Something incredible happened on the way through Life

Entry 04/01/2013 07:13:01 AM – Mentat 683

“It’s the friends you can call up at four a.m. that matter.” – Marlene Dietrich

It’s funny in one of those sadly ironic sort of ways… Every time I try to sit down and write a journal entry, I will start with putting my earbuds in, starting iTunes and trying to play something quiet, melodic, or even something I would listen to if I wanted to meditate. Then the next thing I know, I’m shutting my journal, loading up a game of some sort (MMO mostly), and then off I go to save the city, world, galaxy… What have you. When I pull myself out of the game saying to myself in one of those harshly critical ways that I should be working on my journal entry… I stop what game I’m playing put on iTunes once again, put something classical on and the next thing I know I’m leaving my journal program open (and my desk) to do chores about the house. Cleaning up, doing dishes, making something to eat… If I’m trying to write this in the morning, I end up making breakfast, coffee, getting ready for what’s ahead in the day, and then start writing something that couldn’t possibly be finished in the 40 or so minutes before I’m off to work paying off my rent. Sure I can come back to writing this after a full day’s worth of work, but then I’m too tired, too beat, too sore to want to sit here and write. With my brain being in all the wrong places for me to pay attention to what I should be writing and what I should be talking about. So I end up in the evening looking at what I wrote in the morning, not liking it at all and end up deleting it and starting all over again.

Wash… Rinse… Repeat…

Heh, I’m reminded too keenly of this video that I seem to have stumbled across a year (or so) ago and thinking even now, “yep, this is totally appropriate for what I’m feeling the last two weeks.” Longer the more that I think about the amount of trouble that I’ve been going through since the beginning of the year and most of last year.

So it is the fact that I’m tired of the work of these journal entries? Yeah, a little bit. Sometimes I find myself overwhelmed with the feeling that I need to be entertaining to those that have decided to tune into my journal entries both on WordPress, Blogger and on Deviant Art (with Facebook, Twitter being included thanks to WordPress’ app section). Yes, I know I shouldn’t be too worried about what other people think when it comes to my entries — this was done back in 2005 (earlier actually, but those sites have been phased out or cancelled and WordPress has them dating back to then thanks to MSN Spaces going the way of the dinosaur) because I had been accused of being “secretive” by a certain ex (who will remain unnamed)… And well, I shouldn’t feel the responsibility of actually being entertaining. After all, I can be that without even trying.

And then there’s the new element that I realize is coming into play since just before the last journal entry that I had been hinting at about writing… With two weeks later finding myself having just as difficult a time talking about it now as I did when I finished that entry. Yes, there’s a special someone that I would like to talk about, and even getting into the details of it… While I have no problem maintaining a sense of anonymity for that individual — referring to him as nothing more than C — there’s still the self-conscious of doing so for fear of the repercussions that my writing about him publicly can cause quite a controversy. Heh, sure I know he has the confidence, and after talking with him, he reassuring me that I have nothing to fear, the problem is that peer pressure has a strange way of affecting even the most confident. That it’s one thing for me to tell him what I’m writing about one-on-one, it’s quite the other when those words can be read and seen in the world at large. Though I might be able to get to this in a few, as I’m feeling rather inspired at the moment in spite of this all. We’ll see how long this lasts before this work of pixels ends up in the Recycle Bin…

Like many things that have significant (and sometimes even life-altering) impact in my life, it doesn’t start slowly. Never does, really. Instead it starts like the headlong rush of riding a roller coaster. Except that instead of the climb up the first hill and then the downward plunge, it’s like you leave the gate at the top of the hill and then you go down… Fast… Unlike other times however, I wasn’t fully aware of what was going on for a while, mostly because I had been fighting through the rage that I was feeling dealing with the ex-roommate and his continued (immediate) presence in my immediate life. When I did realize what was going on, I was dealing not with the rage (or the feelings that I often shut down in order to feel anger and rage), I found myself ending up in the middle of a dilemma that I didn’t know how to respond to. More like hesitant to the consequences of what happens when encountering this question..

The question is, “what happens when you find a Soulmate that is of a different sexual proclivity?”

I know, I know… This is getting to be a reoccurring theme in my life the last six months (and the last couple of years). I’ve brought the subject once before much to the catastrophe that left me frazzled and ungrounded… Not to mention I was an emotional mess the last time because the person that I had encountered — the Soulmate then — was unbalanced and ungrounded and a mess in more ways than I care to recount and remember at the present. Personal Karma (Life Lessons) have a way of interfering with the resonance Souls can have when reuniting in one life or the next, and I often forget to take that into consideration and sometimes because of that, it can make it difficult (to impossible to reunite on a lifetime (or several).

After all, normal people are one in a million lucky to meeting their soulmates in their lifetimes, and yet here I am in my middle-ages and I’ve met several. The thing is though I’m at the point in my spiritual evolution that I can draw those of like energies. Souls that walk the same path that I do and those that have walked with me several times through a Soul’s path to Enlightenment and Purification. To feel as equal toward, and to experience a resonance right down to the soul, and experience a mental, emotional and even spiritual affinity that goes beyond word, feeling and sometimes even understanding (and even in that lack of understanding to feel as though they were always part of one’s life even before meeting them).

The thing is though I’m at a stage in my spiritual evolution where encountering one’s Soulmates through the long path of living on the physical plane will be (and is) more common. From what I understand based on my philosophy is that the reason why I am encountering more of them is because I am in the slow process of shedding all my ties with the physical realm. It’s not so much that this will be completed in this lifetime; it’s not and it would be foolishly egocentric to think that it would complete in this life. I know that it’s going to take a hell of a lot longer than this lifetime for this to be completed. In a way, it’s like saying farewell to all those that have touched me through the walk through spiritual evolution. But I digress…

I found myself very hesitant when faced with that question (above). Most of the reason was because I was jumping ahead of where I needed to be. After all, I needed to work through all this anger and rage for dealing with someone that had committed the three deadliest sins in my book (thievery, pathologically lying and using people — me — for their creature comforts). Add to the fact that I would literally be volunteering to enter a cage of my own making – one involved with unrequited love — and I couldn’t shake the feeling that I would be jumping out of the frying pan and into the fire. A cage that would leave me frazzled, hurt, annoyed, frustrated and eventually dealing with more anger and impatience (for different reasons).

But then again, I know that in my long life — things are never easy or organized. After all, things often get thrown at me in complete disarray, why should it stop now?

Instead of wrestling with the problem I did what my family is famous for; going into denial mode and simply not want to think about it. Well at first. The thing is, my instincts told me, I wasn’t the only person feeling this. And at first when I had posed the question to C in a way that he would understand it (what would happen if one were to meet their Soulmate and they were of the same gender?), his reaction was rather…. Extreme. Well at least at first. Off on a tangent he went saying that it would be wise for him to explore this with a woman even if that woman ends up being a hooker…

I left it alone for a bit, explaining how it can sometimes work with finding other Soulmates and that he didn’t quite have the right grounding/centering for finding another. And explored with him why he had such an extreme reaction to it (knowing full well most of the reasons why).

The second time through though, I approached it more calmly, with more reasoning and explaining the myriad labels of sexuality and sexual identity. C thought about it a little bit and then slept on it. It was in the morning when I saw him next that a transformation had occurred. One that involves taking that leap of faith.

He stated simply and matter-of-factly, “then I would adapt.”

Something changed though.. Both subtle and obvious. C’s confidence was soaring. He was happy and had the attitude that he would take on the world and win. He was infatuated and in love. And it happened as naturally as the sun rising in the east.

Seeing that changed scared me. I thought that I was reading too far into things… I thought I was misinterpreting the signals that he was giving off. So far off the mark in fact, that I found myself allowing hope to things that I shouldn’t be feeling hope about.

He assured me I wasn’t. That what I was seeing, and what I was reading was accurate.

I calmed down, was happy…. Felt all right in fact. Then a couple of days later something subtle happened to me. I found myself speaking the ex-roommates name. Even did it with a smile on my face when I was speaking about the black-eye he earned. Not so much for the savage glee that he’s getting what I think he deserves, but the fact that I wasn’t bothered at all with his continued presence. It was in that moment, I realized that my feelings were mutual for him. I was infatuated and in love with him. That I was even on the road toward healing.

Yesterday, as I began working on the bare bones of this journal entry, I realized that I was trying to rush things. That I was trying to rush things in spite of the fact that C said that he wanted to take his time and make this relationship work, I was ending up wanting to follow the path that I often feel strongly to someone… In fact I ended up being so confused by what I was feeling that I had to stop writing what I was writing and talk a little bit with someone I trust a lot in order to work through why I was doing what I was doing. And after a couple of hours of talking about it, metaphysics and philosophy and everything else in between, I realized that I was simply being foolish and a bit desperate and was able to find myself grounded enough to remember that I often take my time as well… The tradition of getting to know someone within a year and a day. That I was just trying to rush through to getting to the intimacy in spite of the fact that in the last month we’re more intimate (emotionally and intellectually) now than we were when we chatted four weeks ago.

So yeah… Take our time… get to know each other more… help each other understand the nature of the universe, and let things follow the path they’re meant to.

So how am I feeling right now? Well, in spite of the fact that this is before coffee — I’m feeling pretty damned good. Happy… A bit of pride… And looking forward to the next installment of chatting with C. Anyway, I’m off for the time being. I need to get ready for work, have my morning coffee and pray to god that my landlord doesn’t try pulling me in sixteen different directions before lunch. That is never pretty. Until the next time.

What is so different about online and offline?

Entry 04/28/2012 09:56:05 PM – Mentat 643

“…Listen, writers… When they’re alone, they’re prophetic. When they’re with people, they’re pathetic. They’re just… too in their heads…” – Ernie (Is it Just Me? (2010))

I swear at the moment, I want to throttle the life out of my roommate. He just says some shit that frustrates the absolute piss out of me that I’m finding once again my impatience is building up. Seriously the man is completely bloody delusional. For example. This afternoon he says to me, “I’m thinking about soliciting…” I stopped listening at this point and waited for him to get to the point. He has this habit of rambling on in some grandiose fashion trying to hook me with his enthusiasm. I’ve told him time and again that I can’t be hooked with this, so I just let him go on until the point’s made. About three minutes later, the point was, “…getting other artists to paint something for the wing at the hospital that is dedicated to my late niece.” Another five minutes goes on about what he can do to get it done and, well, it gets confusing at about this point because I can’t tell whether he’s trying to sell the thought of him painting a painting for it, or getting someone else to do it. Another couple of minutes pass and I’m bored with the whole presentation because it’s getting into even more familiar territory — which are stories that have absolutely and positively nothing to do with the presentation.

I decided to nip it in the bud and say, “seriously, don’t you think you have enough things in the fire right now to be wanting to take on another project?”

“You’re right,” he starts, “but…”

I sighed and cut him off at this point saying, “and it’s that but that tells me you didn’t listen to a word I said. I’m going to go to my room right now, but think really carefully what it is you should be working on, like paying bills and perhaps making money instead of taking on another volunteer project that won’t give you a cent.”

Fast forward a couple of hours. It’s the last minute rush out of the house for him to picking up cat litter (which is already in bad need of being changed), and he comes back to the house making all sorts of noise about how his phone has hundreds of numbers of women that he doesn’t have any idea who they are.

Yes, that’s really charming Casanova, I’m thinking to myself, but seriously not my problem.

He’s about to go on and on about this, and I decide to try to cut him off again because this is stories I don’t need to hear about and almost couldn’t get a word in edgewise because he’s trying to show off either his prowess or his senility (in self-depreciating humor), but got pissed enough to cut him off by saying, “you know there’s this wonderful feature about you iPhone,” I said with a sneer, “and smart-phones on the whole that allows you to keep notes on why that number’s been added to the address book. Perhaps it’s time for you to start using it.

Add another half hour or so after he’s come home, little propped up against the doorframe to the den, where he makes a comment about his friend Carl not ever seeing any lights in the house when he goes by.

First off, Mark’s room never has a light on in it. The only time he’s ever in his room is to pass out.

Second, up until yesterday, I always had a small desk light on at night so I don’t go through worse eye-strain and it’s enough to be seen outside: I should know, I’ve walked by the house in the evening on the way to the market to picking up necessities that I forgot to pick up earlier.

I comment that Carl can’t see the back of the house where the lights are always on.

“I like the light,” Mark says with an almost smirk on his face.

Oh yes, that smirk gets me riled.. I snap at him, “Why don’t you go to bed like a normal person and perhaps you’ll see more of the sunlight, instead of dragging your ass to bed at 6 in the morning drunk out of your head, and having slept in the den with all the lights on… Or how about this. You pay the bills that you owe and on time and then maybe I won’t ride your ass about the lights all the time.”

I stormed into my room to find something to watch and to cool off. Tomorrow — well.. Tomorrow I’m going to deal with those overdue bills, and have a serious talk about him either going to detox or getting his ass together because well… I’m finding this reoccurring pattern of delusional, grandiose dreams and sitting up/passing out/drinking while he’s awake and doing positively nothing to be the straw that broke the camel’s back…

… And broke it did. I’m sitting here watching lights staying on since I started this journal entry while he’s sitting there, smoking, watching television and watching status messages on Facebook… I’ve had it… I blew up. I’m seriously sick of his shit. I’ve given him one week to pony up and pay his outstanding debt. I told him that he’s not a functioning alcoholic, he’s just an alcoholic and that he doesn’t realize just how close to being homeless he truly is. And I know what homeless looks like.

Heh… Not the direction I wanted to go with this journal entry at all. I had so many other ideas that I wanted to be working on/chatting about. Instead I’m dealing with anger and rage over the fact that the dickhead’s been abusing my better nature for entirely too long. Doesn’t clean… doesn’t pick up after himself until the rooms are absolute pigsties. Bathroom is vile, kitchen is vile, forget about the two rooms that he squats in… I’ve seen trailers in Georgia that were in better shape. Bills unpaid for months at a time and instead getting grandiose stories that… that are pipe dreams.. Hell, his “job” has been a pipe dream since January. *eye roll*

*sighs* Everything is so last second for him. He only does something if it involves loss and/or eviction… I’ve had it… One week.

I need to sleep… But, at the moment I’m so freaking torqued at the moment… I’m probably not going to be getting sleep for a couple of more hours yet… At least until the adrenaline wears off. So that means, I might actually cover some of what I’m thinking.. If I don’t explode in the process… again.

The thing that I’ve been thinking about the last couple of days covers the things people say and yet.. Are almost hypocritical approach people have to things. For example…

Internet dating just doesn’t work…

Really? And just how successful are relationships in real life again? Statistically speaking, relationships don’t seem to last any more or less in this day and age be they online or off. Hell, the divorce rate in the United States alone has been hovering around 1.2 million/year for the last decade alone. And that’s tracked because it involves a marriage certificate recognized by the state they were issued in (as well as being separated by). You can certainly imagine just how quickly it is for people just living together.

You can’t read body language when chatting with someone online

I have been working on understanding nuance, inflection, tone and body language for the better portion of 30 years and honestly? While I’m in no way a “master” of the skill, I can admit that I’m pretty damned good about reading anything from the average to the introverted and even the asocial. And what gets me is I’ve watched people that say they’re good at it, completely and utterly miss the mark in reading anyone other than the most grossly extroverted that are mapping it out on construction paper and massive markers.

You can’t read a person’s intent in writing

According to the OED, English has more than 218,000 words (active and obsolete) and that’s just English. If you factor in the words that have been borrowed and used actively from other languages as well as new words being added to describe various technology, you’re looking at over a million. Add in regional accents, local and family colloquialisms and idioms and well, as one rather amusing song from the 80s once said, “…it’s amazing we communicate at all…”

People lie online all the time.

People lie in real life. The only difference is that sometimes it takes time for someone to get caught online. I’ve covered this before and that entry I still stand by when it comes to core personalities — even for the pathological liar. Sure it’s human nature to embellish the truth — particularly when they’re trying to impress someone — the thing is though, not everyone is some raving pathological liar. The averages are simply against it being everyone.

People can cheat on you much easier online

Ha! Like liars, cheaters are in real life too. It’s either in their nature, or it’s not. And the averages are also against everyone being a cheater.

The Internet makes it so much easier to hook up and have one-nighters with people.

Strange that. I’ve been online 23 years now, and let me tell you — whoever came up with this idea is clearly living in Hollywood writing stories for television that make up this pipe dream (and smoking some serious shit that’s messing up their sanity). I mean, sure there are some that are using the internet to make arrangements for some one-night stand (and yes, cyber) somewhere — the vast majority of people out there aren’t. In the on-again-off-again attempts at socializing in that amount of time, I can tell you that a vast amount of people I’ve talked with about their online experiences, a very small percentage of them actually admit to using the Internet for sex and hook-ups. A lot more talk about how lucky they are, but when in a one-on-one you get to learn that it’s just show because it’s the male ego talking and trying to save face.

It’s just words on your computer screen.

I know I’ve covered this one before as well (in a different entry), so I’ll cover it again. Those words on your screen are coming from someone else here on the planet. However, another thing that I haven’t covered on the subject is one that’s sort of annoyed me since about 1997 or so: how the media (television, news, movies, etc.) and social word of mouth has reinforced that the internet is inhuman. It’s only inhuman because people don’t want to see beyond the end of their nose and realize that the internet is as much as a community as anywhere else: clubs, dance halls, pubs, coffee houses, etc. Usenet was the wild west, sure — but then again it had been for as long as I remembered it, yet I remember vividly before then people online were pretty much civil and even apologetic when chatting one-on-one. Then practically overnight, it changed… Like the dark clouds that come before storms. And it’s been like that since. And the bottom line is that, the Internet is not inhuman as it takes an incredible about of humans to form the virtual community that is it. It’s only made inhuman because people want to forget that and see it all as just words on their computer screen.

*takes a deep breath* In spite of all the ways that things are damned online… How inhuman and inhumane some people tend to act online, in spire of negativity that can be found and stumbled upon, in spite of the way people act offline; the question that comes to my mind is, “In a world that seems to be hell bent at rushing here and there (and everywhere), why do friendships and especially relationships have to be rushed as well?”

I know I’m beating this particular horse dead and undead… Yet there’s something to be said about taking one’s time. Think about it. The way that we learn to relate to someone is first, we take in that person’s idiosyncrasies, the way that they express themselves and even the dysfunction associated with growing up and life, and see whether we have something in common with them. After that, it’s a combination of whether we find those qualities endearing — and yes, this is the cynic and realist speaking — whether we’ll find those qualities tolerable to live with. Ultimately though — we do this based exclusively on our personal understanding of the world around us.

It’s all internal. Few of us in the world are born truly empathic (in the psionic sense), and no one I’ve ever met has truly been able to demonstrate telepathy. So why is it so hard to use — say a written medium — to learn about someone without the emotional and mental confusion in a face to face… Especially when you consider few people are capable of staying impersonal and impartial enough to actually reading another person as well as some say they think they can.

[Last Edited: 04/30/2012 11:15:54 AM]

I finally crashed Saturday night around 3’ish AM and woke up entirely too early from shoulder pain. I pinched a nerve somewhere around my left shoulder or left elbow and when I move in a specific way I get all sorts of nerve tingling near to my elbow, down my forearm and sometimes around my wrist. Doesn’t seem to be CTS at all, as I don’t have any tingling in my hands or fingers at all. Not sure whether it’s been the way that I’ve been sitting at the desk at home (which is often different than how I sit when I’m at work), whether I’ve been sleeping dead weight on my left shoulder, or a combination of the two. Knowing me, it’ll pass in about a week to week and a half and everything will be back to normal. If not, it looks as though I’m going to be spending my time at a doctor’s office to find out what’s wrong and how to take care of it.

So, I also woke up yesterday morning in a piss and vinegar mood… Mostly because of the bullshit from Saturday night with Mark, some of it because of what I’ve been writing about. So I took the day out, played games and caught up on my show queue and went looking for a couple of video’s to pass the time with. The other part was how to meet people online that are willing to take their time to learn someone. Sitting here now and having my first cup of coffee, one of the motivating factors about taking the time to learn also involves one of the toughest elements of an online friendship/relations: distance.

Distance has always been one of the most difficult aspects of friendships and even relationships. And while it can work out in the end, the odds of it working out are pretty damned slim.

*sigh* But I’m avoiding an issue by distracting it with the simple and the obvious. It’s not the distance from my doorstep to theirs that’s the problem. It’s the distance I often feel even when in close proximity to another human being. I look at myself in the mirror and can often see that distance. I don’t like the games people play when it comes to getting to know someone. While I can understand the barriers to protect one’s heart and feelings — those barrier should be so… conventional. So cookie cutter cut-out. So cloned that other than physical appearance, everything else is can be seen from person to person to person.

It’s this want for sameness that completely and utterly alienates me; making me feel so distant from the rest of humanity. I’ve never been one for being the same as everyone else. I appreciate and enjoy my passion (even when it gets the best of me) and express it when I’m happy, sad, mad, furious and especially in love. To utterly subdue passions and emotions is much like a passage from the Bible that goes, “No one lights a lamp and then puts it under a basket. Instead, a lamp is placed on a stand, where it gives light to everyone in the house.” (And no, I didn’t go up in flames quoting the New Testament. Surprising, huh?)

Another problem that contributes to the distance is the fact that I have always been on that I’ve been on the outside looking in. While it has always allowed me a certain amount of pleasure in being able to see things that most people don’t catch unless they’re really trying, on the other, well… because of this I often feel as though I’m standing in another universe and have to wait patiently for someone to get to where I call home.

Anyway, I think I’ve covered all that I can at the moment as I feel like I’ve been floundering the last couple of days on this. I’ll probably return to this in the near future, but at the moment I’m done. I think I’ll go watch a short I didn’t expect to find (Lovecraft’s At the Mountains of Madness) and then head to bed. Until the next time.

Men *eye roll*

Entry 04/21/2012 10:58:08 AM – Mentat 642

“The surprising thing about young fools is how many survive to become old fools.” – Doug Larson

Spring has finally sprung and I’m pretty damned happy about it. Sure the nights are still more than a bit chilly, but it’s not something that can’t be remedied by either closing the window for a little bit, or in my case tossing another throw on the bed — particularly given that I’m once again making the bed for spring and summer and not autumn and winter. Of course now that I’m middle aged, I can see one of the hereditary problems on my mother’s side of the family has finally come to full fruition… Eczema… Most of the men on my mother’s side of the family get eczema on their legs during the winter months and it seems that I didn’t escape that fate. It’ll clear up by about the time my birthday blows in (sooner if the weather continues to be as comfortable as it currently is). It flares up all because of dry heat in the house along with cold and gray weather. And here I was hoping that I would take after my biological father’s side of the family when it came to not having to deal with it. Oh well… Not this life anyway.

Then the other night I had a wonderful scare that reminds me of a certain prediction a gastroenterologist gave me a couple of years ago. Now I’ve been doing pretty well with my diet. I have avoided the massive amounts of heavy carbs and fatty foods my aunt used to cook for me and my uncle for years (he’s a 50s meat & potatoes sort of man) that had caused my gallbladder to flare up 3 years ago and had me rushing to the emergency room because I passed a gallstone. About a month later, I’m sitting in a Gastroenterologist’s office with him doing a routine checkup/follow-up consultation to ensure everything was all right. He commented that he was surprised I didn’t get admitted immediately and surgery performed given results. He also indicated there was indeed a problem and that my gallbladder should be removed at some time. Said to me during the checkup that it was probable that I would have to have my gallbladder removed in about 5 years (if I have another flare-up like the one I had the month before.

Fast forward 3 years and because it’s warm, I’m indulging in one of my passions of the summer: ice cream. I didn’t have a problem with the small bowl that I had in the afternoon after I came back from my walk. Then I had half a bowl again after dinner that night and things seemed to have been going well. I went to bed early because my day started early and at about 11:30 that night, I got hit with almost the same amount of pain I did the last time I had an attack. While it wasn’t enough for rush to the ER to handle, it was enough to keep me up for about 4 more hours while I waited to see whether the pain would get worse or subside. It did after a couple of Gas-X tablets and a couple of dry toast. So for the last couple of days, I’ve avoided dairy products (ugh!), had couple of meals involving a modest bowl of rice and dry toast. For my caffeine, it’s been mild green tea (ugh!), dry cereal without milk (not too bad given it’s Sugar Smacks, but still it would be better with milk)… I was finally able to do have my morning coffee this morning without any gastric scares. Still though, I’m going to need to watch it for a while and exercise more to see if this is going to become more common, or just a flare-up because of my being sedentary through the winter months. Needless to say, this is not something I’m looking forward to, given that once again, gallbladder removal is common on my mother’s side of the family — particularly with the first born kids.

Pity too… I still have the ice cream in the freezer. It looks like it’s going to be sitting in there for a while to come. And here I was just getting to enjoy the Maple Walnut goodness too. Heh, at least it wasn’t anything chocolate and cherry — then it would really be torture.

Heh, other than the scare from the other day, it’s a relatively quiet Saturday morning where I’m waiting patiently for the impending rain that’s supposed to happen (given the satellite pictures I was looking at earlier). It seems that in competition to the car wash, the fire department on the other side of the house has some sort of renovation going on with the roof of their building. The first day the construction company was there, it sounded like they had some massive vacuum running from about 9 in the morning until about 6 in the afternoon. Today it sounds like they’re running rocks and gravel through some sort of pipe which started just a shade earlier than I liked: 8 in the morning. Since then it’s been pretty intermittent, but it’s enough for me want to keep the door shut to the kitchen for extended periods of time so that it’s not blasting through one side to get to the other… Instead it’s more listening to bounce off the concrete of the pawn shop next door. And unfortunately I can’t drown out the noise by putting on a pair of earbuds because the pair that I had finally died. It’s the same old problem involving the way the wiring runs from a center post and the right being able to wrap around the neck (one that I prefer given I don’t like it hanging down the front while I’m riding), where the wire got pulled enough that the right earbud no longer has any sound.

I could fix it, but given they were a really cheap set, I don’t think it’s worth it. So I’m going to use the gift certificate money that I got from the surveys that I’ve been doing over the years, I’ll just use that to purchase a new set. It was originally for a new backpack, but given this one’s still lasting better than I thought it would over the years, it’s a good diversion of the funds for the moment. Heh, particularly given the amount of noise pollution that comes from across the street, not to mention the occasional bouts of insomnia that hit me in the middle of the night.

As for me, I had a rather interesting realization while I was struggling through an issue I was thinking about rehashing in my journal about Tom (aka Mr. I-Feel-Nothing-For). The realization involved something both annoying and disheartening when dealing with men my age. Sure, they demonstrate a veneer of respect, honesty and perhaps even a little bit of politeness… but that veneer doesn’t seem to last all that long and once you scratch under the surface you find some pretty ugly things involving selfishness, emotional damage (to the point of complete and utter dysfunction), and a definitive disrespectful attitude.

Take this for example from Tom… He had changed out his profile because his previous profile was attracting way too much unwanted attention for sexual liaisons that he wasn’t actually wanting and asked me what I thought of the “improvements”. But what really took the cake wasn’t the frivolous note that he had written, it was the post script that cause me to react (and sort of go on the offensive). He had inquired on how much closer we were to a phone conversation. Let me recap this as quickly as possible without going completely off on a tangent.

Keep in mind, we had chatted casually for about 3 weeks, and in those 3 weeks.

1. The notes that we shared were frivolously uninformative, to the point of being bland.  (I blame the character limits below).
i. He made a couple of references that I didn’t get, looked it up and was rewarded for getting them right.
ii. I do the same and instead of him looking it up, get from him saying consistently, “I don’t get the reference”, expecting me to explain the references to him.

2. We had chatted in real time twice.
i. The first time was interrupted because he had an important phone call.  This is also the chat that he establishes that he respects my wishes to chat online first.
ii. The second time he was an emotional wreck and couldn’t track/parse half of what I was saying, even after I adjusted my dialog for him to understand.
iii. The third time we were supposed to chat, he stood me up and didn’t write a note telling me he wouldn’t make it until over 2 hours after the fact telling me he had more drama with family and had to leave quickly.

3. I make several attempts at suggesting to move the conversation out of the chat environment because there is a less than 2,000 character limit to notes.  There is positively no acknowledgement to this suggestion and certainly no e-mails from him in the process.     And believe me…  1,500 characters isn’t enough to express anything as a writer — if it were the case, this journal entry would be done halfway through my gastric-panic.

4. After he had stood me up, he had requested whether I chatted on Yahoo Messenger of which I post my UserID from Yahoo and tell him he can note me whenever.  (After all, I have 3 yahoo accounts, 3 MSN accounts, 1 for ICQ, 1 for Google Talk, 1 for AIM, and even an account on the old Jabber network.  Thanks to Pidgin can run them all simultaneously).   Again, zip..  Nada…  Nothing when it came to acknowledgement of this note and certainly no chatting on Yahoo since I responded to his note.

And then he has the audacity to ask me if we’re closer to chatting on the phone!? This is respecting my wishes?! Seems extremely selfish to me given that he knows nothing about me, and the things I learned from his frivolousness is that he likes Post-Victorian books and that he doesn’t deal well with family drama as if leaves him emotionally drained and incapable of parsing things from other people (not coincidentally he seemed to always write me after this drama).

*takes a deep breath* Seriously, with this and the others that I’ve dated since I’ve come back to the Tundras of New England — there does in fact seem to be a trend of men in their 40s here that I’m having a difficult time dealing with (let alone accept in any degree). A trend that involves selfishness, frothing ego-mania, disrespect, and an insipid want to compare successes based on either material security or a quality much like a cookie-cutter, bland and even emotionless approach to living life (e.g., laid back, down to earth, hanging with friends, chilling at home… the list goes on). Oh and the damage… Christ on a drunken rampage, the damage I’ve seen in people around my age. From the laundry lists I’ve gotten from men about the hurts and damage that happened on the first date to emotional distance and using sex as a handshake to establish a relationship… it’s a minefield of drama and hot mess from people that are supposed to be “laid back” and “chilling with friends”.

For the longest time I thought it was just my experience, but after following another WordPress user’s blog called Sex and the Pity, I’ve come to learn that it’s not just gay men that are this way — it’s both straight and gay men. And don’t get me wrong, I know that I’m going to have to go through a whole lot of damage and rejecting/rejection in order to find someone that’s worth it, but seriously where am I going to have to go to find someone at least modestly worth it?

At the same time it certainly puts into perspective the differences in men that I’ve dated that were younger and those that were closer to my age and it makes me wonder — just where precisely is the dividing line that happens between the ages that can cause someone young, hopeful, sharing and caring into selfish pigs out for sex and whatever agenda they have for a date, a man and a relationship? Whether it is truly a transformation, or whether it’s just a string of luck that has caused me to go from finding the kind that I find attractive to finding the kind that put my knickers into such a bunch. One of those questions I’ll be sure to continue to ponder in the weeks to come. And given the last one, might have me (seriously) reconsider one of the requirements that I’ve been trying to stick to since I’ve decided it was high time to try all over again.

That and I still have my own problems that I need to work through. Though I’ll take a look at them tomorrow. Along with another problem that I’m having with someone.

And on that note, I think I’m going to wander off for a bit. Have a nap or something and then perhaps watch a little of my queue that has suddenly become unruly and long. Until the next time.

What is…

Entry 04/15/2012 05:50:02 PM – Mentat 641

“And so it begins…” Kosh Naranek, Babylon 5

I really hate being verklempt… From it, it can cause me to be somewhere between looking completely to serious amounts of writer’s block. I find myself practically frenetic about trying to find just the right sort of distraction so that whatever it is that’s causing me to be so blocked up. It causes me to be particularly sharp-tongued when dealing with people that come off as hypocritical, disingenuous or fake. It makes me want to go on the offensive when dealing with folk that easily get their knickers in a twist. And I know that this is wrong because all I’m doing is avoiding facing what’s causing me to be so emotionally blocked up. And what’s had me so blocked up has been the issue I hinted at (and didn’t want to talk about) in my last journal entry.

Yes, I was able to finally confront what it was that was causing me to being verklempt. I was able to even put out there to the right party my feelings (and spin) on the situation. And while I feel accomplished in the fact that it’s been written and I’m ready for whatever happens from this point forward, I still have to sort out the feelings that I’m experiencing after the fact. What I’m feeling after the fact is this really weird combination of used, disheartened, disgusted, determined, aggravated, and nausea (emotional, not physical). So instead of dealing with the chain of events that lead to this problem, I’m going to approach it from the philosophical/metaphysical solution… There are two parts to this that I want to touch upon: personal and interpersonal. I’ll see if I can’t mesh them together without making it look like either a laundry list, or a personal attack… (Good luck with that as I’ve been mostly piss and vinegar since I woke up at 5:30 this morning)…

What is a man?

It’s a question I often ask myself when I find myself acting more out of what is expected of me — by family, by friends, by the unspoken peer pressure of the pubic — than what I expect of myself. I find it strange thing given that I am someone that has been on the outside looking in for so long to be influenced by the public as to what is acceptable as to how a man should act publicly and privately just so that I can be better accepted. But, I can still be influenced by such pervasive attitudes and because of this I have to step back once in a while to remind myself what I believe a man should be.

A man should be able to express his feelings; be they passionate, overbearing, outrageously dramatic, or as subtle as a summer wind of a breezeless day. While there is an element of decorum in certain situations, it doesn’t mean that the expression of those feelings has to be so stilted and so congested as to be held in to the point of demonstrating oneself as being emotionless. We’re not Vulcans suppressing our feelings or robots that don’t have emotions.

As I read so many years ago in the Gay Man’s Guide to Life, “wrists are meant to bend”. And to me, that means if you need to cry, then cry your eyes out until the tears stop. If you need to cackle like a madman, then cackle. If you love — love without bounds and boundaries — regardless of gender and proclivity. It doesn’t make you less of a man (in spite of what public peer pressure might tell you); and some of the most well known and most respected men of our times (and in history) were well known for being emotionally expressive.

Stand by what you believe in, but don’t for once allow those beliefs hinder your growth and evolution. Question those beliefs when they seem to hinder instead of enhancing personal growth. Be willing to change when the time comes when you realize what you believe in, just isn’t enough.

Be able to laugh at yourself when you make that embarrassing mistake. Apologize when those mistakes hurt someone else in the process, though also be prepared to start making changes to prevent making the same hurtful mistakes to others.

Stand by what you say, and doubly so to what you commit yourself to an action. No one likes a man (human) that says something and yet does something else. “Do as I say, not as I do” doesn’t work with kids when they’re growing up… And all adults see that as nothing less than hypocrisy.

Strength comes from being “…like a reed in the wind”. Be willing to bend when the time comes for as long as that bending doesn’t involve sacrificing morals in the process. If that flexibility comes too close to one’s morals, look for a compromise that will work for both you and those you’re involved in. If no compromise can be met, walking away is a valid reason. Good hearted people appreciate (and respect) commitment, even if that commitment is to one’s own beliefs. And those that say otherwise (to the point of being negative), you should be cautious of trusting them in your company.

Trust your feelings, your heart, your instincts. Your feelings are what make you, you. Your heart is how you express you. And your instincts come from millions of years of evolution that tell you when to fight, when you should fly, what is right and what isn’t. We homo sapiens wouldn’t have gotten as far as we have if our instincts were to steer us wrong. If you can’t trust your instincts, learn from those that do, you’ll be amazed at the simplicity of how they came to trust their instincts.

Appreciate your limitations. No one can be an expert at everything. Even the Jack-of-All-Trades knows there are just some things out of their ability to learn. At the same time, don’t let that once stop you from trying to improve yourself anyway. Humility is often learned by being like Sisyphus, pushing that boulder up the hill only to watch it roll back down.

And finally — be true to oneself — at all costs. As Oscar Wilde once said, “The aim of life is self-development. To realize one’s nature perfectly – that is what each of us is here for.” When you’re unable to being true to yourself, how can you expect other to seeing you as truthful, honest, trustworthy?

The second deals with friendships and relationships. It’s more an extension of what it is to being a man. Once you’ve worked out how to be true to yourself (or enough that you’re not feeling as though you’re walking blind in a minefield), once you understand what self-respect is, and trust yourself… Then this is the next natural step (even if we homo sapiens have a hard time sorting out which foot to put forward first). And these are some of the things that I’ve learned in my time from going from loner, to social butterfly, to ascetic.

Be it friendship, camaraderie, adversary, boyfriend, lover… Each relationship forged with another human being is unique. As unique as the person you befriend (or make into an adversary). Sometimes you’ll meet someone that rocks you down to the very core of your foundation that that person’s the first one you seek out whenever there’s trouble to be worked through and understand. Sometimes you find them so physically attractive, lust is the firs thing you feel. Sometimes it takes some time to realize what it is about that person that you like most.. Sometimes it takes a lifetime to understand the complexity found in another person. Sometimes it ends up as a close friendship. Sometimes it ends up as a relationship. Sometimes it doesn’t end up as either…. The point is, you can’t put it into a box or give it a label the instant that you think it’s been properly identified. Because like it or not, there’s a third entity in a relationship with another person… And that entity is the energy created by those two people when they interact.

And like any human being — that energy needs to grow in its own way and follow its own path to wherever it leads. Though nurturing and guidance, and understanding, and yes… Even love. Because stunting it before it has a chance to grow by dictating it to follow a narrow path? Well, it’s no better than parents trying to live their lives through their children.

That’s it for the time being. I’ve been struggling through the second half of this to the point where I feel like I’ve been blathering about pointlessly. I might make a return go with this.. I might not. Until the next time.

The Calm Realizations

Entry 03/31/2012 11:36:22 AM – Mentat 637

“An intelligence test sometimes shows a man how smart he would have been not to have taken it.” – Laurence J. Peter

Yes, I’m feeling rather accomplished (not to mention more than a little bit relieved) at the moment. Because of the temperatures last week had gotten unusually warm, I decided to order a new CPU case because three (too many) fans had burned out/stopped working on the case that I currently owned. So I went with the Antec DF-85 as a replacement, mainly because I was looking for an easier way of cleaning the filters from the fans and an easier way of swapping out/installing drives on the case. Honestly I have routinely been more than a little jittery when it comes to building/rebuilding desktop boxes because of the bad experiences I’ve had in frying a couple of motherboards (like the one that happened last year around April Fools). Fortunately for me, replacement went mostly without a hitch though I had one scare and two bits of frustration. The scare came from the fact that I thought I was hitting the power button — and the lights/fans on the case didn’t come on. Turns out that I was hitting the reset button instead. The first was when I had messed up the SATA data cords to the motherboard and the bootable hard drive wasn’t being recognized. What happened was that I swapped the order of the SATA ribbons and the 2 TB SATA-6 drive (which is my storage and data repository drive) was changed to being the 1st boot primary drive (making the system unbootable). But after a shut down, a re-check of the wiring for the drive hub, and then getting into the BIOS to change drive orders for the hard drives everything came up without a hitch. The second annoyance was when I was putting the case through the paces to make sure everything was plugged in properly, 2 of the 4 front USB plugs (3 2.0 plugs, 1 3.0 plug) were working. Turns out that after checking through the manual, I had accidentally plugged the USB connector into the FireWire socket. Another quick shut down and resort of the wires, and everything (front and back) are working properly.

The reviewers (and reviews) weren’t kidding when they said it has superior ventilation and circulation; as you can see from this screenshot of my Fan Monitor. The CPU is running a full 10 C (12 F) cooler than it did in the old NZXT Tempest I was running for the last 3’ish years. On the whole, I’ve been very happy with the acquisition, and I might have worked out a slight noise/vibration problem on it as well. Seemed that after running for 24 hours (I tend to keep my box on, because it’s simply more convenient for all the thing that I generally do) the middle front fan seemed to have developed a vibration problem. At first it was easy enough to remedy — all I had to do is open and close the fan. But after looking into it a little bit more, I realized that the problem is because the case isn’t even. I pulled out the woodworking level and with a little handiwork, I was able to remedy that problem. So far, it seems to have fixed the problem. *knock on wood*

When I was through putting the new case in place (and re-ensuring everything about it was running according to spec), I decided to throw the old one out into the trash, given that there really wasn’t anything more that I could do with it. The fans in the Tempest won’t fit the current case as replacement and the chassis is entirely different (so it wasn’t as though I could use the screwless drive installation system). Wouldn’t you know, as I was sitting here putting the new box through its paces to see what it could do with heat shunting, I watched this car drive up to the garbage that was just put out. Watching with a sort of morbid fascination, I saw the man go to the can that had the case and start yanking the wire out of the case. It took me a moment to realize what he was doing and why he was doing it: it was for the copper. Then drove off leaving the case in the garbage. Seriously? He would be lucky to get a penny back from the copper and knowing what I know about recycling — he would’ve gotten more money from the scrap from the case alone. Which some hours later in the quiet of the evening, another car stopped in front of the garbage cans out front and I watched the driver get out and take the case before drive off. Mark wasn’t kidding me when he said that people around here will take things if they’re not chained down/nailed down. I’m just amazed at the level some people in the neighborhood will go through to make the nickels and dimes that they do.

Yesterday was the day that the gas company came out to change the gas meter for the apartment. Even with all the research I did about the local ordinances on this, I’m still pretty surprised that that it needs to be done. The man that changed the meter didn’t look old enough to confirm it being done in the 80s, but he was able to tell me that it’s been done since the 90s when he started working for the company. The replacement went without a hitch and in about ¾ hour, the meter had been changed out all the pilot lights relit and all checks for leaks done without so much as a pause. He wasn’t able to light the pilot on the space heater (because of the difficulty in moving the unit), though I told him it wouldn’t be a problem, given that we’re going into warmer weather now, and it’s something that can be worried about next autumn when things chill down. Good thing too, given that it’s one thing that I don’t have to deal with when Mark’s remotely cold and decides to turn up the heat to maximum.

[Last Edited: 03/31/2012 03:44:54 PM]

As for me. I’ve been having a “fun” time the last couple of weeks. I’ve had a mini-obsession with watching LGBT-themed storylines that can be found in Soap Operas from all over the place. Part of the reason is because I’ve gotten tired of feeling like the token homosexual in my life, part of the reason was purely academic in that I wanted to see how far soap operas have progressed when it comes to including gay couples. Part of the reason (which people will probably laugh at), some characters being impossibly disproportional archetypes and have been giving me ideas on how to approach the problems I mentioned in previous journal entries about defining what kind of man I want in my life, instead of defining by what I don’t want. Sure, I’ve gotten my fair share of ribbing from Glenn on this — “turn it off,” he says… “it’s a soap opera, it sucks,” he says (in so many words). The thing is though, when all is said and done, I really do like the stories — when taken in doses. As one of my favorite characters once said (when asked why he was watching a soap opera), “your country’s one and only contribution to the arts. It concerns family, love, honor courage… all that is noblest in the human spirit…” Sure it also contains infidelity, lies, deceit, thievery and all sorts of train wrecks and high queenly drama too… Though at least with the way that I’ve been watching this on YouTube, I get the chance to watch just the storyline that I want to watch. And eventually I’ll get tired of this and move on. As I have over the last 30 some-odd years that I’ve known of soap operas existences.

I will say this much though — I’m very aware of the stark differences between American Soaps vs. the ones that I’ve seen from other countries. So much so that it’s a joke at how surreal American Soap Operas have become over the years. Especially with gay characters in the stories. It seems that for American Soaps and gay characters, it’s like the soap box for Public Service Announcement type messages on the bad things in life. But once you get around the PSA message, the characters are muppets. The Luke & Noah story on As the World Turns for example, once you get beyond the standard message of how difficult it is for teenagers to come out of the closet, it was a parade of messages starting with “Drinking is bad”, “Cheating in School is bad” “Hiding in the Closet is bad” and “Drugs are bad”. Seriously I got tired of that story at that point, as Luke Snyder (played by Van Hansis) became a complete balloon and the story made him out to be some sort of dysfunctional hot mess while trying to be one of the Hardy Boys.

Then there was the Kyle & Oliver story on One Life to Live. The story while having classic archetypes of All-American coming out of the closet and rekindling a college romance with a man that has caused quite a lot of troubles since the two of them were college. Sure, the story started out promising, but the ham-handed way that they used Oliver’s coming out to launch him into a lecture about acceptance quickly turned into uncomfortable watching. I bailed when it became a hot mess dealing with some other character who was pregnant and having a baby to… oh hell, it’s too convoluted even for me — let me just sum it up that the one time Oliver (played by Scott Evans) had sex with a woman, she got pregnant by him… I bailed. From what I understand, the soap opera bailed from it not too much after that, cancelling it for reasons of “poor ratings”. Given what kind of a mess and how convoluted things were, I’m not in the least bit surprised.

Oh, and another things about these two stories that I need to bring up about American Soaps before moving to the stories I find myself more entertained by: that is the rigidity demonstrated on human sexuality. Both of the American stories I watched practically sledgehammered the point home that regardless of whether or not you’re in the closet. That message being: once you’re gay, you’re always gay. Even I know as a Kinsey 6 (100% homosexual, 0% heterosexual tendencies), I am a rarity within the community. Figuratively the 1% of the one in ten. Listening to these two soaps ham-handedly say this is the way for all queerfolk got tiring for me really fast.

On the other side of the big pond, I’ve become enamored with two storylines. First is the Christian & Oliver story on Verboten Liebe (Forbidden Love). While it has a classic coming out story given that Christian is in the closet and becomes a boxer who later comes out… The story isn’t completely over the top that it turns surreal or even unrealistic. So far, I’m two years into this story (keep in mind all these segments are rarely over 10 minutes a pop, so it’s pretty easy to get caught up on one story line) I haven’t seen hide nor hair of any sort of PSA-type message (other than the coming out, but given Christian was in a relationship with a woman when I first caught it, that’s not surprising). Oh wait, there’s one — when Oliver was gay-bashed by a boxer that Christian had fought in the ring. But even that story wasn’t ham-handed at all as it flowed with the story at the time. Hell, even with the occasional bickering going on between the two, they have been the most well-adjusted and stable out of their friends (especially Judith, but I digress). Seriously, this is the sort of thing I had seen so much in my life — couples that were happy together and doing their best to keeping everyone else happy in their life; with it falling somewhere between busy-body (on the one end), to good friends counseling good friends (on the other). Of course I’m having a lot of “fun” as it’s giving me the chance to brush up a bit on my German (with the help of some pretty accurate subtitles). So much so that the other night I actually had a dream about speaking German. Sure, it was gibberish, but some of the words and grammar were on the mark.

And finally the story that has given me a whole lot of time visiting ghosts of my past has been the Aaron Livesy story on Emmerdale. Between many of the mannerisms that Danny Miller does for the character, to the storyline between Aaron and Jackson Walsh (played by Marc Silcock) it’s left me having at least three different dreams about Tommy in the process. One involving a memory of a time when the three of us were in the barracks, and Glenn and I were having one of our long and protracted discussions on metaphysics. The other two being about living on base in the base housing developments sometime after our finishing AIT. Creepy those two given that it was entirely on bits and fragments of memories of times when Tommy and I used to spend time alone away from Glenn and the barracks. It was like it was becoming old hat for me to dream about Tommy — to the point where I didn’t mind dreaming about him so much — and instead feeling as though I were putting on an old, comfortable pair of jeans after a long day’s work. Much the same as the time when I was dreaming in third person for months (a disconcerting feeling given that those dreams for those six months had positively nothing to do with me, or anything going on in my life. It was like watching television in my dreams).

*taking a deep breath*

After watching all this the last couple of weeks, I know what I want… What I need too…

When everything is said and done in my day and in my life, I need someone that can trust me. The one element that the three men that I have loved truly, madly, deeply in my life trusted me without words, without deeds, without my having to prove it to them. They knew it in faith. They knew it by simply looking at me. It is in the same way I demonstrate my faith and trust in them (and in all people around me). By simply giving it and allowing them to be themselves in order to prove that my faith in them isn’t misplaced.

It is from that faith and trust that I feel the most grounded. That I am willing to take the necessary risks for the betterment of the world around me. Let’s face it — alone I will do what is necessary — but the problem with this is I am more conservative about my risks. To the point where I won’t necessary do something that I should. Or worse, I will act too harshly than the situation dictates (because let’s face it, I’m rather extreme or intense), because I sometimes need a sounding board (of reason) to convince me that I’m not seeing things as dire as I am.

I want someone that is expressive with their feelings. I don’t care if it’s in word or deed, but I need input to know what they’re feeling without my having to read them or probe them with 20 questions to find out what the problem is. Hell, I don’t care if it’s a look… A look can convey a thousand more words than looking on blankly or keeping all emotion out of one’s expression. Admittedly communication is important, but not everything needs to be conveyed with a diatribe of words. Sometimes an admonishing look is more than enough for the likes of me. Take Tommy for example to this. I used to love the enigmatic smile he would give me when he got me to second-guess something I was discussing with him. Or the simple shake of his head when he didn’t want to be included in the debate that I had going at the moment. Darin could do the same thing with me (when he wasn’t completely introverted about something that was bothering him).

I’m not going to hold my breath that lightning’s going to strike twice on this one, though it would be nice. I need someone to be able to understand me in spite of the fact that I can make things very complex verbally. Damion had this one down in spades. It didn’t matter what I said, he knew precisely what I was saying when I was saying it. I carry a lot of complex metaphysical understandings in my head. Sometimes it’s really, really nice not to be feeling like I’m speaking some incomprehensible alien language. Oh sure, I can write it out… People comment that I’m a capable person — but what they don’t know is that sometimes it takes quite a lot of hours of work (oftentimes) to get me to put down things that I’m thinking and feeling in a coherent manner.

I need someone to be patient. If I don’t get a good vibe from them, I don’t need them to push (like one did from Connecticut not too long ago). Decent enough man, but I didn’t have the want to speak to him on the phone. While he the decency to respect my wishes and write instead — he lost interest quickly because I wouldn’t honor his wish to call him. When I offered my e-mail address instead (one of my MSN/Hotmail Accounts), he didn’t use it.. And let’s face it — writing takes patience. If you can write, then you have the patience to put up with someone like me, my family and the chaos that has a habit of blowing in and out of my life on a semi-regular basis.

Well, that’s about it for the time being.. It’s a start and it was hell to write about. More on this soon. Right now I’m off to lay down and pass out in bed. Until the next time.

Entry 03/27/2011 01:33:07 PM – Mentat 607

“If there’s anything more important than my ego around, I want it caught and shot now.” – Zaphod Beeblebrox, H2G2

Blah to this cold weather…

Blah to the insolence I’ve been getting from the Hellbeast as I’ve had to get up to do laundry…

Blah to doing the chores that I routinely do on Sunday…

Blah… Just blah…

Friends and family keep telling me to be patient and keep calm as Spring is right around the corner, but seriously the teaser of warmer weather that we got in the Tundras of New England last week where the temperatures reached to almost 70 F (21.1 C) was enough to wake up the dormant bear and seriously wanting to open up the windows more, and perhaps get some bike riding in just to work off some of the pent up energy that’s been building for the last three weeks. I’m sitting here regretting the fact that all I did was open the windows for a few hours and sat there for a bit near the open window reading and with the cat on my lap; instead of getting out for a bit and feel the warmth and chill of the air. To basically feel as though the illusion of spring was in fact right around the corner instead of the reality that Spring is actually still almost a month away.

Of course it doesn’t help matters any looking at the weather forecasts for the next 10 days and the only time I’m seeing anything close to 50s F (10s C) will the one day that we’re getting showers. Which is actually more winter-like weather in the south than spring-like weather attributed to the North. If anything, it makes me more crotchety because I feel as though the winter’s never going to draw to an end any time soon. I’ll try to persist on through and hope that the forecasters and charlatans that we call meteorologists will might be wrong and there will be more warmer weather in the next 10 days… And if not, then I’m going to have to man-up and just deal with the cold for a bit to work out my winter-blahs impatience.

I had an interesting talk with my aunt yesterday when we had stopped for a late lunch as I volunteered to go with her to BJ’s Wholesale Club, as my uncle wasn’t up for hobbling about the central heated and air-conditioned comfort of a pseudo-warehouse shopping experience because he had spent the day before hobbling about a funeral mass, burial and wake. It seems that my aunt’s back to taking a full pill for the geriatric diabetes that she’s been suffering through for some years and the pill that she’s taking it one of those one-a-day, long acting prescriptions that’s used to control her sugar levels. One of the side-effects that she’s having is that about 4 hours after she takes the pill, her sugar plummets hard and that she starts suffering from various side-effects that I suffer through because of hypoglycemia. She was telling me her sugar levels have reached a level of 43 causing her to suffer through various forms of disorientation, dizzy spells, sweating and palpitations, and extreme tiredness once her sugar levels are normalized. Yesterday though she tried to say she has always had issues with saying certain words, I did catch her with one symptom that I recognize all too well: difficulty being able to speak coherently.

The problem is that she doesn’t know how to eat properly and worse, she doesn’t know how to watch out for the routine warning signs and take the proper steps when the prescription kicks in and her sugars begin to drop. And so, as we were sitting there eating a bit of a late lunch and after I stressed to her she needs to talk to her doctor about this particular pill and seeing about alternatives or different dosages with it, I explained to her some of the dietary habits I’ve had to adopt since I had been diagnosed as hypoglycemic when I was a toddler. Although there seemed to be one problem that she has with her diet that I don’t and couple this both with what I understand of diabetes/hypoglycemia in my family and our dietary habits is causing her issues later in the day: her intake of High Carbohydrates as a means of abating her low sugar.

When I begin to notice my sugar getting low the last thing I tend to eat when this happens is Heavy/High Carbohydrates. The reason why is that it’s a complex sugar that stores first and then breaks down later. While this isn’t a bad thing, it can often mean for me that I will continue to suffer the side effects of low-blood sugar before I begin to normalize. As I told my aunt, while eating something with high carbs can help with normalizing sugar throughout the day, by the time you’re already feeling the effects of a moderate hypoglycemic attack, the last thing you should be looking for is high carbs. Simple sugars from fruits and vegetables, proteins, some fat and whole grain breads should be what’s on the menu. I explained to her why a PB&J is more my best friend than glucose tabs any day. It’s quick to get into the system, the side-effects can pass as quickly as ½ hour and you can be on your way without the fear of having to go to an ER for a glucose IV drip. Further — add this to the high carbs that my aunt tends to cook come supper time, while it might help me get through the night without issue — for her it usually means that she’s looking at her sugar readings at 200+ both by the end of the night as well as in the morning before her next dosage of her prescription.

As we were finishing up out lunch and heading out to Franklin, MA (to BJ’s), I admitted to her that since coming back to being a Daywalker, I’ve noticed my sugar levels tend to drop a hell of a lot more than they did when I was working at night. For example, when I used to work nights, I would get up between 6 PM and 7 PM at night and after a quick/modest breakfast of cereal with milk or oatmeal, ride a mile to the bus stop, and another 3 from the stop to work, picking up an iced coffee along the way (a big no there as caffeine saps sugar, but it’s one of those vices I refuse to give up). By 11 PM (5 hours after I woke up) which was my first break, I usually had either granola or oatmeal bars. Three hours after that (2 PM) I would have lunch which was pretty much a “meat & potato” type meal (combination of heavy carbs, proteins/fats and simple sugars/vegetables) . Three hours after that was another break and Pop Tarts. And after an 8 mile ride home that took an hour, four hours after the last break I usually had something simple like a salad with or without some sort of meat to it.

Heh, of course sitting here writing this out after talking about it, I realize why my sugar’s plummeting more the way that it is. I’m eating traditionally like I would if I were a Daywalker instead of Nightbreed: My lunch is the equivalent of a simple supper, and my supper is actually the heavy lunch that I used to have. Because of this swap out, I’m noticing that I’m having serious sugar drops at 2 PM and then again at 5 PM (just prior to actually sitting down and having supper). So it would seem that come next week, I’m going to have to swap around my meals and see if that abates the sugar drops that I’ve been catching myself having.

Now if it were only just that easy for my aunt.

I’ll be back shortly. I’m off to take a quick power nap.

[Last Edited: 03/27/2011 06:28:47 PM]

Now that I’ve gotten in a nap, got caught up on my queue (Fairly Legal and Fringe), and had the last big supper for a long time to come, I’m sitting here realizing that I’ve worked out the problem with why my system crashes the way that it does because of the video driver. It seems that during boot up time, if the PATA drives are already on, the system’s sure to crash. When during boot up it does a diagnostic on the PATA drives, things work out for the best without a crash or any sort of init weirdness. This is why when I reboot in the morning after it’s been sitting idle for 6 – 8 hours it never crashes, but when I’ve been moving files and playing hard on the workhorse that it does.

So the next time I need to reboot, I’m going to drop into the BIOS and check a couple of settings between the PATA diagnostics and the NVRAM and see whether it’s something that needs to be tweaked. I suspect because I had updated the video card (as this is a significantly different video card than the one I had loaded in prior), something isn’t quite right in the settings causing it to crash the way that it does. And if worse comes to worse, I’m going to try the old tried and true method of reset. Shut down. Leave off for a minute or two and then start up and see if that fixes the problem. (Just love that self-tech support).

As for the rest…

Yesterday on the way home from shopping with my aunt, we made a stop at Warehouse Liquor and picked myself up a six pack of Bass… Something that according to my checkbook — did sometime toward the end of August for a fifth of bourbon — and in the right sort of tipsy that can only happen when one is a lightweight, found myself confounded with all sorts of feelings and emotions that I’ve been doing my best burying just beneath the surface for apparent and obvious reasons.

For you see, once everything had been mashed up and brought up to the surface, I realize that the issues that I have going on involve old elements and an older story. The story of desiring the one thing I cannot have. Instead of moving on like a typical human being should. Instead of finding alternatives to that one story — I find myself holding a torch, patiently waiting for some sort of change that what I cannot have can slowly become what I can. The thing is that I know better. Too many years of it in my life holding the torch for those that I feel strongly for, and those feelings aren’t in the least bit reciprocated had in the past ended in frustration, anger, and even a shade of hostility (more as a dramatic means of moving on from the situation for that “clean break” feeling). And still I continue with the same willful and even hopeful determination that I can.

I know the reason why too. Another old story there that feeds into all this holding torches and wanting what one cannot have. One that stems from the decisions that I had made in 1999 when I had a choice between someone that lived 1,000 miles away and someone that lived only 60 miles away. One was shy the other seemed alright, and I ended up making the wrong decision between those two of which affected my life for the next 4½ years and even now, 12 years later. So since then, when I meet someone I can relate to, is extremely nice and even gentlemanly regardless of age, locale, and temperament I will hold out for them, waiting patiently. After all, the last thing I want to go through is another abusive or even desolate relationship.

I don’t know… Sometimes I think I do the right thing in breaking away cleanly. I tend to handle the unknown far better than I do when comparing the difference between the known and unknown. I’m also less likely to compare that which I have in my life (even if it’s wanting more) and those that I’m trying to learn. Other times, I’m not sure whether I’ve needed to learn the lesson about love/intimacy, attraction and friendship and think what I do is simply the easiest answer for myself.

It’s just one of those things that I find myself routinely struggling with. To the point where everything — even my life — often feels as though it’s at a standstill.

Then there’s the creative muse that seems to sit just out of range from me, smirking in that capricious sort of way. Like she gives me something to work with and yet it’s just enough to whet my passion to wanting to write a story, and yet failing to give me enough to work with. Take for example — the sequel to Companion that I wanted to do. I can see writing it and I can see some elements that I can work into the story given the way that I had ended it. The problem with that is the theme to the story that I’m trying to write about is Fighting for what’s right no matter the odds is something I’ve never really experienced before. In my life when it comes to that crucible — that point in a relationship that one needs to prove what’s right in order for things to end happy — it has never happened to me/for me. Either the break up occurs anyway, or they simply didn’t feel the same way for me as I did for them and things just end.

I mean sure I can write it however I want and end it in a way that I’d like it to end… the problem is that my method of writing involves being able to relate to the feelings and then writing them into the story in a manner that other people can end up reading (and ultimately relating to). Without being able to personally relate to the situation I don’t think that others can or will either. Let’s face it — Talos — is certainly proof of this given that when I went back to reading it for editing and continuing to write the story; the happy and strained relationship between the two protagonists was unreal and unbelievable even by my broadest standards of writing.

Well, that’s about it for the time being. Off to fold my laundry and listen to some more music before I pass out for the night. Until the next time.

Entry 01/08/2011 12:56:44 PM – Mentat 594

Well, I certainly had an interesting start to this morning. My cat apparently was having a nostalgic moment while we were laying in bed and seeing as she was hungry and wanted food, she decided on putting a very wet and cold nose into my exposed ear, purring loudly to get my attention. To make matters worse is that now that she’s over a decade old, she also drools so as she’s getting up to my ear to do this, she’s also drooling all over my face and cheek. Heh, certainly not the sort of way I want to wake up in the morning (apart from my own occasional drooling which can be quite the eye-rolling experience as well). Then as I had her happily fed, and checking e-mail, see I got a note from someone I had bestowed a Jester Award for an outstandingly humorous profile; asking familiar questions I’ve been getting since I’ve been part of this particular dating site —

• Have you had any success with this site?
• Is anyone using this site real?

Then after shaving, dressing and getting my business while chatting with Glenn about bric-a-brac, I start my morning coffee and then get distracted talking with my aunt about someone she was seeing on television (Henry Fonda in Fort Apache), I come back into the apartment to first hear my coffee maker making entirely too much noise, and then seeing that it’s bubbling from the water the rear of it and spilling all over the counter it’s resting on.

For only a split second I was thinking, oh god, there’s going to be no coffee this morning.

Though I got over that pretty quickly when I remembered that in the pantry closet, I have a 12-cup coffee maker in there as back up (and in case I have guests over, which is rare but I’m prepared for it nonetheless). Turns out the feed tube from the water-heater (at the bottom of the unit) to the coffee basket had become dislodged so all heated water was ending up back in the water tank and bubbling up like a volcano. With a little handiwork and a little manly pressure, the coffee maker was back brewing right as rain without a problem.

Crisis averted! Life as we know it can breathe a sigh of relief!

Good thing too, as I didn’t want to have to clean out the bigger coffee maker and prep a new basket of grounds for only 4 cups in a 12-cup pot. That would’ve been more than a little annoying.

Now that I’ve had my morning coffee, the cat’s fallen asleep at my feet and is quietly snoring, the house has a quiet about it at the moment as my aunt’s finished doing her housecleaning and my uncle’s probably passed out while watching John Wayne on AMC, I have a hodgepodge of thoughts and what not about the whole of dating, attraction, love (and unrequited love), and a slew of other half-thoughts and feelings going on the last couple of weeks. Not sure how I’m going to tie it all together, and chances are I’m going to find myself skipping all over the place while writing this. So — those of you that like to voyeur my journals — consider this your warning.

On the lighter side of this, I’m rather surprised to be receiving another note from someone on this dating site asking me whether I’ve had any success using it, and asking me whether the people there using it were real in any sense of the word. Some months ago when I started using it, I recall chatting with someone about it, as I found myself rather amazed at the veracity he had shown in changing pictures and profile information in order to get attention. I had marked him for follow and chatted with him a bit about this, and he told me that he had no luck at all with the site whatsoever. Seems that out of the 5 people he had chatted with, 2 ended up being dates from hell and the other three simply stopped chatting with him prior to setting up a date. After about a month and a half of my following him and watching his pictures change, he stopped. A week after that he deleted his profile — apparently completely giving up on it.

Another man I had casually chatted with told me the same thing, although with this man he had only one date and it went so badly he couldn’t get out of the restaurant fast enough.

Then there was my two attempts. The first never wrote me back. The second was going really well, but when I admitted to my not driving (as he lived in the middle of Connecticut that would definitely pose a problem only 9 hours of riding a Greyhound Bus to that city could remedy), he simply stopped writing me. Never heard from that one again. Chances are once he fully obtained my name, he did a little research and probably ended up finding my Deviant Art account, WordPress and maybe even my Flickr account of which can drive off gay men because of the fear of a blog outing them in a world they have no control over (really, it’s the 21st century. If people haven’t figured out by now you’re gay — you’re either lying pathologically, or self-deluded to think you’re that chameleon-like).

Though as I said to this gentleman that lives in a difficult place to get to without public transportation, I admitted to him that I haven’t really tried as hard as I could. And in a way, it’s true; I’ve been extremely casual about who I’ve written and who I’ve found attractive enough to want to drop a note to. Part of the reason why has been because honestly, like the man that dropped me the note this morning had said — “…I personally know some of the people on here and their profile does not match them in real life…”

In a way it’s had me thinking about it, though after him saying this it has helped me form a better way of putting to words what I’ve been thinking. Sure, I understand that people try to put their best foot forward when it comes to getting a date (be it face-to-face or on a dating site) and too often that best foot forward can be more than a simple embellishment in order to impress a potential date/suitor. Hell, I understand this — I’ve done it in the past. Though, what I’ve seen on many of these profiles are bald-faced and often egregious lies. For example, saying one is making $100K+ in an area of the United States who’s average annual income is $35K – $60K… Well, that’s basically going to start the downward spiral of doubt and mistrust of any other information provided within the profile. Really, we can’t all be making $100,000+, have 8″ penises, travel a every month, be “laid back” and “drama free”… And yet why must more and more men looking for a date (online and off) propagate such a deceptive vision of one-self? You’re going to get caught, and when that happens, you really can’t cry about the failure of a dating site when you failed to be honest to begin with. Admittedly as I said to Glenn (and a bit indirectly to the man that I responded to), it becomes extremely off-putting when you can spot multiple lies in a profile.

To make matters worse, with the exclusion of a precious few people that I’ve chatted with around here (the area) — New Englanders are just plain crass, rude and extremely impatient. I know I have my moments when it comes to being exactly like every Yankee I’ve ever encountered, but at the same time when I’m calm and when I’m emotionally balanced I generally attempt to practice manners and etiquette. Some of the things that I’ve seen come out of New Englanders mouths, and off of the tips of their fingers in a note/e-mail are generally the sort of thing that would get you shunned if you said that in the south and ignored in the west. I should know, I learned this when I lived in Atlanta and Seattle (and probably why I learned manners the hard way).

[Last Edited: 01/08/2011 07:15:06 PM]

The other thought that I had is a sort of rehash of an issue that I’ve visited time and again the last year that felt the need to be reiterated one more time. The fact of the matter is when a man reaches middle age, there comes with it some pretty heavy baggage. Let’s face it, it’s not any easier being a gay man reaching middle age given the various horrors life visits upon us for being different and the various horrors we visit upon ourselves because of the abuses collected in our lives. Given what’s happened in my life the last two decades — I have collected a hell of a lot of emotional and mental baggage along the way that routinely has a way of haunting me in various ways when dealing with others. From trust issues, to outright cynicism, to the occasional delusion that my simple presence can make a difference in someone’s life, to even the thought that love is enough to change a person.

And those trust issues are frequently visited whenever I begin dealing with a middle-aged man that continues to demonstrate the sex-only mentality of 30 years ago with penis pictures for profile avatars, fake pictures that have been recycled and reused so much that you can see the compression distortion in the bigger version of the picture, and hitting on me as though being sexual is being sexy in spite of the fact my profile doesn’t read anything for people looking for casual encounters/sex.

Honestly, there’s something to be said about those younger than me. While there are some that picked up the sex first approach to relationships, the stifling power of political correctness makes sure that in a public/semi-public setting — such attitudes are kept to a minimum. Either that or I’ve simply been lucky in that those that are younger than me simply don’t find me sexually appealing/attractive enough to want to flirt with me. Either or, it’s a nice way of getting to knowing another human being without the implied undertones of sex being involved as routinely as they are when talking to someone closer to my age.

Though this sort of segues into my next issue that has sort of developed over the last couple of weeks — an issue of unrequited love for a friend. Though even printing that out, it’s even more complex than what I’m trying to say. Sure, there are elements of attraction in there, though there’s also the altruistic love of a best friend as well. It’s this strange sort of balance between wishing to be intimate with this friend, as well as enjoying the fact that I cannot be intimate with this friend because of his own obligations and attractions, and even the occasional frustration of wanting to smack him upside the head and tell him he needs to stop holding everything in the way that he does.

It most probably because I’m feeling lonely at the moment now that I’ve gotten through the holidays relatively unscathed and he’s been nice to me and I’m misinterpreting it like I usually do. Post holiday blues tend to do that to me, particularly given the people I know are usually off with their boyfriends/girlfriends/partners/husbands/wives and I’m usually wishing for those sort of quiet moments that I used to have back in the 90s with Darin.

Well, I think I’ve pretty much covered what it was that I wanted to for the time being. Tomorrow while I’m doing laundry I think that I’ll work a bit on getting some of my profiles updated a bit. Went looking at one and didn’t realize just how dated it was. So I have something to do.

Until the next time then.

Entry 10/17/2010 01:40:42 PM – Mentat 585

I went to bed entirely too early last night and ended waking up sometime in the middle of the night after realizing that I had been snoring loudly (enough to wake the dead), drooling into my pillow like an invalid and having a cat prodding at me because she was hungry and too slack-assed to head to the food bowl on her own. Not too bad a thing really — I only stayed up a couple of hours before I passed out for the remainder of the night and getting an almost full night’s sleep in two really long naps. Waking up in the morning, I realized that the mood that I woke up into was a sort of rampage of various good old-fashioned rants. One of them a sort of left-over from what I was doing to pass the time and calm my mind enough to fall back to sleep. The other is a sort has been the one that I’ve been mulling over and completely avoiding for the last several or so journal entries that I always think I’m going to sit down and address the issues, and end up completely leaving alone because most attempts come off sounding more like a whinge, and less of valid issues.

So be prepared, this is probably going to be a mixture of rant and whinge. I had woken up this morning in a sort of rampage; and thought it high time that I approach everything with a “I couldn’t care less” attitude because I realize it needs to get the hell out if I’m going to deal with moving on from it.

First off, I’m really not liking WordPress all that much at the moment. Last night while I was biding my time until my over-active mind finally calmed down enough to lay back down and pass out, I remember heading over there to see if I couldn’t find a journal entry or two to read. Nothing too heavy reading, just the sort of thing of someone else putting together the puzzle pieces of their lives and either finding success — or failure — in the attempt. What I ended up seeing from the front page were nothing more than journalist and journalist wannabes talking about today’s or yesterday’s news, reviews of restaurants and what sort of eating out someone should do to maintain their girlish (or manly) figures, tech reviews and assorted spyware reports up the ass and generally the short of shit that I could get from reading Slashdot,  Boing Boing or Engadget.

One of the first articles that I clicked on, while being poignant about bullying and harassment of queerfolk that’s hit the media was actually tagged left, right and center from CNN. CNN?? Really? Like CNN’s monstrosity of a news site isn’t enough, it has to have its journalism choking up another site as well? The next was a fellow Spaces User that had made their way to WordPress because of the site shutting that portion down. What was his article about? Windows 1.0 which had YouTube embedded video that Slashdot had talked about and linked back in September. Blah, old news is old for a reason and the fact that I remember the embedded video only brought up more ire toward anyone trying to be wannabe journalist in a blog setting.

I tried out (a little bit but not until later in the morning) the cloud (which is a listing of words based on personal tags) and while this lead me to where I wanted to be — looking at personal blogs — you have to be careful about which tag you choose to get to them. Some of them end up going to just another regurgitation of the front page of featured articles which are journalistic or journalistic-wannabes. Personal is one such word that brought up my ire in the middle of the night finding myself not wanting to read “featured” articles which to me are entirely too impersonal for my taste.

I think that LiveJournal has the right idea when it comes to a personal blog-site/blogsphere, though one of the biggest problems that I had with that site was the overwhelming angst of young teenagers crying about the tyranny of their parents or worse — the social stigmas that have been around for centuries. I don’t think I’ll see the same on WordPress from adults, although I do have a better understanding of why people like using WordPress’ software for their own personal websites — to escape the glut of a site stifled with what feels like informational advertising, and journalistic whoring.

I’ll try to putter around the site some more, and see if I can’t find some journals/blogs from people instead of people trying to be journalists. Particularly given my extremely strong opinion that amateur journalists and journalist wannabes don’t do any sort of fact-checking and really should — for the sake of journalism if anything. If not, then it’ll serve just as MSN Spaces did — the site for being the oldest online journal site that I have out there…

==================================================================

As for the other tirade… God this one’s been the ongoing and long-time coming one. One that I’m not sure whether it’s just me sick and tired of the games of dating, or whether it’s honest to god legitimate. Either or, here it comes… Ready or not…

I don’t know what to make of the profiles that I read of single gay men online. For every piece that comes off truthful, there are times when the lies or blatantly egregious self-promotion turns an otherwise interest to drop that person a note to finding myself completely put off. Sometimes I think I’m simply being too picky… Other times, I feel as though I’m justified in my disgust and cynicism. I mean — here are some good examples of what I face in this attempt to finding someone interesting enough to date…

The tagline on one site that I use is “Yes, I shall go down in history as the man who opened a door!”- Ever After

I got a response from someone telling me it’s his favorite movie and that he saw it the other night… His nickname: ricocksucker4u. It’s a picture of an erect penis (I can only assume it’s his, but it’s what I call a headless horseman picture) that he’s holding. His profile is all about various sexual actions that he’d like to do with someone.

Yeah, *thumbs up* that sort of profile just makes me want to strike up a conversation with a man holding his penis about romance or critiquing a romantic story.

On another site I have the following as the first thing you read when you get to the profile: Be *IN* the USA only. All others will be marked spam. I go on to explain that I’m looking for someone that’s not separated by oceans to call a boyfriend.

I get responses from folk in the Philippines, Ghana and China asking to be my boyfriend.

Really? I know that English might not be one’s primary language, but even those that respond in broken English seem to have a basic understanding of what they’re saying in responses to me. For giggles I did respond to a few of them asking if they had problems reading that line and all of them apologized for not reading it. Which means, of course, they were looking at the pictures and not reading anything at all.

Then again, this shouldn’t be surprising really given that on yet another chat site, I’ve been positively flooded and inundated with friend requests and “you’re hot” tags from folk from the Orient. I guess the great firewall of China’s come down on some sections of these sort of sites.

[Last Edited: 10/17/2010 06:44:44 PM]

Okay, I walked away for a bit… had supper, got the cat fed and generally got all sort of ire going for different reasons. Wanted to borrow Avatar from my aunt so that I could get some good old fashioned vitriol going in tomorrow when I’m sitting there getting caught up with reading and it turns out that the woman completely decimated the box for it. Then looking through the DVD box, the DVD is completely missing.

Then my aunt insists to check my uncle’s portable DVD player, which he’s been using to watch the movies he’s asked to borrow to check out. I tell her it most certainly won’t be in there given how deeply into the cabinet that Avatar was and how recent my uncle’s movie watching has been. She insisted only to see that my movie My Neighbor Totoro queued up.

And then my aunt wonders why I cringe hardcore whenever they want to borrow any of my movies.

But I digress…

So the on-going rant that I have is the whole online dating scene, which I walked away from because frankly I find myself just plain cynical about it. Oh, I know! Here’s another beauty…

On one several of the sites they have the ability to see who came to visit your profile. I was watching this 50-something that had checked my profile out several times over the course of a couple of weeks that has in his username the city I’m currently living in. Not too bad, I thought. I wouldn’t turn in down outright. Checked out the rest of his profile and it was completely blank. Not very inspiring for me to find something in common to check out, so I pretty much left it to his discretion whether or not he would stare at me some more before I approached him about that routine checking.

Next day he asks whether I’m from the same city he’s in and would I like to go out for coffee.

I responded politely asking for a day and time of his convenience.

Nothing… A month later and he’s not responded.

Well all righty. Check-check with the manners there. Moving along from that now.

*sighs* I think as I’m sitting here thinking about it — I’m just tired of the game some men play to snag a boyfriend. The lies, the half-truths, the insincerity behind the things that they say about themselves: either because they don’t want to appear well; average. Or the outright fabrications to build themselves up to more than they actually are. That and the fact that a majority of the profiles I’ve read through are so… cookie cutter. Their likes and dislikes are so mainstream as to feel they were chosen because they don’t want to come off as too oddball to be un-datable.

Take for example the man that said that one of his fears was for cats. I had asked him about it as I’m naturally curious of anyone that would have a fear of felines. It wasn’t the first time I’ve seen it, but opportunity being the mother of invention, I decided to enact upon it to find out what the cause of that fear was. He explained succinctly enough that I could comprehend and empathize with his fear (as it does touch upon the primal fears of our racial history). It was the way that he had described it though that I found myself facepalming through the re-reading of his note.

It came off as though he were hyper-concerned that it would his wording would be interpreted as being effeminate.

I can say this much though — I didn’t once think him the least bit effeminate. What I did consider after re-reading his note a third time was that he was incredibly high-maintenance; given he had at least five different phobias and stressed at least eight times how much of a man’s-man he was.

It leaves me wondering… At middle-age do we men become so self-conscious of our image, we over-exaggerate our actions to prevent that image from being misinterpreted? Do we become that egotistically frail that we no longer see ourselves the way we did when we were in our 20s that it’s a constant effort to maintain some bloated or otherwise virile self-image when we reach our 40s?

It makes me wonder how I missed out on that insanity.. Heh, at least it makes me thankful I missed out on it.

Well that’s about it for the time being. I could go on, but I have other things to think about and do. I might revisit this a bit more. I might not. Until the next time.