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1月28日 The Games We PlayWith each passing day my excitement increases as I near the day of my first party as a single man.
I've invited more than 35 staff members from my job to celebrate a housewarming party at my semi-new residence. Yes, after more than 6 months, I'm finally asking over a group of people - not just one friend as I've already done. And today, one of my favorite people in the world responded yes for both herself and her partner.
35 may not seem like a lot, but remember that's 35 staff members with a potential guest list of 70 if everyone brings a guest. For my house and my two hands, that's a shitload of people.
I started my party planning with my coworkers for two reasons: they are the biggest group of friends I have, and our staff party in December was canceled due to snow. What a great opportunity to kill two birds with one stone. I can both volunteer my house as a meeting place for a long overdue work party, and christen my new home with food, drink, fun, friends and games. Yes! Board games are the main entertainment for this party.
So far I have 15 confirmed guests with a week to go before the cutoff date for an RSVP. I suspect I will end up with about 30 - 35 guests when the night arrives. As far as I am concerned, that is a great number and would mark this party as one of the largest I've ever held (45 being peak attendance in 1997). No....I'm not a big party animal. The thought of a party as big as 70-100 is too scary. This is a big game party, not a drinking party where everyone stands around for an hour. We are all too old for that. I need a moderate size so we can all sit down with snacks and games and enjoy playing with each other. We want laughs and something to do.
God, I hope it goes well. I plan on a simple food menu including appetizers, soups, wine, and punch. I've purchased door prizes already, as well as liquor to make the punch more a social lubricant than thirst quenching liquid.
Wish me luck. 1月26日 Disney DreamsI'm thinking about a trip to Disneyland Resort this summer. It has been about 7 years since my last trip to the "Happiest Place on Earth." Much has changed in that time. New attractions at Disneyland include: Finding Nemo Submarine Adventure and a remodeled Space Mountain. At California Adventure the new attractions are: Monsters Inc., Toy Story Mania, the California version of Tower of Terror (I've seen the Florida version), and Turtle Talk. I'm thinking a two week driving trip would be ideal - with stops in the Bay Area, LA, and San Diego. Of course, it all depends on how tax season goes for me. The impact of taxes on my financial picture will have the final say. To Disney or not to Disney? - that is the question. 1月25日 Sam AdamsSam Adams is the first gay mayor of a major city: Portland, Oregon. He had a relationship a few years back with a much younger man. Legally, the man was an adult and consented to the relationship. The relationship ended years ago, and Sam Adams has recemtly said he regrets letting the relationship go as far as he did. He lied about it because he thought conservative opponents would use it against him during the election. He was right! Now the conservative Oregonian newspaper is calling for his resignation. Even Just Out!, the local gay paper, has asked Adams to resign. This is ridiculous. I don't see how lying about a personal mistake makes one an unqualified political executive. Surely, if it does, then popular history and public sentiment should turn against several presidents, including: Eisenhower, Kennedy, and Roosevelt. Calling for Adams to resign is short sighted. It's a panic reaction and disgustingly self-righteous. Who among us has nothing in his/her past that would be embarrassing when splashed across the pages of a newspaper. This is a witch hunt and Portland has more important things to worry about. It's time to move on. No one has done a better job of speaking out about against this self-righteous crap than Dan Savage - a Seattle newspaper editor and syndicated columnist. Thank God for Dan Savage. Caution: Dan always speaks his mind - usually in a rather course way. You're an adult right? Can you handle the truth? Thanks to the blogger at Gaycondo who took this video and has allowed it to be embedded via YouTube. 1月24日 The Ultimate BetrayalThe dreams have started again - sweaty, frantic, tearful - absorbed with anxiety and sadness. I've had two of them in the last week
In the last one, an exectuive from Qwest calls my home to tell Gene he is being promoted to Director. It's what Gene wanted before he died. It was his goal before retirement. It was as though a promotion was the quintisential proof that thrity years with the phone company was not wasted. But when the call came in my dream, I answered the phone and the VP on the other end of the line didn't seem to know Gene has been gone for almost a year and a half. As I talk to him, I say nothing about Gene's death. I'm shocked and I feel betrayed - as though the memory of Gene had been forgotten by everyone but me. Yet, I know dreams are alwasy about the dreamer. There is no distant corporate exeutive. Is it me that's forgetting? Am I betraying Gene's memory?
I've bought a new home and a new car. Gene's clothing is gone. I have a new boyfriend and I lead a different life. All my travels and hobbies are my decision now. There is no consultation or compromise. Everything is about me. I recently finished a week long vacation with Derek. Not once did I cry, even though travel in the past year has usually been accompanied with deep feelings of grief. I've even started the process of adopting a child - something Gene never wanted to do. In the last 18 months I've become more independent. I know that's a good thing, but sometimes I feel like I've left Gene behind - like I am the one who abandoned him.
Gene's birthday is one week away. It would have been his 53rd. Even though I know the days before an anniversary are the toughest for me emotionally, the sadness still manages to creep up on me. I still feel surprised and dismayed when the tears flow and the reality hits home.
I was watching an episode of the new Battlestar Galactica today. A minor character died of cancer - wasting away in a hospital bed. She was pumped fuil of morphine and scared about her fate. I couldn't help but cry wnen the character Rosalyn realized her friend was soon to die.
I think Gene was scared back in September of 2007. I think he knew he was having a heart attack, and he was too scared to face it. I think I knew it too. I was terrified.....and I ignored the warning signs. I let him die. I must learn to live with the weight of that responsibility.
For many years before Gene's death, I had a nawing fear in the back of my head. I was afraid Gene would leave me. I knew I didn't deserve him. I knew I was a pain in the ass to live with. I never appreciated him as much as I should have. But I always thought we would end when he would walk out the door, or fall in love with someone else. Then I could blame him for being awful - for betraying our promises to each other. Whenever I used to have those fears, I always wondered what I would do. How would I cope with the loss of us?
That's not the way it happend, though. He left because he died instead. I still remember with absolute clarity those three hours it took for him to die after the respirator was disconnected. I remember the second his heart stopped beating; the beeping of the monitor was silenced because there was no longer a heartbeat to echo. I recall that moemnt as though it happend today. I fear that memory will always be immediate, ever present in my mind. I want so much for the memory to go away - and yet I cling to it. It's a strange dicotomy. I want to let go and yet I hold tight.
I still feel crushed that Gene died. I'm devastated that he didn't live to celebrate his 53rd birthday. Sometimes I wonder if those old fears of betrayal and abandonment somehow were a way that providence was preparing me for the ultimate separation?
I don't think I will ever know the answer to that question - at least not in this life.
Death is the ultimate betrayal - that's what I should have feared. 1月20日 Not the America of My YouthI, too, sing America. - Langston Hughes Today, the day of Barak Obama's inauguration as the 44th President of the United States of America, Company is here. Let's enjoy the meal together... ...laugh together, cry together, and work together. 1月15日 Big City ValuesWhen will it end? When will this ideological falsehood about "small town values" end!
Again, the largest city in America - New York, has seen a near tragedy with the crash of a US Air flight into the Hudson River. How did they respond? - by immediately sending every nearby resource - ferries, Coastguard, fishing boats, and tugboats. in 2001, how did the people of New York respond on 9/11? There is no need to answer that question because we all know the answer.
Big city values are the values of those who want their neighbors to be happy, safe, and free to express themselves in a way that infringes upon no one.
Big city values include tolerance, freedom, and personal responsibility. It's time for conservatives to stop the devisive rhetoric. It's destructive. do people from small towns really think they are more moral? Do political tacticians really think we are stupid? Apparently Sarah Palin thinks we are.
She thinks because she is from Alaska, and a woman, and not from the right class she has been attacked. She is wrong.
She has been attacked because she isn't intelligent and isn't experienced in national and international issues. Yes she, more than anyone else of late, she has pushed this small town values crap. Apparently, use of methamphetimine is a small town value, because her town produces more of it than Anchorage - the big city of Alaska.
Americans care about each other no matter where they come from. Being from a small town does not make you a better person.
Get over it!
1月10日 Cleanliness is Next To...I was a cleaning freak today. I usually do some housework and laundry every weekend, but today I did far more than usual. I cleaned for a full seven hours like a man posessed (or a man with guests coming over). But, I have no guests this weekend; I just wanted to have a totally clean house.
I vacuumed the entire place - all three floors. I used my new steam mop on the wood floors and in the bathrooms. I dusted every room, I used my carpet cleaner on the living room rug- that alone took an hour. I scrubbed the kitchen from top to bottom including cupboard doors, the stove hood vent and above the refrigerator. All three bathrooms are sparkling. I'm not sure why I did so much, but it's done now and I like it.
Tomorrow I do the laundry and the dogs go to the fur spa. |
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