Rock Star (Not The Drink)

We were innocently milling about in the lobby of the Century Napa Cinedome 8 today, discussing the obscene quantity of soda contained in a 'large' and the dubious merits of hotdogs. We were joined by a friend, and the charming snack counter girls were oblivious to the growing line behind us as they giggled and flirted for our seven dollars. And then the ticket-taker asked if he'd seen us on MTV. "What band do you play with?"

The sight of a group of bearded men is a shock to many, apparently. Bearded men - especially those who work out - must not be allowed to spend time together in polite society. And so those who are confronted with such cognitive dissonance must find some reasonable explanation so as to avoid becoming offended. "Oh, they're in a rock band," they think. So it must be OK. Or, as they have guessed on actual occasions, we're football players, WWF performers, and even The Arm Wrestling Team.

I didn't even know there was one of those. Isn't arm wrestling an individual event?

The Golden Compass was fun, but we bought the book so we could read the good version. On our way from the theater we gave the ticket-taker our best rock star nod and strutted to the bookstore for a good softbound read.

P.S. Yes, we have access to the Internets again.

Moving On Out

So I’ve been pretty quiet lately, and I hope you haven’t been shocked. Oh, it’s OK, we’re friends, we can talk. I know how easily you’re upset by my silence, and how you start to imagine scenarios. You worry. It may even be a little bit twisted, but I kindof appreciate that, you know? Like, you care enough to be concerned, and that’s actually pretty special.

But no, nothing’s wrong. In fact, aside from the fact that we can’t use our kitchen any more, everything is quite fine.

See, the house is on the market. As in to sell. And we’ve made it positively glisten, but the road to this point was arduous and tiring. And frankly, we just didn’t want to talk too much about it because we weren’t really sure what the goal was, or if we’d still like our goal when we reached it. So yes, we were always working on the house, but we weren’t working on the house. Not like this. It consumed us. It was the only thing we did.

When all you do is make widgets, it’s hard to talk about gadgets, you know? So if you’re working on widgets with secret properties, you don’t say much.

But it’s done now. And now it’s just a matter of keeping it sparklingly clean and not cooking in the kitchen until the right person walks in and just loves it. And then when they do, that’s when the next adventure starts. Because we really are leaving after that person finds this house. And we’re going back to the mainland, to start all over again.

What grand adventures await? Well, we’re not really sure. How fascinating is that? One thing we do know, though, is that Internet access may be rare. So if you thought I was quiet before, just wait a month or two. Because we're going to be turning up the volume on ssssshhhhhhh........

Cue the crickets.

Tagged

Oh, Bother.

Although I’m generally disdainful of blog meme tagging, I’m also completely adoring of GoB. So even though he tagged me, the love fest must go on, and I must comply. To do so, I’m supposed to recount eight random facts about me, then go on to tag eight other people.

1. I grew up on a farm in rural Oregon with two hundred goats, fifty chickens, thirty five pigeons, three pigs, a cow and her calf, and a dog. Being the eldest boy, it was my job to kill the chickens that escaped repeatedly. Since I could never properly figure out how to aim my BB gun, I did it with my bare hands. (It was also really fun to give the pigs bubble gum. OMG that was some funny shit.)
2. I want super human powers. I mean, I really really want them. Not unlike how an eleven year-old boy wants them before, during, and after reading a Harry Potter book or X-Men comic, I yearn for extraordinary abilities. Sometimes I want them so I can improve society, sometimes I want them just to show off or to cause a reaction, and sometimes I want them so I can hurt someone. This is how I know I would be a poor candidate for having any.
3. Bumper stickers that say “Abortion stops a beating heart” really piss me off. What I want to do to the people with them on their cars reinforces my belief that I should have no super-human powers.
4. If I’m not sore, I feel scrawny and unattractive. Head Chef says I have the most annoying case of body dysmorphia the world has ever known, but I disagree. There are plenty of people with it worse than me. Plus, it keeps me in the gym. Given the choice between a gym habit, chewing my finger nails, or heroin, I think I’ve chosen wisely.
5. I fully expect a cure for baldness to arrive within the next ten years, and I don’t mean some Propecia-esque thing that sorta/kinda helps. I mean a cure. And I’m already preparing to deal with the ethical dilemma. Hair provides me very little increased likelihood of survival and baldness is a valid and even attractive alternative to hair. Should I take the cure, or take a stand for natural beauty? Only time will tell.
6. Remodeling our home has been a grueling and long-term effort, and has taken approximately 21 months longer than originally estimated. A good friend of mine attempted the same thing a few years ago and ended up on anti-depressants. I have avoided the same fate by alternately ignoring the construction zone I live in and working on it like a man obsessed. Lately, I’ve been so obsessed that it is testing Head Chef’s patience. But we are making excellent progress and it’s exciting on at least two levels.
7. For the second time in my life, I’m ready to throw caution to the wind and do something dramatic and rash that has the possibility of great reward coupled with the risk of devastating consequences. I’m either getting older and more able to face risk, or the last time was so traumatic that I’m just not afraid of it any more. Either way, it seems like a win.
8. I still play World of Warcraft. I might be less inclined to continue, but the Draenei racial was just too good not to roll a new warrior.

Coming up with eight random facts about yourself can be a challenge, but coming up with eight other people to tag is a nightmare. For starters, I don’t actually know eight people. Furthermore, at least one blogger I adore is blogging in secret (figure that out). This makes it too difficult to bother with tagging eight other people.

I suppose if you break the chain in a chain letter you’re supposed to have terrible luck. So if the consequences of not tagging eight other people are so dire that I’m physically or technologically incapable of blogging them, may my silence serve as a warning to others.

Gay Schmomb

Gay Bomb, Gay Schmomb.

I'm tired of hearing about the proposed but abandoned military "gay bomb" that was supposed to turn enemy armies into bands of lawless homosexuals. I'm tired of it because it's been reported before and because that wasn't what it was.

It was a "horny bomb," people, not a gay bomb. It was supposed to make enemy armies so sexually aroused that they would immediately have sex with anything or anyone, thereby effectively rendering them incapable of combat. I think we can imagine how effective that might be.

But everyone's spinning this thing like it was supposed to make people gay. Let's get this straight (so to speak). Being so uncontrollably aroused that you'll fuck a member of the same sex doesn't make you gay. If it did, there'd be a lot fewer heterosexuals out there. In fact, if that were true only 40% of the population would be straight. Gay isn't something that happens to you, or something you do, it's something you are.

No, it was supposed to make them so frickin horny that they'd stop what they were doing and get it on with the nearest human, animal, or object. So yes, there would definitely be some same-sex contact going on. Oh, definitely. And the military masterminds of this plot did acknowledge that the best-case scenario would include enemy troops gettin it on with each other. But that wasn't the only point.

So please, stop crying out about how it's offensive to think that turning people gay would cause armies to collapse. It certainly wouldn't. But making them all drop their guns and fuck definitely would. Military intelligence may be an oxymoron, but they're not actually that stupid.

Ted Kennedy In The Stewpot

If you're not perfect, how do you tell a friend that they've really let you down? That they've undermined your trust? That they've made you rethink who they are and what they're really about? Do you, even - do you even tell them? Or do you just carry on, pretending nothing's changed.

If you're Ted Kennedy, do you ask a man how his wife died in the car accident?

I guess this is really just about being very disappointed in people not living up to my standards. Two people, specifically, from opposite ends of an ocean. But fear not - neither could be bothered to read this blog, so you're not one of them.

That's not to say that I always live up to my standards, either. No, for all my principles and boisterous pronouncements of ethical concerns, I stray. I am Ted Kennedy, and I am not without sin. I have not killed a man yet, but I'm sure I've hurt one or two.

Since these things move in karmic cycles I will be hurt, too. And others will be hurt as well, and we'll all hold onto our pain and disappointment and let it simmer in a little stewpot. We'll drop in the sacred promises not kept, secrets told to gossips, and political maneuvering by our confidantes, and we'll just let it cook on low. And then we'll hop in. We'll keep the heat down and let the salty brine of our personal disappointments just cook till all that's left is a little crusty reminder at the bottom of our stewpot.

It'll be a mere scab of what it was when it was fresh, and easy to overlook. But it will always be there, reminding us of our dashed hopes and the fact that we dare say nothing because we're Ted Kennedy.

Careful There

As too many people have already noted, so-called Dr. Holsinger, Bush’s nominee for Surgeon General, is a crackpot. He’s a bigoted ideologue who ignores increasingly voluminous scientific evidence that gayness is a naturally occurring phenomenon and then turns around to distort science in order to villainize us. And he’s a nominee for Surgeon General?

Yeah. 'Cause paying attention to medical science is, like, totally not important for the country’s head doctor.

This is so obviously a doomed nomination it makes ya wonder how it could come to be. Well I’ll tell ya how.

Did you see the Democratic party presidential debates? Did you catch how every single one of them, without exception, is progressive on issues of gay citizenship?

So “Dr.” GaysArePervs gets nominated even though he can’t possibly be confirmed. And three different Democratic party contenders are on the committee that will turn him down.

Two plus two still equals four, right?

Bush – or more likely, Rove – is putting Holsinger in front of this committee not because they think he’ll be confirmed, but because they’re counting on Clinton, Obama, et al to go on record saying something pro gay. Something the next bigoted, fear-mongering, middle-class-eliminating, war-drum-beating Republican can use to excite their exhausted, alienated base.

So careful there, Hil and Bar. It’s a setup, and they’re watching you. And we are, too.

Ceiling Fan Attacks Twin

As a dutiful homo-ner (translation: gay owner of a home), I recognize and perform according to my duty to work on my abode. And so with Head Chef laboring over the power tools, I do the more menial tasks that must be done even though they require a bit more patience and perhaps a little less emotional return for the effort.

And despite the fact that it was he, not I, who operated the power tools, I still found my way to the hospital with a gushing head wound.

See, the ceiling fan attacked me in cold blood. I was innocently patching pukas in the ceiling and the wicked thing reached out and lacerated the back of my head. The impact resonated with a huge “WHAM!” through my head. I fell to the bed I stood on, and heard Head Chef turn off the power tools outside in the garage.

“Are you OK?” he called in. I got up from the bed and put my hand to the back of my head for the blood check. Sure enough, my hand was covered in beautiful red.

“I’m bleeding,” I responded as he came into the house and I went out into the hallway. Although the pain was subsiding quickly, he reported that the cut was an inch or more long, apparently deep, and covered in dust bunnies that had collected on the fan blades since their last cleaning.

So after some convincing, he took me to Kuakini hospital for cleaning, stitches, and a fashionable bandage.

And it was there that it happened again. The admitting nurse asked me my name. She asked me my occupation. She wanted to know if I had any other injury or had fallen to the floor. And she wondered if Head Chef and I were twins.

No? Perhaps brothers? Cousins? Step in-laws thrice removed? I held a cool, damp rag to my head with my right hand, and it was significantly streaked with blood. I looked over at Head Chef and rolled my eyes. Clearly, all bearded, bald men are related.

It was the first time I had ever been irritated by the question. Up to this point over the past nine years, I was fine with it. It even amused me. “Brothers! Ha! More like kissing cousins,” I always wanted to answer. But in this context, the nurse’s question wasn’t amusing at all. It was tedious.

And it was stupid and obvious that we are not brothers. I’m taller, more fair, with narrow shoulders and a gigantic head. I look English/French. Head Chef is shorter, darker, with broad shoulders and a decidedly Czech look to him, and yet again, “Are you brothers?” You should see the family get-togethers.

The bad news was that I needed stitches and a tetanus booster. I braved both, and brother Chef smirked at my discomfort and embarrassment. I was stoic in the face of hypodermics and self-effacing for foolishly standing up into a ceiling fan on high.

My twin (he has teeth and a spinal column) and I left the hospital and returned home to find the fan still spinning. With my head dressed in bandages, I stood there menacing it from the room’s doorway, “spin all you want, but I’ll get you in the end.”

Wistful For Bloodletting

I have learned from the great and wise GoB that the FDA is upholding the ban on gay men giving blood despite statements against the ban by the Red Cross itself. But unlike he who holds domain over scones, I am not angry. I just miss it.

See, I used to donate blood regularly in college. And I loved it for two reasons: I was deathly afraid of hypodermic needles but not the pencil-lead variety used for blood donation, so it was a sort of personal triumph each time. Plus, I walked out feeling like somebody somewhere might live because I made this minor sacrifice of time and resources.

It helped my mood in a truly unique way. I felt like a little hero, and I smiled for not just no reason at all, but for every reason. I felt generous and benevolent, and yes, even powerful.

I have a fairly rare blood type and great veins so my donation was always met with a peculiarly greedy but grateful welcome. It almost felt as though they might ask to take a little extra just this once. And each time I went in for a bloodletting, I answered the question "have you had sex with a man even once since 1977" truthfully.

I always said, "no." And silently in my mind, I followed my response with "...not yet." So the morning after I finally did go home with a man after a night at a bar, I took stock of what was next. And amongst all the other realizations I had that morning, I knew that my little pleasure of donating blood would be a memory. And I knew I would miss it more than anything else.

Some weeks passed, and I got my customary call from the Red Cross. "Mr. Chef," they started. They always addressed me so politely. "We just wanted to let you know that we're hosting a blood drive in your neighborhood and would appreciate it if you could make another donation because your blood type is so uncommon."

I thanked them and hung up, but I did not go. This happened two more times. And on the fourth call, they seemed puzzled. "Mr. Chef, you had an amazing donation record prior to nineteen ninety (something!), but we haven't seen you at the last three drives in your area. Is there anything that we can do to make it more convenient for you to donate?"

I was hesitant to describe the real reason I'd stopped coming in. "Well, you see, it's just that you don't want my blood any more," I explained.

"Oh, quite the contrary, Mr. Chef, you have an uncommon blood type and we're having a particular shortage of rare bloodtypes in our area," she pleaded. It was clear I had to be direct.

"No, see. You don't want my blood any more because I've had sex with a man since my last donation."

"Oh, I see. Thank you, Mr. Chef. We'll remove you from our call list." She hung up without so much as a goodbye.

I am still HIV negative, and even if I weren’t, the Red Cross says they could tell before my blood went into someone else. Someone who might need it badly.

I still miss giving blood. And I would again if I could. In a heartbeat.

Dial E For Murder

No, it’s not M. It’s E, baby. E is the true letter to dial for murder.

I work in a security-related field, and as such I have need for encryption in various situations. If you don’t already know what it is, encryption is a term for technologies that scramble information so that it is unreasonably difficult for someone to read unless they are authorized to do so. If someone who isn’t supposed to wants to read encrypted data, they had better have a lot of expertise, a large number of computers, and be in no rush.

Since encryption is so great at protecting information from prying eyes, people in my industry start to use it for the really important things first. When exchanging critical financial data with a client, for example. But then we start using it for less critical things, like placing an order for pizza, and it becomes a slippery slope all the way down. Soon, we’re using types of encryption to prove our emails to Mom really are from Sonny Boy. Like Mom’s checking.

So today I was chatting with the Boulanger, discussing encryption for our instant messaging chats. She didn’t know what it is, the poor dear. So I explained it and its purpose.

Boulanger is the sort of woman who cannot be bothered with the boring realities of certain things, most especially when there is a more entertaining alternative to discuss. No matter that it’s fictional, let’s explore it. So hearing my explanation of encryption and attempting to determine how and why it might be applied to instant message chat, she came upon the best reason ever.

“So you want to chat using encryption because you want to talk about … MURDER,” she stated. Because she is so literate that grammar literally inundates and colors her speech, you could practically hear the capitalization.

Faced with such a dangerous and tantalizing alternative reality, how could I disagree?

Channel Crossing

Head Chef and I are best when we’re racing toward some distant point. We hop in our canoe - our wa`a - and we paddle toward the same spot on the horizon. That’s when we’re at our best.

Sometimes he steers and sometimes he paddles along with me, putting his lower back into it because he knows where he’s going in his heart. He steers because he sees our destination with something that I don’t. I think he feels it like I feel musical notes. Part vision, like a bird who actually sees magnetic North as a visible spot, and part tactile sensation. Like an ice cube rubbed across your back – shocking at first, but exhilarating and full of contrast that wakes up your senses and leaves you smiling and laughing.

Because I am strong in that way, I paddle. I stroke, stroke, stroke, putting my energy into the water and moving our boat along. And I watch. I watch the water beneath us moving past, noting how our movement across its surface leaves such a small wake. I watch the landmarks on the shore as they approach and move past. I make small adjustments to the depth or strength of each stroke to keep us pointed toward his destination.

When I stop to rest, I am the one who checks the stars for our bearings. Head Chef has no need for such things because our destination is part of him and he trusts that. But I need to observe that we are on course using facts and equations. So I check my data and reassure myself that the route he’s chosen is best. And it is, most times.

So we paddle on, making minor corrections and crossing that next channel. And we’re crossing the water in the same direction. Each does his part and we synchronize our strokes. Together, we’ll get there. That next island, wherever it is. Because this is how we’re best.

Team Spirit

I don’t know whether it was my upbringing or my genes, but I’ve just never really gotten into team spirit. I can play on a team, participate in a team’s activities, and even earnestly collaborate with my teammates toward a mutually beneficial goal. But ask me to root, root root for the home team, and you can bet I’m going to be yawning in between asking why I should bother.

I remember being in a freshman high school assembly and being taught about how to show my school spirit. Three hundred of us were coaxed and cajoled into screaming at certain cues, and a good number of the kids really seemed to get into it. But a contingent of senior classmen was there, and even despite their smaller numbers, they were louder. Oh noes, we had to beat them, how could we let them beat us??!!

I distinctly remember thinking “but what’s the point,” to myself as I stood in the bleachers with my comrades. Yes, yes, the seniors were louder, but how did it matter? What if they did love our school more, what then? What was the point of school spirit? Did it get me better grades, less homework, or out of school an extra period early? How did my allegiance to something I had no part in choosing for myself benefit me at all? Was I really supposed to be bloated with school pride just because it was the one I went to, and not based on its merits?

This internal dialogue has echoed in my thoughts time and again, and has informed many of my decisions. Religion, military service, and any significant sort of plebian nationalism have all been considered and dismissed. Autonomically doing as god says without personally talking to it, sacrificing my life for an economic system, and accepting the poor choices of my government without comment seem like foolish and dangerous paths to choose. Especially when the merits are dubious, at best.

But faced with these same choices, so many people still seem particularly eager to show their school spirit. Sometimes I feel like I’m still standing next to them in our high school auditorium looking at them, shaking my head, and wondering “why?”

Sad Song

Sometimes I’m in the mood for a sad song. Sometimes I need the minor key because nothing else interlocks with my reality. My body chemistry. The little aches and pains.

And sometimes, when I hear a song that is sad, I feel like I hear the words. No, not the words - that’s not it. I feel the meaning. The way the hurt collects in the throat and in the heart, constricting them - tingling sour in the corners of the jaw and fluttering in the tummy like nervousness. Nervousness and loss.

Sometimes I’d like to write a sad song too, just so someone would hear it. And maybe the right person would hear it, someone who heard the story I was really telling. They could lie on their bed or sit in their cubicle and let a single tear drop because they realized someone else felt the same hurt.

And we’d never meet and it wouldn’t matter. Because that little truth would rescue us both.

Fond Farewells

Head Chef’s parents came to visit, and although it was the source of some frustration, it ended very nicely. We returned from Big Island together and had fast food in the terminal while we waited with them for their connecting flight. Then we walked them to the Wiki Wiki shuttle and Head Chef hugged his mother while I shook his stepfather’s hand. Then we switched, and I got a hug from Mama while Head Chef got a handshake from his stepfather. And we stood there for a second.

At this rate, this might be the last time we’d see them again for another few years. I had just had that moment during Christmas with my own family, and it felt like deju vu. Mama Chef started to cry. We had to hurry and get the goodbye over with, or Head Chef would be next. So we waved and parted.

For all the things that can go wrong or did go wrong, I find it easier to forgive it all in those cases when we love each other enough to drop our guard upon parting. To get just a little bit overwhelmed by goodbyes.

I Am A Visionary

While recognizing that my proposal for how to fix marriage is "absurd," the Washington Defense of Marriage Alliance clearly reads my blog and they've presented a watered-down version to the Washington State Legislature. I don't mind my ideas being used for such ends, I just wish they'd given proper attribution.

And you said I wasn't ahead of my time. At this rate, I expect to be jailed for political reasons within eight months.

Explanation For A Friend

Some months ago my GoB needed an explanation for lipstick in his old jacket pocket. He could not remember where the lipstick came from, and asked for possible sources. I replied. Browsing through his old posts I rediscovered my reply, was amused, and thought I'd share it. It goes a little something like this:

"Your name was Kazimir Svobodnik, and you were on the westbound train in Munich with your lover and fellow spy, the ravishing but deadly Liesl Eberstark. Leisl had just emerged from deep cover as a double-agent with a splinter group of former KGB who had entered into a dangerous game as arms traders. Liesl had stolen blueprints for a heavily-guarded missile technology and a kilo of weapons-grade isotopes, which she now kept inside her makeup case under her seat.

Suddenly, shots were fired in the car behind yours. Without looking back, you and Leisl lunged from your seats and ran for the next car, pulling your weapons from inside your dress jackets.

As you burst through the doors to the next car, a startled woman screamed, and then began to panic when she saw the weapons you both held. Having no time to quiet the innocent, Leisl gracefully shot the woman and her two companions in the forehead, silencing them and leaving the two of you alone in the train car.

Croutched behind the door listening for your pursuers, you and Leisl locked eyes. You'd been here before, and she was a powerful ally. Moments like these made you love her ever more powerfully. You needed her flesh, right then and there, and she mocked you with her eyes when she spied the erection in your heavy woolen trousers.

'Oh, darling,' she whispered. And that was all. She looked up to the window in the door as a sound came from the previous train car, and your eyes followed the direction of the sound, as well.

Suddenly you felt a mist in your face, and looked to see Leisl screwing the fake bottom back into her lipstick.

'I'll miss you, Kaz,' she whispered.

At once, the horror of your situation was apparent. Leisl had obtained the banned Soviet memory-eradication spray, and had used it on you. She was going to keep the isotopes for herself. You had only seconds, and your consciousness was fading already. There was no time for your anger or betrayal.

'I love you, Leisl. For now,' you muttered, and watched as she carelessly tipped the lipstick container off her fingertips and into your jacket pocket. She gave you a regretful look, stood, and ran through to the next car. You watched her, knowing that as your consciousness left you, so did your identity.

The next thing you knew, you were a homosexual computer programmer living in San Francisco."

Takedown

We were late for a lunch meeting so we were hurriedly walking to the restaurant through the historic part of downtown Honolulu. On our left we passed the Kawaiaha`o Church and a Japanese wedding party descending down its steps.

We rushed down the empty sidewalk, mindlessly navigating around a bus stop or other obstacle and talking about Churches and my buddies’ marriage-minded girlfriends. As we did, we glanced over our shoulders periodically to watch the bride bask at the top of the stairs like Makapu`u Lighthouse shining amongst a night of dark Japanese suits.

We approached two elderly women standing on the edge of the sidewalk waiting to cross, but they stood still and were well out of our path. I glanced over to the Church again as we talked about its popularity with the Japanese.

And then I was tested.

The more elderly of the two women was once a powerful but evil master of sciences and Kung Fu, and she used these tools to achieve her sinister ends. Using complex calculations based on her vast knowledge of physics and informed by her studies of Cheetah style martial arts, she timed her attack perfectly. While my head was turned to see the bride giggle and sway, Auntie launched herself into my path in an attempt to undo me for the last time.

But devious Auntie Cheetah was no match for my years of training at Shaolin Locomotive Monastery.

I never saw her coming and I barreled into her like a steam engine hits a cow. All I knew was that I had struck something with my chest that shouldn’t ought to have been there. I came to an abrupt halt, but Auntie absorbed my kinetic energy and began to crumple downward and toward the Church in a desperately pleading sort of slow-mo. Foolish mortal. As though the Church could save her now.

I stood in shock, almost completely unable to react, as my 70 year old nemesis collapsed. My friends, who had seen her leap at me but had no time to warn me, tried to slow her fall, but it was no use. No mere Grandma can stand after being struck by a man in Locomotive Stance.

We helped her up from the concrete and immediately began to abase ourselves. Auntie’s sidewalk companion yelled accusations of premeditated assault and attempted foul play. Finally, after everyone was confirmed uninjured and we promised for the fourteenth time that it was an accident, we were allowed to leave.

But I’m keeping my eye out for Grandma. She may be frail, but she is wise, vengeful, and she has powerful allies. Thank goodness for Locomotive Stance.