Impasse

You taught me to bury deep inside who I really am
I couldn't "be" gay, you taught me,
because "acting" gay was wrong
And I grew up trying to avoid
"looking" gay or
"sounding" gay or
"dressing" gay or
ANYTHING gay
because, however tacitly, you
YOU
taught me I could not be gay.


So, my psyche learned to repress itself
by busying itself to the point of obsession
with how to avoid being found out

You taught me to hide my feelings from you
because I was a kid - a fucking kid
who just wanted to be accepted by his parents
his friends
his church
the world.
But I had to hide the real me, you taught me,
in order to feel loved.

So, I became a teenager who acted out in secret
All of my sexual experimentation happened
Because it happens for everyone, right?
But for me it happened in the dark
without advice
without answers to my questions
without joy

You taught me how to act, look, sound, dress ...
what to reveal, what to deny
And set me up to be miserable on the inside
but to always smile in your face so you wouldn't know it

So, as my sexual experimentation evolved
and I learned how my emotions and sex life were attached
My repression and my facade were much too intense
And felt to be around a whole lot longer than I was alive
somehow

So, I learned to keep it up into my 20s.
Experimentation in secret gave way to illicit behavior
in the gutter
in groups
in gravely dangerous places
created for my ilk
created by the likes of me
because secret lives and repressed souls
just naturally find their way to the gutter
it seems

And you find out, whether I tell you or not,
the world finds out
and I'm a disgrace, you all say,
be I gaunt and dying or
a fortunate, shell of a man in good health
because you taught me better.

Because you taught me better.

Because you fucking taught me better.

For too long

I'm usually quick to stop some bullshit, but when it comes to my mother in law, I'm uncharacteristically long suffering.  And suffering is a good word there.  We're roommates (my ex wife's mother and I)  [I know, not typical, but it just is] and she's become more work than a help.  And for far too many months, I've let her do less than her share - the share we agreed upon ... and I guess I just had a very ridiculous notion each month that the following month she'd make up for it.

But no - she's a perpetual drain on my finances and I have put my foot down.  I'm not here to allow her to enable her children to be jobless, ghetto bitches - she spends all her money on the bottomless put that is their greed and their proven habit of taking advantage of her ... and then I have to help her with HER bills?  Or I have to go without her rent to me?

I've made it clear - I have no interest in helping them any further.  I'm through with the nonsense - we have an agreed upon monthly payment for her living expenses (which is already generous on my part) and she's got to get on it.

I've redone my finances without her a part of it - and I can totally do bad on my own - so, if this shit continues, I will ask her to leave.  My kids are actual CHILDREN that I need to take care of - her grown ass kids (and two grandkids) are not my concern.  I'm through.

UNTITLED RANT

I didn't even know what to call this shit, but I have a bone to pick with ... well, with ... who the fuck knows. Just a bone to pick. Cuz I'm overwhelmed.

I have a serious problem with the fact that companies were so quick to fire but are so slow to hire. I'm well aware that I am extremely fortunate to have been employed through this great recession - I get that. And my complaint here comes from a place that is completely cognizant of the ... well, privilege that I enjoy as one of the ones that has remained employed over the past few years. I'm not even trying to front, ok? Privilege. I get it. I know it. I'm not trying to gain sympathy here.

But I am trying to convey my own frustration with the speed (an oxymoron) with which we are recovering jobs. As much as the unemployed need work ... we need you, too! There's a lot to do - and no one expects less because there are fewer people around to get the job done. In fact, the expectations have grown and I, personally, have been stretched thin, and thinner, and then steam rolled to damn near a trillionth of a millimeter ... and, as even metal, when so pressed, I'm feeling brittle.

I struggle pretty hard on a consistent basis with not losing my cool, or just plain snapping (ethnically). I need a reprieve. Some release. You know how when a train rolls into the last station and you hear the HISS of release hydraulic pressure? Like that.

And that's not coming from "just hold on a little bit longer," or the pizza you order in for lunch. Holding on a little bit longer just means ... well, hold one a little bit fucking longer! And pizza? That just now says, "don't leave for lunch - eat here."

(I'm not ungrateful for the pizza itself. After all, pizza is YUM! Thank you.)

But really, when are we going to get more people? We need people. People needs jobs. On either side of the unemployment line there's pressure building ... that's really my point. Those people that are losing their homes, getting collection calls, turn off notices or angry visits from the landlords? That shit is stressful ... and they truly, honestly just want to work.

And there's plenty of work to do! PLENTY. OF. IT.

It's a peg and a hole of the same shape and size. And yet here we still are ... anxious, stressed and worn out. Giving our lives to nothing ... because either we're working like slaves and can't figure out how to really have a life outside of work ... or working on resumes and finding more job applications to fill out and unable to really have a life outside of the house.

(Maybe this is bullshit - but here my mind lays)

It's for me.

I've met someone online and it turned out he is a friend of a friend - and that mutual friend gave me the green light. "He's a good guy." Fortunately, we were chatting before we figured out we had a mutual friend.

It's long distance, too. We both travel quite a bit for our jobs and happened to cross paths during our travels - which is how we met.



We're in that 3-hour-phone-call-nightly phase - and it feels good. I'm struggling with keeping things in perspective, but I'm managing not to get beside myself. Long-distance isn't easy - I know this - but the number of things we have in common just make it uncanny:

• He's black - was married to a Puerto Rican woman. I'm Puerto Rican - was married to a black woman.
• We both divorced 7 years ago
• We both have two kids. One boy and One girl each.
• He's in the same business as our mutual friend and the two of them were on the same business trip together when he and I met.
• We both live in one city 70% of the time, and both spend 30% of our time in a different city.
  
• We both do the 70/30 thing because our kids are in one city and work in the other
• We both have very close relationships with our ex-inlaws
• The Bronx is where he spends that 30% of his time - I was born in the Bronx and my momma still lives there.

We learned a lot about each other talking for quite a while now - and notice how nothing above has any relation to sex. It's just personality here. We've discussed meeting in person and what the hell happens if we hit it off in person and decide it's worth pursuing further ... and we're both willing to work it out, travel, etc. I know long distance isn't easy, I say again ... but it seems like it could allow me to focus on raising my kids when I'm in daddy mode, without someone local wanting to see me, or being jealous of the time I keep exclusive to my kids. It seems like it would allow me to focus on work when I'm supposed to be focused on work. I don't know - I compartmentalize and it seems like it would work alright.

If I still have readers - I'm sure you'll post your opinions. Let me have it.