I Feel This - Today Anyways

I remember this Michelle and will always.

Dunno What to Say

Wow I have have just been so out of sorts lately. Just a bit of a foggy patch and I cannot must up any energy. I did get to see Luis recently which is always nice, I have been in touch with a guy I met in Haverhill but who lives nearby in La Jolla and I went on a date with a woman, lol. Well people joked with me that I was going on a date, long story as always. Thursday night I am gonna have dinner with Matt, yay - very excited. Other than that my best friend has been Netflix. I have stuff I wanna say but keep putting it off - so lazy and just can't shake it. No big plans for this Labor Day weekend yet but I am sure I will find some fun. The last weekend of the summer does not seem so imperative out here since there is so little change in the seasons. I guess I am just recharging my batteries. I have plenty to say as always. I still love my blog very much. But I have been spending time reading it more than writing in it which is odd since I am the guy that wrote it in the first place. I will be back soon I am sure. Maybe this in writer's block - maybe I am more introspective than usual and so have been been more internal than external - maybe I am just tired. I dunno but I miss you all.

Olympic Souvenir

The US Men's Gymnastics Team only took bronze.

Ummm who cares? Helllooo Raj!

I am not Missing

Hello there! No need to put my face on a milk carton. I am here. I just have been a bit moody. I have been writing in my journal - yes the old fashioned way with a pen and an actual journal with real paper. Sorry but no you cannot read it as it is only being published in a very limited run which means just a quantity of 1 and that 1 is for me.

I am good and will get back to my blog starting tonight - promise. Just kinda low on motivation which means I needed sometime to get myself kickstarted by giving myself a swift kick in the pants. See you soon!

To All My Friends and Family

Even with the crap weather, I had such a great visit to MA recently! This goes to all of you, regardless if I have known you forever or just began a connection. Thank you so much to for making time for me. Thank you for all the laughs and smiles. Truly this goes to all my friends and family regardless if you are in MA or not or if I have had the pleasure of seeing you recently or not. Most of all thank you to each one of you for being in my life. I guess I could be more creative with my thanks but I am not so please click play.

Happy Birthday to Me

I am in MA but will be on my way back home this afternoon. It was a hectic because of work but I was glad to see and talk with everyone that I could and look forward to visiting again.

I hope you all have a fantastic day today -- but how could you not since I am sharing all my birthday happiness with you!

I Had To and So Do You

I posted this as a link before. I was enjoying it again tonight and just had to post it again. You must watch this. My favorite part happens at 2:07. Paula even you have to admit this is awesome!

I Miss You

Separated by many years, a completely different culture, two different countries and two different languages but yet although platonic the tenderness I have with Agustin I was never able to achieve in 7 years of a relationship. It reinforces in my mind that people are who they are and have what they have. It comes from within in them and if it is not there - or worse it is there and they choose not to use it, then there is nothing anyone else can do. Well actually there is one thing other people can do - keep on looking.

Rain Rain Go Away

Well the rain won't stop in MA but it still is a great time so far! Had fun at a family party - got to hang with Judy in Haverhill where I met a guy from La Jolla of all places - then went to Canobie Lake Park with the kids - later to Salisbury for some reggae and fried dough - last night a load of laughs with Jane and Debbie --- tonight Chinese food with Marie --- all in the rain and while working! I love visiting and I am happy to see everyone and have so many laughs!

This Will Be a Good Thing

I land in Boston at 6am on 08.08.08 and keep telling myself this will be a good thing. I am looking forward to seeing many of you as well as some rain - which I have the feeling that I will see a lot of. I will be working some but will do my best to make the rounds. It is good to see some many wonderful people and know that I am loved.

Thank God

I am so happy now that he is 18 since now it only makes me feel kinda pervy that Harry Potter is hot instead of feeling wicked pervy.

I might need to go to NYC to see Equus.

Your Every Dream, Hope, Desire

In case anyone is wondering I did not get cut up into little bits last night and am happy about that. My friend cancelled last minute for the Regeneration Tour with Naked Eyes, ABC, Belinda Carlisle and the Human League - which I have been looking forward to since April. I posted on Craigslist to find someone last minute to go with me and went with a guy named Richard. He is 57 and I think I may have inadvertently found me a sugar daddy. Anyway the show was even better than expected and what a great venue. I met heaps of fun people and had a blast although Richard was being a bit of a cock block. I posted in the strictly platonic section? Have to go to bed but completely danced, sang and got teary while Belinda sang Mad About You, Vacation and Our Lips Are Sealed under the ever perfect SoCal sky. Belinda in SoCal -- 10 feet away from me! How amazing. Also the title of this post is from my favorite Human League song Mirror Man which they opened up with - nothing more (although Pablo was totally hot and way into me - I got his number!).

Michelle's Memories

Your first Indian food experience.

Editor's Note: No I do not actually remember my first Indian food experience - but I do remember how good the food was at the Tandori House in Central Square, plus some very good Indian in NYC at one of those very glittery restaurants with Laura Z, yummy Nan and how excellent the food was at Sonia's wedding. But I also remember some milk type drink, honey straw like dessert, and the smell of curry. Indian food certainly has it's share of highs and lows. Thank you for helping me navigate toward the highs.

Angel with a Dirty Face

Rick recently tripped up the stairs as he was leaving his poolyard to go back to his place. He hit the stucco wall and gave himself a nasty gash just above his eye - needing 6 stitches. When I heard I instantly became my mother - oh my god are you all right, does it hurt, is there anything I can do, is your eyesight ok, and so on. I saw him tonight for the first time since he did it and told him I felt so bad because it still looks painful. Also that he has to becareful as I don't want to be worrying about him (more of my mother) plus he does not want to mess up his anchor man looks - he is a communications major and hopes to work in TV news. He told me to simmer down because he was fine and that he actually liked the "street cred" it gives him. I died, street cred - omg. I would be lost without him.

Discounted Even Further

Kyle called tonight. I already had plans so I let it got to voice mail. He said in his message that he had a "blast" the other night. My curiosity grows. Perhaps some night this week I will see him again. I will call him back tomorrow.

Discount

I have remarked on this before but one time Matt said to me, "I am going to call you 'Discount' because when it comes to men if they are at least 20% off then you are all over it". That is classic Matt and I love it, especially since it is right on the mark true. With that in mind I want to share this:

I went online last week. Honest and to the point I was thinking a mindless hook up would be a good distraction from the fog I was in. A man named Kyle contacted me and after a few messages asked me if I wanted to come over and watch a movie at his place. Maybe it was his shirtless profile picture wearing a sailors hat - not like the one Gilligan wore but like the one the skipper wore or his use of the work "kay" instead of "ok" but I was down for it although I knew something was not quite right yet not in a threatening way.

It was a only a town over but I never go that way so was confused and then I got to his apt complex and it was massive, had to be over a 1,000 units. Very nice, clean, safe, and pretty but totally a human equivalent of living in a beehive - I was lost. I called him for directions and when we spoke on the phone it was the first time we talked. He did not have slurred speech but spoke slowly. Not slow like a southerner speaks and not slow like a mental deficiency, just slow. Anyway he gave me insane directions like drive through the gate and at the first white truck take a left and look for a balcony with a grill and then go to the side with the bushes -- again this place was massive and everything was the same, like when the Flinstones drive down the street and it is just the same scene over and over to give the illusion of movement. Actually that is a very good description of many, many places in SoCal.

I park as I am thinking it will be less stressful to attempt this challenge on foot. Really I am making no headway at all but lunatic that I am I press onward. I then see him walking the dogs. I questionly offered, "Kyle?" and he replies, "What?" - not in a harsh I am irritated way but in the same manner anyone I know for real would say when I say their name with that questioning lilt. I will try to not get stuck on too many details as my post would be forever long but as we navigated our way into the bowels of the beehive to his particular cel he told me that he was a party planner and was really busy last week as they did 200 weddings. I thought two things - I know they just legalized gay weddings but even in SoCal how could there possibly be 200 weddings in a week and how could you plan that many? As well as how the fuck am I gonna find my car again without GPS to make my way? With the number 200 stuck in my head I ask how many people work for the company and he tells me 5. I am completely no good at math but none of this is adding up and it has nothing to do with my poor academic skills.

We get in his house and it is organized and tidy and very comfortable. The moment I enter though the door way I am constructing excuses in my mind on how to get the hell out of there as well as battling that part of me that is like oh I am very intrigued about this whole situation. Anyway I sit down although not because he has asked me to or offered me anything to drink but mostly because I do not know what else to do. He tells me that he was born in IL, had his early childhood in CO, grew up in MT and came to CA in his late 20's. He told me he was park ranger, a fire fighter and now a party planner? He told me it was his place but that he usually did not stay there he normally stayed with a high school friend in SD and his brother lived there but was away so he was house sitting. I was now exceptionally happy with his extremely slow speech cadence as my head was swimming. I am at this point completely consumed by curiosity over ever single aspect of this whole experience and the questions just poured out of me. I could not for the life of me decide if any of what he told me was true or was just a fabrication - it was all to fantastic on one hand and yet some how was making sense on the other.

He was very interesting too. He likes amusement parks and we discussed them at length since I love them too. His house was filled with those pictures that are taken while you are on the ride and as I looked at them it reminded me that I was glad me passed on most of those photo ops as they did not work so well displayed around your house. But there he was on the Tower of Terror for Gay Days at Disney and on the Ghost Rider at Knott's Berry Farm, etc. Then somehow it happened. We got on the topic of Dirty Dancing. I can't even tell you why for the life of me although I do know he brought it up with a reference to Babe or something, the Jennifer Grey character. I barely remember that movie. I know it was a cultural phenomenon but I am not even certain if I ever saw the movie in full. But he tells me that he was one of the dancers in the film! He said that scouts went across the country and located dancers and when they came to MT they picked him and his high school friend Ava. Then I learn that there was a Dirty Dancing Live tour and that he was in the tour. So this guy who moves and talks in slow motion was a Dirty Dancer? Ummm I think you have gone too far buddy! But then numbers were adding up in my head? He was born in '72 and said he was only 17 for the tour. DD came out in '87. 2 years of hype then a tour to cash in and make more money would be '89 which is the year he would be 17. I was teetering but like c'mon. Now out comes the DVD of the tour he is speaking of and we start to watch it so that he can show me. I am in the stratosphere of insanity.

So we watch the DVD and he points out him and Ava and I could not tell!!! I mean the dancer looked similar but but not the same and it was almost 20 years ago. As I watch this with my eyes bugging out he told me all types of back stage stories and I could not come to the decision as to which was better Eric Carmen wearing a gold lame sport jacket with shoulder pads, sporting the Bonnie Tyler "Total Eclipse of the Heart" hairdo while singing "Hungry Eyes" or the back stage drama and party stories he is filling me in on.

I could keep going on but this post is just too insanely long already - I mean I did not even get to the piercings stories, ruptured appendix, the incredibly sexy cowboy tattoo he had which he said was based off a picture he drew while in high school, or that he only asked me ONE question the entire night which was, "Are you a southerner?" No one has ever mistaken my Boston accent for a southern one. We did not have sex, we did not kiss, was sat on the couch next to each other. He put his hand on my knee and rested his arm on my leg. I was very comfortable and placed my hand on his forearm, caressing it as I listened intrigued by one story of craziness after another. Was any of it true? I have no idea. But I do know that I enjoyed myself immensely. I forgot everything else in the world for a short time and I actually left saying and meaning, "It was nice to meet you. I hope we can spend time together again."

Hiatus

Hello - I am back although I don't know where I have been.

Guess it all surrounds the topic of clarity or more to the point the lack thereof. There has been many upbeat and cherished moments as of late but then curiosity stuck with the intensity that I am prone to and I looked at the ex's info on line. It was all very mundane and a tad puerile but what it did was allowed him back into my consciousness and I went from clarity to murky. It was corrosive acid to my foundation that I have been so diligently repairing and working on refortifying. It leads to the larger question of why can't I let go because again this is not the only example in my life, it solely is the zenith example in my life. In my therapy I work on themes in my life that are so troubling. It is serious business and I have pushed myself to areas with my counselor that I have avoided at all costs with everyone, especially myself. So many laughs I have given to many people in life - so many good times, no great time and yet on occasions I have seen tears well in the eyes of my counselor. I know I am not singular in my experiences - pain is true and real for everyone but it just runs truer and more real than most are aware.