Bitter Old Nelly Country Bumpkin Queen

I have been called a homophobe.  It's true.  I don't know how it's possible, but there is a thought out there that I may be a homophobe.  I'm gay, for those of you to whom I have not come out of the closet to.  There may be a Zimbabwean reading this.

So I'm at the gym today and I see this guy working out.  Very attractive gentleman, mid thirties, muscular, shaved head, masculine,  Latino origin.  My type.  Nothing happened from it, I just noticed him.  

Ultimately, I'm wailing on my triceps and he gets on the machine next to me.  And a friend of his flounces over to him and they start dissing, and gossiping, and the lisp is in full gear, and the wrist is at an absolute 90 degree angle through the whole conversation.  My interest waned.

My question is:  where does that come from?  It can't be in any way connected with the part of the brain that makes us gay, can it?  I don't have that behavior, and most of the gay people I socialize with don't either.  Now granted, no one has ever accused me of hyper masculinity, but I have surprised a few people when they discovered my sexual preference.  (Apparently, introducing yourself to a friend of a friend by saying 'Nice to meet you, man' is very straight)  And not that that's a good or bad thing, because it's neither.  It's just that we don't HAVE to have a common bond in our mannerisms.

I blame the Christian white man at the end of the day.  I think that 'gay' behaviors are a learned action begun from the pre-teen years when one begins to orient.   Let me go back:

I didn't acknowledge my sexuality until I was 17.  I'm from a small town in Illinois where we just don't have any gays.  Being as such, I had no role models to initiate me or that I could mimic. The only thing I knew about 'the gays' was their annual parade in SF that made it on NBC news, so I witnessed a bunch of men in dresses and leather marching through the city. So, while I did have an interest in men, I wasn't that interested in dresses or leather, so how could I have been gay?  I just assumed it to be a teen sex phase that we are all warned we would go through.  My phase just happened to be taking a very VERY long time. 

But for most of the gay men that are aware of their orientation earlier (which is a bulk of the gay population), there are role models and rituals established from the time of Adam and Steve (or at least Oscar Wilde).  We had to be closeted, or risk getting jailed or beaten up or killed.  Maybe this was a code system set up and it became the expected behaviors to keep us in society, but separate.  

Or maybe this is dictated to our psyche as the behavior we are SUPPOSED to adopt because that it is how we fit in. Maybe the lisp is the gay version of the rings that certain African women put around their neck.  Or foot binding.

I don't know where the gossiping fits in, but for God's sake, stop it!

On the subway the other day, a seemingly harmless youth (say 15 or 16) is sitting in a full car when I step in.  So I grab the bar to hold on, and this kid says, "Sir, would you like my seat?"  I said, "No, it's all right,"  and he says, "No, really.  I can stand."  So I belted him to the ground and stomped on his stomach while screaming, "How The Fuck Old Do You Think I Am, You Bastard Child Of Satan!?"

Where ya been?!

I'm SO SORRY!!! I feel so terrible that I haven't been able to talk with you recently, but I've been super busy, what with packing and moving and all.

What?  I didn't tell you that I was moving?!! Why, yes, yes I did move.  To Manhattan, of all places.  You know what my cross street is?  Broadway.  If I can make it there....  

I think I need a new job.  Being at Foam Creepo does not mix well with new city lifestyle.  Not to mention that I'm really starting to hate it.  

OH!  I ran into a gal the other day, and her husband is a puppeteer, of all things!  Did I mention that I'M a puppeteer?  Well, I've operated puppets, anyway.  And I made a couple in my life.  Not the traditional type like you're thinking of (Charlie McCarthy, Howdy Doody, and the ilk), but more of a body puppet type thing, a la Julie Taymor.  Look her up if you don't know and enlighten yourself.  So that got me excited to pursue that avenue, as I've always been more creative than what my current job allows me to be.  I'm horribly miscast in my role as tool supervisor.  Angela Lansbury would be better cast in that role than me.  John Waters would be better cast.   Lassie would be... you see where I'm going.

So anyway, it's really hard to move when you have a very dramatic situation happening in your life.  Israel, my Mexican mantart was visiting for a week.  Boy was that great!

He was living in Canada for several months as sort of a social experiment.  He went to Canada to work as an illegal immigrant, just to get a feel of what his countrymen are going through.

Apparently it's Hell.  He had several jobs, one of which was SHOVELING THE SNOW OFF OF ROOFS!!!  From 5PM TO 5AM!!!!  IN MONTREAL!!!  AT -16 DEGREES!!!  Can you imagine a scenario where there would be an American on a roof in -16 weather for twelve hours?  I gotta tell ya, we Americans really screwed things up.  Because you know that everyone knows that these soul crushing jobs are manned by the illegal immigrants who are working in basically indentured servitude, and we do nothing to stop it, or make sure that these people are making a decent wage, and not being exploited.  

And yes, I know, he was in Canada.  But the only difference is that Canada at least has a bit more humane treatment of any illegal caught in their country.  Because the USA is a whole lot worse.  And the only reason we have undocumented workers over here is not because we can't get them, but because our economy would be twice as worse off if we didn't have slave labor.  Fucking Republicans.

And I think Israel got his soul beat up pretty bad in the five months he was experiencing that.  Not that I knew him all that well before he came here, but he was pretty deflated.  I think by the end of his visit though, without going into detail, he was re-inflated.  I hope so.  Very very very great man.  At the age of 27.  Born in 1981, for the love of Pete.

I have a really good new roommate who loves to clean the bathroom, but I'm going to miss the shit out of my old roommate.  You remember Brandon, right?  Teen Wolf from Halloween?  Good people.  Gave me a beer tonight when I went back to get a few odds and ends, like my loofah pad.  And don't tell Israel, but I can't find the scarf he gave me.  Pissing me off.

Alright, no more talking -  I gots to go to sleep in my new bedroom.

This just in--

JHitts hates Rachel Maddow! He's starting a war!

This - time - it's - personal.

Nah, I'll shut up.

Trying to begoode? No, trying to BeGOAD!

I haven't been writing much recently- not that I'm not thinking about you. My computer really needs a doctor, and until he gets a checkup, I never know if it's going to have a stroke midstream. Little frustrating. Understatement.

I did get a chance to meet a seemingly charming podunk from Missouri online. You can read his comments to me on my previous post. Sort of a bunch of non-sequiturs, unless you know the background. I suspect he doesn't even know the background. Idiot.

So I was just surfing through some fellow bloggers and read some entries and happen to find a particular entry with added comments by JHitts. He had some rather obnoxious neo-naziesque additions to put on to someone else's blog. I can't even remember what it was he said, but at the time it was ENRAGING! And really important that I let him know. Not sure why now.

SO, I tracked down his own blog site, and he had done some rather infantile music reviews of some groups that I had never heard of before, as they never recorded a cast album. And so I innocently commented on his entry that his writings are that of an illiterate Midwestern inbred swastika-wearing lamb-humping backwoods maleducado.

AND THEN he had the nerve to put some stupid comment on my blog! And it wasn't even in response to my blog! But he corrected me -- he's a self-proclaimed Libertarian, not a Republican, as I accused him of. Pardon-ay moi! The only difference between a Libertarian and a Republican is that Libertarians are scarier. And stupider.

But why did I even go there in the first place? I DID start it, after all. I could have lived in total anonymity and left this trash alone. But I didn't. And so now this JHitts guy (probably a gun carrier, for Christsakes!) has me on his radar.

I think horrible is a really bad thing to call someone. Don't you find it a little more lucid than calling someone something more typical, like ass or bitch?

This lady cut in front of me at the deli the other day and made a huge scene by holding the line up while deciding which 4 of the 17 yogurts to buy she grabbed from the cooler. AND THEN pulling out her cash to pay -- one bill and one coin at a time. This was all after she had already basically pushed the lady in front of her (who was in front of me in the first place, before she flounced herself to the front of the line) out of the way. So when she takes TWENTY MINUTES pulling her money out of this huge black patent leather quilted bag (Chanel -$16,000), I mutter 'Jesus!' under my breath, but loud enough for her to hear. Admittedly on purpose. She turns back to me and says, "You got a problem?" I told her yes, I have problem because you're horrible. Then she called me an ass.

I don't mind being called an ass. I get it more often than you might think. Or not. Water off a duck's back. But being called horrible, I think, would cause pause. And not a sissy thing to say at all.

Some people think it's a rather limp-wristed insult (homophobia unintended). I continue to believe otherwise.

Oh God, am I going to get obnoxious comments from the gays, now? Just great.

Don't be prostertizing on me!

So first of all, thank you to all my faithful blog followers. I'm fine, first of all. Computer-not so much. Stupidfriggingcomputercrashinginmidstream! I'm not even sure I can make it through this post without my computer crashing, but it seems to be getting better. Can computers fix themselves? Now that I think of it, all was well until I filed my taxes online. That was when the shit hit the fan and now my computer stays on for like five minutes before just going down. It's awful. But today, it stayed on for like an hour! Can computers fix themselves? If it's a virus, does it go away like a human virus and some sort of microchippy white cells attack it until it's all better? Should I feed it soup? And if so, which hole do I put it in?

Oh, so it leads to my new theory: George Bush is really pissed at me. All was well until I asked for my money back that I overpaid the government. THEN the computer crashes!! What a vengeful fucker. But color me surpised.

In the several days that I haven't been blogging, I've discovered a new love: sardines. They are de-lic-ious! And oh so good for you and oh so satisfying. They are one of the top 150 foods in terms of nutritional value. As are blueberries. I've yet to find a recipe mixing the two, though. I tend to be a bit monotonous with my diet, so this may stay with me for several weeks. Sardines on bagels with a side of asparagus and blueberries. I'm going to live to be 100. Not sure I want that though, so I'm going to have to revive my bad habits, I think. Just to level the playing field.

I'm on the subway (F Line) the other day, and there's a lovely young gal on the subway walking up and down the train singing. I have my iPod on, so I can't really hear her, so I turn my iPod off, but leave the earphones in, just so I can hear her but she doesn't know it, as my earbuds are still in my ears. And of course she singing Christian songs and is very happy about it, even though singing is not really one of her assets. But she's smiling and not hitting the notes exactly and I suspect just making the words up as she goes along. This is not too unusual on the trains in NY - there's always someone begging or singing or preaching. Kind of pisses me off. I mean, while I can appreciate that some people may enjoy mariachi bands or some guy that plays some sort of weird keyboard that he has attached a tube to and blows into to make the sound come out (I don't know how he does it - but he always plays the same songs, including 'Happy Birthday To You.'), or really loud drums, I also appreciate that many people probably don't share my taste in Dorothy Loudon or Bea Arthur, so I choose not to share it with them. Keep your flipping music to yourself and I'll keep mine to myself! You're welcome.

What I didn't mention was that this gal was direct off the boat from Asia. Evident by her command of the English language. So it was particularly odd to see someone who probably had not grown up Christian preaching on the subway, and rather hysterical that after she sang, she began to quote scripture. With lots of 'Hallelujah' thrown in. Only she didn't say 'Hallelujah' - she said 'Harerujah.' Lots of times. I really tried not to laugh, but I wasn't very successful at it. So you know like when you're in church and something strikes you as funny, but you know you can't laugh, so you stifle it, and end up shaking and bouncing in the pew? That's what I was doing. I had to turn Dorothy Loudon back on, so I didn't embarrass her or me too much.

AND THEN, that same day, en route back, there was another lady sitting across from me on the train. And she decided to eat a piece of pie from Trader Joe's she had bought. They had packed it in one of those clear takeout containers (clamshells they're called in the biz). So she opens the clamshell and has a plastic fork and plunges into the pie. But the crust must have been a little tough, because she struggled quite a bit to cut off a bite with her plastic fork. And the pie is sliding all over and she can't quite get through the crust. Very funny. So I'm trying not to giggle again, and I'm doing pretty good at it, until she finally gets a bite off the bigger piece. She stabs it with her fork, and brings the piece up to her mouth, and it falls off the fork back into the clamshell. She tries again. Same result. And again. And again.

So after like seventeen more attempts (at this point I'm laughing my ass off), she finally decides to get the clamshell closer to her mouth. But not like how you or I would do it. (Or me, at least. I don't even know you.) She instead bends her head down to her lap and then shovels the pie into her face! So she's eating out of her lap! I am of course, rolling on the floor at this point, and she is completely oblivious to the fact that she is being observed. And then, after two bites and twenty minutes, she decides she can't eat another bite she's so stuffed, and puts the pie back in her grocery bag. If it were me and I went to that much trouble, I can tell you that that pie would be totally eaten. Out of vengeance.

Life isn't funny, but idiots are.

p.s. http://www.asknataliehawaii.blogspot.com/

http://zerub-babel.blogspot.com/ (click on the fotolog link on the right hand side of the page to see some interesting artwork - I am not, unfortunately, one of the models. For now.)

Rotten Sex

So this morning I'm eating an orange, and I start choking. Not just a cough type choke, but the air passage blocked, no ability to breathe, total Heimlich time. I had to reach into my throat and pull that skin-membrane stuff out in order not to die. And my roommate is out of town, so in the worst case scenario (subjective), I could have been dead and lying there for days.

The theory of gravity was developed by Newton watching an apple fall. The wheel was invented by cavemen observing a boulder roll down a mountain. Archimedes figured out volume from getting in his tub. Bob discovered the purpose of sex by choking on an orange.

So maybe the purpose of sex isn't for procreation. I think that's pretty much disproved by gay people. And that sex doesn't necessarily make babies. Maybe pregnancy is just a side effect of sex, like drowsiness or nausea.

And maybe its not for recreation. Lord knows there is such thing as unfun sex. Did you know that there is a fetish where people want you to puke on them?! It's called 'emetophilia.'

Maybe sex is so we don't have rotting corpses all over the place.

If you think about it, it makes sense. If we're sexually and monogamously active, you have someone out there who is going to notice you're missing before your decaying body starts to become a nuisance. If you die. Even if it's just your jump-off (if you don't know what that is, look it up or figure it out) and there's not really any connection other than physical, that person(s) is gonna get the urge within the next couple of days and look for you. They (or their genitals) is gonna seek you out and find your dead body laying in the kitchen with a half-eaten orange in one hand and orange membrane sticking out of your mouth. IF you die.

So sex is like the urbanized version of the vulture. Or maggots. Like these scavengers, sex prevents decaying flesh from littering our streets and polluting the air. That's the Republicans' job.

And you always hear these stories about the spinster that was found in her (or his) house after laying there dead for like days or weeks. Do you think these people were getting nookie before they keeled? I don't.

Where did Einstein publish his theories? I got one for 'em.

Clean (sober?)

So I'm cleaning the house today - Rachel's coming to visit with Clementine! Had to clean the hardwood and tile floors which have been swept, but not properly cleaned in a while. First of all let me say that I'm not really a messy person- I clean up after myself, I can't sleep if there's dirty dishes, and 'Martha Stewart's Book of Housekeeping,' which has everything in it from how to store photo albums to a daily, weekly, monthly and quarterly checklist of cleaning duties and how to clean each iota in the house, well, that's my Bible. Sorry, ultra-conservative brother, I have false idols, and thy name be Martha.

That being said, OH MY GOD I never saw a terry cloth floor mop become black so quickly. I don't know what kind of dirt infested dumping ground I've been sloshing through, but I dragged it all in and cleaned the bottom of my shoes on the floor, apparently. Oh wait, I know where I've been - Manhattan. Plus, since I have my windows open year round, as it's 132 DEGREES in here!, I guess Manhattan billows through. I love the city, but it's an effluvial sump, to quote Tom Wolfe (sound smart, ain't I?). And does a mop HAVE to be white? I guess it makes it easy to see the dirt being lifted, but I'm not sure I really want to see what a pig I am. How 'bout a baby blue? Or chartreuse - it would complement my walls.

So while I'm chipping the caked-on mud off my floor, as it would seem, I have the TV on. I leave it on Bravo channel, just so I'm not getting the noise of the lowest of low brow entertainment, soap operas. And today they decide to class it up with reruns of 'Hey Paula,' the reality show where they follow Paula Abdul around so she can prove she's not a mess. But the show's taping happens to coincide with the time she's plugging 'American Idol' on the morning shows, and she is drunker than... well, she's very drunk (I don't know the proper analogy). OH! She's drunker than me at the office Christmas party! They said it was because she was very tired and had simultaneous conversations in her headphones. But I've been tired before, and I have had several people talking at me at once, but I have never giggled and slurred my words and made non-sequiturs as a result. Maybe she's just too special, and I can't wrap my non-special brain around the magnitude of how she can only react. Or maybe it was altitude sickness - like Mars. Or altitude sickness - like high.

But I digress. The point is that she is a horrible, horrible person. She couldn't renovate her house because the place she was going to rent for TWO MONTHS wasn't decorated to her liking (I think she wanted like pink heart pillows and flowy lace and stuff, but she got tasteful instead), she cried and cried and cried because there was a snow storm and the flights were delayed so that she couldn't get her hair stylist AND her publicist to NY in time for her David Letterman appearance (just comb your own fucking hair!), she fractured her hip tripping over her dog (yeah, right - she tripped like 8 times in one episode alone, and there weren't no dog near her then), etc. And then, interspersed throughout this fascinating documentary of Paula Abdul's life, there were cuts of associates and co-workers, all repeating the same chant about what a great person she is, and how hard-working she is, and how she perseveres through all this personal turmoil and all this other spoon fed load of crap. But there is something I did learn that I found interesting: did you know she's white? Or at least her parents are. I guess we can't really be too sure that there wasn't a black mailman or milkman making deliveries nine months before she was born, but it seems she thinks that that's her real dad. That's probably why she's stoned out her gourd most of the time.

And today at the gym, I'm taking a shower, and this other guy in another stall decides to start a conversation. Which is a little odd in and of itself - guys in the shower don't tend to acknowledge other guys in the shower (unless you're in a gym in Chelsea, which is where I was. But this guy was stereotypically straight). But he says this: "I'M SHO'NUFF GLAD I GOTS ME A MEMBERSHIP TO ALL THE BALLY'S GYMS!" And he's screaming this really loud, I mean really really loud, like he's gonna have a sore throat after. And then he looks at me for a response. (pause) I don't know how to respond to to that. What was I supposed to say? So I just nod or something and say, 'hmmm,' and then he says, "BUT THIS BALLY'S DON'T GOT NO SAUNA." Which it doesn't, so again I don't know what to say. But he's still looking at me, so I say, "Well, we just turn the water on really hot and pretend." And then he laughs. Loud. Five minutes. I got out of there pretty quick after that, lest my eardrums implode.

See 'Slumdog Millionaire.' Amazing.

p.s. When you write a blog entry, at the bottom of the screen it gives you the option of labeling the post, and it gives you examples. Here's the text verbatum:

Labels for this post:e.g. scooters, vacation, fall

Now why do you think out of the tens of options they had for examples they chose 'scooters?' My posts aren't labeled - labeled as what?