Have A Great One!

Sadly, we will not be able to attend your 5th Birthday bash, but we just wanted to wish you the happiest of happy days!

You're only getting better with age.

A Breath Of Fresh Air

On February 1st, the Maryland statewide smoking ban goes into effect. I, for one, am ecstatic! That means no more smoking at my place of employment. I do wonder what those chain smoking bingo addicts will do? Will they still play if they can't smoke? I guess that only time will tell. It is possible that I may be looking for a new job sugar daddy in the near future though.

The smoking ban also means that we can spend more time at our favorite Baltimore night spots like gay bingo! We will almost certainly go out at least a little bit more after the ban goes into effect.



Lucky The Leprechaun, Sprinkles and Dracula will be so pleased. As will all of the G.I. Mo's!

MALadjusted

This past weekend, I learned some things about myself. Or, maybe it would be more accurate to say that I was reminded of some things that I already knew about myself.

There I was, on Friday night at MAL Weekend, right smack in the middle of a hotel lobby full of hot, hairy, half-naked, homosexual men and I had no idea what to do. I have no gay social skills, you see. I don't know how to flirt. I don't know how to cruise. I don't even know how to introduce myself and say hello. Yes, I know it sounds ridiculous, but I assure you that it is completely true.

I also learned that, as far as I can tell, I don't really have any fetishes. Well, apart from a hairy man fetish. There were men all around me dressed in leather; men dressed in rubber; men dressed in uniforms; men wearing assless chaps and leather jocks. There were wrestlers, policemen, scuba divers, army dudes, rangers, an entire hockey team and whole herds of leather as far as the eye could see. There was even a man dressed up as a dog, mingling through the crowd, barking at random and looking for someone to pat him on the head and tell him that he was a good boy.

And, then there was me... In my blue jeans, white sneakers and my red ringer tee. Just as vanilla as can be. No leather harness. No diving gear. No police patches. I didn't even have any hankies in either of my back pockets. It was just plain old me. Shy, as usual. Afraid to approach or even look at just about everyone. Afraid of what, I don't know. Just afraid.

Having said all of this, I don't want to lead you to believe that I had a completely miserable time. I didn't. I was with my man. (The hottest man there, in my opinion.) I was with a few friends. I even spotted two Jimbo's in the crowd. A fake one and the real one.



On Saturday night, I got a little more bold. I was still in my jeans, but this time I wore a tight fitting black tee and black shoes. I even wore a jockstrap, a black one, under my pants of course. It made feel very sexy. Mumi says it even made me look sexy. That was very nice of him to say so. I practiced cruising, looking and smiling at as many hot guys as I could. Some of them even looked and smiled back at me. That was as far as I went though. I didn't work up enough nerve to actually talk to anyone. That was enough for one night.

Sunday night was the underwear party at The Green Lantern. Now, anyone who has read this blog for any length of time already knows that I love being as naked as possible, so an underwear party was the perfect ending for the weekend for me. (Hmmmm... Maybe I do have a fetish??) We stripped down to our skivvies and I did my best to hide my swelling of pride as we mingled amongst the other nearly naked hotties. It was a good time. I even managed to cruise and talk to a couple of guys. It was a big step for me. I was groped. I groped. I chatted. I looked. I was looked at. It was a positive learning experience for me. For sure.

I guess I'm slowly coming out of my shell. And, you know what? It feels pretty good.

In-N-Out For 2008

I guess it's not too late to warn you about what's going to be OUT and what's going to be IN in 2008.

OUT in 2007	IN in 2008
Pornography	Live Sex Acts
Surfing The Internet	Going Out And Experiencing Life
Fucking Around	Relationships
X-Box	Thinking Outside The Box
Nintendo 360	Twister In The Nude On An Oily Mat
TV	Writer’s Strike
Physical Terrorism	Surrealistic Terrorism
Real Life Drama	Cartoon Drama
High School Musical	Foot Tapping In Grammar School Restrooms
Hanna Montana	Satan & Friends Summer Reunion Tour
Cobra	G.I. Joe
Prescription Anti-depressants	Exercise
The Focus On $$$	The Focus On Large Pectoral And Arm Muscles
Driving	Bike Riding
Rush	Rush
Tori Amos	Laurie Anderson
The Police	Led Zeppelin
Bob Barker	Bob Mould
Large Breast Implants	The B-52’s
Fighting Over Politics	Making Friends
Personal Conversations	Texting
Christianity	Darwinism
Evolution Of Technology	De-evolution Of The Human Race
Mom And Dad	Corporate Empires
Muhammad	Dr. Benton Quest
Buddha	Captain Caveman
Jesus	Norville Rogers
Civilian Deaths By Soldiers In Iraq	Civilian Deaths By Veterans In USA
Beauty	Ugliness
Caring For Those Around You	Death
Believing In God	Riding Roller Coasters
Calmly Handling The Situation	Freaking Out
CNN	Comedy Central
Political Candidates	Cartoon Characters
Trust In The Media	Faith In Hong Kong Phooey
Homophobia	Racism And Misogyny
Drugged Out Teens Having Kids To Be Raised By Their Grandparents	Planned And Proud Homosexual Families
More Dramatic Celebrity Meltdowns	More Christian Republican Gay Sex Scandals
Change	Can You Spare Some Food? We Are Starving
Blogging	Publicly Speaking About One’s Life
Hating Yourself	Hating Children
Self Assurance	Multiple Personality Disorder
Tolerance For The Bush Administration	The American Revolution Part II
Fear About The End Of The World	Experiencing Life To The Fullest Extent

The Perfect Storm

There is a guy at work who has been in the process of separating from his wife over the holidays. He is a pretty good natured guy, so it's hard to see him have to go through this. Also, there are kids involved, so it's even more complicated.

Then, over Christmas dinner, my Mom told me that my cousin who has been married for about 15 years with two kids aged 5 and 9 years old is having relationship struggles too. The couple have not spoken directly to one another at all in over 9 months. I guess that when the kids are that age you can just communicate through them. You know...

"Sugar plum, would you tell you mother to stop charging up the credit cards? I'm not made of money you know."

"Okay Daddy."

"Mommy, Daddy says that you should stop charging the credit cards up so much?"

"Oh honey, tell your father that if he wasn't such a fat ass and didn't come home from work and sit and eat and eat and eat, cleaning out the kitchen every night, then I wouldn't have to spend $500 a week at the grocery store."

"Okay Mommy."

You get the picture.

Earlier this week, I was chatting online with a gaybor who I hadn't seen since before the holidays. He told me that his relationship ended a week before Christmas. I was actually there with them when they met for the first time at Blowoff. Even though I'm not really close to these guys, it made me sad that they had come to the point where it's no longer enjoyable to be partnered with another person.

Sometimes, when I see all of this going on around me, all of these sinking relationships, I feel like it creates these whirlpools all around me. It tests the strength of my relationship. I begin to think, okay what might I doing wrong? Is this relationship that I'm in going to float along and then one day, all of a sudden, a huge and perfect storm is going to come and the waves are going to smash into our ship and sink it? Are Bubala and I going to go sinking down to the bottom of the ocean to the underwater graveyard where all of the lost relationships go?

Now, Bubala is much better at steering the ship than I am. So, I just let him take the wheel while I just take off my clothes and lay up on the deck and get some sun and catch a buzz. And, everything seems fine with us. We've weathered some bad storms in our 11 years and 8 months together. (Yes, I'm still counting.) We've come out okay so far. We've been very lucky to have found each other and been able to grow and adapt ourselves to each other.

Just so we don't forget about the storms though, even if I am relaxing, stoned and naked on the deck while Bubala is contently steering away at the wheel, the rocky seas for others can be a good reminder of how precious our ship is.

My boss has been married for 24 years. He and his wife have 3 boys together. I have watched him struggle with his relationship and the storms that have come at him and his wife due to some of her mental and physical health issues. He is a very emotionally strong man with a great sense of humor. Last week at work, however, we learned that his wife had passed away suddenly, leaving him alone on his ship.

The whole thing reminded me that I maybe should come and steer our ship for a while so Bubala can get naked and lay on the deck and relax for a while. Of course, knowing him, he'll probably just get a boner.

Just Another Boring Day On Earth

Let's see...

Today, I...

• Took my truck to Circuit City to get my new car stereo that Mumi got me for Xmas installed.
• Stopped by Giant to get some toothpaste and Airborne.
• Stopped by Ann's Dari Creme for one of their famous foot long hot dogs.
• Walked four miles. (Not by choice. Circuit City informed me that it was going to take at least four hours to install my stereo. I wasn't going to wait around for that, and I hadn't arranged for a ride home,so I walked it.)
• Ordered Verizon Fios TV, Phone and Internet service. It won't be installed and activated until February 5th though.
• Ordered the new water heater from Home Depot. It'll be installed on January 15th.
• Spot cleaned* the bathroom and kitchen. (*toilet, sinks, counter tops, etc.)
• Walked the dog.
• Went back to Circuit City five hours later to retrieve my truck.
• Went to the cable company to pay (hopefully) my last cable bill with them.
• Stopped by Best Buy to do a little browsing. Looking for a new cordless phone.
• Stopped by Toys R Us so Mumi could do a little browsing. Looking for more G.I. Joes.
• Watched an illegal bootleg DVD copy of The Bucket List. It was pretty good.
• Watched a TV show about Duran Duran over the years.
• Had a little "fun" time with The Bald Monkey.
• Watched a TV show about Fleetwood Mac over the years.
• Took a shower.
• Typed a blog about all the things I did today.

Whew!

I'm pooped!

Having A Rush With The School Of Rock

On Friday night, we made our way to a funky little place called the Sante Fe Cafe in College Park, Maryland. The D.C. branch of the School Of Rock was there to perform a Rush Tribute show. It was a most joyous occasion, and I almost went back to see them again on Saturday night for their second show.

School Of Rock? Isn't that a Jack Black movie? Yes, but the movie is based on an actual school founded in 1998 by a guy named Paul Green who is a most awesome guy. We should all elect him President because he would teach American children how to 'stick it to the man' rather than sit on their asses on the couch playing Xbox or Wii.



We had already experienced the School Of Rock last year in Baltimore when they performed a King Crimson tribute show with Adrian Belew as their guest. We knew what to expect. These kids can really play and, if you are a musician, and you have tried to play songs by Rush, you know that it is not easy due, in part, to some of the odd time signatures that shift many times throughout a 5 minute song. These kids really held it together though, for the most part, tackling some very difficult songs. The band lineup would change from song to song, so each student could come on and play their instrument to the Rush song that they had learned the parts or words to. There were about 15 students in all. A lot of the vocal work was handled by the young ladies who, not surprisingly, did a great job because Geddy's vocals are in that higher range,. However, some of the guys who sang did a great job as well. I guess their voices haven't changed yet.

One young man who is known as Big Dan is obviously a rock and roll child prodigy. I would guess that he is about 12 or 13 years old. We saw him play last year at the King Crimson tribute show where he sang and played alto sax and keyboards. This time, he was playing a flying V guitar, a bass guitar and he also sang a bit. This kid looks like a little Kurt Cobain and has so much stage presence and charisma. He is just amazing to watch. And, he handled playing Alex Lifeson's riffs like he had been playing them for years.







There was a little merchandise booth selling School of Rock T-shirts and hats, some of them boasting the slogan 'Rocker Mom' with much coolness. The performers all seemed to be having a great time, and the kids in the audience watching them and their brothers and sisters and friends were really getting into it as well.

We have seen a lot of children at the Rush shows along our travels. Some of them were not even born by the time I had seen Rush 10 times. Still, a lot of them know all of the lyrics and sing right along with Geddy. After seeing this show Friday night, there is no doubt in my mind that Rush's music will be carried on for quite some time.

Note to Geddy, Alex, and Neil... The torch has been passed.


Set List:

Finding My Way
Fly By Night
Red Barchetta
Distant Early Warning
Tom Sawyer
Anthem
Spirit Of Radio
Big Money
The Trees
(Intermission)
Tears
In The End
A Passage To Bangkok
Analog Kid
What You're Doing
Limelight
Subdivisions
Working Man
YYZ
Closer To The Heart

Decisions... Decisions...

So, let me get your opinion on something.

Do you think I should buy one of these?



Or, one of these?



I know. I know. The decision should be so easy. Just buy the TV. Who cares if our current hot water heater is older than I am? Right? Just buy the TV.

TV! TV! TV!

Unfortunately, someone somewhere in my past instilled common sense, good judgement and rational thinking into me. Damn them to hell! So, I guess that instead of watching hot, hairy and larger than life man-porn in high definition on my awesome new LCD TV (with 2-channel Ambilight), I'll just be staring at my dull, blurry reflection on the exterior of my exciting new hot water heater.

Anyone wanna come over for hot coffee, hot chocolate or a hot shower?

No? I didn't think so.

*Sigh!*