I Feel It All

In the last few years, several people have told me that I am a poor communicator. Maybe not in so many words, but in statements like, "Why don't you ever talk about what's going on with you?" or "Why can't you be open with me and tell me what's on your mind?" or "You are not a good communicator." I guess that last one is in so many words. Well, after the next few weeks, I'm thinking that everyone's going to be saying the exact opposite, like "Too much information," and "Just shut up already."

My main dream last night was interesting: Sheryl Crow performed a mini-concert during the Sunday morning service at my parents' home church. She was on some sort of church tour and was warmly received at this most unlikely of venues. I think she might have been playing a harp during one of her songs, and she definitely left all her songs featuring beer, one night stands, and hells & damns off the set list. It was still a great concert, though I heard many people complaining that it was too short.

I had a rough night last night. I told Liza earlier that everything is easier in the daylight, and that seems to remain true. Going home at night, new realities set in, and everything seems a bit more unbearable. The future's got me worried such awful thoughts, etc. Sometimes I feel kind of like I'm falling through empty space. How do I abandon my best friend and companion of nearly four years and continue my life with some semblance of normality? That isn't normal; I want to pick up the phone and call him. I have so many things to say. I want to send him a text message that uses the f-word a ridiculous number of times. How do I go back to the times when I was okay with being alone? I used to be so good at being alone. How do I become okay with not knowing anything about his life, when it used to be a life that we pretty much lived together? I need to know whether he's safe and happy, or if he needs some help or learned something new. But now I can't know anything about him, because it hurts too much, those old wounds.

I went way back in my email last night, back to the beginning of our friendship, through the first part of our dating. There was so much happiness there, so much excitement at having found a new friend, having found someone to love life with. Then I found this photo music video that Kevin made me last summer. It is made mostly of pictures from our trips (the boring routines of everyday life don't make very compelling slide shows), but I think it does a pretty good job of capturing the happiness, too.

Currently Listening to:
Pandora Radio

I Have No Problem With That

I love my co-worker and friend Sofia. She kept me laughing and in good spirits through the work day yesterday, a most impressive feat. She even offered to break up with her long-term boyfriend (soon to be fiance!), so that we could go through all this drama and sadness together. Now there's a selfless - if morally questionable - friend. Then, when I turned down that generous offer, she came up with about 15 different things that we could do together this weekend to stay busy and have fun and keep our minds occupied. They were all great ideas, and I promised her that we would hang out next week sometime, but I told her that I really need to spend this weekend alone, thinking and writing and watching funny TV shows and reading and being disgustingly emotional.

Speaking of questionable values, I think that is the most daunting thing for me about the already near-impossible task of Finding Someone. There just aren't that many gay guys out there that share much of the same moral code as me. For instance, and sorry if this is too much information - skip ahead why don't you? - I would prefer to meet someone, build a friendship, start a relationship over time, and then include sex. Hopefully that startling revelation didn't rock your world too much. But it probably isn't much of a news flash either for me to say that most gay men go right for the sex. They reason something like, hey, we're men, we can keep things no-strings-attached and purely physical. That seems very distasteful and empty and disrespectful to me, and isn't something that I could justify based on my own personal morality. So that rules out about 95% of eligible men for me.

You know what I want, ultimately? To be married, one half of an old, boring married couple like my parents. Not exactly like my parents (who would say that?), but in the same fashion as my parents. I won't apologize for wanting something very conventional, and wanting to take a very traditional route to get there.

TV is kind of back! Scrubs, Lost, The Office, 30 Rock! Survivor in a couple of weeks. I started watching The Wire, Season 1 last night on DVD. Has anyone seen it? I'm only on episode 3, but it is a really cool show so far. I don't normally get into cop shows, and anything involving drugs is usually a total downer, but something about this show gets my attention. The language is awful, and that actually does bother me. I guess I'm coming off as some sort of naive prude this morning. :) Also, I've been watching the first season of Arrested Development on hulu.com, because it is one of those shows that people rave about, and I wanted to see what I missed. It is actually quite funny once you get into it, and hulu is a great, free way to watch it.

Yesterday after work I walked down to Diversey Harbor, one of my favorite spots. There's still a few inches of snow on the ground everywhere, but the path was pretty well worn. There were lots of Canada geese out on the ice. Hey, where do all the boats go during the winter? I walked up the lakeshore path to Belmont and enjoyed having the wind on the right side of my face and the sun on my left.

Currently Listening to:
Emotionalism by the Avett Brothers

Now This Is the First Day of My Life

Thursday I mailed my application to Armstrong Atlantic State University's Master of Arts in Teaching - Middle Grades Education program. Entering this program would require a move to Savannah, Georgia late this summer. I am excited about this plan, getting my life and career plans back on the right track.

Friday night Kevin and I settled that we are finally, irretrievably, irrevocably broken up. I am sad about this, of course, but decided that I need to stop punishing myself and reopening old wounds over and over again by continuing to see him. Right now I pretty much think that he is the worst person in the world, but I do wish him all the best in the future. I gave him a fist bump and said, "Goodbye, take care," and that was the end.

The worst moment of my year 2009 is already over! This is because I had an appointment with my eye doctor on Thursday evening. My eye doctor is actually really cool; he's conversational and caring and an all-around pleasant human being. But I begged and pleaded and threatened and cajoled, please, no glaucoma test. You know the glaucoma test? It is the one where you put your face in the little contraption and the machine blows a puff of air into your eyeball. It is impossible, impossible! to not jump like a mile out of your seat and feel like a total fool during this test. My eye doctor told me to suck it up and be a man. I said, do you really want the worst moment of my entire year to be spent here with you wearing that crazy contraption on your head in this dark little room? He said, at least you are getting it over with early in the year. I lost, but I don't have glaucoma.

Currently Unable to Listen To:
The Format

Currently Reading:
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time

Some Portraits

I was watching the Today show yesterday morning before heading off to work, as is my daily habit, and they had a short interview with President Obama's official photographer and the unveiling of his official Presidential portrait. Here it is, in case you haven't seen it yet:



It is a formality, sure, but they were listing the places where we will be seeing this particular picture in the coming years like government offices, schools, and every United States embassy in countries all over the world. That last one really hit me, really filled me with a sense of total pride. I remember going into the American Corner at the National Taichung Library and seeing President Bush's portrait there. As strange as it sounds, even seeing his photo when I was so far away from home was a little comforting, a nice reminder of my country. And I was so far past being proud of him by that point. So now I imagine going into that room next week and seeing this picture of President Obama hanging on the wall, and I feel this enormous swelling of pride and joy inside of me. He is our representative to the world now, he is the face that America is putting forward to the world, he is us. When these thoughts occurred to me I felt them so deeply, I was so moved, and I had to say, quietly and aloud, "Oh, thank God."

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Here's another portrait that I saw on the Today show that morning. Have you heard this bizarre story? He's a successful investment advisor and amateur pilot from Indiana. He was trying to escape from some poor business decisions and his life, I guess, so he set the auto-pilot on his plane and parachuted out somewhere over Birmingham where he had stashed a motorcycle in a storage facility. He tried to make a getaway, but the police caught up with him, and now he's in a bit of trouble. It is an interesting story, but I think this picture tells a much more interesting, much more ridiculous story:



Oh, where to begin? Posing with your plane? Your luxury car? Your trophy wife, in some sort of bizarre, quasi-sexy trophy pose? The whole thing makes me want to laugh and vomit simultaneously. Seriously, though, how screwed up in the head do you have to be to meticulously arrange your toys for an ultimate vanity portrait like this? I believe you might just be begging for it all to come crashing down around you.

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Speaking of vomit and in other news, I got that 24 hour flu thing that everyone has been getting on Tuesday. It was a rough day. I've harbored this little fantasy for a long time now, that someday I would take a sick day off of work and spend all day in bed watching my Lord of the Rings Extended Edition DVDs straight through; that's like 12 hours of movie action, people. That would be a wonderful sick day! It didn't happen. I got about 2 hours in before I was feeling so sick that I couldn't even sit up in bed or focus my eyes on the screen. I had to just lay flat on my back and listen to music. I won't go into any other details of the day. You're welcome. Oh, but this: two days later and I still haven't really regained my appetite yet. And I am completely okay with that. Most of the time, eating is just one more thing for me to do that I would rather not bother with. And I don't do it very well; I'm such an unhealthy eater. Hand me those doughnuts!

Currently Watching:
The Today Show

(One of the 8x10s)

What a roller coaster of a day!


+2 I woke up,
+5 put a load of new (+3 Christmas present!) towels in the laundry downstairs,
+3 placed my Netflix disc in the mailbox on the street corner,
+3 and walked to McDonald's for breakfast.
-4 The lady sitting two seats down from me was slurping her coffee like it was the most delicious soup ever.
+1 I walked home, moved my towels into the dryer,
+6 and made the most awesome playlist of forgotten and neglected songs from my mp3 library.
-17 I went to the dryer to find that, after 75 minutes, my towels were all still entirely damp.
-5 I hung towels in front of my heater and all over my apartment,
+100 and then I received a phone call from my apartment landlords telling me that they have decided to credit me with $400 of rent for the 20 days that I went without heat this fall and winter. Wow! Best settlement ever. I mean, I asked for some credit, but I didn't expect that much.

+5 I cut out all of my coupons, bundled up, and headed for the grocery store.
+4 I found nearly everything that I wanted
-2 except hot dog relish for less than $2 and sliced cheese for less than $4.
-15 The cashier rang all of my coupons for 1 cent each, became flustered, had to get help, and took a good 10 minutes to complete my sale. Embarrassing!
+5 I successfully made light of the situation with the girl who was unfortunately in line behind me. I acknowledged ruining her life, and she agreed that I had, but forgave me.

+3 I left the grocery store a sweaty mess,
+5 but the train came right away!
+10 I picked up the mail on the way back inside, and received a lovely letter from an old friend and the 8x10 photo enlargements that I ordered last week.
+10 The photos look great!
+8 I ordered a humidifier
+9 in the shape of a penguin from Amazon.com in order to stop
-20 my nightly nosebleeds and
-10 itchy, dry winter skin.

+5 I packed my skates, bundled up again, and headed downtown for the evening.
+6 The train came right away again!
-5 But everyone on the train looked tired, haggard, angry, or smelly. No eye candy there.
-25 When I got to the skating rink, I found it, quite literally, crawling with pre-teens, suburban moms, and Asian tourists. The rink was so crowded, and everyone was skating so badly, tripping, falling, tearing up the ice, that I skated for less than 30 minutes before giving up in disgust.
-40 I realized that I am the grumpiest old 29 year old man in the world. "Darn kids..." etc.
+3 I headed towards State Street to check out the January sales at some of my favorite stores,
-75 and received a text message from my new friend that he is leaving Chicago tonight and won't be back for a long time.
+25 See, he actually lives in New York City,
+10 but works in Chicago all week, when we hang out,
-25 and goes home to New York for the weekends.
-50 And now his work is transferring him to a new project that is not in Chicago. Bye, new friend!

-12 I browsed a while but didn't find anything to buy,
+12 but I also didn't spend any money.
+5 The train came quickly! What a streak of luck!
+3 And there was a couple of cute guys inside.
+15 Looking out the train window, I saw a guy playing with his two large dogs in the snow, doing something that looked a lot like a jumping group hug with them. Fun!
+3 I got home,
+6 Amazon has shipped my humidifier,
+10 and my towels are finally dry.

Just returned to Netflix:
Scrubs, Season 7, Disc 1