Year: 2016

So, about sex…

I don’t really have it these days and here’s why:

  1. Let’s be frank. There haven’t been a lot of offers. Turns out chunky, greying, middle-aged librarians are not really many people’s fetish, despite what they told us in library school, and this is particularly true among impossibly young, scruffy alternaboys. It was much easier back when I was an ill-tempered thirtysomething alternaboy who could devote much more time to the quest (and was in close physical proximity to venues that encouraged said quest). And dating/hookup apps are just out of the question. That said, I have had several offers, but…
  2. I can’t really bear the thought of having sex with someone I already know and like. The familiarity aspect sort of freaks me out for whatever reason, and I’m also leery of doing something that might make a friendship uncomfortable. Yes, friendship trumps sex for me now and the FWB thing sort of creeps me out. Go figure. For some reason, the only sex that seems appealing right now is of the anonymous and/or NSA variety, but…
  3. Again, that’s easier said than done at this point in my life. See #1.

So basically, the kind of sex it might be relatively easy to have is not really appealing and the kind of sex that seems relatively appealing is not something I could likely have.

Add to this the fact that I get nervous at the thought of bringing random strangers into my house (because they’re scary) and of bringing friendly, nice boys into my house (for fear they might want to spent too much time there) and you see the conundrum that really isn’t that much of a conundrum. So I just said the hell with it. I’m surprised how much I don’t care, kind of like when I got rid of the cable. Maybe the difference now is that I actually have other hobbies I didn’t have twenty years ago.

Or maybe I’m just old. I always promised myself I would have some dignity when I hit middle age and wouldn’t be one of those creepy old fags who always chased around boys half his age. And I’ve pretty much succeeded, despite the fact that I work on a fucking college campus.

But I kind of don’t feel like I’m missing much anyway…

Letting go

When a relationship ends after almost ten years, it always involves lots of emotion.

Let’s face it. I got dumped. He basically told me it was over and that there was no need for us to see each other anymore. I was just redundant and irrelevant to him at this point. Of course he gave me the standard line about how he’d always be there for me if I needed him, etc.

And I’m finally OK with it now.

I can get by without him.

In fact, most people live completely happy and healthy lives without an oncologist.

Respectfully sumbitted

perry

Raymond Burr for SCOTUS. Why?

  1. He’s a gay Californian, which would make the left happy.
  2. He’s not a lawyer but he played one on TV, which would appeal to the Trump contingent.
  3. He’s dead, which would satisfy all the people who despise “activist judges.”

Just a thought…

Sling has slung

Yeah, that title was pretty bad. Sorry.

I have terminated the great Sling TV experiment, for a couple of reasons.

First and foremost, I realized that even though the cost was much lower, I was still paying more money than I wanted every month for maybe two channels that I ever really watched. And I also realized that I wasn’t even watching those two channels all that often.

Second, the on-demand functionality is really a mess. The big issue (and it’s very much a known issue) is that on-demand streams have a tendency to freeze. When they do, the Sling TV app does not remember when the break occurred. That would be a little annoying, but it’s made even more annoying by the fact that the fast-foward function does not really work. At all. Or at least not on Roku, OS X, or iOS. That means you have to basically start over every time it happens. And it happens a lot.

So I’m sticking with my over-the-air channels (getTV kinda rocks) and my Netflix. I may invest in a Hulu subscription. I have a shelf full of DVDs and a hard drive full of downloads and home-recorded material as well.

And if all else fails, I could read the occasional book…

Happy anniversary to me (another one)

It may seem an odd thing to celebrate, but as of today, I have been single again for five years.

Today in 2011, I was in a pretty rotten place. I’d pretty much known where things were headed for several months; deciding that we weren’t going to live together anymore (or even live in the same time zone) was a pretty unmistakeable sign. But I was still unprepared for how hard it hit me on that Wednesday night when I realized that it was really over after nine very happy years and six really shitty months.

Being “coupled” has never been my natural state, even though there were some times that I really wanted it to be…and even though there was one time where it really did feel right. By the time I met Mark in 2001, I was pretty comfortable–hell, even enthusiastic–about the prospect of remaining a confirmed bachelor for life. One very serious case of love changed all that and I do not for a minute regret that it happened. All in all, it was a very happy time in my life and I was very sad when it ended.

The fact that it ended at a time when there were a lot of other things going on in my life made it much harder, and the fact that I didn’t feel entirely comfortable talking about most of it even with close friends made it even harder.In the end, I was not prepared to make one really big compromise that might have (at best) delayed the end, but would have done so at the expense of my sanity and my emotional health–which looks in retrospect like the very moment I started my recovery. It didn’t seem like it at the time but ultimately, I realized there was a bigger problem in my life/brain/body chemistry/whatever and I began working on that. Pretty successfully, I think.

But I’ve also spent the past five years learning how once again to be that single person I used to love. I think I’ve been pretty successful at that, too. Frankly, I like myself better as a single person. I think most of my friends like me better that way, too. I’m more adventurous, I generally have more fun, and I don’t have to have anyone else along for the ride when I travel (which in itself is justification enough). And the introvert in me has more time for my friends now that most of the limited time I’m willing to allot to other people is not dedicated to just one other person.

I’m also more independent. In retrospect, I gave up a lot of that when I was coupled, just because it was easy to do so, and he was willing to take over a lot of things and make a lot of decisions. And, of course, that really wasn’t fair to either of us. It took me a long time to get back in the habit of taking care of things on my own. I’m still working on it. I think the task of building a very successful and satisfying new career while I was pretty much in “the depths” is what saved me. In fact, I didn’t even miss one day of work, which either means that I really loved my job or that I was scared to stay home the next day. Or both.

Again, I don’t regret having spent nine-plus years in this relationship. Not for a second. I do have some regrets about the end and the aftermath, but that’s to be expected.

Five years later, though, I also don’t regret where I am today. I’m happy, I like my life, and I finally gave the goddamned chair to Habitat.

I think that’s worth celebrating.

Signal-to-noise

What I know about Bernie because of social media:

  • He is the salvation of the planet.
  • The media, the Democratic Party, and the cosmos just aren’t being fair to him.
  • He still has a chance to be nominated. Really.
  • He is a democratic socialist, which is (of course) the exact same thing as a communist.

What I know about Hilary because of social media:

  • She is (of course) the only electable candidate.
  • Unless, that is, “Bernie’s kids” think Donald Trump is a better option than she is, which many of them apparently do.
  • She is also the antichrist and eats adorable puppies for dinner on dishes paid for exclusively by large corporations.
  • She then uses her personal email servers to send pictures of the dead puppies to Nancy Reagan’s ghost.

What I need to be reminded of constantly via misspelled and oversimplified social media memes or by stupid fucking clickbait “journalism” links originating from the followers of either:

  • None of the above.

I miss media with editors. 

While sitting in the hospital with my mom this morning, I’ve been doing lots of Facebook and Twitter pruning.  

Spring cleaning is fun.