Ponderings and Musings

I’ve mentioned to Earl on a couple of occasions over the past month or two that I would like to play football with some other like minded guys sometime. I’ve mentioned that we need to go to a bigger city and get on a gay football team or something and just hang out and have some fun.

As a youngster I was always terrified of the sport, because after all, I was a ‘band fag’ and they don’t do sports. Finally, twenty-five years later, I feel secure enough with myself that I could play in a football game and actually know what’s going on and maybe get a little bit dirty and banged up blocking people. Earl says he throws a mean football and I’m anxious to have him show me his technique this spring.

I never would have imagined myself on a football field actually playing the game. Now I can’t wait for the opportunity!

I don’t know if the turn towards spring weather, the working out and eating healthy or what, but today I can best be described as being “chilled”. Things aren’t bothering me. The usual work-related pressures aren’t getting to me. People that usually annoying me beyond reason are not getting on my last nerve today.

It’s a refreshing change of pace.

Earl occasionally reminds me that this is the way I need to be about life all the time; I approach things with a “gloom or doom” attitude that brings my whole outlook on the human experience down. I need to look at the brighter side of life and I would find that things aren’t as bad as they seem.

For example, driving home for lunch I was stuck behind an oversized beat up Lincoln. It’s back end was nearly dragging on the pavement, the license plate was burned looking and crooked and ample amounts of smoke was coming out of the tailpipe and the windows from the driver and front seat passenger. They were driving at least 25 MPH below the speed limit. Due to the geometry of the road, I was unable to pass them, so I had to stay behind them in my sporty little rice-burner and try to avoid enhaling the smoke. Usually I would beat on the steering wheel, scream at them (even though they couldn’t hear me) until my face was red and tailgate them, doing my best to make them uncomfortable on the road. Did I do that? No, I patiently and calmly followed them at a reasonable distance behind them. Why the change in attitude? Quite frankly, the old behavior is not worth the time nor effort. They’re not going to change their ways, so why throw a hissy fit about it?

Because of this chilled attitude, I’m finding that I’m enjoying my lunch hour much more. I’m not losing patience with Tom as he plays the “in and out game” with the back patio door.

I hope I can keep this kicked back attitude up. I rather like it.

Upon getting settled in for Monday at work today, I was asked what I did this weekend. I responded that Earl and I jumped in the Jeep and went for a ride. When asked our final destination, I told them about our trip to Martinsburg, W. Va.

“Oh, do you know someone in Martinsburg?”

“Uh no.” (Come to find out we know someone that lives in that general vicinity but that’s another story).

“Then why did you go there?”

I really resisted the urge to say “because it’s there” and instead responded with the fact that it was near 50 degrees, the sun was shining brightly and there was no snow on the ground.

My co-workers shook their head in disbelief. “You drove seven hours in one direction for that?” The funny thing is Earl and I didn’t think twice about driving seven hours in one direction for unlimited ribs and a few beers at a chain restaurant called “Texas Steakhouse and Saloon”. Since I had a few beers at dinner on an empty stomach, that’s essentially all we ended up doing, though I had good intentions to do more after supper.

There’s just something about riding in a vehicle and exploring the countryside that is very, very appealing to me. I think some of it has to do with my childhood; my family would often go for a Sunday ride in our ’78 Impala and those rides hold very happy memories for me. When I was younger, we’d pile into the ’71 Heavy Chevy and make the 75-mile round trip trek to my grandparents “in the city”. My other grandparents seemed to be a happy couple, and they went for rides all the time, driving 100 miles in one direction for supper in an out of the way restaurant in Gouverneur (look at a map of New York, you’ll see how ‘out of the way’) and drove the country twice a year (“south” and “west” in February, “north” and “west” in September). I remember them holding hands at brunch almost up until the day my grandmother died.

When Earl and I got together for our first date, we spent that entire weekend together. On that Sunday long ago, we drove in my Hyundai Excel up into the mountains of Vermont, just simply talking and getting to know each other. I felt like I knew more about Earl that day than I knew about my first two boyfriends combined. I remember feeling so lucky on that day, having found someone that seemed to enjoy going for a ride as much as I did. And you know what? Even though that first ride together was just shy of 10 years ago, to this day Earl and I still discover more about each other and thrive on exploring the country side by side in the Jeep or whatever.

I could spend my life on the road and not complain about it. There is so much out there to discover and experience. And we are going to continue to experience all we can.

Chat.

Originally uploaded by macwarriorny.

Lately I’ve been opening iChatAV while I’ve been on my computer, trying to step out from my own little private world and into the real world that actually exists. It’s unfortunate, but I have a huge list of people on my Buddy List and I don’t remember who 3/4 of them are. I don’t remember where I’ve met them and I sure as heck don’t remember what they look like. I suppose it could be considered rather embarassing. The trouble is I’ve migrated my buddy list from computer to computer and account to account since I was “djjp” on AOL back in 1991. Perhaps that’s why most of buddies come up with “account not found.”

There’s a smattering of family members on their as well and I’m finding myself preferring to keep in touch on instant messenger instead of letting my fingers do the walking on the telephone. It’s a little bit ironic, don’t you think, since I work for a telephone company and that industry contributes to our bread and butter. But I prefer chatting on a webcam instead of talking over the telephone. I’m very 21st century in that regard.

I also have a couple of friends that I chat with on a regular basis. (Hi there Terry!) Earl is a big fan of instant messenger but more of a Yahoo! type of guy, where I prefer iChatAV (which uses AOL). Then there’s my family members who decided to ignore the Apple-centric IT expert of the family and go with MSN. Granted, I have an MSN client on my PowerBook but it sure doesn’t support the stunning technicolor camera images from my iSight. Oh well. Someday the world will use one IM protocol and it’ll be a little bit easier to communicate with people.

So I’m trying to reach out to other bloggers and readers through instant messenger so I can get to know people better. Don’t be shy to say hi.

Like most of the people in the Northeast, I’m ready for spring. Singing birds, warm temperatures and green grass. The world looks so monochromatic to me in the winter time with the snow on the ground and gray skies overhead. That’s what it looks like today – monochromatic. Even the evergreen trees look just dark.

Significant snow is in the forecast for most of the area around us this weekend. Earl and I are still looking over our options of what to do to enjoy ourselves. We pretty much kept to the area last weekend, we don’t want to get crazy and do that two weekends in a row. That wouldn’t be like us.

Ah well, I suppose it all could be much worse. I should be grateful for what we have and stop complaining about the rest. I’d really be grateful for an early spring though.

Ritual Dance.

Originally uploaded by macwarriorny.

As I was eating breakfast, admiring the sunny day and the blue sky, I noticed the birds in the backyard doing a graceful, poetic ‘ritual dance’ over the treetops.

Funny how they’d know it’s the 1st of March, since that whole calendar thing is a human concept.

Looking out the window, it’s a beautiful day. The sky is a brilliant blue and there’s just a hint of wispy clouds floating about. It’s near picture perfect.

Except that it’s cold. Very cold. Last check it was 19.

With February wrapping up this week, I’m feeling a bit of cabin fever. I’m ready for the warmer weather and all the outdoor activities that come along with it. I’m ready to awake to the sounds of birds singing a sweet little tune. It looks like spring wants to make an appearance today with all her bright sunshine, but it doesn’t feel it right now. But it’s comforting to know she’s lurking just around the corner.

Oh well, I can always stand by the window and soak in the sunshine that way. Even if I have to give the thermostat a little spin.

Last week a bunch of employees at a Nebraska meat packing plant (I’m sorry, but that sounds like such a depressing job) won the largest PowerBall jackpot ever, clocking in at around $315 million dollars. That’s a lot of dough.

New York doesn’t participate in PowerBall, but we do have the “Mega Millions” lottery here, which is basically the same thing, only different, kind of like Pepsi and Coca-Cola.

By the way, if I’m drinking soda, I prefer Pepsi.

Earl and I, being the gamblers that we tend to be, actively play Mega Millions when it gets up into the three digit million numbers. We figure that if the universe is going to have us win, we’re going to win big so we might as well save our bucks up and go for the gusto.

We go to extremes like that in almost all facets of our life together.

I also play in the shared tickets at work. I hate to see what happens to the company the day after we hit it big on a shared ticket, especially since our entire division is playing!

Anyways, like most folks I’ve often daydreamed about what we’d do with our winnings. Earl and I have signed a contract to the universe stating that 10 percent of the winning amount, before taxes, would go to a charity, most likely Rosie O’Donnell’s For All Kids Foundation. We’d also go out of our way to make sure all of our family members were well taken care of and able to live comfortably for the rest of their lives.

But what to do with the rest?

I’d like to take a portion of the remaining money and invest it in quality children’s programming. I’d like to resurrect non-violent Saturday morning shows. I’ve mentioned numerous times that I’m a huge fan of “Shazam!” and “The Secrets of Isis”. I’d like to see programming like that, perhaps with a bigger budget than they had the first time around, updated and brought back to the living rooms across the country. There would have to be some tweaking to hold today’s kid’s attention in this rapidly paced world, but I think with the right elements, it can be done.

On the flip side, we’d probably use a portion of our winnings to further gay and lesbian causes, especially for those rural gay teens that think they’re freaks and not worthy of a quality life, simply because they’re gay.

The world is a scary place these days. If I had a million dollars, I’d like to make it a little less scarier.

It’s snowing like crazy outside. Earl has gone to the local casino to play in a poker tournament. He just called me to tell me he hit a straight flush at three-card poker while waiting for the tournament to start.

Looks like we’re going out to dinner tonight!

I’m thinking I’m going to have to run the snowblower today. I was hoping to not have to do that again this winter. As usual, Mother Nature wins.

I was doing some random search on Google for something in Syracuse when I stumbled across a website dedicated to the children’s show I watched as a young lad. Now off the air,The Magic Toy Shop holds the record for the longest running locally produced children’s television program.

It’s a shame that wholesome kids shows like this have sort of fallen out of favor with families.