Ponderings and Musings

So I know everyone is whipped up about gay marriage (amongst other things) these days and I honestly can’t imagine what all the hoopla is about. I mean, as a gay man that has been happily partnered for longer than most heterosexual marriages I know, I have to say that I don’t know why a certain segment of our society gets themselves all worked up over the word ‘marriage’. I’ll leave your imagination to ponder which segment I’m referring to when it comes to those getting worked up, but I will say this: as long as I am guaranteed the EXACT same rights as my heterosexual counterparts but still referred to as a “civil union” then I have no issues with nomenclature. Most look at it as that marriage is “better than” a civil union but I tend to spin it around and look at it the other way: I wasn’t forced to eat a stale cake, I didn’t have to dance for dollars and I didn’t have to do the hokey pokey. To me, civil union means the same thing as marriage without the organised religious influence.

While I certainly want and demand legal recognition of my partnership, I’m sure many gay men and lesbians will agree with me that there is at least one advantage to not being able to declare “married” on our federal tax return. Many gay men and lesbians are rather affluent and bring in a good amount of income. Let’s say Dirk makes $200,000 a year and his partner Bruce makes $100,000 a year. Together they make $300,000. Dirk and Bruce have been together a decade or so and dump all of their income into their jointly owned house, land and smattering of bank accounts. Because Dirk and Bruce are not legally married and there union is not recognised as valid by Ol’ Glory, they are not obligated to report their income as combined, therefore Dirk makes $200K in the eyes of Uncle Sam and Bruce makes $100K in the same way, easily skirting that coveted $250K limit where the taxes get really deep and the hands of Uncle Sam get really grabby. Granted, we miss several tax breaks for not being married but when you’re starting to throw around the big numbers I think this becomes negligible.

Now I realise that this is a consolation prize in the grand scheme of things and legal recognition is what most of us really want and to be honest I believe that if I’m not allowed to be legally partnered on the federal level to the person I love then I shouldn’t have to pay full taxes anyway, but there is a very small amount of smirkiness I feel knowing that I could be skirting a part of the tax code on THEIR technicality.

For the past several months I have been writing about other folks on the blog. Earl and I have built our own family and I thought it was time to share a little bit about it.

Greg and Dave are two very important men in our life. As our bond grows I realise that I would be a considerably different man today if they weren’t around. I believe that I contribute to their personal growth just as they contribute to mine. Our home is open to them whenever they need a port in the storm and we love them both. We have much in common with them and we visit often, both electronically and in person.

The youngest member of our family is Jamie. An aspiring photographer and artist, Jamie will most likely attend MVCC in the fall for their photography/design/art program. In doing so, he will live with us as he is originally from Buffalo. Jamie is a great guy and reminds me in ways of a certain young man I once knew who just needed a little guidance to achieve the dreams he had already formulated in his mind. Jamie joined us in Florida last February. It was then that I confirmed what I already thought: I like him a lot and mi casa su casa. I seem to have inherited a trait from my father for nicknaming things, as I call Jamie “Cubster”.

Being relatively private in our home life, I believe that Earl and I have made some very well thought out decisions in regards to our future. I’m writing this entry on an airplane and I’m finding myself a little choked up, because I feel like my heart sings with the additions to our life. I feel the most grounded I have been in a long time.

I was going to get out the MacBook and type a blog entry on there, but the woman next to me is so comfy spread out that I don’t want to infringe on her space. She is very nice and I’ve made her laugh a few times with my observations of other passengers.

The two holy terrors and their young kids on the last flight followed me onto this one. They are screaming and kicking my seat everytime they see a cloud. I think one of them is trying to open the window for some fresh air.

The flight attendant on this flight is Mary. She is very charming and let me have two snacks. I enjoyed my biscotti and peanuts. Mary smiles and talks slowly on the intercom. She offered to top off my drink. I think it’s important to know the names of people that are helpful and/or here for my safety. It makes everyone involved feel more relaxed and we would have an easier time communicating in a time of crisis. I like her, she seems good at her job.

This is the second of three flights today. The next flight is short as it’s from Dallas to Oklahoma City. It also the biggest plane I’ll be on for this trip and on AA instead of Delta. I have a soft spot for AA. Delta was out of control with chaos at the ticket counter in Syracuse and that whole ghost terminal concourse C thing they have going on in Cincinnati is a bit spooky but other than that they’re doing ok. I still have a soft spot for AA though.

Here’s a random shot up the aisle.

It’s been a very long time since I’ve flown alone. Not since my radio days have I been without Earl on a commercial flight. I’m in bachelor mode in a different place.

Sitting I’m front of me are two young women. One of them has never flown before. She has a very appreciable innocence about her that is refreshing.

I’ve been flying for as long as I can remember. One of my earliest memories is flying with my grandfather and father in a Cessna 172. It was way before kindergarten. I recall puking all over the place and my mother later yelling holy hell because my father had cleaned up the plane but not me. That was the last time I was sick in an airplane.

Most of my favourite memories from growing up are aviation related. Whether it was dropping sandbags from a Piper J5A at the local airport in an effort to hit a target or just flying to another airport for Sunday breakfast with my dad, I have always been a pretty happy guy in the sky.

I often follow the forums on airliners.net and contribute photos to the plane database. I enjoy looking up the tailnumbers of planes in the public knowledgebase. I think my next career will be aviation related. Probably waving the big glow sticks. I wouldn’t want to be a commercial pilot, I’m more
interested in sticking to a Cessna. I’m thinking a Cessna 182.

There is one woman who tried to use the bathroom during takeoff now roaming the cabin despite the lights that say the contrary. Meagan, the flight attendant, is giving her the evil eye. I’d just giver her a stern warning and offer her the chance to get outside and push if she didn’t do as she as told.

Below is a picture of one of the Finger Lakes. I’m not sure which one it is.

Over the past year or so I have maintained a file on the home server called “curious.txt”. It contains questions that I copied and pasted from a smattering of e-mails I have received in response to blog entries or my various internet profiles I have going. I took the time to take a look at these while I was working out and thought I would answer a few of them. Some of them are definitely PG-13; don’t say that you haven’t been warned.

They are in no specific order.

Are you gay? (this appeared below a picture on Flickr of Earl and I making out in the Jeep)
As a matter of fact, I am. So is Earl. It’s fortunate that we are compatible in that way otherwise we’d be wicked bored.

Have you ever done it with a woman? (in response to a mention of my high school girlfriend)
Not all the way, so technically in the “let’s get biblical” sense I suppose I am a 40-year old virgin. I have tried to “go all the way” with a woman twice in my life. The first time was in high school, the night of my senior prom and it did not go the way she intended (I chose to engage myself afterwards whilst thinking of her brother). We broke up a few days later. The second time was in college. Her name was Kristi, she was fairly hot but she was missing the duplication of parts that I imagined would be involved in that sort of thing.

How many boyfriends have you had?
I’m assuming the interrogator is referring to long-term relationships so I’ll go by that. I have lived with three different guys in a long-term romantic situation. The first one’s name was Tom. I think he’s still named Tom but I’ve called him other things. When he was with me he was bisexual, but by the time we broke up he was all the way gay. The guy after me with him had it easy as I broke him in. By the way, I consider the guy that followed me to be a good friend. The second one is “first Earl”. A truly great guy, Earl and I had some really good times together but I didn’t think that we were completely compatible in the long-term department. Earl and I are still good friends with “first Earl”. We’ll probably have dinner with him again soon. We like to do that. “My Earl” is my life and my last. As of this writing we have been together, happily I may add, for just shy of 13 years.

Do you still ride your bike? (originally asked last summer)
Finally, a non-sexual question! I didn’t ride my bike that much in the summer of 2007 but did a bit more riding in summer ’08. I have around 3,000 miles on the same bike since the summer of 2002. I am planning a multi-day trip for this summer. I was mentioning it to my friend David today, I haven’t told Earl my plan so I’ll save that for a future blog entry, but I have been training to ride about 400 miles on a ride this summer.

Why do you spell words with an “s”? (from December 2007)
Apparently the person asking this question was cranky or something because they missed the fact that not only do I use an “s” but I also throw a “u” in some words just like the user’s manual of my Commodore VIC-20 Colour Computer from 1982. Actually, I choose to spell things in the non-American English way for a couple of reasons: it sets me apart from the crowd, I have a desire to live in either Ireland or Canada and I think that saying “car park” sounds much more civilised than “parking lot”.

What do you want to do when you grow up? (from an entry regarding my return to college in 2007)
I have no freakin’ idea and I like it that way. This experience we called life is entirely too short to pigeonhole yourself into 50 years of monotony.

Have you ever ridden a motorcycle? (this was referring to a picture of me in my black leather jacket)
I am assuming that the questioner was referring to being in control of the bike and not just a passenger, because I used to ride on the back of my Dad’s bike (while he was on it too) since I was around eight years old or so. I’ve only ridden a motorcycle alone a couple of times; once was when I was in high school with my friend Jeff. It was around midnight on a June night and I rode from the Springbrook Road to the Peck Road and back on a Yamaha that had no headlight. I didn’t tell my folks (hi there!). In my early 20s I rode this little Honda my ex-boyfriend had on a couple of occasions and I loved it. I have mentioned to Earl a couple of times that I want a motorcycle. He recently mentioned that perhaps I should get one someday.

We’ll get into the wilder questions the next time I open up the file.

There is something satisfying about a Thursday night to me. I don’t know if it’s the knowledge that tomorrow is the last day of the work week or if I’m cosmically tuned to the concept of Thursday or what, but I always feel most at peace (outside of the weekend) on Thursday evenings after work.

The schedule has been hectic this week; last night Earl and I worked on a “secret project”¹, Tuesday night we went shopping for kitchens (as we are redoing the entire kitchen this spring) and tonight I’m going to work on some things in the cellar.

Earl has just started cooking supper. Tonight he is making homemade vegetable soup because rumour has it that there’s a member of the family that is trying to avoid eating meat. To help out with the project, I did as my mother trained me as a child and made the appropriate hor d’oeurve to go with soup: I made a really big bowl of popcorn. Microwave popcorn is not allowed in the house, I always make it with a popcorn popper, copious amounts of oil and too much corn. It came up pretty well, if I do say so myself. Making the popcorn keeps me out of the way and let’s Earl concentrate on his cooking.

It’s going to be a good Thursday night. It always is.

¹ The fruits of my “secret project” will be shared soon enough.

It is 5:18 a.m. I am getting ready to head back to work after a week’s holiday. I guess I must be a little anxious about heading back to work because I could barely sleep all night. I kept waking up to see how much longer I had to sleep.

How I dislike alarm clocks.

My body naturally wakes up around 8:00 a.m. It used to be closer to 9, but now I seem to do well with waking up an hour earlier.

I think I’m going to take a nap. I don’t have to be work until 7.