They certainly know how to take the zing out of your holidays/Christmas shopping dollar around here, don’t they?
In these parts, tax is applied to anything that can’t be consumed, and only if it hasn’t been prepared. Clothing, underwear, shoes, blankets, hats, gloves, pop, candy, potato chips, hamburgers – all of it taxable in the Empire State.
Sears and Roebuck Co. (are they still called that anymore?) succumbs to this ridiculous controversy of “Merry Christmas” vs “Happy Holidays”. Their solution? Print “Merry Christmas” with the Sears logo, using a generic font and plain paper on a black and white laser printer to add a little “ps.” to their holiday decorations.
The sign pictured above was actually the best looking display of this merriment in our local store, the other signs were hung with shipping tape next to the “now hiring” and “this door out of service” signs.
Happy Holidays!
This could be a “too much information” entry for the squeamish. If you press BACK on your browser you’ll be ejected from your seat immediately. Thank you.
As I just typed the title of this blog entry I realized that it could be a really good porn video title. Picture it, two men have hired a domestic; a houseboy from Oklahoma who’s never been in the big city before. He cleans only in his skivvies or better yet, completely nude. Well, he can still wear his cowboy hat. He is innocently dusting off a steam radiator, which happens to be leaking steam, bringing beads sweat to his broad, muscular, hairy chest, when we, I mean the guys in the video, happen to spot him bending over to pick up something that has fallen on the floor…
O.k., I better stop now.
Anyways, I sometimes wonder how couples manage to get initmate during the holidays. I really don’t understand how straight couples manage it at all with families to juggle and all that. Kids running around, banging on the door, demanding one last glass of water or a reprive from the boogie man in the closet, where does one find the time?
I’m often chattering in my blog that I’m not a morning person. I’m not. Except when it comes to lovemaking. I love to wake up in the mid-morning, roll over and tap the bear lying in the bed (hopefully it’s Earl!) next to me with a hopeful, aggressive, yet innocent look on my face. Bat, bat, bat go the eyes. That most of the time. Sometimes I like to roll over, shake the bear next to me awake (hopefully it’s Earl!) and say, “I want to ^@*#$ right now!”. You can use your imagination for the verb of that last sentence.
This morning I did the coy routine when I awoke. At least I was about to when some crazy neighbor lady started banging on the door (and he deflates) shrieking about the cat she has in her house. She wants to know if it belongs to us. Earl pads down stairs in his barefeet and informs her that we have our own cat and he happens to be in the house. “Where did he come from? What does he look like?” So Earl shows Tom to the neighbor who proclaims, “Oh, that’s not him.” From there the conversation got really murky. So Earl kind of shooed her off. She is now officially the “crazy cat lady”. She’s the same one that rings a cowbell out on her back porch around 11:30 at night during the summer. We now know she’s beckoning cats.
Anyways, since Earl was now motivated to get going, he threw a load of laundry in the washer and brought up the clothes from the dryer that have been there for two days. That’s why irons were invented, in case you’re wondering. As we start to fold the clothes together, I said to him, “we need to hurry.”
“Why, are we going out for breakfast?”
“No, but yes.”
“What?”
“Hurry up!”
“Why?”
“I wanna !@#&*!” You can fill in your own verb.
Once we got the used Bounce sheet out of the way, we were good to go.
Earl and I just got back from my work’s Christmas party. It was an enjoyable affair with great company, delicious food and lively conversation. I am truly blessed to have a job that I enjoy with a friendly group of people at a solid, stable company.
It’s rare that we take the opportunity to dress up when the occasion arises as we feel more comfortable in our street clothes. Nevertheless I like to think that we’re somewhat presentable when we work at it.
At least I remembered not to lick the salad dressing off my elbow when it was running down my arm from picking through my salad with my hand. I wiped it off with my sleeve instead. I am a gentleman you know.
I was hoping that I could get my Christmas* shopping done tonight, but there’s a few things I still need to pick up. I feel confident that I’ll actually have it done by the holidays though, and I’m pleased with what I’ve purchased.
A trip to our local mall is not complete without supper in the food court. Most food court meals are crap, but I really like the Flaming Wok here. Best sesame chicken this side of the Atlantic. I also have Bourbon Chicken there on the plate, they were apparently out when I asked for it, so the server walked over to the neighboring Cajun Café and put some of their Bourbon Chicken on my plate instead. I certainly hope they’re owned by the same company.
It’s not well known in these parts, but if you return your tray to the Flaming Wok, instead of leaving it on top of the food court trash cans, they’ll give you your fortune cookie.
* This whole “Christmas” vs “Holiday” thing that has gripped our country this season is driving me insane. I knew the day would come when the “stupid” would take over and this controversy is evidence of it. I can not believe people have the energy to get their panties in a twist over the nomenclature of the holidays. First of all, that fire trap in the corner is a “Christmas Tree”, not a “Holiday Tree”, and this is coming from a man that has leanings towards celebrating the arrival of the winter solstice this time of year. I’m not calling it a “solstice tree” for crying out loud and I’m not falling into an emotional heap when someone wishes me a Merry Christmas. I hope it is a Merry Christmas! Wishing someone a “Happy Holidays” should be taken in the spirit for which it was intended, not as a slap across the face because someone offended you by not saying “Merry Christmas”. On the other hand, renaming everything to be all politically correct is just dumb. “Oh, look at the pretty candlesticks in front of the synagogue!” All the bitching about what to call this time of “good will towards men” is making Christmas, Hanukkah, Kwanza, Winter Solstice, this holiday season, whatever the heck you want to call it, much less merry.
I came home for lunch and caught up on my e-mail and regular blog reading, like I usually do. Once in a while Tom will jump up on my lap and eye the PowerBook as a “nudge spot” but then think better of it. So I give him a few reassuring pets and then he jumps down and sits at my feet.
Today he was absolutely insistent that he park himself on my lap. So I tried to take a picture with the webcam before he got all settled, but he wasn’t having any of it. I snapped my fingers behind the cam to get his attention but no dice. This was the best that I could do.
He’ll do a lap dance, but “don’t take any pictures of the performers please!”
# # #
Earl is out of town until late tonight, so I’m going to wrap up Christmas shopping. We’re suppose to get a “wintry mix” tonight, it should keep the driving interesting. I’m going to bring along the camera and take somem pictures if I see anything interesting.
Here’s an odd little photo I put together. There are times when you feel like you can just take on the world, with the right tools of course.
Sometimes the full moon can inspire me to do the oddest things.
Time, keeps flowing like a river
To the sea
Whomever sang that song in the 70s was a nut. Time does not flow like a river. Time flows like raging rapids with the waterfalls just ahead and no life jacket in sight. But would we rather have it any other way? Sometimes I feel like you just need to grab on and go for the bumpy, twisty, intense ride that we call life. Where does the time go? It seems like it was just yesterday that I spotted a very attractive man staring at me from across the bar. The was back late in 1995. Why it feels like we just moved into this house. That was December 2003. Tom is just a kitten. He’s tipping 12.
Where does the time go?
Because of my fascination with time; my collection of synchronized school clocks, my internal clock constantly reminding me of upcoming events (i.e. “only 2 3/4 hours left in the workday today!”), the fact that I have a clock within eyeshot at all times, it feels like time is just speeding along at an outrageous pace. Am I really 37 years old? I certainly don’t feel 37, I feel like the young man that was ready to take on the world who decided college wasn’t really right for him. In fact, I feel younger now than I did three or four years ago. All my body parts are working properly and aside from my constant mixing up of words punctuated with my usual stammering and stuttering, my mind doesn’t feel cluttered. I feel like I’m on my game right now. I don’t want that feeling to end. I refuse to let time take over.
But where does the time go? It seems like yesterday that Earl and I were looking at the holiday season with lots of time to do everything we need to do. Now he’s trotting around the eastern seaboard on business and I’m dreading that one last trip to the mall to pick up last minute Christmas gifts. On Saturday we’re sitting down to send out our Christmas cards, going grocery shopping for the party we’re hosting on Wednesday for Earl’s co-workers and clean the house from top to bottom, in between the two Christmas parties were are attending this weekend.
When do we get to sit down and catch our breath?
I was recently asked why I feel the need to have a blog. Why do I basically live my life out loud on the internet, eternally framed in bits and bytes forever and ever amen. I couldn’t come up with a definitive reason when I was asked this question, but the various reasons have been among the multitude of thoughts jumping around my head as of late, so I thought I would write it all down.
One of the reasons I have a blog is because I enjoy telling a good tale and I enjoy writing. I’m not the world’s best writer by any stretch of the imagination (perhaps I could win a junior high writing contest by a slim margin), but I feel that I make up for it with proper capitalization, enhancing adjective use and a judicious use of commas. One of my favorite writers of all time was humorist Erma Bombeck. She always had a unique flair to her words and a quick wit to act as the cherry on top of a delightfully delicious novel or newspaper column sundae. If I was a stay at home lazy bear, with lots of time to do housework, I would probably aspire to be the gay male version of Erma. I’d also probably clean the living room drapes by setting fire to them.
This space also serves as a way for others to know what’s going on with the both of us. Earl and I like to think we live life as an adventure, whether we’re exploring a new diner, throwing some bucks around an out of the way mall or walking up to the edge of Area 51 in Nevada. I like to share our experiences with the world.
I like to think that those that read this blog find Earl and I to be two guys that are very, very much in love, committed to one another in every possible sense and are as close to married as the current laws will allow two men to be. I don’t want our relationship to be a role model, as every relationship is unique in it’s own way, but I do like to demonstrate that there are gay couples out there that stand the test of time and really mean it when we say “it’s forever”.
You may have noticed that the world map/reader counter that was in the sidebar is gone. It was a little trinket I had added to the site for a couple of months. Initially I was curious as to how many people actually visited the site on a daily basis. The number was never consistent and quite frankly, I don’t really care how many people stop by. It’s not that I don’t care. I just don’t have to be at the top of the charts. There are some wonderful, engaging bloggers out there that have hundreds or thousands of readers a day. These folks win prestigious blogging awards and have comment lists longer than our grocery list and computer inventory list combined. And I’m very happy for them. They are great writers and have very interesting blogs. But I’m content to have my little corner of the internet here and whomever stops by does and those who pass me by do.
I could go on and on and on but then it would get boring to read this and you’d invariably click the back button. I’d just like to thank you for stopping by my little corner here. I hope it didn’t scare you too much.
Earl and I just completed Act I of our annual Christmas Production: “Parade of the Cookies.” If you look at the photo, you’ll notice the ever-present chocolate chip cookies on the left, followed by sugar cookies on the right.
Note the subtle color on the sugar cookies. In a proud Martha Stewart moment, Earl mixed a little food coloring with regular sugar to make a festive little sprinkle for the cookie tops. It adds just a hint of color without being garish. Add one point to our gay membership cards.
Just a guy with a husband. We’ve been together 28 years and he still makes me see fireworks on a daily basis. Hiker. Storm Chaser. Private Pilot. Tech Guy. Hackerish.
Weird? Eccentric!
