I have not done a New Year blog yet, so I suppose one is in order. This year will be better than the last. Of that there is no doubt; neither is there room for bargaining. 2011 looks best from my rear view mirror. I share this line from Alfred, Lord Tennyson.

Ring out, wild bells, to the wild sky.
The flying cloud, the frosty light;
The year is dying in the night;
Ring out, wild bells, and let him die.

I quite agree with the sentiment. I understand that this poem has been put to music, but it rather reminds me of this song:


http://youtu.be/W-vSfwIJkjY


On a lighter note, for Christmas I got my daughter the Just Dance 3 game for the Wii. She has been rocking it ever since. I was completely tickled to find that "Let's Go To The Mall" by Robin Sparkles was on there! So is Apache and a few other good songs - Video Killed the Radio Star, and I can't think of the others offhand.
Sadly, there is also a lot of dreck, but hey, if it makes the wee one happy, than OK. Of course, I didn't WANT to hear "Its not about the money, money, money" a billion times on New Year's Eve, but whatcha gonna do? The really cute bit was when we turned on the Dick Clark Ball Drop (that just sounds wrong, btw) and there is some girl I don't know from... and what is she singing? Yup. It's not about the money money money. Sigh. It's the price I pay for having a 12 year old girl. Trust me, I still come out miles ahead.

I am curious to see how the year will unfold, and I am decided on making it a good one. Not perfect, not spectacular, not turn-it-all-around amazeballs. Of course, I will go with it if that is what the Universe in its Infinite Wisdom has in store for me. On my end, I hope for myself and for us all, a year of contentment and satisfaction.

And boobies.

OK, in a sea of depressing events, I finally have a little bit of goodness to share!

Today is a special day. I am smoke free since 11/7/06. I am no longer the Marlboro Man. I still miss it, for all the reasons I loved it in the first place. As I said on facebook:

Today marks the fifth anniversary of the last time I tasted the sweet and sultry kiss of my one true love. I will always miss you and always treausre the times you were there for me. You helped me when I was cold, when I was scared, when I was angry. I know you are no good for me, which is why we had to break up, but please believe that when my final breath escapes me, it will be with your taste on it. So, I blow you a kiss as I mark the 5th year since we parted, and I whisper goodbye.

Oh, and I still have a mad torrid love affair going with your sister, coffee.

OK, so what with all the financial issues I have been having, I am kinda desperate for work. A few weeks ago a friend of mine offered me the job of painting the rental house he owns. I have never in my life been afraid of honest work, so I agreed. He was more worried that I might take the offer as insulting - friend asking friend to do labor. Absolutely NOT the case. Work is work. I told him that if I were financially OK right now that he and I could just bang out the job one weekend. But I am broke and he is busy. So this is a win-win as far as I see it.

So I was supposed to get started yesterday. This was according to MY timetable - he really doesn't care, as he has no immediate plans to rent the place. Yesterday got screwed by the gas company and I was forced to stay home and babysit until almost 4pm.
OK, says I. Monday is wash, but I will jump on it in the a.m. and all will be fine. So this morning, I get my painting clothes and some other supplies together and head out the door. As I am getting to my car it occurs to me that I have nothing to listen to music with (the house is without power and my last boombox died a slow lingering death some 2 years ago). I don't want to use my iPhone to listen to tunes - the battery will die. So I am just thinking I'll do without as I slide into my car and crank it.

And nothing happens. Well, a few things happen, but the car actually starting is NOT one of them.

Alright now, this happens sometimes if I leave the car sitting for a few days, and we have just gotten our first chilly nights. I just figure the Stormtrooper (he's big and white and used to belong to the Empire) needs an extra crank or 2. Power is good, engine isn't flooded, I get a good strong crank every time... AND THE FUCKER STILL WON'T START.

Now then. I am not dying, I am not fighting cancer or in Afghanistan, I am not in prison for crimes I didn't commit. I am not pretending to have it worse than so many others because I know I have it better. But I am trying, really really trying, to put food on the table and keep a roof over my head. And the Universe is fucking with me. In the past year I can count on one hand the things I bought for myself that I did not need (2 dvds, 1 Halloween mask, and $2.75 U.S. for some used books). I have been frugal and careful. I work hard when work can be found. I DON'T FUCKING KNOW WHAT I AM DOING WRONG.

I can't afford for my car to die like this. I literally do not have the money to fix it. I don't have the money to tow it to my mechanic in the first place. I swear I am trying, but nothing is going my way. A friend tries to do me a solid and I cannot even make that come to be. I am not at the end of my rope, but I am starting to wonder when this all ends. What the hell do I do if my kid needs something? Where do I turn?

I am trying to keep my head above water and in one piece at the same time. The second has never never never been easy. I feel like I am starting to slip away from my equilibrium. I just want to sleep and not talk to people. I want to avoid the sunlight. I can't even find my voice when I am alone anymore. I will hold it together because that is what a man does, but I cannot bear the thought of doing this any more. I am at wits, if not World's, end.

September has been a bit of a rough month, just like last September was. Not just for me, either. Relationships, friendships, jobs, and lives have all ended this month within my circle of friends. Such is life, I know, but it seems a touch more concentrated this month.

However, to balance it all out is the anniversary of the best thing I have ever been (half) responsible for. Twelve years ago today, my daughter was born. I look at her today and cannot believe that squirmy warm little loaf of cute that smelled like milk has grown into a bright-eyed and thoughtful young lady with dreams and opinions and (best of all) a will and a mind all her own. Amazing.

Happy Birthday, Sophia.

Sorry, SG. I was in the midst of writing this terribly long blog about looking for a job and being currently unemployed and all that other shit, when I suddenly realized that I really really really don't want to talk about it anymore.

There is a job that I would be good at, that I am qualified for, and that I believe would be a positive for both me & the company. I am supposed to hear whether or not I got it by "mid April". If I don't get this job, I really don't know what I'm going to do.

So, if I have earned any good karma in my life, this situation would be a pretty good one to spend it on. I need a job. I really do.

There really isn't much else to say about it, is there?

Last night we went out and celebrated the birthday of my kung fu brother Tony. We had a grand time. We ate at Flip Burger - and if you are ever in Atlanta, you have to go there. The server was sweet and capable, the atmosphere was nice, the price was reasonable, and the food was AMAZING. Seriously.

Anyway, there were six of us - Tony, his wife, two other friends, and one of their roommates. We were all going on about the food, and so we got on the topic of other things whose taste we love: specifically, vagina.
Just kidding, sort of. We did get to talking about lady parts, but I don't recall exactly how we got there.

I said (as I have said before and will say again) that I really truly miss the garden associated with ladygardens. I miss hair down there. It has almost gotten to the point, I told my friends in jest, that the next time I slide off a girl's panties and see bare skin that I am just going to tell her to get dressed and go home. Not that I would ever do that! I love loving too much, and while I am very particular about who I sleep with, it has nothing to do with the hairstyle (or lack thereof) of their nether regions.

Still, though, I am sick of the Brazilian-ed mons. I LOVE the soft downy tickle of hair. Think about teddy bears, or (more distinctly) kittens. How soft, how warm, how lovely to hold in your hand. Would they be nearly as wonderful if they were hairless & clammy skinned? I think not.

Look, back in the 80s, when I started my sexual life, the hairless girl was rare and amazing. The sudden boldness and frank reality of a shorn vulva was a thrilling thing. Like any other option, though, it got less interesting as it became more common. With the rise of the thong came the ever-shrinking bush... much like the polar ice caps. The triangle became the landing strip, which became the racing stripe, the mohawk, the thin line, the sunrise... .and then, like Keyser Soze, it was gone.

Well, as I told my friends last night, I miss bush! Naturally, I am a big fan of hygiene and good grooming. I appreciate the hair removal along the sides and the under carriage. While I can understand a woman who chooses to just let things go completely native, I am not suggesting that for everyone. What I am saying is bring back the muff. Aesthetically the vagina just isn't the same without it. Think about it - if every lady in the world went all Persis Khambatta on us, they would all start looking alike! Yes, every vag is different - innies or outies, pink or peach, lippy or not. Riddle me this, though: when you describe a woman to someone for any reason, what is the first thing you say (or close second after race)? You describe her hair! Well, pussies are the same way. One of my dinner companions said that when he looked upon a vagina that he wanted to really see it, not have it hidden. To which I replied, does a lady need to shave her head for you to look at her face? Of course not.

I have not taken pictures of the vast majority of the women I have been honored with sharing a bed with. But if somehow there were pictures of them all, and you cropped them to just show their sweet luscious lips, I could, I believe, properly identify most (if not all) of them. I might have trouble with the ones I only slept with once or twice, but even with them I got close enough to the vag to make friends. If, however, every one had a shaved cooch, I would be lost! Lost, I tell you!

I love women, for the wonderful mystery of their beautiful bountiful smiles of Venus as much as I love them for everything else. I am not trying to get any of them to conform to my ideal of femininity or beauty. I am just pining for an era gone by; one I am afraid may not return.
Perhaps I savor too much of the past, but I will always cherish the memories of the first times I ever got to see and touch and taste a woman. I will always remember my hand, slipping past the elastic guardian of a cotton panty waistband, sliding down slower and slower, in wonder and awe. That first contact of something other than soft belly flesh was the whispered tickling of a soft beautiful bountiful garden that framed and glorified sacred flesh. And I love it so, and always shall.

<3 ▼ <3

The 100th Man

OK, so it was about 5 years ago that my life took a very serious turn. I used to be a theater tech. I was an electrician, carpenter, stage manager, stage hand, all around go to guy. I worked for pretty much every theater in Atlanta at one point or another. There was never once someone who hired me who did not call me back for more work. In a small town (rather, a medium town with a VERY small theater community) where everybody knew everybody else, I had a solid reputation. No one cried their eyes out when I wasn't available, but I always had work.
When there was work to be had, that is. Times were sometimes pretty tight. I lived in Michigan for 2 years (June 2000 - July 2002) and when I came back, the pickings were slim. It took a while before I got back into the swing of things and into the regular rotation of hires. But I got there. I got there by working hard and being persistent.
By 2006 things had gotten even worse. There just wasn't enough work to be had. A LOT of my friends left town or changed jobs. I couldn't leave because of my daughter - I missed her so much the time I was gone that I couldn't do it again. Besides, she was older now and my being gone would be conscious to her. That was not an option.
My only solace in that time was that I had met a wonderful woman. We were friends for at least a year before we started dating, and I really loved her. She had met my daughter before we became a couple, which made things SO much easier. I am very careful about who I let my daughter meet. But this woman lived right up the street and my daughter & I used to run into her in the neighborhood, so it wasn't weird for my child when she started being around. A lot.
I won't go into all the gory details of what happened to that relationship, because right now I am feeling sad enough. Suffice to say, we broke up in 2006, after two years together. I had thought we were going to be married. Fool that I am.
Her biggest complaint (or at least the one she shared) was that I wasn't 'ambitious' enough: I didn't make enough money, I wasn't making enough forward progress. That kind of thing. I worked mostly nights and weekends. She worked for a law firm in the 'nice' part of town.

Anyway, after she broke up with me, I started thinking about whether or not she was right. Was staying in the theater not 'grown-up' enough? Would I have to give up my freelancing lifestyle? Was it time for me to get out? It sure didn't help that the economy was horrible and work was getting scarce. So when, less than 6 months after the break-up, a job offer came in, I caved in. I took the job. Nine to Five. Uniform shirt. But they were offering me health insurance and a guaranteed paycheck. I could budget myself because I would know that on the 1st and the 15th that I would be getting the exact same amount deposited into my bank account. I would also be working the same type of schedule that most other people were working. I could go out at 8 pm on a Friday. I thought I was making a good choice.

Well, I disappeared into that job. I became a drone, a lackey, a number on a spreadsheet. I thought I would make new friends, but I ended up working in an office with no co-workers. It wasn't until I took that job that I realized how much of my social life was built on my co-workers. Now they were all gone. Now I was the one who worked the different hours. My social life died a sad pathetic quiet pointless death.

I can't entirely blame the job, of course. It is my responsibility to 'put myself out there', I know. I could have joined a club or taken a class or found a hobby. But there never seemed to be any free time. I tried to find activities, but they always seemed to fall on days I was not free. I suppose I didn't try hard enough; I am not blaming anyone or anything but myself.
But my life did suffer. I quit smoking, which I guess is a good thing. And I started putting on weight like mad. I was never a skinny kid, and my weight has always been a thorn in my side and a constant battle. I was always pudgy. But now I was ballooning; it was ridiculous. Combine the factors of A) no smoking, B) no longer working in a field where climbing ladders, lifting heavy set pieces, rigging lights on scaffolds 60 feet above the deck, etc were everyday activities, and C) sitting for the better part of 40 hours a week in a office and you get a fat lazy fucking American. Sigh.
So I got fat and lonely. And it just kept getting worse and worse. And I kept telling myself that there was a point to all of this. That it was worth being unhappy to be financially secure. That my boss wanted to retire and that I had a good job for life set up with this company. That I would break out of my funk, join a gym, take a class, meet a girl, and live happily ever after.

In September of 2010, they let me go. Quite unceremoniously and with no advance notice. They treated me exactly the way I felt corporate America always treated people. I got cut loose at a time when the economy is at the worst it has ever been. They fucked me and my family over to save a few dollars.

I have not been able to find another job yet. Not in a state where the unemployment level is almost 11%. I am getting nervous, but I know I'll be OK. I will do what needs to be done to keep a roof over my head and food on the table. It'll be OK. It will.

But here I am, 5 years away from having given up my career to do something 'safe', something 'smart'. Here I am and I no longer know people in my old haunts. And I am 5 years out of the loop in the theater world, in an environment where it is even harder to get a job than it was when I left it. In the aftermath of a heartbreaking collapse, I gave up my dream to make myself more acceptable to the world around me. And I have never felt so miserable and alone. I have never felt so alien to myself. What a fool I have been.

There is no moral to this story. There is nothing to be learned. I will be OK. I will find a job and I will punch the clock and I will pay my daughter's way through school the best I can. I will become that number on the spreadsheet and I will figure out how to disappear on both fronts this time.

Yesterday a friend called me the 100th Man, based on a quote by Edgar Allen Poe that I posted on FaceBook.

"The ninety and nine are with dreams content; but the hope of the world made new,
is the hundredth man who is grimly bent on making those dreams come true."

I felt ashamed to think someone held me in that high regard, that of the 100th Man, when my life right now is a testimonial to failing to be that man. I turned 40 a week ago and my life is an epic ballad of not being the man this friend thinks I am. If there is anything to take from my tale, it is what happens to a man when he gives up his dream. I hated not fitting in, then I hated trying to fit on, and I hate it now that I have been spit out for not having fit in.

I have never felt like there was anywhere I belonged. I always thought that if there wasn't a place in the world for someone like me, that I could make one. Now with the flimsy and meaningless shards of my entire existence slipping through my fingers, I don't even think that that is true. I dread the years ahead for their emptiness and their complete lack of connection to anything I might have once held dear.

I have no place in this world.

So, what do Michelle Obama, Al Capone, Eartha Kitt, Muhammad Ali, James Earl Jones, Jeremy Roenick, Andy Kaufman, Moira Shirer, Paul Revere (of he & the Raiders), Rock Hudson, Nevil Shute, Betty White, Mack Sennett, Benjamin Franklin and I all have in common?

We all had birthdays yesterday. Yes, even the dead ones.

January 17th, 2011 is my 40th birthday, to be precise. That I have made it this far I should be grateful. That I face it unemployed overweight and under stress is not how I had hoped. But I am trying to remain calm.

Mostly, I think I am a little out of joint because I am facing it alone. Not alonealone, but you know what I mean; I need not spell it out. It is hard to stay optimistic.

It would be nice to live in a time & place where something like your 40th birthday is an occasion (if not an event) for someone other than yourself. Or if there were someone to turn it into an occasion on your behalf. I am trying to not be kind of sad that that is not the case for me.

I'm failing.

So, I am torn between:

"If I could work my will," said Scrooge indignantly, "every idiot who goes about with 'Merry Christmas' on his lips should be boiled with his own pudding, and buried with a stake of holly through his heart. He should!"

and:

"'Forgive me if I am not justified in what I ask,' said Scrooge, looking intently at the Spirit's robe, 'but I see something strange, and not belonging to yourself, protruding from your skirts. Is it a foot or a claw?'

'It might be a claw, for the flesh there is upon it,' was the Spirit's sorrowful reply. 'Look here.'

From the foldings of its robe, it brought two children; wretched, abject, frightful, hideous, miserable. They knelt down at its feet, and clung upon the outside of its garment.

'Oh, Man! look here! Look, look, down here!' exclaimed the Ghost.

They were a boy and a girl. Yellow, meagre, ragged, scowling, wolfish; but prostrate, too, in their humility. Where graceful youth should have filled their features out, and touched them with its freshest tints, a stale and shrivelled hand, like that of age, had pinched, and twisted them, and pulled them into shreds. Where angels might have sat enthroned, devils lurked, and glared out menacing. No change, no degradation, no perversion of humanity, in any grade, through all the mysteries of wonderful creation, has monsters half so horrible and dread.

Scrooge started back, appalled. Having them shown to him in this way, he tried to say they were fine children, but the words choked themselves, rather than be parties to a lie of such enormous magnitude.

'Spirit, are they yours?' Scrooge could say no more.

'They are Man's,' said the Spirit, looking down upon them. 'And they cling to me, appealing from their fathers. This boy is Ignorance. This girl is Want. Beware them both, and all of their degree, but most of all beware this boy, for on his brow I see that written which is Doom, unless the writing be erased. Deny it!' cried the Spirit, stretching out its hand towards the city. 'Slander those who tell it ye! Admit it for your factious purposes, and make it worse! And abide the end!'

These are, of course, from Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol. I just don't know if I see the difference anymore.

So today is wear purple in support of the LGBT community. I am generally not a joiner and I own no purple clothes. What I did, though, was change my Facebook picture to one of a purple lightsaber. I thought it fitting, as there is nothing I would like to see more than bullies get their arms sliced clean off in bar fights.

There is a fellow I am strictly fb friends with, though in real life we have many mutual friends. I suppose we would be real life friends if we ever met... or rather, I used to think so.
A friend of mine posted a wonderful piece by Dan Savage, who I generally have never read before. It was in response to some reader whose feelings were hurt when Savage placed a huge amount of blame on the recent suicides here in the U.S. on the various christian franchises. It is titled: Gay Kids Are Dying.Fuck Your Feelings. It can be found at Dan Savage
Well, it wasn't long before this fb friend got all up in arms, because he was 'being attacked for being a christian'. I tried to explain to him that he (and the vast majority of the planet) are NOT being christians. I am an atheist, but I can dig the Jesus fable. He said Love one another. That's it. Done.
If your church doesn't accept gay folk, then it is not a christian church. Not in the true sense of the word. If your government does't give full and equal rights to gays in every single facet of society, then yours is not a fair government. If your family can't accept any aspect of you, your friends, your loves, whatever you hold dear, then your family does not deserve you.

I realize that I am preaching to the choir here in Suicide Girl Land, where most people are pretty much better than your average mouth-breathers. But I like saying it.

Another thing I like is the Facebook post I just got a minute ago. Another friend said her favorite purple picture was my lightsaber. It got quite a response, frankly. And for a kid who grew up being pushed around his whole life, that made me feel pretty damn good. Forgive me for repeating myself, but I would like to share what I wrote in response to her:

Sleep well tonight. You are not alone.