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)

I don't need it - but someone else might

My mother doesn't want to know that I'm gay. What she wants is confirmation that I'm NOT. On a few occasions in my life, conversation with my mother ventured into the area of my sexuality. She has made comments ("I hope you're not tryin' to get into that faggot shit") as opposed to asking outright ("Are you gay?")and has always shut down when the conversation seemed to be steering into faggotville.

So, I just chalked it up to her inability to handle it if she learned that I was gay. She simply doesn't want me to be, she wants proof that I'm not. That's telling in and of itself, right? She's not wanting proof that I'm straight ... she wants proof that I'm not gay. But, whatever ... the truth is that I'm grown, I live on my own, I have kids that I take care of and I don't really need her approval.

or so I thought.

Today I got a card from the executive assistant at work - it was a hallmark card for the director here who just got married over the weekend. However, last month a gay coworker announced that he and his partner of 20 years were going to go through a civil ceremony now that Illinois recognized gay marriage. There was no card. Nothing.

So I asked the executive assistant if I had missed the card for the other guy - I hadn't signed it. She was shocked. Confused. And then remorseful. (It was interesting to see those emotions register on her face and in her body language one after another ...) She went downstairs and spent 30 minutes trying to pick out a card for him from Walgreens. She chose an appropriate light green, gender-neutral card and I was proud of her.

However, it resonated with me - that marriage was invisible to her. It simply didn't occur to her to get a card because she just didn't see it. And that bothered me. These two men have been together for 20 years! The odds that their marriage will last til death do them part are way higher than the straight couple's 50% odds ... yet still, it was less meaningful.

Seriously - that bothers me.

I think about how many people in my own family have ever come out of the closet. Zero. That's right. Zero. In the machismo Latin world I come from ... no one dares do it.

And I'm realizing that I'm that dude who needs to do it. First, I'm far enough removed from the intricate familial web that the gossip and backlash won't actually impact me personally. And that rumor will make it through to EVERYONE ... and some of those people need to know that someone did it before them. I won't name them - but I know who they are.

So - you know, while I don't really feel the need to do it ... I feel the need to do it.

It'll happen before year end ...

Stress v. Happiness

I've been really thinking about this today, as I was accused of being unhappy, and I wonder if my level of stress is an indication of unhappiness. Is it?

I'm not so sure - I know I have a lot going on - it's budget season at work and the expectations of me amount to that of a two-man crew. (I'm only one person, however, as many of you are too)

I had a leaky roof for a while, the contractor dodged me, I had to put in a claim and make a report to the BBB. Now, the insurance company is suing the contractor and I am stuck making repairs ... again.

My son's asthma is an issue - and it's now attributable to the leaky roof making the fucking ceiling moldy. So, I have that to deal with too.

Lots of debt that I am trying to get rid of - and for whatever reason it just doesn't seem to go away. I'm constantly borrowing from my savings in the middle of the month, putting it back on the first - and borrowing again on the 15th. I'm struggling to get my savings to where it was just a year ago!

A tooth of mine hurts when I apply pressure to it - and I can't get around that when I eat.

Did I mention I'm raising kids?

Yesterday I felt the pressure building in my chest - the well-known sign of my bouts with anxiety. I took a chill-pill and within an hour the pressure subsided. Long ago, I would've been in the ER scared of a heart attack - but nowadays, I recognize anxiety rather well.

So - tell me ... is my contending with stress for a prolonged period (like forever, really) an indication that I am unhappy? I know life could be better - I think it can always be ... but I do feel blessed to have a home, a car, a job, a family.

I do admit that it would be nice to be in a healthy relationship - but I really cannot settle for anything less than a healthy one. And I've known settling - let me tell you. I mean, I even married a woman! I was so fucking miserable in that marriage, I cannot even tell you.

Hmm - as I think about it, THAT was unhappy. And I don't ever feel like that anymore. Not that hopeless, regretful or depressed - it was a terrible 7 year period of my life, trying to be something I'm not.

Hmm, again. I really wonder what that accusation was about. Let me ride out these temporal stressors and reassess on the other side. Budget season will be over after the board votes in June, but I'm done with my submission next week. The ceiling should be replaced as soon as the first good rain proves the roof above it is leak-free. The contractor did ask me for a copy of the invoice for the roof repair - so maybe I'll get that money back. I'll give it a month to do away with a few big stressors so that I can in perfect hindsight better ascertain the correlation between stress and happiness.

The many faces of Mr. Right

Some time ago, I thought I had run into The One. And by some time ago, I mean ... nearly 2 years ago. By the time I had the courage to do something about it, I found that I didn't have nearly the courage that I thought. It was riddled with anecdotes and ummms and such ... and Im not particularly proud of how i handled that.

But the truth is that he embodied the great majority of the things i want in a partner. And that really made me nervous broaching the subject - and well, whatever, there was no reciprocity (as it turned out) and I suppose it doesn't really matter HOW that all clumsily stumbled out of my mouth. I put my grown man on, accepted it and kept i moving. The truth is that I dont care how deeply I care about someone - if reciprocity is nil, then no matter how I *feel* about it, I'm going to behave accordingly and keep it moving. And thats what I did.

However, what I haven't breathed to a soul ... not to him, not to my family, not to my best friends, not even to god almighty ... is this: The thing that made me nervous is both the thing within me that foretold what his response was going to be and the thing that rears its ugly head periodically when I am far from the mountain tops of life ...the notion that I simply do not possess the ability to be loved.

Crazy, right?

I could go on and on about my childhood to cite instances that tore into the fallow ground of my adolescent heart and planted that self-deprecating seed within me - but, i will give a synopsis of the cliff notes version here: by the time I was 10, I knew mine was a pregnancy my mother didn't want, that she tried to abort me and she gave me to her brother and sister-in-law to raise because she just didn't appreciate the sight of me.

Look, Im a grown ass man, a father of two, earned a bachelors degree and then a masters degree and have been on my own since I was 17 ... I am not in somw whoa-is-me place begging for someone to save me from me ... I have dealt with this, I know from where it stems and I know how to talk myself through it when I fall into old ways of thinking. Just know that dealing with that rejection wasn't easy - and know that he doesn't know how hard that was.

The main reason he doesn't know is that people have a tendency to think more highly of themselves when someone is crushed by their disinterest - but this wasn't about him and his rejecting me and about what a great thing I lost when he said he wasn't interested. It was about me ... and my own bouts with self-doubt. I had to fight hard as hell after that not to fall into some matter-of-fact place where i simply chalk it up to "eh - I mean, its ME ... why WOULD he be interested." because that would have meant that my life is meaningless, my love is worthless and my body isnt a temple after all.

Again .. not because of HIM, but because of ME. I had to keep reminding myself that I have made enormous changes in my life because I *am* lovable ... that he wasn't proof that the rejections in my childhood were indications that I lacked the ability to be loved. He was simply just another fool who couldn't see the venerable storehouse of good things within me. like my momma was. I posses the ability to be loved, dammit ... i simply do.

So - what if after all that work ... he gives an indication that maybe he was interested all along?

Sex and Cigarettes: Diet and Exercise

I must admit that when I say I haven't had sex since mid-December 2009, I do mean intercourse. The totality of everything else since mid-December is like 4 sessions - and I didn't even let it go very far those times. So, seriously - JACK had more sexual contact in a _month_ than I've had in 12. I do consider that progress.

PLUS - I know the name of each dude I fooled around with. That's a HUGE difference.

It's going on 47 weeks without a cigarette, though - and there I have not cheated at all. I have not put a cigarette to my lips since January 4. In fact, I have not touched one, lit one or otherwise engaged in any inappropriate cigarette touching in all this time.

In these two areas of my life I have seen great progress in 2010.

Diet and Exercise? Stop judging me, already!

Seriously, though, I have to really get a grip on my having given up on going to the gym and on eating healthily. Knowing myself as an emotional eater, I wonder if I shouldn't make an appointment with a counselor to discuss some things. I might need his objectivity, and the fact that I haven't seen him in 3 or 4 years would really make a session or two with him actually FEEL objective.

I am realizing that the issue with my First Love is a problem for me. His asking me for my blessing to marry another man was an emotional blow and while I hid it very well, I can't deny that it's been there bothering me. And as I contemplate how much I've eaten in the last week (under the guise of thanksgiving feasting), I really have to admit to myself that the totality of that situation is a heavy weight.

And it is so because I can't confront my ex-wife about the role she played in keeping him and me apart because we're co-parenting and I really can't let all of that out because when she feels attacked and gets defensive, she's like a cornered opossum ... and I've not intentions on co-parenting with a rabid wild animal.

I really do think that if I see that social worker again and just let it out, confess out loud that I forgive her and really do give him my blessing, then I can really deal with how my emotions about it have affected my diet and exercise habits.

I know it may sound crazy - but I am quite self-aware ... and the fact that the one person I have ever been in love with was actually in love with me too and opined for me as much as I did for him really does make me wonder What If.

What if I had the balls to be out the closet when I was in college ...
What if I actually had told him that he was my first boyfriend, that I was a virgin when I met him?
What if I fought for him?

And while I know I wouldn't have my children and my career and the life i currently have - that I would be a different me today, and that I really do love me ... even tough wouldn't change a thing ... I wonder: What if.

It's time I stop the bullshit and answer the only question that makes a lick of sense: What if I actually dealt with this in the here and now?

Tolerating Intolerance

That Paladino guy who is vying for the governor job in New York State said in a speech that children shouldn't be "brainwashed" into thinking that being gay is normal.

A professor at Michigan State University sent an email telling Muslim students to get out of this country.

Paladino isn't apologizing and MSU isn't requiring the professor to recant a thing. It's ok, apparently.

I've had conversations with folks about how "christian" this country really is - or isn't. I'm told it was founded on Christian principles and by Christians and that this is a Christian nation ... except, I don't see anything Christian in the actions or words of those who insist on ignoring the raping, pillaging and killing our forefathers did in order to obtain this great land from the natives. (You might know them as Native Americans). They say with their mouths that this is a Christian nation and yet say things to the contrary, letting live through them the true American spirit of using whatever brute force necessary to overpower those of lesser number and get whatever the fuck they want anyway.

Christ - the epitome of Christianity, right? - was a forgiver ... was kind to the woman at the well (who was in all likelihood a whore) ... forgave Peter who denied him three times .. etc. etc. etc. He was come to fulfill the law so that we wouldn't be bound BY the law ...

and yet still we have a Sodom and Gomorrah mentality, thinking we can rain fire and brimstone from the skies at anything we deem threatening or "immoral."

But research shows that gay couples raise well adjusted kids. Why wouldn't this "free" country embrace a population that is consistently raising well adjusted kids? Are the straights all over the south side of Chicago doing a great job raising their young?

Heterosexuality does not a good parent make.

Christianity does not a good person make.

And I'm tired of the hypocrisy already. Just tired.

I'm not broken!

Had a conversation today with an ex co-worker who is at least 20 years my senior. It was an interesting conversation about what gay sexual freedom was, that he remembered people being arrested for simply BEING in a gay bar ... before the stonewall riots. I can hols my own in such conversations.

He wondered if maybe AIDS wasn't a good thing for the gay community because it really made us THINK about sex instead of being so cavalier about it. I thought that was interesting. DEEP. But interesting, or maybe lemonade out of lemons-like.

At the same time, he decided to tell me that I was neglecting a large part of my life. That I spent too much time traveling and all that and that I was giving too much of myself to my children and not taking care of ALEX. Although he respected my role as a parent and how important it is to me, he thought I needed more.

I tried to explain to him that I made a conscious choice last year NOT to just have sex for sex's sake and that I wasn't crazy. I went a year without sex from the last time I touched my ex-wife to the next time I felt ready to really do anything ... these past 8 months for me aren't a dry spell, or some sign that I'm broken. This is how I do - the real me isn't comfortable with casual sex for sex's sake and I have to be true to me.

Apparently, according to him, it's unnatural not to have sex.

What the fuck!? For the love of Jesus, we all spent the majority of our lives NOT having sex. I'm not saying I don't enjoy it - I'm saying, I've got shit to do. I refuse to let my dick point me in the direction I should go ... instead, I determine my destiny and I get there.

He admitted that he doesn't have kids and isn't at all paternal. In fact, he said he would toss a baby into the trash if he had one. (Graphic, I thought). In the end, we agreed to disagree, I think. I'm not sure. I don't think I got through to him and I think he's actually trying to pluck feathers off a chicken and shedding the blood of a goat in the name of getting me back to normalcy.

But I want to be perfectly clear about this. When I had conjured up JACK in order to be able to really handle promiscuity, I never once neglected my children. I wasn't late to pick them up from daycare .. even thought I was 200 miles away. I never once forgot to feed them, bathe them, help them with homework, give them their asthma medicine before bed, read with them ... tell them how much I love them, or kiss on them or love on them.

I have NEVER brought home a piece of ass, or otherwise introduced them to a bevvy of fuckers I've dated or bedded. They have a stable life, albeit it with parents who don't live together. They are intelligent, well-rounded kids who will contribute positively to society and through them my legacy as a father will live on far beyond my grave. That's important to me. And I was able to maintain that even when I was fucking a new dude every month ...

And you know what? Whether I am a whore or no, my kids won't have to deal with a FRACTION of the nonsense I had to deal with as a kid - the fighting, the arguing, the police, the lovelessness, the stealing, the lying, the taunting, the oppression. NONE of it. My role as a parent has nothing to do with my sex life, and I'm not giving TOO MUCH of me to my kids. It's ridiculous.

The truth is that my decision to STOP being promiscuous? It's for the same reason that man thinks I should be fucking my brains out. Because I deserve it.

Except I don't deserve sex. I deserve a man - the totality of a man. And I'm not going to find him treating my dick like a metal detector and men like pieces of scrap iron.

That's how I'm taking care of ALEX.

How do I make it stop?

I'm picky. I'm so fucking picky, it's unreal. I have this perfect man for me designed in my head and I always juxtapose reality against that fictitious being that only my mind's eye can see. And this perfect man for me? I considered going into detail, describing him for you ... but, really - it's pointless. He's made up and I'm not an author creating a novel for the world to enjoy ... it's a character that doesn't need to be drawn up with the letters of the alphabet ... he just needs to fall back into the non-existent space he resided in before I conjured him up.

Because, people, he's a problem for me. In the time since my divorce, I have managed to be genuinely interested in 3 men. Interestingly enough, they are so very different from each other ... each making up his own distinct 85% of the perfect, fictitious perfect man in my head.

The first? I opined for him for far too long. It was a long distance thing. We met online and time after time he would avoid meeting in person. He was the real-life version of my fictional man because he too would refuse to materialize in the flesh. That hurt me - and it took me a long time to finally let go.

The second? He couldn't commit - and although we met in person, the relationship never materialized ... and in fact, he got spooked and completely cut me off. That hurt me - and it took me a long time to finally let go.

The third? He's just flat out not interested.

I'm realizing that I need to stop using this made up perfect person as the yardstick with which to measure the value of potential mate. I've managed to turn away more than twice as many suitors, genuinely interested in me, but possessing little to none of the qualities of the dude in my head. Let's name him. Let's call him Peter.

I'm going to need to crucify Peter ...even if he requests to nailed upside down. He just has to go. But nails have proven ineffective at piercing fake hands and fake feet. I have no idea how to get rid of him. No idea.