her heels and her hair into one small corner of a good-sized walk-in closet, his red wig is a hot mess. <br /><br />I soaked it in the kitchen sink, in a solution of tepid water and Fabuloso, and lieu of a Styrofoam wig-stand, donned the unfortunate mop myself, whereupon - armed with kitchen shears (the sort with which one cuts through chicken bones) - I cut it down and combed it out into something that fell short of the Raquel Welch wig-line but came in just ahead of a Halloween head of hair.<br /><br />I was out of the room when <i>the Frenemy</i> retrieved the kitchen shears to cut the crotch from his dollar store pantyhose, but I reappeared long enough to suggest that he shave his shoulders - which looked a bit wrong outside the spaghetti straps of his leopard print slip. The solution he suggested was low lighting and a paisley wrap procured from his mother - a heretofore seldom discussed holy roller who blessed his (short-lived) union with a part-time drag queen crack hooker but still believes that I am my own twin brother. <br /><br />A pound of foundation, daintily applied with a makeup wedge, several layers of blue eye shadow, and a lipstick three shades too pink for his skin tone later, <i>Tori</i> slipped into Carlos Santana leopard print heels and clomp-clomp-clomped into the living room, where she sat on the couch, not unlike a linebacker, and returned phone calls (in falsetto) while waiting to leave the house under the protective cover of sunset.<br /><br />Perhaps it was the blue eye shadow, or the fact that sex show involving a cucumber is a one-night only performance, but that night - when <i>Tori </i>got to the halfway house the result was not lust ... but laughter.<br /><br />He wanted sympathy ... but again, all he got was laughter.<i><br /><br />Mark</i><br /></span><br /></div>Markhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08560859688282860180noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1939887339277374213.post-3765279766698361762010-05-12T23:01:00.000-07:002010-05-12T23:05:07.019-07:00St. Francis ... and a S-I-S-S-Y<span style="font-family:Times New Roman;color:#660000;">The Southern faggot writing is an acquired taste. I am both lucky and happy that a lot of people have taken to the unique flavor. Queens from Mobile to Tupelo, Jackson to San Antone - myself included - feel the pull of pen to pad, or whatever the apt digital equivalent may be. It is amazing how easily one can convey a drawl and a raised eyebrow with the mere flick of a wrist and a peculiar, yet familiar, turn of phrase.<br /><br />I am reading Kevin Sessums' <b><i>Mississippi Sissy</i></b>, and the magic started early, and sanguine - with a bludgeoned head on a not-so-fresh white pillow. A sissy in the South loses his father, his mother, and his virtue - roughly in that order, and lives to tell about it. <br /><br />They say, in AA, that if you listen long enough - sitting in a meeting - you will eventually hear your story, many times over. I have never had that pleasure, or felt that connection. <b><i>Mississippi Sissy</i></b> is not an AA meeting, but I felt the connection five pages in. Maybe it was the very sense of being "other(ed)," a fancy, grad school term, parentheses included, for sticking out like a sore thumb, occasionally also interpreted as '<i>black-sheep-itis</i>.'<br /><br />Little Kevin sits with his mother, a woman who will be dead sooner than he knows or understands, and she talks to him about the magic of language; of a certain, familiar word, she observed:<br /></span> <blockquote><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;color:#660000;">"I know people call you a sissy. I know Daddy did a lot of the time, God rest his soul. Even I've called you that in my own way when I'm beside myself ..." She handed me her pen and a piece of her stationery. "Write it down. Write down that word. S-I-S-S-Y ... Now, whenever anybody calls you that again you remember how pretty that looks on there. Look at the muscles those S's have. Look at the arms on that Y. Look at the backbone that lone I has. What posture. What presence. See how proud that I is to stand there in front of you."<br /> </span></blockquote> <span style="font-family:Times New Roman;color:#660000;">Because my parents were older - in their 60s when I was born - I heard that word, 'sissy,' often enough. My father called me a sissy, and threatened to out me to my third grade class. He beat me for having Barbies, and gave me that look that ambled about between disappointment and white-hot rage that I continued to walk 'funny' and talk 'that way.' It was a kinder, gentler time than when the kids in high school called me <i>joto</i> ... faggot. <br /><br />I like to believe, thinking on it now, that had my mother lived that long she would have sat me down and pointed out the defensive posture of 'F-A-G-G-O-T.' She would have called upon words like 'fierce' and 'tenacious,' perhaps even working in that the "g's" in faggot can be alternate plays on gregarious - which describes the nature of so many gays, and the onomatopoetic 'grrr ...' that involves both whimsy and strength (and is a not-so-subtle nod to the Bear community, might I add).<br /><br />Of the word <i>epiphany</i> - sounded out by a Baptist preacher on a Sunday morning, when Kevin asked after its meaning - his grandmother responded, "Oh honey, that's a pretty name for a little nigger girl." And it fits, no? In every Southern novel, and most of the memoirs - in addition to the lilting accents and the strange cadence of Southern life - a strong, black woman provides food and wisdom through her very presence, and the occasional "come to Jesus" meeting. So, why shouldn't an epiphany be a little black girl?<br /><br />I wrote a paper once, "Face-Down in the Dirt," which comes to mind now, a little bit because I am thinking of returning to graduate school - to literature and its study, because I have never been good at much of anything else, and also because of all the music in this <i><b>Sissy</b></i> book. "Face-Down in the Dirt" was an eco-feminist read of Southern women writing; it was music and magic. I created something in it I think I dubbed "Black (magic) mysticism," a black answer to the very Latin experience of magical realism. I set up the idea that black women - by virtue of their socio-economic, historic, and gender statuses have a physical and personal relationship with the earth, with dirt. It attached both a romantic and an essential association to the crush of grinding poverty. Dirt floors seem less hellish somehow when one can be literally recharged by them remade in the image and power of pulchritude, find solace and comforts in the mud between your toes - which is, after all, the color of your skin anyway.<br /><br />And then maybe it's more than just the book weighing on my mind. It's unemployment and going back to school. It's boredom - swollen to the point of ennui - mingled with the need for a smart cocktail. And it is sweating through the sheets. The HVAC unit that fell off the back of a truck somewhere is still sitting in the den. There's no money to install it, and there's no window in my bedroom. It's 80 degrees tonight, inside, and my T-shirt cotton sheets don't breathe the way they should. <br /><br />I am aware of my fat, my thick thighs and the scars on my chest where a cosmetic surgeon removed 17 lbs. of flesh. I am aware of my skin, its dark color, because it shines with sweat and oil. I am aware of my smell, a not unpleasant warmth that puts me in mind of summertime. For better or worse. It is humid in my bed. And I feel the South around me tonight.<br /><br />I met with a counselor today, part of the editing process after <i>the photo-shoot</i>, 120 days of therapy and group meetings. It doesn't work like therapy, but it is the best one can get on county funding. The woman with whom I spoke today listened to my stories and asked smart questions - including the question, "Were you addicted to selling [drugs]?" <br /><br />She listened, which is more than I can say for the other people I met over the past 14 weeks. And she offered advice, which is "not part of a therapist's job, but seems fitting ..."; she suggested I find a church, and I managed not to roll my eyes this time around. Maybe that's what all this Southern talk is leading up to, or the place from which it comes; it is a big ol' mess of serendipity that pus my considerable black ass on a hard, wooden pew ... and reminds me of the lyric and vibrant thing that happens in church and nowhere else in the world. <br /><br />Maybe I'm supposed to further block out those Sunday school memories, replacing them with becoming a 30-something choir-boy ... and meeting a nice church-going man, who appreciates my very Southern charm(s). And who has air-conditioning.<br /><br /><span style="font-family:Apple Chancery;">Mark</span><br /><br /></span>Markhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08560859688282860180noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1939887339277374213.post-82947805620960176602010-04-20T09:36:00.001-07:002010-04-20T09:36:50.859-07:00Saturday Night's Alright for Dancin'<big><span style="font-family:Times New Roman, Times, serif;color:#660000;"><big>S</big>aturday started with a bang - in the form of a gun-toting hairy Mexican straight boy in a pink lace thong. The gun - a .357 Magnum - was hidden under his mattress. The thong hidden in a rolled up sock. Carlos was a dear - a good kisser who demonstrated other outstanding oral abilities. Straight boys, in my experience, often demonstrate such talents - and tend very often to throw their legs in the air.<br /><br />I passed a lovely afternoon with panties, inter-racial porn, and a Smith & Wesson. And then, as things tend to go with me, hilarity ensued. The phone rang a few times while Carlos and I were engaging in some slap and tickle, and he appropriately ignored it. Of course, when he did answer, it was his best friend - a friend, mind you, whose pregnant girlfriend he is screwing. The guy was outside, in the driveway, and this posed the usual obvious problems, not the least of which was that Carlos had to get me out of the house without being seen.<br /><br />That whole straight boy thing.<br /><br />After a few ideas to distract the friend in the driveway failed, the back-up plan involved a window. And a wall. I dropped out of the bathroom window and scaled a small wall in order to bypass the driveway and circle the block to get to my car.<br /><br />Carlos sent me on my way with a passionate kiss ... and a boost to the window.<br /><br /><br />Saturday night - fresh from the ego boost that I can comfortably fit through a bathroom window - and into my skinny jeans - I met the<i> City Coucilman</i> for a drink. It was crowded at Pegasus - not unusual for a Saturday night, but running into <i>Mount Gay</i> colored the evening.<br /><br />I think it was magenta. Or possibly chartreuse. He was there with his new boyfriend, a young Hispanic - one of the Frenemy's many conquests. And seemingly my polar opposite. I would love to say that hte conversation - when I downed a martini and approached him - was witty, urbane ... the stuff of which Hepburn and Cary Grant were made. <br /><br />But there were no <i>bon mots</i>, and while I did have a lit cigarette, there was by no means a spark or any fire(works); <i>Mount Gay</i> was cool, dismissive, and I wished him a good night ... and a Happy FIESTA.<br /><br />And then I met someone. He sidled up to the bar ... or was it a drunken meandering? We struck up a conversation too many drinks prevents me from recalling, and then he stuck his hand down my pants. Somewhere between learning his name and recording his number in my phone, he informed me he was a bottom - and set about showing me.<br /><br />The resulting hard-on somehow found its way out of my pants but was safely in his surprisingly strong, warm hand.<br /><br />I wandered off - possibly out of fear the rest of my clothes would come off, and partially because I was quite tipsy.<br /><br />I am optimistic that a drunken hand-job could lead to wedding bells ... or at least drunken sex. He is terribly cute and seems to be smart ... and then there is something intriguing about a man less than five feet tall. He could be my pocket gay.<br /><br />Mark<br /></span></big>Markhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08560859688282860180noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1939887339277374213.post-46351308866796774782010-04-20T09:23:00.000-07:002010-04-20T09:24:32.694-07:00Country Music and Castigation<span style="color:#006600;">I had a dream involving my mother. I have no idea what it was about ... as it came and went as spirits tend to do. Whether I was comforted or disturbed, I cannot say either; it was a whisper in the midst of noise.<br /><br />Life is noisy of late - a clamor of depression, frustration, and uploading country music to my computer. In the absence of blues LPs, country fills a void - a boozing, lonely, wife-beating, deer hunting, coon hound having void.<br /><br />I have been remiss in my reading of late - choosing drunken sex and time with <i>the guy I was THEN seeing</i><i> </i>over gay murder mysteries. I feel their call. <i>A Habit for Death</i> - about a nun serial killer in a Catholic boys' school suddenly seems more powerful than a dirty martini.<br /><br />I've got a killer to catch ... Sister Clarissa Darling must be avenged ...<br /></span>Markhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08560859688282860180noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1939887339277374213.post-3034047666096113242010-04-07T20:49:00.001-07:002010-04-07T20:50:22.393-07:00A dream ... again<span style="font-family:New York;color:#660000;"><big><big>I</big></big> fell asleep watching National Geographic; consequently - coupled with drugs, alcohol, and something akin to sexual exhaustion - I had the strangest dream.<br /><br />It began at an anniversary party - my own. I think it was our 60th, and it was futuristic, in that way that the not-so-distant future is often portrayed, something like "Minority Report" or the flash(ing) forward at the end of the final episode of "Six Feet Under." I was silver and distinguished - slimmer than I expected - in a very expensive suit.<br /><br />I was married to Apollo Ono, and it was somewhere around that time I realized that that the flash-backs began.<br /><br />Evan Lycasek figures in somehow - I think as my nemesis, and as a competitor for Ono's affections.<br /><br />We were well-traveled - Apollo and I; there were scenes in jungles, sweating and running from tribes - with torches. I distinctly recall a ritual - our wedding(?) - wherein heated rods were pushed through our abdomens. If the poker missed your vital organs, and you survive the pain, and the risks of infection, you were bonded for life [politics-schmolitics; that's (gay) marriage]. Someone may have wound up paralyzed ... that part escapes me.<br /><br />There was abundant ass play, a blood-letting (blessing) in honor of our marriage, and I think robots got involved somehow.<br /><br />Making out on a mountain-top, at dawn ... felt like being the first men (note: Adam and Steve jokes), and the first to discover love (or, more aptly, LOVE). It was a waking dream, where I saw things happening and could gently shift the course. I mostly shifted the course of things into Apollo's pants ... and once, out of the path of a lion.<br /><br />I think I also hooked Lycasek up with Johnny Weir ... or Clay Aiken.<br /><br />I don't recall how the dream ended, save that I rolled over to check the time and fell back into some cute, absurd moment. <br /><br />I was happy.<br /><br />It was 6:30AM - and <i>Rough Trade</i> called ... wistful, apologetic, and set some things atwitter ...<br /><br />Mark<br /><br /></span>Markhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08560859688282860180noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1939887339277374213.post-5929474796321450462010-03-30T08:48:00.000-07:002010-03-30T08:49:49.355-07:00Technology is NOT my friend ...<span style="font-family:Maiandra GD;color:#660000;"><big><big>I </big></big>am beginning to doubt that technology is here for me. I am this close to believing that technology is not my friend. My beloved Apple laptop - the basic black PowerBook a la Carrie Bradshaw - is no longer working. My netbook is infected with some sort of Trojan Horse, one which seems to particularly dislike Google Chrome. <br /><br />My cheap but attractive Sprint cell phone occasionally misplaces the who, and even the what, of my text messages, and neither adam4adam nor gay.com seem willing or able to deliver eligible men to my eager inbox.<br /><br />And while I am an avid devotee of texting and email, even those handy forms of expression occasionally betray me. <i>Mount Gay</i> - when he grew a pair and decided to assert himself, against me and out of our relationship - did so via a text. It was not as succinct as the Post-It note break-up on "Sex & the City," but it got the job done. <br /><br />So, yesterday, having applied for food stamps and keeping the Frenemy company, I came home with a new crop of library books and turned on my netbook. My email client loaded, and I felt the same anticipation one feels as a child receiving his first pieces of mail. <br /><br />My optimism is alive and well; every day I look at my email - expecting a job offer, new messages via facebook, or something cheery from one of the law schools or graduate programs to which I applied. So, yesterday, when I saw something from the University of North Dakota (UND), I was halfway to giddy before I started reading. It was a no, for the record.<br /><br />My fear that if the first letter was a rejection, the rest might be as well is silly, but a fear or concern echoed by pretty much anyone embroiled in the application process. I don't know what the other letters will say, or when they might come. It is true, though, that UND was the only school I could actually afford to attend - so, whatever the answer, I will probably not be a lawyer anytime soon.<br /><br />Maybe the world has too many lawyers.<br /><br />Back-up plans include accounting and renting myself out as a gay man with taste (a.k.a. a hair-dresser). Part of me wants to play it safe - continue along the course of academia and stable jobs. The other part wants to have a Bravo reality show - to operate within a series of cliches ... <b><i>fabulous</i></b> fag with shears, bedazzled jeans, and an amazing ability to sound deep about shallow things.<br /><br />Mark<br /></span>Markhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08560859688282860180noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1939887339277374213.post-73461409378908242732010-03-23T19:12:00.000-07:002010-03-23T19:13:25.820-07:00Gay Pimp Daddy<span style="font-family:Palatino Linotype;color:#330000;">While it is so often said that some things never change ... and while many of us are exceedingly glad that that is not the case ... it is true that some people, by sheer happenstance of living longer than expected, approach life in a whole new way over 80. My father is among those very interesting souls, and at 85, he's adapted to a life of crime.<br /><br />I would say that it was my bad influence, having been a drug dealer and gone to jail a time or two (before <i>the photo-shoot</i>), but I have had family in jail or prison for generations. Given the number of unregistered guns, the rounds of ammo in the antique trunk, and the small flask of Seagram's "cold medicine" in the cereal cabinet in the kitchen, I somehow doubt that anything I could contribute would even raise an eyebrow.<br /><br /><i>the Old Black Man</i>'s been around the block ...<br /><br />And I say this because I just took delivery of an HVAC unit - new, in a box, with no serial number. While the average household HVAC unit costs somewhere around $3,000, my father paid $800. A black man with no last name - using someone else's (broken) Cricket phone, in a late-model Suburban, pulled into the driveway, rolled it into the den, and told me to call him back when we were ready to install the unit. He has a friend who "can make somethin' happen ..."<br /><br />I was this close to asking him if he happened to have some groceries that also happened to fall off the back of a truck. The black man with no last name showed up 8 hours late to deliver the unit, and - owing to there being no food in the house - I was hungry and otherwise not having the best day. We exchanged no more than 5 words. Then again, these sorts of deals do not typically involve a lot of small talk.<br /><br />I have fond memories, or memories at least, of a time when I was not hungry, was not lonely (or alone), and when I was engaged in my own shady dealings, not facilitating my father's. I am reminded as well of high school, when <i>the Old Black Man</i> had four girlfriends, and I was sitting home alone on any given night - answering the phone and making excuses. It is not good for one's ego when your septuagenarian father is getting WAY more play than you ... and then again, he still is. <br /><br />Perhaps that makes him a pimp - the big man with the money and the name for whom I am attache; I thought this as I was cutting his hair last night, and trimming the strands in his ears. This, mind you was shortly after <i>Project Monday</i> - wherein I planted the entire front yard, installed a door, and moved a dining room table. <br /><br />It is a colossal let-down that I own so very much polyester and yet cannot make it past the lackey stage.<br /><br />Mark<br /><br /><br /></span>Markhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08560859688282860180noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1939887339277374213.post-80373990703454101472010-03-23T17:34:00.000-07:002010-03-23T17:35:08.952-07:00On the DL in the DMZ<span style="font-family:Maiandra GD;color:#006600;">As it happens, boredom and great heaping lots of time on my hands, coupled with the Internet(s) and the inability to leave the house, inspired some virtual globe-trotting. This started as a simple social experiment; as I cannot seem to either get laid, or even engage in conversation, in local chat rooms, I started visiting the rooms of the two places I hope to live while attending law school - Grand Forks, ND and South Royalton, VT. <br /><br />Each has its own unique charm, its own, different sort of hellacious winter, and a gay population smaller than my blog readership. Frequent forays into the actual city chat room yield only four chatters at a given time, and upon expanding my net to include the entire state of North Dakota (or Vermont), the figures leaped to 17 or so. I have never seen more than 22 people at any given time chatting in either state. This contrasts slightly with 500+ chatting (or cruising) presently in San Antonio. <br /><br />Not to be deterred from my mission to meet and greet, I messaged the 34 (total) gay men available across two states, and four of them responded. One warned me that there are no gay bars ("...but there is a 'gay-friendly' bar in town ... I even kissed a guy I was on a date with once ..."); note, there are no gay bars in the entire state of North Dakota. The nearest is in the perhaps very aptly named Moorehead, MN., 90 miles away. And Winnipeg, Manitoba is just around the corner. <br /><br />The gay student alliance at UND (the "Ten Percent Society") hosts a gay dance once-monthly, which incorporates a drag show and a DJ - or so I was told by another gay man from ND. Vermont has thus far declined comment, which leads me to believe that either everyone in South Royalton is absurdly busy with law school, or there are simply no gays in that cold, bedroom community of only 2,300 souls. That they are still thawing under layers of snow and maple syrup hardened into an impenetrable crust is simply too grievous (and funny) to consider.<br /><br />But, as I am wont to do, I digress ... exploring Vermont and North Dakota, which I did in the course of four emails and a day of passing time got me, as we say in the South, "to thinkin' " about all the cities and towns and continents I have yet to visit. And so I visited - via the Internet(s) - Greece, Paris, Australia, Italy, the Netherlands, the UAE, Afghanistan, Iraq, and both Koreas. <br /><br />That I found black men there - and that they appeared to be doing well, getting laid, and could speak without using "nigga ..." or "holla" in sentences intrigued me no end. That there were gays there at all, and a room full of them with whom I could interact surprised me still more (at least in the case of Iraq and the two Koreas). It is not so much that I did not appreciate that my race extends all over the world, or that black men (especially in other parts of the world) do not all labor under some pre-established cultural or even aesthetic bias. <br /><br /><i>the Frenemy</i> suggests it is merely about the look ... and <i><b>the smell</b></i> of black men that makes them ... us ... uh, me ... undesirable. I argue that a bias established by cultural perception, among other things a result of 250 - 400 years of slavery has a great deal to do with it. I argue that there is a reason why the charming black man I met in Dubai, raised in Italy, is accomplished, educated, and has neither social qualms nor an affinity for the ghetto, and yet every man in the Jackson, MS room has gold teeth and Fubu.<br /><br />The effects of Apartheid on young black men in South Africa might serve to aid my argument(s), but I find that country - if only in the digital environment of adam4adam.com to be creepy, and its men - of various sizes, shapes, and races, to be something 'other' and off-putting. It's like "Children of the Corn," if Spike Lee directed.<br /><br />And, as I said, the bigger shock, bigger than that a chunky black man not much different than me told me he was dating five men at present - two of whom were doctors (this was in Paris) - was the very open cruising among soldiers of various stripe in Afghanistan and Iraq. There were more gay men looking in Baghdad than there are in North Dakota and Vermont combined. <br /><br />Is it the 'other' interpretation of <i><b>Enduring Freedom</b></i>, or just that - after 22 months in a war-zone no one cares who sucks whom so long as there is a smile and an occasional friendly embrace? The number of men whose web cams capture a tent and a helmet and a shirt-less comrade in the background is either funny or very sad.<br /><br /><i>the Frenemy</i> is banging two or three men, if not more, who used to do me for free drugs. One of them said as much just last night, that the only reason he ever did anything with me was for the coke - something which, though suspected ... or understood ... still hurts to hear aloud. <i>the Frenemy </i>seemed only too happy to pass along that information just this morning. <br /><br />I suppose as I am processing that particular kernel of truth, I think about the experience I gained just from a little late-night, Internet(s) globe-trotting. I am alone in San Antonio - apparently too black to merit a simple 'hello' in response to my message, too invisible to even get a thank you when I buy a round of drinks at a bar ... but I imagine there is still light in my eyes, that there is a still anticipation and hope and something stirring that believes the adage, "This too shall pass ..."<br /><br />I have been saying that for a long, long time ... and it still ain't passing, which makes me think that either somebody lied, or I am meant to be a REAL late bloomer. I am channeling my mother as I type this, thinking about the light in her eyes. <br /><br />I messaged a few guys in Kandahar, sent a simple 'hello' to a pale, white, blue-eyed American boy named "Al-Asad." He didn't respond, but I imagine that at that point - perhaps much like mine, for different reasons, he just needs someone to be nearby, and he needs to know he's not alone.<br /><br />Mark<br /></span>Markhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08560859688282860180noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1939887339277374213.post-26167555316884657262010-03-23T16:22:00.001-07:002010-03-23T16:23:08.616-07:00Pulling It Off ...<div class="moz-text-html" lang="x-western"> <span style="font-family:Maiandra GD;color:#990000;">It is a beautiful day - one of the most beautiful I've seen in ages. We are comfortably in Spring. The sun is shining, birds are chirping, and something that sounds strangely like an owl is hooting or cooing near my open front door. I am not near my open front door, mind you ... I am not wireless here at home, so I am tethered to an Ethernet cable in a room with no windows, and a small antique bed. That there is a TV, a stack of library books, and the sounds of these lovely, natural scenes ... well, it is enough for me for now. It feels as though I haven't left the house in days. <br /><br />Come to think of it, I haven't.<i><br /><br />Knob Bob</i> picked me up Friday, for what was to be if not a romantic weekend, certainly a horny one. I met <i>Bob</i> at a Valentine's Day threesome - an event in which I engaged, against my better judgment, in order to forget about being dumped 6 days earlier - via text message. The apartment smelled of gym socks, sex, and the Warm Vanilla Sugar lotion the host - <i>the naked Negro</i> - was using as lube, but I digress ...<br /><br />So, <i>Knob Bob</i> came to collect me Friday afternoon - and there was a half-smile on his face, and a certain gleam in his eye. I gave him the tour of my family home, and off we went in his American car, for sex and something. <br /><br />The something was the kicker.<br /><br />Now, <i>Knob Bob</i> is the affable and diminutive fellow (5'2," 130 lbs.) who happens to doze off at inopportune moments. It isn't just that he nearly burns me with lit cigarettes every time he starts to drift and I am in the room. It is not the fear of dying in a burning bed. And, given how lacking my sex life, I can even deal with him referring to sex as "pokey-pokey" ... If anything, I can even deal with him dozing off during during blow-jobs - although deep-throat and snoring should never mix. It would be hard to explain that to the paramedics. <br /><br />And speaking of things difficult to explain to medical professionals, we got back to <i>Bob</i>'s and promptly had to leave again, to buy ice. Although I was having a margarita, the ice was not for my drink but rather his crotch. Apparently, in getting off the couch to come pick me up, <i>Bob</i> <b><i>pulled something</i></b> ... He was in tremendous pain, and I spent the rest of Friday, most of the night, and Saturday morning icing down my fuck buddy's privates. Needless to say, a good time was not had by all ... or any.<br /><br />I wish that I could say I spent the rest of Saturday and at least part of Sunday in a drunken stupor ... the better by which to pass the interminable hours. But I was sober. Hiding in my room, reading, and exploring my chances of getting laid in Iraq.<br /><br />Mark<br /></span> </div>Markhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08560859688282860180noreply@blogger.com0