Talk Thursday: Two Late Topics

For Talk Thursday, I’m behind a few weeks with “Milestones and Mortality,” and my own topic of “Castaways.”  I’ll think of some suitable self-torture in another venue, but for now, all ya’ll get a little stream of consciousness.  Instead of a cohesive piece, it’s gonna be piecemeal, disjointed, and chaotic – kind of like the top of my desk at the moment.

Mortality is much on my mind most of the time.  The last few weeks, even more so because of big time life and death events:  elderly relatives’ birthdays, friends’ children’s birthdays, a friend’s suicide, and my mom’s increasingly poor health.  I’d love to channel Elton John’s “Circle of Life” (belted out at the top of my lungs) and force myself through a deeper understanding of life and the challenges thereof, but my sense of grace and wonder is jaded.  Most days I’m more in tune with Depeche Mode’s “Blasphemous Rumours.”  Most days.  I don’t have many issues with my own mortality.  I don’t know how to deal with people nearest to me dying.  I’m clueless, flailing, and graceless.

I reached a certain health milestone today when I went to the follow-up physical after my little summer aspiration episode.  Lovely time, that – I hope to never repeat it (the aspiration, not the physical).  Other than my stomach acid issue (which can be controlled through drugs, diet restrictions, and exercise), I’m healthy as a fookin’ horse (though not nearly as hung, thankfully).  Here I be, 41 years old, and the doc was impressed with my bloodwork and improvements since summer.  Thank the lords for small mercies, right?

I was listening to the song “Castaways,” by Toyah, when I made myself send out a topic, any topic, to the Talk Thursday group.  I didn’t have a thought or story to tell.  At that moment, I felt rather adrift in my own thoughts about blogging, about writing, about online communities and the rhetoricals of what constitutes sharing too much?  Hard to imagine that I am questioning the whole blogging thing after 3+ years into this space, but that’s where I am.  No, I haven’t given up, but I’m acknowledging that sometimes I just don’t feel like talking.  Thanks to the folks who’ve stuck around through those silent spaces.

Rep. Alan Grayson

It’s not too often that I’m moved positively by political behavior.  Most of the time I feel downright postal, especially when it comes to Utah politicians.

The national “debate” is about health care.  One man lately has cajones.  Huge cajones.  (Granted, a pre-pubescent has more cajones than a full-grown Democrat in most cases, but I’m not inclined to verify, personally.)  Here’s to Representative Alan Grayson of Florida.

Traveling and Why I’ve Been Absent

We’ve been in Chicago since last Thursday and the internets here have been intermittent and sometimes completely absent.  There’s something funny about being subject to the rules of nature in thunderstorms, such as power outages and loss of network connectivity. 

We’ve had a good time with family.  Except for a resurgence with stomach acid, which I’m sure has had nothing to do with the alcohol or acidic food I’ve been eating, I’ve been faboo.  Let’s just say that I don’t dare go to bed without taking little magic pills for acid. 

Highlight of the trip so far was watching “Raging Planet” on the Discovery channel – an episode on tornados.  It coincided with the real life storm warning and tornado watch here – it’s the first I’ve ever been through.  I feel scarred from living through the movie Twister too many times because I always internally duck at the image of flying cows.  No such luck with this though – it was just a wimpy thunderstorm. 

We fly home tomorrow.  I can’t wait to be back home and sleeping in my own bed again.  Hugs to all ya’ll.

Neil Patrick Harris

No, I didn’t watch the Emmy’s, but I would have had I known this guy was hosting.

He’s fookin’ adorable.

Talk Thursday: Self-Deprivation

Restraint has limited meaning in my life’s vocabulary.  I like to think restraint has limited meaning in my life, considering my archetype of gluttony and penchant for exuberance, but the reality is that I’ve aged and learned and grown and know that sometimes a lot is way too much.  God, that hurt to write, but I digress, and I’m also writing stream of consciousness and memory.  You have been warned.

Growing up, I was lucky that my family was not devoutly Mormon, because the extended family really got into the monthly fasts.  None of the platitudes or homilies or stern eyebrows made a difference to me – the expectation to willingly deprive oneself of food seemed obscene.  Add another few years and the development of hormones and a changing body, and God himself was going to have to take away the gift of masturbation after I’d unwrapped THAT lovely present.  As early as a teen, I was actively pursuing sex and sexuality and not even bothering with the lip service to virtue and restraint and self-deprivation that was Mormondom’s heritage, because I could see the future of that path before me and it was a barren waste of self-hatred.  I had tasted some of life’s forbidden apples, which I freely ate because I was told not to, just like Eve – nothing in this world would convince me of waiting or saving myself for invisible and intangible rewards, not when you compared them to the immediacy of sharing, connecting, and sweat.  The difference was that I wasn’t kicked out, I wasn’t banished, I wasn’t escorted from Heaven.  No angels from heaven, no fiery swords, not even bad dreams.  After me and “Hamlin” and the incident in the tent (and the hot tub, and downstairs at my house, and also in his room – all summer long), I knew that liturgy and exhortations and threats of eternal darkness didn’t add up to the glory that was life.  Rebel, me – I wanted divine intervention, but heaven stayed quiet.  Thank you, heaven.

About the same time, I hung out with a Mormon guy, “Conner,” who was trying so hard to be a rebel but couldn’t quite figure out or vocalize that Mormondom had him firmly under its thumb.  He wanted me to introduce him to a female student that I knew really well, and I did – but they didn’t click.  He was socially awkward and I tended to make friends with most everyone, but he was savvy enough to figure out that through me he could make other friends.  We were quite a pair, considering that the more he paid attention to me the more I ignored him, which only egged him on and sparked some inner need of his to be acknowledged.

One night we were alone at my house.  He and I listened to the stereo and he steered the conversation to sex and who was or wasn’t do-able, and if I had any condoms since he’d never seen one before.  I stifled a laugh and threw a few Trojans at him, but then my phone rang and I turned around to sit at my desk and answer it.  I don’t remember who was on the line, but we chatted for a few moments and I hung up and turned around in the swivel chair to find Conner standing there with his pants down and a condom stretched over his enormous, erect penis.  I laughed in surprise and for one instant he looked terrified and sad and ashamed, but I recovered and said “Impressive.”

He looked relieved and he hefted himself with one hand and I laughed again and I was pure evil:  I told him he’d better put that away before he lost his testimony.  He went pale and then put on a brave face.  He didn’t move, so I asked him when he last masturbated and he looked at me like I was insane. I was stunned.

“You don’t jerk off?”  He shook his head.

“That’s fucking nuts,” I said.  He cringed but he kept his hand at his crotch, and I became aware that I was painfully hard in my jeans.  He eyed the bulge in my pants and I eyed his monster.

The garage door slammed and we were a frenzy of hiding condoms and a condom wrapper and Conner zipping himself up and the two of us assuming a ‘relaxed’ and settled look, knowing someone in my family was now home.

I hope he came to know himself and his body, and that’s my prayer to him (and pardon my pillaging of Enigma), that the path of excess led him to the tower of wisdom.

The Road Too Fast

On my daily commute, I go with the flow of traffic, which is roughly between 70 and 82 mph, depending on the congestion and slow-down areas.  Thanks to Federal funds, many interstates are getting a much-needed facelift and resurfacing, but there are also the careless hazards left by work crews or the trash that is throw carelessly by fucktarded, inbred drivers.  Case in point, Exhibit A below, which happened at 70 mph on I-680 heading north, just past the 84 exits. 

Say No to Crack

I was in the left hand lane, hands-free on the phone with Scott, when I heard the THUNK.  I blinked and looked and there was the mass of spidery lines and cracks that spanned the entire windshield.  Scott heard the THUNK.  I couldn’t see anything in my mirror, I hadn’t passed an overpass, and there wasn’t any truck spewing debris all over the road ahead or to the side of me.

We’ll find out the monetary damage tomorrow. 

Nothing quite beats the accident in the early 90’s that involved me driving a limo filled with high school kids going to a prom and a near head-on with a dipshit driver doing a left hand turn as I was going forward through a green light.  Six more inches and that woman would have been flatter than Rush Limbaugh’s dick. 

What’s your worst accident?

Talk Thursday: How Does Your Garden Grow

(As seen through the skewed lens of an English nursery rhyme.)

Horny, horny, hormones quite thorny,
How does your libido grow?
With blood lust, and taught skin
and wanting you more than you know.

(Chances of being chanted by future generations are nil.)

So what’s YOUR version?

Sex and Politics

Quid pro quo.  Something for something.  It’s the nature of negotiations and compromise.  It’s human nature and we want, and we give.

But it’s deliciously entertaining when my favorite hypocritical and self-righteous political party airs their ideology so… publicly, such as Republican Assemblyman Michael Duvall, who was thought the mike was off and he recounted his marital indiscretions with a lobbyist (yes, I know, the epitome of cliché, a lobbyist who would even THINK of fucking his/her way through a deal).

Duvall, speaking to a relatively mum Republican colleague seated to his left, apparently had no idea his dais microphone became live beginning about a minute before the start of a cable-televised committee hearing. He was captured in the middle of recounting portions of an affair.

“She wears little eye-patch underwear,” said Duvall, who is married with two children. “So, the other day she came here with her underwear, Thursday. And so, we had made love Wednesday–a lot! And so she’ll, she’s all, ‘I am going up and down the stairs, and you’re dripping out of me!’ So messy!” (http://www.calitics.com/)

Class act.  Almost makes me want to go out and share my family values with a prostitute – kind of like Senator David Vitter.  I’m just waiting for the Mormons to have their huge scandals:  various positions aside from the strict missionary, dry humping, and excessive Marriott overnighters to view p.o.r.n.  Who am I kidding – Mormons are fucking around just like everyone else.

Overdue Pics

A few pics from our trip.  Long overdue.  Sue me.  Or substitute a few spankings.

Swaying Bridge in Thermopolis

Glacier near the Continental Divide

With Midas on our way out of Glacier

I Loves me some TLC PussyCap

Size Queen Meets Devil's Tower

Devil's Tower

We Be in SLC

Our roadtrip has taken us through all the western states except AZ, CO, and NM.  As of this afternoon, we landed in Salt Lake City, Utah.   Internet experiences from each of our stays have ranged from spotty to slow – which means major suckage, regardless.  This is my first opportunity to sneak in a Talk Thursday topic, as well. 

We’re staying with Julz and Bill.  Midas is getting along with their dogs really well.  We will see Neener and her family tomorrow and we’ll be seeing their new baby, Brox Donavan, for the first time.  Sunday is Lynski’s birthday party, and Monday by noon we’ll be heading back towards home. 

Right now it’s a really nice feeling to be sitting down and not moving.  Don’t get me wrong, we’ve been through some of the most beautifully scenic rides throughout the whole world, but there’s something to be said about living life on the road and each stop adding to the postcards of our life.  Friends and family really are what it’s all about.