Baby Penguin

Flap-flappity flap flap flap.

So I have three more work days to finish before I get in my car, drive to Philly, pick up a buddy, and 8 hr it to Charlotte for a nice little checkout from the world at large.

I could be just a smidge more excited. But I do have to get through the next three days. I have a few more evening cases before Thursday. I have some high-profile meetings to attend in the dayjob and a boss to placate in his neverending search for paperwork. I have some Twitter addiction to resist. I have some clothes to wash--some larger clothes to buy, some bloating and fat to despise less. I'm also sporting a short fro these days because I hate cutting it or paying a barber to cut it. Perfectionist's Anonymous holla! If the cut goes wrong, I have to bear it for at least a month before it grows back. That dread is nothing unique, I know. It's the fact that I let the hair get shaggy and look raggedy INSTEAD of bearing a less than stellar haircut--now that's the rub. It's just that I've now got these long totally Reed Richards grey sideburns that I just really really like, and no matter how many times I tell these barbers "Do NOT touch the sideburns. Don't. DON'T." well fifteen minutes go by while they're yammering away and then next thing we know "zzzzip! zz-zzk-zzzzzzzzip!" sideburns gone up to the mid-ear. So yeah, I'd rather just do it myself, which I can, but I never can seem to get the hair to be even & very low on my own. My clipper ain't as sexy as the barbershop's.

Whatever. I'm just yammering away because the highlight of this trip is going to be breaking some bread with Ned and I'm trying not to let myself get all stupid and gushy about it. Remember, blog = stream of consciousness. Me not trying to say how I really feel while typing is like me trying not to think of the pink elephants that I just thought of. It'll be better to type about it after it's happened.

But I do see myself as a baby penguin right now. All floppy and small, little stubby wings that I keep throwing wide to gain my balance. Not as sleek and dark as the grown-ups, with the finely polished feathers. But no Dad penguin whose feet I could stand on and tuck out of harms way. Just ... how'd I get so damn brand new?

Recognise These Two?

Why I love New York!

Revisited, Rekindled, and Refailure

Soooooo yeah. I was going to ask The Past Girl if she sent that Mother's Day thing just to my phone or was it a general send. I've had three opportunities. Timing was never right. Though I was face to face with her, she'd have a meeting soon afterwards or I did.

Today there were just too many co-workers and clients hanging around the house.

Fast forward 7 hours to now.

To mess with someone in Twitter, I went searching for vids and stumbled upon Jennifer Hudson again.

The official vid if you prefer.
And back goes my head to The Past Girl.

Please let me describe this dichotomy that I live with okay?

The same-sex thing? It's like this--you guys seen 300, right? Or Wolverine: Origins. So you know when Leonides/Logan is/are all full of power and anger and strength and passion? Eyebrows knitted, muscles writhing, jaws agape, teeth bared, faces grimacing? Yeah. And you know when you're leaning a little forward in your seat and you want to punch the air when you watch? And when you leave the theater your fists are clenched and you wish somebody WOULD say something foul right in that moment. You know that feeling of empowerment and brotherhood? That feeling of masculine identity?

Yeah. Well, I get all that. And then I think of sex. Maybe that doesn't happen to every guy. Or any guy, despite all my decades of convincing myself that it does happen to some. But it happens to me. (And I DO think it happens to others. I think society reflects the fact that other men--photographers, porn producers, casting agents, and every man who watches adventure movies that star another man--knows what a sexually attractive man looks like.) So the thought starts--"he's sexy." And then if I dwell long enough, it could go into an actual same-sex experience. (Interpret this how you may.) But in person, it never has. Because I won't think on it long enough when I'm actually WITH a dude. That's when all the circuit breakers start to flip. That's when all the conditioning takes hold. That's when the fear comes in. "if you do this ... IF YOU DO THIS ... IF YOU DOOOOO THIIIIIIS ..."

So I don't.

But now let me tell you what it's like with a woman. And let me tell you what it's like with The Past Girl.

She's curvy. She has a tickling husky laugh. She has big brown eyes, and she bats her lashes, not to be coy, but to cover up an insecurity or two. She's observing her world but she doesn't seem to want everyone around her to know precisely when she's doing it.

Her phone rings and Earth, Wind and Fire plays. Literally. "September." I react to it, dancing, and she laughs as she answers it.

And her laugh makes me want to take her by the hand and have her dance with me. I want her to press her body up against mine. I want to smell her neck and the hair around her earlobe. I want to feel her hand on my shoulder. I want to fit into her arms.

I want to become her Leonides/Logan. I want to be that same strength that if I were alone, I would fixate on differently. I want to be to her what those heroic men can be to me. I want to own the image, instead of watch others be the image. And I want to feel her react to me--a man.

When Jennifer Hudson sings her song, and she's asking "If this isn't love, tell me what it is" I get tears in my eyes. Because I don't love a man the way I love a woman. I don't want with a man what I want with a woman. I don't care where my mind goes or what my body does in the case of a man. I want that masculine/feminine contrast. I want the light/dark, that yin/yang, that man's/woman's voice interplay before, during and after.

And when I'm around The Past Girl, she's the one I want all this with. I'm drawn to her in ways I haven't been drawn since my last girlfriend. I feel new chances with her in ways that I haven't felt in years. And when she's around me, I don't want anything else. I don't want men. I don't want other women. I want her.

And that's when I'm around her.

So why not make it so that I'm around her more often?

Why not ask her out?

Yeah. Why not?

I thought to text her simply "Do you dance? I want to dance with you."

But did I?

Nevermore As Close As I Was Yesterday

...to "coming out" to my geek community. Yesterday (right?) when California upheld the same-sex marriage ban, there were SO many tweets from my geek friends and professionals that were de-crying and insulting California for their decision.

I just couldn't understand why they were SO moved. Those are people who brag about how beautiful their wives are and are the fathers of many sons and daughters. And so I Tweeted it out there. A little miffed, in fact. I suggested that if those guys were so offended by Prop 8, then they should protest in earnest. I suggested a French-Kiss in. They should snog a same-sex buddy in solidarity for the plight of the homosexuals of California. Otherwise, I just wanted them to shuttheEFFup. (Just wanted them to. I didn't say tweet it.) Because, dude WHY are YOU bitching? Mr hairy-chested, bounce-my-son-on-my-knee, screw-my-wife All-American Boy. How happy it must be for you to have no sexual confusion. How nice that when you were attracted sexually, you were able to go right in and tap that ass with no social ramifications. You got to have all the sex. Then you got to marry her. Then you got to make babies. During all this blissful coitus, did you ever ONCE look around you and think, "Hey? Gay people don't get to enjoy what I'm enjoying right now, in full support of their society."

But now you want to litter my Twitterscape with your bitching? You're a got-damn day late and a mutha-effing dollar short there, Biff. Go back to your 401K, your McMansion cul-de-sac, your 2.5 children and your pilates-addicted Housewife of Orange County and cut me an Effing Break. Where the hell was all your outrage when I was in highschool and crushing on the football captain but thinking, this is wrong, this is wrong, this is wrong.

Now I'm 40-almost-effing-FIVE, never dipped a wick IN MY LIFE, and NOW you want to be all "civil-rights-is-GOOD sez Johnny ACTIVIST"?! Sit yo normal ass the hell down somewhere.








PHOOOOO--!!!

I needed that.

So anyway, I so very extremely nearly twittered yesterday that "reasons like Prop 8 are why I'm not gay." Which is a joke, right, because either I'm supposed to be gay or not. But check this out--one of my closer friends over Twitter, someone I've met a few times and we've broken bread over a diner table, responded to my "French-A-Buddy" said he WOULD do it if it made a difference. To which I was like--WHAT? And then he Tweeted--PUBLICALLY TWEETED--that he was bisexual, but now was in a committed marriage to a woman. To which part I already knew. Not only married, but they made two children together.

But he said he was bisexual! Told everyone who followed him that, yes I would french-kiss a man to support the Gays of California, and oh "bi" the way I used to do it just for fun too!

See, that's the kind of living I wish I could have done. Go ahead and have my fun with some hunky bastard, get it the hell over with, and then get with a woman who would sing "I don't care 'bout those other girls (and guys), just be good to me."

In summary though, I can't lie. It's my own fault. I can't blame the straight people who are pissed off at California for my own choices and my own isolation and fears. Hundreds of thousands of people grew up in the same America I did, and sprinted out of their closets and got busy and partnered up and enjoyed love and adopted kids and combined incomes and bought houses. I could have been one of them. Or I could have been like my bisexual buddy (who is, by the way, pretty sexy too--but again, married now and a father of two).

I'm living a life based on my choices, no one elses'. Yes, it would have been nice to have had a society around me to have helped me make better ones, but too late now. Spilt milk. And maybe all the angry straight people now will make it better for the kids of the next generation when they're looking for a societally acceptable place to dip their wicks.

Add to that, as one of the straight outraged guys dialogued with me, many straight people know and love homosexual folks, and are legitimately upset for the sake of their brothers, their uncles, their cousins, the best man at their wedding, their college roommate who they still keep in touch with, etc. People have a right to feel anyway they want to feel about anything they want to feel about.

I was just taking out my frustrations and jealousy on them.

And that's why I blog.

I feel better now.

And really, California? WTF?

Nothing Like Looking Back At The Roadmarks

For instance, this post originally done in Sept 7th, 2005 tells of a very downtrodden me, fighting and struggling and hurting like hell. It contains all the hopes I had for my future and all the shortcomings I had that made me feel like I'd never be happy.

I can say that I have made some of those goals come true. I have recovered as I struggled to do. I haven't suffered a Insufficient funds penalty from my bank in over a year. Perhaps two years. And I had totally forgotten that I used to get my phone shut off for non-payment!

I wonder what birthday present I'm getting myself this year when I turn the big 45?

No One Is Alone

No one here to guide you.
Now you're on your own.

Only me beside you.
Still you're not alone.

No one is alone.

Truly,

No one is alone.

Sometimes people leave you,
Halfway through the wood.

Others may deceive you
You decide what's good.

You decide alone.
But no one is alone.

People make mistakes

Fathers ... mothers ...

People make mistakes ...

... holding to their own.

Thinking they're alone...

Honor their mistakes
Everybody makes
One another's
terrible mistakes.

Witches can be right.
Giants can be good.
You decide what's right.
You decide what's good.

Just remember--

Someone is on your side
Someone else is not.
While you're seeing your side,
Maybe you forgot?
They are not alone.

No one is alone.

Hard to see the light now,
Just don't let it go
Things will turn out right, now.
We can make it so...

Someone is on your side.

No one is

Alone.

I saw Bernadette Peters today on my way to my parked car, after going into midtown to get my comicbooks. She was behind her sunglasses (they must make them especially to hide behind, and so, cost a fortune) but she was talking on her phone as they all seem to do and only her speaking voice made me look up. She was fascinating enough to look at, but only in a split second did I realize who she was ... and then she was gone.

So I Tweeted about seeing her, and I gushed a little over her, and then I went to Amazon.com and downloaded her Sondheim, Etc. Live at Carnegie Hall.

And I said "when I want a great effing cry" I would then listen to it. But who buys a song and doesn't listen to it straightway?

So for the last half hour I've been listening to it over and over, letting a tear or two trickle down. Then I started hearing the actual words, and I realized I had to come here and type them out. And then while doing so, had a GREAT EFFING CRY.

These lyrics made me think of so many people, bloggers and face-to-face people who have been around, and now are not. Left me when I was only halfway through the wood. My heroes who are scattered around the country. And my parents.

I stopped taking my meds Friday morning. I tell you this because when I'm not on the meds, it's easier for me to cry. I ran out of them and the doctor's secretary said I had to come in and see him again before he would renew my refills. And I thought--"You know what? No."

And I think of Ned and the solidarity I had with him when we took meds, and how now here I am, leaving him halfway through the woods. It's not airtight, but it seems to fit peripherally. But Ned will take his meds whether I do or not, if he believes they have a good effect. And I think for him they do.

And I think the meds have/had a good effect on me. I think I may have achieved a pretty busy part time theripst's gig because I wasn't as scared of my potential clients as I used to be when I was a 'travelling therapist/counseling supervisor,' and left that job conveniently when I let my car get impounded, and subsequently unable to survive off Starbucks money, got my ass evicted from NYC.

I have had the benefits from the meds. Now I am hoping that I'm somehow better. That I can use reason to override my anxiety, the way I urge and encourage my clients who don't want medication. My fears were neurotic, not based on truth. I have more evidence and reinforcing beliefs to support that now. And experience to know that I Am Good Enough. I will make that work for me when I need it. I will let Dr. Feelgood prescribe for other patients and blackmail THEM into seeing him again when their meds are running out. If I really, really REALLY need those meds again, I will go straight to a psychiatrist, do not pass go, do not collect $200.

Grizzbabe, Ned, and like the letter 'Y'--sometimes Scott, you are the blogfriends who have stuck with me. (Eliel, you are my FRIENDfriend, so don't hate on my moment here.) I love you. I am not alone.

As a parting detail, here are other songs that make me cry;

"The Rainbow Connection" from The Muppet Movie
&
"Pure Imagination" from Willy Wonka.

Okay. And maybe now that I'm off my meds I'll post more.

And if I do, and you guys see me going back to bad--or getting worse--please tell me. Please don't let me get kicked out of New York again. There's no George I'm going back to.

I know you'll have my back, though. Because I'm not alone.

No one is alone.

PS, and you, Steven. I forgot, so silent you are. But speaking up in times of great need. Thank you too.

Happiness Wins Again

...or at least I hope so. I can't find Fringes and Q's blog anymore. They're married and having a baby (or maybe had it by now) and they've moved on. I missed the "Goodbye."

I didn't know blogs had a shelf life. But I guess when their purposes are over, letting them go is a sign of growth, health, happiness achieved. At least, that's what I choose to believe.

So, live long and prosper, Fringes and Q, wherever you are.