Twenty Seven

I can't believe I am almost 27 years old.  I remember when I was 21 and felt the need to lie about my age.  I told people I was 27.  What was it about being 27 that was so intriguing for me at such a young age.  Now, granted, there are only 6 years that separate the two ages from one another, but it feels like a life time of lessons learned in between the two.  

It seems like no matter how old you get people still refuse to take you seriously no matter what age you are.  I find that I still feel it necessary to lie about my age from time to time.  I tell people I am 33.  An Odd number is more believable than an even one.  Also.  Getting over the 30 year hump is the make or break difference between a gay guy that is still looking and a gay guy that is ready to settle down.  This is, at least, how most over 30 gays view things.  I don't really understand why I just can't seem to find anybody on my side of the 30 year old fence to date or settle down with.  

It seems like the guys my age that are interested are rail thin.  They have no meat on their bones.  They guys that are thicker want thinner guys and the guys that are muscular want OLDER muscular guys.  They go after the older muscle guys who have reached a point of frustration in their lives of being rejected that they are no okay with taking steroids.  Or Hydroxycut.  This is what results in the form of an old face with a young body.  I see it on so many online dating profiles.  First of all.  You know something is wrong when I am pretty much only seeing pictures of peoples body parts.  Most of which are vulgar.  The others are showcasing what would seem like a lot of hard work through diet an exercise but is actually just the result of a crystal meth addiction and a jones for diet pills and steroids.

I don't get it.  All my life I have been longing to grow old gracefully.  Now I look around me and there are all these guys who are too caught up in their physical image.  

The guys my age with bodies like these are either blessed with that genetic disposition, or are lucky enough to have not hit that point in life when you reach a certain age and your body just doesn't respond to everything the same way it used to.  Instead of being able to keep the weight off you only seem to be gaining more of it by the minute.  You begin to find that you are too tired after work to partake in the workouts that had once kept you thin and you find yourself straining to button your low rise jeans.

It's a damn shame that you can't just be surrounded by people that want to wallow in your wake.  It would be nice to find a group of people who enjoyed living life and being happy.  

Just that.  Being happy.  Nothing More.  Nothing Less.

Don't make No Sense

I don't understand.  I just want to find someone.  Around my own age.  Cute.  Not too cute.  Handsome.  Not too Handsome.  Active and Athletic.  But not too much.  

The search continues and I am secretly lonely.  Lonely because I want someone to hold on to at night.  Lonely because it would be really nice to have someone to wake up with on a Sunday morning.  You know.  More often than just one random Sunday morning.  

All those little cute things that about a boy that turns you on are really starting to get to me.  There was a guy at the store the other night.  Shopping.  He came out of the fitting room and was waiting on some more shirts to try on, then when he headed back towards it, his jeans were sagging, just enough to be sexy and not so much too look sloppy.  You could see his boxer briefs bunching at the top of his jeans waistband.  SO SEXY!  I want a boyfriend that has that.  Just so I can rest my hands on his waist at the top of his waistline, and just flirtatiously feel the waistband and cotton from his boxer briefs.  Also so that after our date night.  (we would have many even after we had become an item) We would go back to his place (because it would have a view overlooking the Back Bay (my favorite part of the city).  He would pour some wine, and meet me on the terrace.  (I of course would be looking at my favorite view).  He would smirk, and I would smile.  Then he would tell me "I'll be right back" and come back without his shirt on so that I could flirt a little more with his waistband.  He would know that it drove me crazy.  I would love this about him.  The way he chose to drive me crazy.  Because in turn it drove him crazy.  It made him absolutely nuts to turn me on and to make me happy.  

This is what my relationship would look like.

If I had one.  But I don't.

I don't understand why it is so hard.  I feel like Charlotte York "WHERE IS HE???"

My birthday is next week.  I will be single.  I have reached the point in the year when it is not enough time before Christmas to find someone to date that would buy you anything worth while by the time the holiday rolled around.

I guess I will just ask for a big pillow this year.

a giving of thanks...

Thank you.  Thanks a lot.  I really appreciate all that you have done for me this year and the things that you continue to do for me on a daily basis.  Mom.  Dad.  Everybody.  I love you.  I am so thankful that I have found people in my life that I know will always be there to support me.  

This year has been awfully long for me, and yet has gone by so fast.  In a weeks time I will hit the Anniversary of what started this all, which was one phone call from my new manager.  I had no clue that at this time, this year, I would be sitting at my computer in Boston.  (Well, Malden but same difference).  I remember that at the time I had felt surrounded by many people that loved me.  Not only just my family members but also close friends.  I had managed to do what had felt impossible for the most part of my life.  It was always hard for me to find great friendships.  Growing up I seemed to encounter an ongoing dilemma when I would make friends with someone and finally open up to them, they would move away.  

So needless to say.  It is odd that once I finally had what I would refer to as a plethora of great friendships in Charlotte (that had definitely not come at a small price) I decided to leave all of it behind.  I guess, in a way, it was my version of having the upper hand.  It was a way for me to start putting myself first for once.  I had taken great pride in being an extraordinary friend to those around me.  I found joy in making people smile.  Putting people in a good mood, and hearing the laughter of my friends and family members that I really and truly cared about.  

I told my store manager that I did NOT want to move to Boston.  I said that I was not ready for the promotion and that I had things in Charlotte that I was not ready to leave.  She chuckled and asked who I was dating (she was wrong).  As she usually was about hunches that she had.  But in a different instance she had a hunch that I was being silly.  She expressed to me that she knew that I was ready for a promotion and to not let this stand in my way.  I assured her that it was not my only reason.

Nonetheless.  A phone call.  A Month's wait.  and the answer that my new residence was Massachusetts!

I am happy to be here.  When the opportunity came up I realized that I should really consider what it was that I was holding out for.  Was I waiting around for friends that were moving elsewhere to move back?  Was I waiting on friends that were getting married and starting families?  It seemed like all of my friends had things going on in their lives that were booming.  The only thing that seemed to make sense was for me to search for my own booming sensation and luckily I found it.  Or it found me.  Who knows?

So tonight.  Is the night before my FIRST Thanksgiving without my family.  It seems like all of the other Thanksgivings leading up to this one were foreshadowing what was to come.  Slowly family members branched out.  Promises were made to In-laws and Thanksgiving was half-full or half-empty, whichever way you choose to look at it.  

I remember last year how you work all week and then have this feeling of "Man, do I really have to wake up early on my ONLY day off this week?"  Then when you spend that time with your family you eventually reach your threshold and start to give thanks that you have your own place.  I remember my Mom, Dad, and Aunt Deborah asking me to stay a little longer last year.  But I was tired.  I was ready to get back to my apartment.  So I apologized.  Hugged.  Then Left.  

This year I can't leave.  Cause I'm not there.

So I have decided to fill up my day with all the people that I know up here.  In order to cloud my mind.   Forget about the fact that I will not get to make Gobble Gobble Turkey noises with my nieces.  Forget about the fact that I will not get to help my mom put the finishing touches on the cooking, or remind her to turn the stove off, or for that matter, and knowing my mother, remind her to turn it ON so that the food can actually cook! 

I will cloud my mind so that I don't have to think about how my dad manages to follow up every family meal with an arm around my shoulder, a side-hug squeeze, a proud look, and an "I Love you".  

Tonight I made Sweet Potato Balls.  Its a Paula Dean recipe and I definitely wish that it had a different and more enticing name.  I did all the prep work so that tomorrow I can just through them into the oven.  I also made a Broccoli Casserole.  When I finished and was cleaning up (keep in mind that I was only cleaning up right away because I have a new roommate) I caught myself.  I thought "Let me make sure that I turned everything off," then proceeded to touch all of the buttons on the stove and microwave while confirming, "Off, Off, Off, Off, Off!"  

My mother always does this.  She has done it since I was a little child.  It was her little way of making sure that in all the chaos that had clouded her mind for the day that she AT LEAST managed not to burn down the home that she had built for her family.  It was an idiosyncrasy that had always conjured a roll of the eye.  Not only from me, but Angie and Tommy as well.  It didn't matter.  Even Dad gave one from time to time, but by no means was it meant for judgement, it was only a subtle expression of our love for her.  

Thanks a lot everybody.  Including you Mom and Dad.  Even if I did turn out just like you.

Like a 50-year-old Virgin

When I heard that Madonna used 36 designers for her Sticky and Sweet tour I was so anxious to see what iconic fashion wardrobes she would be sweating and jumping around in.  

When I saw pictures from her show I thought "eh, maybe next time."  It was sad to me that designers of the ranks of Givenchy, Stella McCartney, YSL, Dior, and Jean-Paul Gautier all contributed their ideals to her "collection" and yet that collection included pink gym shorts and a sleeveless hoodie.  Really?  Sleeveless AND short-shorts for a 50-year old woman?

Whatever happened to aging gracefully?

If you only took a look at this one individual concert you might say that I was being a hater.  But hate not.  Want not.  I am no one to throw haterade around.  Hell, I don't even drink it, I'm on a cottage cheese diet for God's sake!  But if you had been to her Confessions tour you would...or moreover, SHOULD understand where I am coming from.  

Madonna's Confessions tour was Chic, to say the least.  The very least, for that matter, because I am absolutely repulsed by the usage of the word chic.  It serves as the only word that nails it on the head of what the costuming for her Confessions show entailed.  It was amazing.  It was dark, sexy, and mature.  As it should be for a woman, who at the time was APPROACHING 50.

Cut to her concert - @ 50 - in scantily clad get ups popping her white girl ass out while chanting "see my booty get down like..."  The line goes great in the song.  But it would have been more impressive had she let big booty black girls shake their asses while she made it rain on them.  Madonna as the pimp matriarch is more enticing than Madonna the desperate divorcee.  

It was just a thought.

My opinion would mean nothing to her.  Chump change.  But to me this show was an exit.  It was the end of an era.  I have long had a fascination with her that has yet to be understood by the common man.  She has always amazed me and been a pillar of strength and encouragement.  At this show she flushed it down the drain.  

Her entire career has been a tour de force, knocking down one new venture after the other.  I stuck by her when she kept acting, even though she was awful.  I say "Next Best Thing" the day it came out.  Even if my face did have a look of distain during the entire movie.  

But the Sticky and Sweet show was a big let down for me.  Only when you compare it to Confessions.  Seriously.  If you have not already done so, Go buy Confessions on DVD.  Make sure you watch it on a big screen with great picture and surround sound.  But it is absolutely astonishing.  

I took a friend with me to this show and it was really great.  I was really glad she got to see how over the top a Madonna concert can be.  But it is weird to know that it was only halfway over in my opinion.  Confessions left me jaw-dropped for the entire show.  It was shocking, it was passionate, it was high-fashion.  

If I had to rank in order of greatness the Madonna Shows I have seen it would be in this order...

Confessions

Reinvention Tour

and THEN....

Sticky and Sweet

The theatrics and pull of the Sticky and Sweet show was mainly that a fifty year old was brazen enough to bare most of her body parts that she shouldn't have (that underarm area, thighs, and loose neck skin area - plus close ups that ((if i was her)) would have strictly outlined in my contract NOT TO DO! that showed up on the big screen) but also the fact that a 50 year old could be that energetic for an entire hour and a half.  You walk away thinking "Man, she is really fit" or "Damn she's got some good Coke!"

Blogging

Okay you guys.  I will try my hardest.  To begin to post a blog every night before bed.  In order to live up to my title "Bedtime Stories".  It will be very hard for me.  Sometimes my mind draws blank.  Other times my mind decided to wander.  But I feel like there is a lot in there to get out.  So I might as well begin to put it all on here.  Right?

So please get the Word out about my Blogs.  I have the link posted on myspace and facebook so hopefully I can gather some more followers (which encourages me to write more often).

even the devil wouldn't recognize you...i do

In other bloggings I have mentioned before that this has proven to be one of, WAIT, strike that, this has proven to be THE toughest year of my life!

I moved into an apartment complex that I could have afforded LAST YEAR.  

THIS YEAR, however, I am making the same amount of money in a very much higher cost of living area.

SO it has proven to be a challenge.  I welcome the challenge though.  I love an obstacle.  If you don't have any obstacles to rise above then how will you ever grow?

Whether or not I have actually grown that much is another story but the truth of the matter is that I have learned a lot.  I have learned what it is like to pay EVERY SINGLE BILL LATE!  

I have learned what it feels like to have a threat of eviction.

I have learned about what happens when you let someone with bad credit be your roommate.

I have learned what it feels like to be in over your head. 

I have learned what it feels like to have a family that loves you.

I have learned what it feels like to be dearly missed.

I can tell that I am missed by how many people have asked when I will be home for Thanksgiving.  A time when you give thanks and honor the things you are grateful for.  People have asked me not realizing that I work in retail and that if I was to take the energy to travel home for Thanksgiving then I would not have the energy needed to come back and deal with Black Friday.  The secret holiday of the retail world.  What will hopefully NOT formally be known as, "The biggest shopping day of the year".  With the way the economy has been I am scared to see what Black Friday will look like this year.  I feel as though it will set the tone for the entire shopping season and if it does not go well then I feel utter depression setting in.  Hard.  Cold.  and Fast.

I feel like the kids will be home from college and they will whine and complain and force their parents out into the malls to shop for Christmas wishes.  Don't let me down you godawful brats!

I just emailed my leasing office in order to "leave a paper trail".  Its a life lesson I picked up somewhere along the way.  Something I had heard before but never listened to because it never applied to me.  It is weird how you spend your life "hearing" things and then one day out of nowhere you begin to "listen".  They begin to register and really make a lot of sense.  Luckily you remembered them because they seem to be in place to save your ass from harm.

This Thanksgiving will be my first away from home.  Away from my family.  The past few years Thanksgiving has become so cliched for me that I had really begun to take it for granted.  Do I really have to wake up early on my day off?  Do I really have to spend the ENTIRE day with my family?  Last year I had no clue that it would be my last one with the gang.  At this time last year I had told my previous store manager that I did NOT plan on moving.  I told her that I had too much going on in Charlotte and that I wanted to stay and figure some things out first.  

Who knew that I had NOTHING going on?  NOTHING compared to my life this year in Boston.  

Last year there was Thanksgiving, followed by the week when I first spoke with my new store manager.  It was a Wednesday morning.  I can remember.  I had just gone to Yoga.  It was warm in Charlotte.  I had on shorts and short sleeves as I left the gym.  That could never happen in Boston right now.

So for my first Thanksgiving in my home away from home I will be serving food to those in need at one of my favorite bars in town.  Located in Cambridge.  We will make a quick stop over to my apartment to pick up my Sweet Potato Balls (a Paula Dean recipe) and my Broccoli Casserole (from my father's Wadesboro, NC Cookbook) then head over to our store managers house for a manager's Thanksgiving spread.  Then we will head to my new found "kindred spirit" friend's place for a southern Thanksgiving with my new Bostonian family.  

It will be a full day.  It will start at 9am.  and it will be the first time that I have ever been so excited to wake up early and start giving Thanks.

Money, Money, Money, Always Sunny...

In a rich man's world...

I have none of it.  I had a roommate move in and am barely going to squeak out of the water of drowning in my own debt that is funneling in on top of my head.  I think that mid to late December it will take a turn.  Hopefully retail sales will pick up and I will be able to generate some commission out of this slowly dying economy.  

Thanks to those naysayers like Suze Orman (Go eat a carpet) there has been little to no business for me lately.  I need it.  Badly.  

It doesn't help that I feel the need to spend what money I do have.  I can't help it.  I was raised this way.  I was raised on a basis of want now, get now.  If I wanted a CD I bought it.  If I wanted a CD player and speakers for my car, I got it.  I got.  Everything I ever wanted.  When I look back.  I can admit that I was spoiled.  I would personally not refer to myself as a spoiled "brat" but I guess in some circles, that is how I would be known.  Now that I am turning 27 it is finally time to get the silver spoon out of my mouth and make a name for myself.  

BOR-ING!

Whoever said growing up was fun OBVIOUSLY still lived in their parents' house.  

Growing up is for the BIRDS.

B-I- IRDS!!!

When I finally pay all my bills.  I take one deep breath and then they start to show up again.  I don't even get a chance to exhale.  It seems like there is always some bill out there nagging me.  "Pay me this month!"  "I'm Late" "I have interest" "Late Charge added".  Geez.  Give me a break already would you?  

With all this talk of a bailout I can't help but think that the BEST idea for a bailout would be that all credit cards declare bankruptcy.  Or whatever they would have to claim in order to just bailout all of their customers.  ELIMINATE ALL DEBT!  Just stop it.  All together.  Maybe freeze debt.  No more interest.  No more late fees.  Freeze Debt for a year.  Don't allow more credit.  But freeze Debt.  And Credit.  Then we will wait a year.  Work.  Make more money.  We will learn how to buy things with cash.  You know.  The old fashioned way where you save the money.  Budget.  Then Get.  Paid immediately.  All Money Down.  Debt Free.

This is my solution.  It's pretty impressive if you ask me.

Then again.  Nobody asked me.

It is so interesting to me that a year ago I had paid all my bills and had $20 dollars left in the bank to last for a week, but it was only because I had purchased jeans that cost $300 at the time.  Now the jeans don't fit because I took a promotion to move to another city.  A promotion that pays Less (equivalently to where I was before).  A promotion that has opened my eyes to such GRAND opportunities such as eviction threats, late payments, Over $700 in overdraft fees, another credit card that is now $500 over limit, and many other little nuggets of life that I never thought I would see the day when they had occured in my own life.  I guess THAT is what growing up looks like.

It looks this way because you still talk to your parents.  And even though you feel like you are growing closer and closer to them, your lies get worse and worse so that they don't for one second think that you need their help.  This is what it looks like to BE and adult.

Faking your way through your parents hallways.  In order to get out of their house altogether.

There's no place like home.

Boy Don't try to Front

Britney Spears is making a comeback.  It's official.  If you have seen any of the photos, ads, or interviews surrounding her upcoming album, entitled "Circus" then you know good and well that she is doing it right this time.  She got in shape.  She appeared naked in the womanizer video to prove it and she is not saying stupid shit while being televised.  

I am happy for her.  She was born THE DAY before me.  So just know that the day that her Circus album drops is the DAY BEFORE my birthday!  

I will be 27 years old and I cannot wait to be another year older.  Wiser?  That is yet to be seen.  But at least numerically I am increasing with age.  It is tough making the final decision about whether or not you have matured or aged appropriately.  I can look at some of my best friends around me and see that OBVIOUSLY time is not taking a toll on them.  So it makes me question myself.  I sometimes feel more mature than the people that are around me.  But is it because I am conceited?  Is it because I take time out to think about the difference in me and them?

Who the fuck knows.  More importantly, who cares?  I keep using them to learn from my own mistakes.  It is easy to see your friends make mistakes and get caught up in a situation that you, yourself have experienced.  The easy part is telling them what to do.  The hard part is to do it right the next time you fuck up and fall into the same pattern all over again.  

I told a friend tonight that they had expectations that were too high.  This frustrated my friend.  I could tell.  We have known each other long enough for me to know everything that sets their nerves aflame.  I know that this friend knows the same buttons to push for me also.  I know, because they did it to me when I called them on Sunday to talk about a guy.  

"You are over analyzing it" they said to me.

It was exactly what I needed to get under my skin.  The reason it was so obnoxious was because it was true.  But this friend knows that I over analyze everything.  It is what I do.  It is also why this friend calls me when they need help figuring out a situation.  

It is also why I blog.

And why you keep reading them.

It made me mad that they called me out.  I know that they knew it made me mad.  Like I said, we have known each other for ever.  It made me mad because it is what I do.  Over analyze.  It is what I know how to do.  

I don't know how to feel my way through it.  I don't know how to go with the flow.  I need a plan.  Structure.  I want a timeline and I want to know what to expect.

I guess that is where my biggest problems lie because in this life, you may never know what to expect.  Ever.

Roommates

It's so weird.  Having a roommate.  The whole process gets to me.  Really.  I am  in a new city.  I am all on my own (besides the $500 a month I have borrowed from my dad since moving).  But I need a roommate.  So that I can be on my own.  For REAL.

So I got one.  I went on Craig's list and luckily (?) got a reply from a girl that seemed pretty to the point when it came to finding a place to live.  She was interested in it being furnished.  Asked me no questions about my sexual orientation.  She seemed pretty laid back for the whole time that we processed the move-in.  We did not really talk much at all before she showed up this past Sunday with all of her belongings and brought them into what was formerly known as MY apartment, yet now may be known as ours.

I feel obligated to talk to her since she is here and I can sense that she feels somewhat obligated as well.  

Before meeting her face-to-face I decided to look her up on Facebook to see what she looked like.  She was cute.  Is Cute.  So that was a plus.  Instead of getting some nasty dirty fatty smelly Roommate, I got an attractive one.  I feel like having an EXTRA attractive person in the apartment enhances the value of the apartment overall.  

So far things are pretty smooth.  Except right now she is listening to Pearl Jam.  "Can't find a better man..."  

NO.

It gets on my nerves.  Pearl Jam.  Dave Matthews.  And all the other grungy, spring break, high school, drinking margaritas type music that you listened to in college but ONLY because everybody else did.  Then you grew up.

I feel like I am being rude when I close my door all the way.  But then I feel rude if she can see my computer monitor when I am checking out gay porn.  Lots and lots of gay porn.  

Now that someone else lives here it feels as though I look at it more often.  The saddest part about that is that more than likely my frequency of porn looking has probably stayed the exact same as it was before, only now I listen to my headphones instead of turning the volume all the way up.  Also I feel dirtier knowing that there is a nice innocent girl in the other room and she can possibly hear my little moans and grunts.  

Speaking of innocent girl.  When I looked at her face book I found out that she has an extra last name.  I also found a picture of her wearing a Mrs. ******* Est. 08-15-07 shirt as well.  So I am assuming that she is a recent divorcee and does NOT want to talk about it.  When I first met her I told her I had never lived with a stranger before and she immediately agreed "Me either!"

While we were unpacking her kitchen stuff I brought it up again for conversation sake and asked "So you have never lived with a roommate either?"  

Pause..."Well, no...Not a roommate"

And that was that.  She did not elaborate whatsoever and made a grand effort to avoid leaking any personal information.

We will see how this goes.