Blog-o-thon #1: Blog For Your Life

Somewhere filed and thus, impossible to find at the moment are wise words from a woman blogger who talks about the 'need' to write we writers have and how it's a good way to work yourself out of a corner.
And so, here I am, shivering outdoors with either the late afternoon wind blowing across me every two minutes and the air blowers from my neighborhood grocery store chilling my legs. I won't be shivering here much longer....I hate being cold.
The point with this exercise is just to keep writing: word after word, funneling that focus away from the usual hi-jinks. Not that I'm trying to run away from certain behaviors: I came to a realization today and am reacting to it.

Elsewhere, filed terrifically is a link to a history of to the Shamans of Atlantis who dabbled a bit too much on the recreational side of crystal energy and sank the continent. However, the knowledge that they had gained was preserved, not in written form but through those crystal skulls Indiana Jones was tangled up with, as well as the Mayans, the Nazis, and probably the Kardashians.

I don't know if any of this means a hill of beans, but it's fun to speculate and be silly. Laugh with me, though, not at me. And if you can't laugh, perhaps you are thinking about  the power of crystals to enlighten, or eliminate a group of healers.

A Week Without A Tweaker Can Be Bleaker than Bleak, Pete

No good deed goes unpunished, when you walk in my Weejuns. Last year, I sublet my guest room to a friend (not a close friend, although money does make for instant chumminess) for a week as he was attending a convention in town. The convention is an annual one, and he had asked about staying this year, but with the guest room occupied, the best I could offer him was the couch in the den.
He's out of work this year, and I couldn't expect him to pay me because the accommodations were different.  This friend, who I'll call Norman is from a rather good-sized, not stuck in a time warp city in the East, about 40, asexual- although I did assist him last fall when he went through his 'am I gay?' process (no way in Hell, I told him: God is not that cruel (I said to myself). His interests are Hockey, Video Games. Comic Book Superheroes, and anything to do with Transformers. Most of you know I like Tennis, Video Conferencing, Comical Situations, and transformation via a different uh, milieu.

Norman is a nice guy....and I feel horrible that I was ready to strangle him 37 minutes into his visit. That's the time it took me to take the subway down to Union Station (20 mins) and search all over this 1939 landmark only to come up empty handed. Union Station is beautiful but a bit daunting at 11PM at night. Standing out on one of the patios, I called him on my cell phone.
"Norman, where are you? I've been looking all over."
"At the McDonald's at Hollywood and Highland. The people around the train station were starting to scare me."
So back on the subway I went to Hollywood, where the crowds are scarier than anything downtown, I think.
It didn't occur to him to let me know he decided to try to find my house and had I not called, I'd still be searching I guess.

The next morning, we head off to breakfast. I buy the Sunday newspaper and as we sit down, hand  him the Sports section with coverage of the Kings, who were competing against the New Jersey Devils for the Stanley Cup. I put the rest of the paper down on the seat between us, because I am Not Going To Look Like a Boring Married Person.
Instead of perusing the special Kings section, Norman extracts the coupon section and begins tearing out selections, announcing 'I can use this to buy batteries when I get back home."
"Umm Norman, I use coupons too."  Perhaps he buys into the legend that we're all rich here on the Coast. He believes that it could be possible that Aliens with Reptilian features are running Hollywood in celebrity disguises. He really does.

Because I apparently am a rich Left Coast Liberal Bohemian, I offer to pick up the check, as I know I won't be spending much meal time with my guest. He's quite happy letting me do this, but as we get up to leave, he floors me with this:
"I want to make sure the waitress got the appropriate tip. I don't believe stiffing hard working service industry workers."
He tries to grab the leather folder my signed receipt is in but I stop that with "My parents owned restaurants, Norman." Yes I know I should have said 'You pay the bill, you determine the tip' but I didn't think about it. I was wondering if there was a cleaver laying around that I could use to make Norman Meat Pies with.

Outside on the sidewalk, Norman announced he needed Claritin-D. And for the next hour of this episode, each time I would say 'Claritin' , he would correct me. 'Claritin-D'. You're probably thinking Dustin Hoffman in  Rain Man, autistic savant, Asperger's, and that I'm an A-11 schlemiel. I researched all those terms (except schlemiel) and my guest didn't fit any of those types. It took us three stops to find Claritin....D, because the pharmacist on duty either was too slow, too stupid or 'ignored' Norman. God bless the sexy pharma-gal at CVS who listened patiently and delivered quickly my friend's meds.

Norman mentioned he needed to go buy a grocery store and load up on snacks, as well as milk and iced tea: he didn't want to drink all of mine.
"Are you saying there's no milk or iced tea in the refrigerator at home?" I asked.  Do what you must, but do not leave me out of milk, iced tea, toilet paper or mouthwash.
He had not, and he told me he'd replace what he did take.
Thus, my Red Top/Vitamin D/Homo Milk was replaced with something called Smart Heart Fat Free Wise Size WhiteLiquid.
My Sweet Iced Tea was replaced with Diet Green Tea.

Mind you, he's been in Los Angeles less than 24 hours.

I don't remember him being so needy and so fucking cheap last year. I do remember him asking last year if I minded if he strolled around in his underwear. I pretended not to hear him.

I could go on: how by using my towel rack (tossing my still damp towels on the floor)to hang his suits on left numerous scratches on my recently re-painted bathroom walls. Or how he almost barged right in on me while I was 'in conference' naked as jaybird. Personal space seemed to be a foreign concept. I found myself missing the tweaker personality: I could handle those much easier.

Probably what bothered me the most was his assessment of Los Angeles as a seedy, sleazy Babylon of opportunists and ne'er do wells': all the time lapping up any freebies he could glom on to for the 'folks back home'.  Bad manners and hypocrisy I don't tolerate on the internet: why would I allow such nonsense in my own house?

He is gone now, and I learned some lessons: make sure guests are self-sufficient and independent. Get plenty of rest so as not to be infuriated by small things, like the babytalk he used with my pets that brought visions of The Hand that Rocks the Cradle but with a frumpy asthmatic wacko nanny and a sexy, attractive parent (me! That's me!)

A Scary Story for a Pre-Summer Night

*This post first appeared on 5/26/2012 at www.nastykinkpigs.com under the same title. Due to ongoing system upgrades at NKP and other technical challenges, the original post was unable to be properly formatted and thus difficult to read. Thank you for your patience.


I still find it incomprehensible that this story happened. And yet, it did.

It was Memorial Day weekend, 2007. My pal Joe from Arizona was going to be the house guest of a couple I had become friendly with. We had all met on ICU2.  I enjoyed the couple, Bob and Jacques very much. Bob was about my age, Jacques was  younger and Joe was in his late 30's., Jacques and Bob lived not in West Hollywood, nor in Silver Lake, but on the 'backside of Malibu' off the 101 towards Ventura. 

Joe and I were to have dinner Friday night, but he got an early flight in from Phoenix and I had to work late. His plans for the weekend, he'd told me was to kick back, party hearty and have fun. The fact he didn't called meant he was already at Bob and Jacques', and a good time was already in gear. 

Saturday morning was another work day for me. Around 10 AM Bob called me.
"There's someone here who'd like to have you for dessert tonight." 

I replied in my usual sarcastic style, "There's someone I would have liked to have had dinner with last night, but he stood me up." 

"Oh, don't be a bitch, bitch"
I wasn't sure what time I'd be done with work, so the call ended in a very tentative mode. As it happened, a church pal had an emergency and needed someone to serve as Lector that night at mass. I could do that and head out to Thousand Oaks after. 

I had no sooner hung up the phone confirming taking the Lector slot at Mass when I got a text: 

Joe freaked out, jumped off the patio and ran into the hills! Help!" 

I stared at the message, and called Bob. For no reason at all, Joe suddenly accused Bob of planning to kill him....yes, you read that right. 

Being a journalist, I pressed hard with the questions and found that Joe had taken, or perhaps was given without his knowledge, some G. Rumors had circulated for years that Bob did this, in the spirit of encouraging others to expand their limits, but having partied there myself dozens of times, I had seen no evidence of that. 
“We didn't do that much." Bob said meekly, as if reading my mind.

"Don't you think you should call the police?" I said, rather than pursue what constituted 'that much'.

"Hell, no. The police aren't coming on my property: no way."

We were silent for a moment. 

Bob said, “So, come on out. We can barbeque." As if the last five minutes hadn't happened. As if Joe wasn’t missing.

“Find your house guest first. I'll check back later."  

I began to worry. Joe was a smart man, polite, not prone to paranoia. He wouldn't have left unless he was scared, very scared. On the other hand, nothing about Jacques and Bob had ever seemed odd. They fit into suburban life like the married couple they were.

After Mass I called: no Joe. It was getting dark and chilly and there were a lot of places Joe could have gone.  According to Bob, Joe had left wearing Bob's gym shorts and nothing else. Bob is 5'7 and weighs 240. Joe is 6'3 and weighs 150. The more information I was getting, the sicker I was to my stomach. 

Again, Bob invited me out to point and play. "We'll have lots of fun."

"Find Joe!" 

Sunday at sunrise, on 2 hours sleep, I walked to my local cafe, had some breakfast, and called for an update. Joe had not returned. He had been gone 18 hours.

 My patience with the situation was running out of steam.. "You have to call the police and report him missing. This isn't a game, Bob."

"I'm not responsible for a fag tweaker who can't handle his drugs!"  

Then, sweetly, "Come out for breakfast."

 I hung up on him.. I couldn't believe anyone could be so heartless, high or not. I felt he was responsible because Joe was his guest.

I waited a bit, then texted Jacques and asked him to make some excuse to go outside and call me. Jacques does not slam: his smoking is a half-hearted way to entertain Bob. He was Joe's only hope. 

I pleaded with Jacques to call the police. His version of the incident was a paraphrase of what Bob had said. 
He didn't hear or see anything out of the ordinary. He was not eager to disobey Bob's wishes though.
I whispered in my best low voice to Jacques ear that if he didn't call the cops, I would. 

 "And I will make so many disgusting, depraved and foul charges against you two, you'll be lucky if the foundation of your house is still intact when the SWAT teams are done ripping this place apart

" 

There was silence on the other end.  

I played the only card I had left. "Remember, I know Bill Bratton. I see him every Sunday. The chief of police won't like his breakfast interrupted." I hoped that I sounded nuts enough that Jacques would forget that they lived outside of the LAPD's jurisdiction. 

Jacques agreed to call.  I thanked him. 

The day dragged on. Being a man who knows a lot of people, I next called an esteemed doctor friend in NYC and gave him the details. He said, rather matter of factly:  "You're over-reacting. Because you are a writer, your mind creates the most outlandish plots that have no basis in reality. The scenarios you describe are best re-visited on the late late show. Joe probably was embarrassed and went back to Phoenix."

"By foot?" I answered, wishing that I called for a general practitioner's opinion, not Sigmund Freud's.

"Send him an email or a Skype message. He'll call you I'm sure."

I did both. And waited. I stopped returning Bob's calls: now wanting to know if I'd heard from Joe.

At 8PM Sunday night, I logged into Skype.  I saw the green 'online' symbol appear beside Joe's name, but before I could send him an Instant Message he had logged out. I started to call his cell, and realized his phone was at Bob's.

At 1145PM, I got a call from the 480 area code. Scottsdale, AZ.  I held my breath.

"Hi, My name is Alice Longview and I'm Joe Nelson's sister. He didn't show up at the airport today: we can't get him on his phone, the people he's staying with hung up on us, and he has work tomorrow. We're very worried. We hacked into his email account and saw your message."

The worst case scenario was unfolding rapidly. I did my best to calm Alice. I gave her Bob's cell, Jacques' cell, and their emails. I gave her the number of the police department.  She was flying in from Phoenix the next morning to find her brother, she said, and she wouldn't stop until she found him.  She had also called the police and all hospitals in the area.

I have no family. I wondered who would miss me should I disappear into the hills some afternoon and not come back.

At noon on Monday, Memorial Day 2007, Alice called me. Joe had been found, on the other side of the hills and 25 miles from Bob's. He was in the hospital.  The prognosis wasn't good. Alice asked if I would collect her brother's things from Jacques and Bob and bring them to the hospital. She had gotten a voice mail from one of them saying they didn’t know where he was, had called the police and to stop bothering them.
 I called Bob at work.
"Oh, thank you sweet Jesus," his voice cracking. It was a relatively convincing performance if you'd just tuned into the story. "Can we go see him?"

"Things aren't looking good, Bob. Make sure Jacques is home this afternoon. I need to get Joe's luggage and take it to his family."

At the lovely home I'd played at so many times  the pool, hot tub and panoramic view of the hills looked just as peaceful as always.  As he handed me Joe's bag and cell phone with its 75 missed calls, Jacques informed me that 'Bob removed all the drugs to keep Joe from getting into trouble.' How thoughtful. 

Jacques had no further insight as to what went wrong, and I thanked him again for making the call that quite possibly saved another man's life.

At the hospital, Alice was at the pocket park as planned. Having come from work, I thought I looked more like a doctor in my three piece suit and horn-rim glasses. Along with Joe's bag, I gave Alice a card for him and a Mass card for her. "Could I see him?' I asked.

"Absolutely not." 

My first thought was Joe was dead and I'd been set up. Seeing Joe's lover appear didn't help change my mind either. He never cared for me, probably because I called him Granddaddy once too often . And now he was walking up the sidewalk, dressed in black, glaring at me. 

Then, from behind the grassy knoll, carrying a notebook computer, a very tall, very handsome, very pissed off younger version of Joe came over. Positioning himself on the slope so that my eyes were level with his flat stomach, he pushed his index finger into my chest. The big bully.

"I'm Tom Nelson. We have some questions and we want you to answer them."

"I'll tell you anything that I can, Mr. Nelson, but kindly remove your finger from my chest.  I have nothing to hide."  I was so very glad I hadn't gone to Jacques and Bob's for the holiday. Not to dismiss what happened to Joe, or the serious predicament that I had gotten myself-guilt by association as well as being the only contact they had, it was clear I was viewed as the enemy. Maybe the Nelsons had watched a few too many of those 'ripped from the headlines' crime shows, because that's how it felt.

"We think our brother was given a date rape drug. What do you have to say about that?"

"You'd have to ask his hosts."

"It appears something was injected against his will.... with more drugs... that made him....go crazy."

The questions continued at me from Alice and Tom while Grandpappy looked ready for his big scene at Julia Roberts' funeral in Steel Magnolias. And every question was followed by 'What do you have to say about this?' 

I so very much wanted to reply, "Could you call this number in Manhattan? A doctor friend thinks I have an overactive imagination. I'd like you to set him straight." I was so pissed.

"I will do whatever I can, but you have to talk to Bob and Jacques. I was not there." After looking at my driver’s license to verify my identity, I was allowed to leave-but with a warning not to try to contact Joe. But if they had further questions, they would call me. 
Good deeds rarely go unpunished, and not one of them had thanked me. In my heart I knew Joe was dead. They were lying to me. I walked back to my car, locked the doors, put my head on the steering wheel and cried.

 ***** Joe was not dead, but severely dehydrated, in shock, with a broken leg, arm, frostbite on his feet and various facial contusions. He remembered nothing of what happened, and I honored his family's wishes and did not contact him. I felt responsible in a way, but had I been there, it might have been worse. 

Bob lost his job soon after that...karmic debt, in my opinion.  And yet, he couldn't grasp why I declined all future invites to play, did not add him as a Facebook friend, LinkedIn contact, would not serve as a reference for work and stopped returning his calls. 

If you can't handle your drugs of choice, don't do them. If your host tries to expand your limits without your ok...get the fuck out of their home quickly. If your houseguest flips out, please call the police. They can handle the situation better than you. 

The failure to handle a crisis makes everyone of us guilty. Controlling the damage responsibly and honestly benefits all of us. Before you hook up at 3am with a stranger from the internet, or get ready to point and shoot with regular fuckbuddies, look in the mirror and ask yourself: if something goes wrong, what would you do? 
You may be saving your own life.

The Doctor, The Lawyer & The USDA Select Beef

My cyber-black book is an interesting mix of professions. Glancing down the long list (don't blame me for having an application that automatically saves every address and phone number) I'm associated with (in no particular order), a bartender, an animal rights activist, a hotelier, a flight attendant, a pilot, a principal, a banker, an inventor, a poet, a dj, a professional slave, a former priest,an interior designer, a chef, an Aggie, a few college professors, several government employees, a couple of aliens, a plumber, a student, a trust fund baby, a gambler, and a deacon in his regional Satanic church.

It's not that I care so much about what these men 'do' but who they are and how that relates to me, the world and the universe. They all have a few things in common: they are sexy, they can carry a conversation, fun to be around and all party quite well. I love all of them: I'm in love with several of them. Let me tell you about 3 of them:

Select Beef and I met through Craigslist, that rather dubious method of meets. I like to live a little dangerously, and his story was he'd been thrown out of his house by his wife, and happened to be at a hotel near me (alas, not the W, but not the Coral Sands either). . His name was Kevin, Shawn, or Wes, depending on the email he sent. 32 years old. Did I party? (yes) Did I have points? (yes) Did I have Viagra? (no) Having answered those questions apparently to his liking, he gave me his address. So, at 5AM, I strolled on over, not realizing how many homeless people sleep on the grass and sidewalks along Franklin Avenue.

Whether he was straight on not, or if there really was a wife, and who knows what else, I administered a shot of Kickapoo Joy Juice and he didn't throw his ass in the air and begged to be fucked: which was refreshing. Instead we watched vintage 70's porn that I'd brought and some bi-sexual stuff. I was intrigued by the newness of the experience (str8 porn, no begging to be fucked, wondering if I grabbed his 8 inch stick would he kiss me...or kill me) that I just kicked back and relaxed and tried not to laugh as he tried to cajole me into sucking his dick (not unless you reciprocate, I maintained. He declined).

As the sun rose, someone playing the role of the wife called and I had to skeedaddle. He didn't slam much he said, he had issues with his father, and being old enough to be his daddy, I got some glimpse of the boy behind the bravado. Yet, I couldn't quite trust him, and I wasn't about to be played. The next three days were peppered with him texting me, calling me or otherwise irritating me. Would I blow him, it was his birthday(no) If he brought the ingredients for a wow of a cake, would I then blow him? (no). Would I buy a 2007 17" MacBookPro for $500? (hard to decline, but no, because he wouldn't let me think it over). Would I sell him one point? (sell? please.)

And that's where it began to crumble. Wes wouldn't buy points at the drug store, online or use the Needle Exchange. He didn't want me to give him a bag of rigs....he didn't use that often, remember?
I gave him 5 and told him I couldn't keep doing the calls for one, one, one. Of course he got angry: another father figure had denied spoiling him. I walked away sad, but still the inner voice whispered 'beware'.
Exit to the west, Wes.

***
My mother had my life as a doctor all planned, and only my parents' deaths set the stage for me to be free. I stood at the gates of one of Texas' most esteemed universities, tuition paid, scholarships in hand...and high-tailed it down I 35 to study fine arts, journalism, and psychology in Austin.

I had met Marcus five years ago, a frat boy doctor who liked my hypnosis skills. Trouble was, as it is with many of my encounters that become regulars, he didn't want me around in the light of day, meaning non-sex time and I wasn't keen on starting a session at midnight when he had to be on his rounds at Cedars-Sinai at 5AM. And that was that.

Marc and I reconnected recently and behold-he took me to dinner. He'd had a crush on me for years.....and I didn't know it. This was the start of something good, I knew. We were older, wiser and we could laugh and talk just like being on a date.
I was wrong.

After not committing to yes or no for dinner three weeks in a row, Marcus and I were on Skype, when he asks 'What has changed since July 14, 2010 when you said you thought of me as a brother?'
'Frat brother?' I tossed out.....all the while thinking:
O goddamnit I had this bullshit with my ex and an old assistant! Am I the only one who doesn't carry a Day Runner with every transgression to be revisited years hence for an explanation?
I don't keep track of such things. I apologized, or attempted to, and got another rant in texted reply.
Exit Dr. Kildare.

***
I met Jerry, the lawyer through a mutual friend, not realizing yet that threesomes go haywire when I'm included, so I backed off....from the three of us talking that is. Let me tell you about Jerry.
At 41, he's a retired international attorney, born in a small southeastern town but as poised and well-spoken as the latest in the line of an old-money family.
At 41 he's a rockhound who makes and sells jewelry from the colored stones he finds when he hikes along trails in the Blue Ridge Mountains just because he likes to.
At 41, he does pro-bono work for those who need legal advice and works like a machine to help them.
At 41, he's kicked cancer once but is battling it again.
At 41, he's the bravest man with the brightest spirit and if I had the money, I'd be right beside him, because I enjoy his company, he enjoys mine it seems
At age 50, I could never be that strong, and although I should be making him believe in miracles, instead he makes me believe in magic. And he's only 41.

Boycott Boffo

My abstinence from Skype was a three-day, non-newsworthy event. You may recall I went off-line as I had another in a series of annoying, disjointed, less-than-stellar mornings. Although I take ownership that I wasn't at my best game either (symptoms: quick to anger, whiny, alternately not caring and being too concerned), when the game of 'pay no attention to that group of voices or those people walking behind me, it's only you and I here' comes from supposed old friends (also not putting best foot forward), it is time to reassess.
And after 3 nice days, I returned, put up my profile photo, changed my profile message (which no one reads it seems) and went through my contact list.

And began pruning.

Removing someone as a contact is really doing nothing more than just that. Time passes, people come and go, you lose the momentum of keeping up. And you have people who disrespect your wish to IM before calling, those who don't know what the fuck they're doing with regards to using Skype (9 people is about all a group conference can handle, not all 123 names on the list you just made up, doofus. And I feel an obligation to myself to eliminate the reminder of a bad experience. You might expect that I should also let the other person know why I'm dropping them, but why try to be reasonable...and if they aren't logged on when you are, the message goes into a queue until you both are on simultaneously.

There are a few who I know are on a break or I've not seen in awhile, haven't replied to my messages (as I just said, Skype IM's only transmit if both parties are on line at the same time, you know), or I just don't want to drop them.


I just don't like it when people aren't upfront with me about camming. And I'm not the only one. A few days ago, I was on Skype and the call dropped. My fellow Skyper sent me an IM that read 'I'm getting an error message saying 'cannot view playback': are YOU recording this?" 
"No, but maybe you are, "I replied. I didn't need to tell this person that if he is concerned about his image winding up on the internet, he needs to either a)stop appearing naked and high on cam or b) retire from the public sector and perhaps consider plastic surgery and a change of hair color as a bonus. I suppose he could invest in some masks or other gimmick.
Another caller had poor video quality. This is caused by having too many applications running at once (or being wireless and having a bad connection.) He told me he had closed everything out...just as the familiar bell sound of NKP's chat room came through. It's not that I'm trying to get your attention on me, but if you can only see pixels instead of a penis, it's kinda dull. Rorschach testing this ain't.

Rorschach! not Horshack!

LOA vs. DOA

My thoughts are many as I write this. How can I explain the past few days? It's near impossible.

If you happened upon my Skype profile you'll notice a few things different.  I expect I'll be back on there again someday. I think.  And yes, my profile photo there has been replaced by a vintage 'please stand by' graphic, let me assure you the problem is not with your set.

(And I don't know where Susan Anton is at 10PM or at this moment either.) (Trivia: we share the same birthday.)

In the 'about me' section on Skype I posted my favorite quatrain from The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam. Now, let me stun you(as I was stunned) with this bit of news from an Iowan restaurant called Rubaiyat: Food for Thought. On Rubi's history page, it's revealed that the original Persian manuscript was translated into in English around 1859 by F. Scott Fitzgerald (born 1896).

No wonder Zelda went crazy.

That style of 'food for thought' is probably one reason Laura Ingalls Wilder skipped over her time in nearby Burr Oak, and went from Plum Creek's Minnesota to South Dakota's Silver Lake.

No segue to the Big Woods this time, folks. He's living happy ever after, remember.

I'm not great at saying goodbye. But I'm making myself a bit less available for the time being.

There's a strange little cyber game I got pulled into the other day, one that is played from time to time and which generally goes like this:

"Hey, lets cam but just as we get started, I'll either hang up on you but will blame it on the net connection or suddenly have to leave. But don't worry because 5 or 10 or 50 more of your friends will be coming along in 'This is Your Life' style, to do the same thing."  I'm supposed to get so frustrated I'll....I'll....

I'll what? That's what I want to know. Stomp my feet? Cry? Report you to the FCC? Wonder why this is such a popular game for you but not for me?

OR there's this option: We're camming, and you reveal that at this time you're lounging on the patio at a friends place. This friend seems oblivious as to what we're doing but keeps appearing in the background of your cam, dressed, either on the phone, carrying luggage or rotating the tires on a '72 Chevy Vega. Now, from what I can tell from the background noise, it's pretty likely that I'm being watched by others, but don't tell me that, I might....

Might what? Get irritated that I'm not the center of attention? Wonder why this is such a fun activity for you? I find it boring.  And when I tell you in heavily accented English that 'I don't get mad, but I vill get even' then I look into the camera and say 'And that goes for any-vun een on zee joke' and the call ends, should I think that I just have great dramatic timing?


I don't feel paranoid either. That side-effects tends to elude me, which is fine. As apparently does good humor about the sheer stupidity of things like Skype, being way too serious and too analytical. And getting high because I'm bored, and worried and afraid and alone and thinking that anyone cares if I live or die because we all go through these things at some period.
But the worst trait I have is this: getting involved emotionally.

What do I feel? Boredom. With a few bad apples who aren't worth the investment I've put into writing this post. I forgive you, but I've a harder time forgiving myself. For thinking I could make a difference.

Like I stated on Skype, I'll be back after these messages.

Private Lives (or so you thought)

This came up in conversation today, yet it's information worth repeating and repeating

If you want an eye opener stronger than a shot of iced vodka at 5AM, do this:

Go into your browser of choice and make sure your 'safe search' filter is turned off.

Then, using all the major search engines (Google, Safari, Bing, Yahoo etc) you can find, type your screenname, hit enter and take a deep breath.

Do this for all categories: in Google Search for example, look at 'everything', 'images' and 'videos'.

You might be surprised at what readily is presented that you may not have known was there.

Forgotten websites you joined but never closed the account out or thought you did. If you've used multiple screen names, now's when you have to remember what they were and check those too. (and consider using one name going forward: its called 'branding': it's easier to monitor and it's the way of the future.

Member of Cam4.com? If so, you know it's a multilingual site, meaning your screen name and subsequent profile info will show up on a search in each distinct language. It is a small world, after all.

Now is the time to take a hard look at how many sites you are registered vs how many you actually use. I trimmed away 20 , and I continue to whittle more away.

 

About those Saints

Regarding my last post, it appears I got so caught up in my more bizarre encounters, I didn't mention the good experiences I've had. In fact, I was talking the other day with my old chorus pal MJ Ramsey. One of the many benefits of having friends like MJ is that they aren't afraid to point out your weaknesses/shortcomings/failures yet manage to do so constructively: really.

I was lamenting the loss of someone who'd come into my life via ICU2 exactly when I needed a stranger. This was about 2 years ago and that night, I was two sobs away from total hysteria. This kind person got me on the telephone (and off the computer before I could make a fool of myself) listened to my crise de l'heure, and convinced me that everything would turn out all right, and to get my ass on the flight I'd bought a ticket for. I did, and he was right.

We continued as fast cyber-friends for months after that, no longer only connecting through Skype, but by email, other social networks and telephone. But as time went on, we slowly fell out of touch. Much of this was my fault: I felt all the contact was initiated by me: I was always calling him. He wasn't always home, and didn't have an answering machine. Granted, he had a life as we all do, but I felt kind of ignored. I can look back to the....

Luckily for you reading this, MJ interrupted me before I was able to flip the calendar back to ancient times, and in his own subtle way, observed aloud that so many of my 'little' stories start so positively yet end with me bitching about the subject of the story.

He was spot on. Thank you, MJ. And to those of you reading this: I have one hell of a good time more often than not. So let me tell you about my most recent one:

Nicholas and I had enjoyed numerous hot play sessions, involving: hypnosis, role play, bondage, masks, measuring tape, nipple clamps, mind control...and that's what I brought to the table. We hadn't seen each other in awhile....only in Los Angeles could two people live 10 minutes away yet have trouble coordinating schedules. We finally caught up via cam: and not surprisingly, Nicky looked even better than ever.

He had a touch of grey in his beard, but I'm not exactly the Ivory Snow baby anymore either. I kind of envisioned us like in those old movies where baby powder in the hair is the only emphasis on growing older.

So, he asked me if I wanted to get together and I said, 'let's have supper'. And in about an hour and a half, he picked me up in his big ol' SUV and off to supper in Silver Lake we went. I didn't tell him the reason I hadn't pushed harder to get together was that a) I thought he was divinely marvelous and that I doubted he felt the same way, and b) I wanted more than just sex and I felt like that was all he was interested in.
And yes, I know I have issues.

So despite those things, we had the best conversation about all sorts of subjects, laughed and laughed, and when he dropped me back at my place, we exchanged a kiss. And in my over the top style I floated back upstairs to my apartment. It only takes one lovely date to make a half dozen or so drama queens fade into nothingness.

Just like that.