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So after my bike ride tonight, I took a shower and threw on a pair of jeans and a shirt I had hanging over the clothes hamper. I put on my work boots and decided to go run some errands. While I was out and about, I decided to stop at Taco Bell for supper, what with it being Cinco de Mayo and all.

So as I’m walking into Taco Bell, I feel a sharp pain in my upper left leg, right near my crotch. Then a second. Then I felt a sharp pain in, well, the part of the crotch of my pants that isn’t leg. I was a bit startled because the pain was stinging something fierce.

I flew into the bathroom, which is located next to the entrance thank God, while rubbing my crotch like a fiend as it was really starting to hurt.

I ripped off my workboots and stripped off my pants, and out flew a hornet! There was a hornet in the crotch of my pants and it had stung me three times!

I put my pants and boots back on, after assuring everything was bee-free and not swelling up beyond recognition and proceeded to get in line at the Taco Bell counter. Thank goodness I didn’t have an allergic reaction or anything, but man is it sore down there.

I just arrived at home from my bike ride that I promised myself I would take. Didn’t quite make 20 miles, but 15 miles is good enough for this stage of the season.

Someday I am going to ride across the wide open, flat plains of Iowa. I don’t care that it may be 95 degrees there. I don’t care if I’m chased by a funnel cloud. All I know is that by riding across the beautiful, flat Iowa plains, I’m not riding up the hill back to our house.

While leaving for lunch a short while ago, I announced to my co-workers that I was going to ride my bike tonight come hell or high water. The weather appears to be cooperating, I’m feeling relatively enthusiastic about the thought, so I declared to anyone within ear range that I was going to ride 20 miles tonight.

Let’s see if it really happens. I’ll have to fill you in tonight.

It’s not that I don’t enjoy cycling anymore. Because I really, really do enjoy it. It’s so relaxing to hit the back country roads on my two-wheels, enjoying the scenery, breathing the fresh air, talking to cows. The problem is that we don’t really live near the back roads anymore. It’s a chore to get to where cycling is enjoyable.

Of course, there’s the canal paths. They’re good fun, especially since a large portion of them have recently been paved and of course due to the fact that there’s no cars on the paths. At least there shouldn’t be, but around here you can never be too sure. But then there’s people walking on them and dogs pooping on them and everything, any that does not make for the most enjoyable experience when you have to play dodge the doo-doo. It is fun in a morbid way to see older pedestrians literally jump out of their wig when you sneak up behind them and say “Bike Back!”. As mom used to say, “it’s fun until someone gets hurt”. When one of these people drop from a heart attack I probably won’t enjoy it so much but for the time being it’s mildly entertaining.

I’ve been dreaming of doing an overnight ride towards the end of this month. Last time I tried it, it turned cold and rainy and I called Earl on the cell phone and pleaded like a little boy. “Come get me!” At least he brought a hot cup of chili when he did. That was thoughtful.

I still have the big dream of riding across the country. Now that’s a lot of open road.

Maybe I should tackle riding across town first.

This morning at work I had confirmation that I am truly a whacked out individual. Or at least people perceive me as a little odd.

I was on call last night for a collegue. I helped out by taking over his on call duties for a couple of hours, with all the fun ending at 9:30 p.m. Actually, I didn’t get any calls, which is an always welcomed change. After turning the on-call duties back over to him, I decided to go run some errands. So I went to local convenience store (dressed appropriately, for a change) and bought the lottery tickets for the week. Then coming out Fastrac, I noticed that the car was unacceptably dirty so I headed over to the LaserWash (complete with LaserDri). On the way I passed the local NYSDOT sign manufacturer contractor and noticed they had a bunch of new signs on a trailer ready to be shipped, so I stopped to take a look at those, being the road geek that I am. As an aside, they’re headed for Interstate 81 around my hometown of Pulaski.

I then headed for the car wash and let the laser do its thing, though it didn’t dry very well. So then I drove around the area a little bit for another 45 minutes or so to dry the car off.

I got home around 10:55, just in time to call Earl.

My co-workers found this incredibly odd. “Why weren’t you sleeping?” “You went out to wash the car at 10:00 at night?”

I guess I won’t tell them about the time I went grocery shopping at midnight, or the time back in the late 1980s when I went to a tanning appointment at 3:15 a.m.

Tom has apparently forgiven us for our absence over this past weekend, as he has decided to treat us to lap dances. He is not absolutely content unless he is standing on my lap, regardless of my location, nudging away at my arm. He doesn’t appear to enjoy my petting him, he just wants to rub his nose excretions against my skin then lick his lips. I wonder what goes through his little cat mind while he’s doing this. “Mmmm, tastes good.” How very odd.

Sunday night he took great delight in joining Earl and I in bed. He jumped from the bed to my stomach and then trampolined to Earl’s stomach, where he then bounced over to my crotch. It was all very heartwarming. I guess it’s his way of expressing his love, for he then settled down under the covers and purred a bit. He has a way of tucking us in; he settles down next to me, usually with his back against my blanket covered body and then when he senses I’m just about to fall asleep, he jumps down and patters off to a little nook somewhere in the house. He then returns at 5:17 a.m. to demand some kibble. He’s always punctual at 5:17 a.m. He seems to have adjusted to daylight saving time better than I did.

Occasionally he breaks the routine for the weekend and settles on Earl’s head until we get up. Apparently he enjoys the Daniel Boone look or something.

As I type this entry, he’s back on my lap, purring away and nudging my arm. At least he’s not nudging the PowerBook or running across the desk.

Earl is away in Indianapolis, Ind. on business until Friday. I dropped him off at the airport this evening after work. It was kind of depressing. I’m still in my “domestic frenzy” mood though. At least it’ll make the week go by fast and he’ll come home to a clean house.

This past weekend, Earl and I attended a bears event in Danbury, Conn. It was a big bruhaha of an affair, where around 600 big, burly gay men (and their admirers) descended upon this fine little city. It was a great experience for the both of us, as we haven’t done anything like this in a very, very long time. It is very refreshing to spend time with like-minded gay men that are basically just normal guys. No worrying about primping and prissing for the next circuit party and having to deal with attitudes. We do things like throw on a pair of boxer shorts and head to the “Bears in the Boxer Shorts Ball”. Or play charity BINGO. Or go shopping at the “Bear Maul”. All good fun. And it was for a good cause, as net proceeds went to ARCS, AIDS-Related Community Services.

“New Moon On Monday”, Duran Duran.

As I’ve mentioned on that bear page, we bears have always kept in touch with each other through electronic means. Earl and I have chatted with others through the various chat interfaces (iChatAV/AOL Instant Messenger, Yahoo! Messenger, etc.) for quite a while. It was nice to put a body with a face or bits and bytes of an instant messenger.

I’ve made another new friend this weekend and that would be our shiny new package containing Mac OS X 10.4, otherwise known as Tiger. Oh my goodness! Apple has taken a superior operating system and made it even better. I’m especially delighted with the new Dashboard feature. They’ve taken the program Konfabulator and integrated it into the operating system, adding that special Apple touch.

“Be Near Me (Munich Disco Mix)”, ABC.

It’s especially great that Apple has added yet more polish to OS X, since I’m now abandoning all ties to Microsoft once again. I conceded to having a Windows 2000 machine on the network so that I could do work-related stuff in the comfort of the cellar. Since Microsoft pulled their support on anti-discrimination legislation in Washington State last weekend, essentially bowing to right-wing/religious pressure, I’m now on a full-blown boycott of their products. I’m happy that we didn’t purchase that Office X for Mac after all. There’s alternatives that will work just as well. You’d think that a forward thinking company like Microsoft would have a clue. Oh well. It makes it just that much easier to close the Windows and open the door on the world of computing.

“I Fell In Love (Radio Version)”, Rockell.

One cool thing about Tiger is that my iChatAV/AOL Instant Messenger status now shows what song I’m currently listening to on iTunes. In iChatAV, if you click it it brings up iTunes and plays a sample of the track so you can buy it for yourself. That’s kind of cool.

I’m having a dickens of time typing this blog entry as Earl is telling about little discoveries about Tiger on his iBook, I have iTunes going in one ear and I’m chatting with guys we met over the weekend. Who knew being an active geek could be so much work?

“Midnight At The Oasis (Cuica Remix)”, Maria Muldaur.

I’ve always been a bit of a loner. Not to sound cocky, but I like me and I like spending time alone. When I was in kindergarten, Mrs. Mosher wrote on my report card, “John seems to be a bit of a loner.” I don’t know what gave her that idea. Perhaps it was that time that I was sitting on the two-person rocking thing alone, minding my own business, when this girl Charlotte came up and sat on the other side, wanting to rock. I yelled at her “Leave me alone” and jumped down hard on my side, essentially flinging her off the toy and running to Mrs. Mosher crying. Come to think of it, Mrs. Mosher also told my mother that I was probably mentally retarded. I guess I didn’t fit in with her philosophy, “No child is essentially different from any other child.” Ah, the fine memories of kindergarten. And no, I don’t believe that I am mentally retarded. I’m just odd.

Anyways, I have dreams of retiring to the desert, 75 miles from any other civilization, living in an open air home, solar powered, with a very deep drilled well for water and a kick-ass satellite internet connection. Human interaction would be kept to when I drove into the nearest town to get whatever groceries I couldn’t grow. I wouldn’t live like a bum or anything, I would just be devoid of the irritations I find in the general public.

And this is where you ask yourself, “But what about Earl?” That’s a good question, thank you for asking.

Earl is really the only person I’ve ever let into my “alone space”. It’s kind of hard to explain, but when Earl and I are together, I still consider myself “alone”. Now this is not to be confused with “lonely”, because I’m never lonely when I’m alone. So in my little desert dream, Earl is right there along with me doing the solar powered thing. I guess Earl is the only person that has ever been able to co-exist with me in my own little world. He allows me to engage my loner tendencies from time to time. I can’t think of any other person, outside of my immediate family (they ‘get’ me, for the most part), that has really tried to understand my little world. I’m a lucky guy to find someone that comes into my space so easily.

I hate it when things go wrong with the house. Now I don’t fall over in an emotional heap if a sink leaks, but I find it to be a pain in the ass. I did not inherent any home improvement skills from my family. None. Nada. I can fake it with the best of them and I can pass when it comes to geeky things (wiring up phones, electrical, etc.) but I’m not a big fan of fixing plumbing or moving walls or anything like that.

Last night as Earl and I were getting ready for bed, I attempted to flush the toilet. The chain in the tank came off the little plunger thingee, making the handle absolutely useless because it wasn’t connected to anything. Jiggling the handle wouldn’t help even though I tried.

I sighed.

I rolled my eyes.

Then I took the cover off the toilet tank and tried to put the damn thing back together. One of the most frustrating things about this whole scenario is that this is a new house (well about 9 years old), these things aren’t suppose to happen! Plus, someone (that would be me) has been on a domestic kick this week and put those blue and white tablet things in the toilet so that it would be sparkling clean and minty fresh at all times.

The blue tablet covered the toilet guts in blue slime.

So after messing with it for about 90 seconds, I cried defeat and enlisted the help of Earl. After some struggling and cussing, we fixed it, but not before we were covered with blue slime from elbow to finger tips.

I got most of it to wash off. My fingertips are still stained green (the blue faded, I guess) and I feel like a big slob. Earl’s hands match mine, except I think he got the stuff under his fingernails because he washed his hair this morning and of course that cleans your fingernails. I tried raking some shampoo through my beard this morning for the same result but to no avail.

At least my hands smell minty fresh.

That ‘click’ you just heard is millions of people turning off American Idol for good. They’ve all said so, right on the American Idol official message boards. Audience favorite, Constantine Maroulis, was voted off this evening. Teenage girls are crying across America as I type. They’ve lost this generation’s David Cassidy. The world as they know it has ended.

Quite frankly, I don’t think Constantine was that great of a singer. But he was a good performer, and whatever he lacked in pitch he made up for it in stage presence. You can’t deny that he is much more deserving to be on the stage than that “Mound of Bad Sound”, Scott Savol. Heck, I’d welcome back Mikalah Gordon in a minute just to get rid of Scott Savol. I find him to be truly awful. His lack of pitch is most unnerving. He always looks like he’s sleeping his way through performances. When he gets criticism, I get the feeling that he’d like to be going postal and downing a few people. I picture Scott Savol is on his way down Ruben Studdard boulevard. He’ll win this god awful competition, sweat his way through a couple of numbers and then retire on the money he gets from suing everyone around him.

I told Earl I was done with the show because it’s become such a travesty. I mean, Paula Abdul was sober this week, for pity’s sake! How boring is that?

So I said “I’m done”. I probably lied.