It's Wabbit Season

I have a lot of enemies... heat, lack of rain, deer, rabbits, ground moles, grubs, waterbugs... to name a few, and I've been under full attack lately.  The grass is burned to a crisp... and the majority of the flowers have been taken care of by said enemies.  So today, I replaced a bunch of the dead ones with perennials, which will be heartier and won't have to be replaced next year.  So, 8 hours later and loss of 4 gallons of sweat, the new buffet has been prepared for the deer and rabbits and moles.  I will kick some serious bunny butt if they get eaten tonight.

Side-Swiped By Monday Morning

I feel like I've been broadsided with Monday like a blue-hair with a fresh social security check with tunnel-vision in a LeSabre over a parking spot at K-Mart on blue-light special day.  This past weekend was pretty rough.  With some very strenuous landscaping work mixed in with the heat... I'm wiped out.  I got up around 6 a.m. today thinking that I'd get a jump-start on the 7 hour grass cutting ritual that I have on Mondays before it rained and got hot.  Little did I know that I'd find a pot of gold... turns out with the heat and no rain, the grass didn't grow at all.  I was done in an hour, only having to trim up a few areas and I blew some debris out of the parking lot.  Meanwhile, the rain that went from a 20% chance to 60% in a matter of an hour, turned out to be a few sprinkles followed by lots of sun.  I have to remove dead plants/flowers that were incinerated or eaten up by bugs last week and add some more mulch to a few beds that washed away in the repetitive floods.  Meanwhile, I could have gotten most of it done today if not for the threat of rain.  That's the last time I trust the radar.

I was able to get some errands done... I needed to pick up a new boom box and a speaker for my truck (that the fabulous Miss Jennifer Hudson tore up, singing the featured song "And I Am Telling You I'm Not Going" in the lead role as Effie White in the Broadway remake of Dreamgirls)... and I was able to install it without blowing the truck up (so far).  I treated myself to IHOP this morning... I got the big fat girl platter with 4 pieces of bacon, scrambled eggs with cheese, hash browns and featuring the newly-added pancakes... lemon with a berry sauce.  Yummy!  Of course, to cut the fat and sugar, I had a Diet Coke, so it all cancels itself out in the long run.

YUM !! (Hats and Hoodies)

Clean Sweep

I don't usually take on big projects this time of year for the main reason that it's either masochistic or for someone with a death wish.  The weather is so brutal with the heat and the sun beating down on you that you actually get delirious with heat stroke and dehydration.  That's been my life for the last two days at Julie's. 

Taking into consideration some of the things that she had in her yard, we were able to keep some of it, but replaced and added more plants and shrubs and beefed up the beds and added some.  Creatively, not my best work, but it definitely solved some of the issues of bad grass patches, removing some of the clutter for a cleaner look and breaking the symetrical nature of what was there and the flat beds.  All we have left to do now is add mulch and eventually, a tree.  It's always great to start with a clean palette, but more challenging to make it work incorporating what was already there.

John was a real trooper... airplane mechanic, bass player and computer geek... he hung pretty well with Weedman.  And kudos to Julie for shoveling up the dirt and hauling it in the wheelbarrow... the hardest and suckiest part.

Above are a few before (left) and after (right) pictures.

Nano Your Business What I'm Listening To

Last week, I replaced my iPod Classic (about the size of a building brick) with the new Nano 16G, with a stylish silver metallic cover.  And so, I add a new feature to the blog... Nano Your Business....

Tonight, as I try to fit my fat ass into my skinny jeans to go out on the town... I'm listening to Erasure, which was all the rage when I came out in the stone age... err... 1987ish.  With my ripped jeans, construction boots, flannel shirt hanging off my back and ballcap, I tore it up... or so I thought.

Eating Right and Being Dirty

About a year ago, I thought that I would try to eat better, so I bought some veggie burgers and put them in the freezer... and that's where they sat for all that time.  Recently, I thought I'd try again and tonight, I finally had two... I like to put them on a hamburger bun with a little bit of apricot jelly, which adds a great sweetness to the vegetables in them.  Leave it to me to add the carbs and sugar to wreck the healthy aspect of them. 

Today was a real bitch.  I finally went to Julie's house to do some work for her... we built a wall and filled it with river rock that we picked out of another bed... we dug up some things and moved them or removed them for good... edged some new beds and dug out the grass... and started raising the beds with 4 tons of dirt.  Mind you, it's showing 85 degrees on the thermometer.  I think I sweat enough to qualify for 5 of Richard Simmon's 'Sweating to the Oldies' videos... and covered with dirt.  Not fun.  Tomorrow, I have to pick up a bunch of plants and trees and plant them, followed by more bed raising and mulch.  I've got a few days of work at the Marriott as well this coming week, and that should take me into camp next weekend.

A quick shout out to Terri on facebook... she lives right up the road from Julie and I was jaggin' (Pittsburghese for 'kidding') her about was she going to come over and fan me all day and bring me cool refreshments... so at around 11 a.m., she showed up with a large McDonald's sweet tea that hit the spot.  I was floored and also very appreciative that she did that... and she offered me her pool to jump in, but it would have been like Pigpen jumping in... the water would have turned brown.

This week has been difficult for me.  I kind of shut down a bit earlier in the week, partly due to being exhausted from last weekend, but partly due to just not knowing what to do with myself when I actually have a minute to myself.  I get lonely when I'm not working a lot, and it gives me too much time to think without my mind being occupied by something else and I feel lost.  I saw three movies this week, ending with Predators, which is so not my kind of movie, but I highly enjoyed it and it kept my mind off things.  Fortunately, I'm busy again... but I think this is what happens to me in the Winter when I am unoccupied with a lot of stuff.  I will definitely get a job this Winter to keep myself busy.  Probably at Red Robin... I love that place!! 

Rain

When Mother Nature cries, flowers smile.

Love Is In The Air

Yesterday, with the sweltering heat, I decided to catch a matinee of Twilight, Eclipse.  Amongst all the tween girls, there I sat in the third installment of the vampire/werewolf saga.  I didn't think that it was the best of the three, but it did offer more of a showing of emotions in the love triangle between Edward, Jacob and Bella. In fact, the whole story line of the 'war' brewing wasn't even needed, as evidenced by it's playing out in a brawl that took only 5 minutes.

Last night, I finally sat down to watch "Dear John", with Tatum Channing.  About an innocent love sprouting followed by years of angst over choices made, it turned out to be one of those movies that you wished that they would have taken it in the direction that you expected, however trite, to have a clean ending and uphold the idea of a true love story.  Instead, it fell flat, and I was left with a sense of reality surrounding love... that it doesn't happen.

I'm not sure if I've blogged about this before, but a friend has a dog that runs across the yard on a wire attached onto two trees, with the lead attached to the collar... and the dog has been running across the yard for years in the same path.  If you unhook the lead at the wire, and it just drags attached to the collar, the dog will take a different path, but won't run, not realizing that it's not tied any more.  As soon as you unattach the lead at the collar, the dog takes off and is away for hours at a time.  I can relate my track of love with the Husky dog's track (of pooping, sadly)... and the implication of them both having to do with shit is more than coincidence.

Since I was 21, I've been in relationships.  It's all I've known and it's all I've ever seen with my parents as my role models.  Over time, I have changed... my situation has changed... but my mind has not.  So, at this point of my life, I'm trying to comprehend a 'relationship' in a manner other than what I'm used to.  I have, and always have had, a strong belief in monogamy and I've been trying to analyze that part of me and why I cling on to that like a drunk to a drink.  Why am I so threatened by the idea of not being monogamous?  Is it because I view it as a failure?  Is it because my fragile confidence can't risk an infiltration?  Is it possible for traditional ideas to run so deep? 

When I'm talking to people who have been together for long periods of time, it always upsets me when they seem to accept that gay men are, supposedly, unable to be monogamous... because we're not 'wired' for it... and I don't buy that.  It does take an effort to be in a relationship, and that includes being committed to the vows that you make.  And that brings up another question:  Should it be some pain-staking effort to remain within your vows, or if it was really something that you believed in, would it be an effort/come into play at all?

I've been fortunate to have had some great relationships and I'm not ready to give up on love.  I'm not ready to give up on the idea of monogamy.  There may come a point where, after some deep consideration, we mutually agree to blurring the boundaries and, at that point, I will think about it.  I still feel like to say that it's not possible right off the bat is a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Turns out that if let off my lead or collar, I'm still probably going to run my normal course.

iPhone 4 Spoof

Twilight at Noon

I did some running around this morning and it's so hot out that I'm forced to sit in a movie with a bunch of tween girls.

Blast From the Past (again)

Here are the other two pics (see earlier post).  Take note of my Sergio Valente jeans and velour shirt... as well as my hair shaped like a penis/Dorothy Hammil/Bruce Jenner

Really?

My friend, Julie, posted this on Facebook, so I thought I would share it on here for my non-Facebook friends... and comment (of course)...

1. I guess this would have been a perfect time to use their first names instead of their last names in the article... and where was the editor who didn't catch this before it went live? (probably catching something in the bathroom, getting a little somethin' somethin'.

2. It would have NEVER taken a gay 200 meters... especially with all that appears to be going on in his man-spanx... that could poke an eye out and a gay would have been on top of that (literally) before the smoke from the gun dissapated.

3. Despite their willingness to the act, a gay would never chase after it for the sake of saving face and possibly twisting an ankle or breaking a heel (because they surely would not be in a sensible shoe to begin with).

4. To use the word 'succumb' in this instance is like using the word 'reluctantly' in the following instance... 'The man who won the lottery reluctantly went to claim his prize'. There has never been a gay that would have to 'succumb'... more like 'eagerly' or 'with glee' or 'ecstatically, they obliged'.

5. If my last name were Gay, the first thing I would have done was checked the roster for other last names that would not mesh with mine. Being a pessimistic realist, I would have taken the odds that something would have happened and anticpated the possible headlines... Gay trips over Dix... Gay gets impaled by Dix... Gay likes Dix (duh)... when you're a pessimist, the incidents are numerous.

Blast From the Past

I was grabbing lunch with Julie today and she had a box of pictures in her car and these, among others, were in there.  I have two really good ones, but they are home still in my scanner and I forgot to bring them.  For those of you who think that I am photogenic, here's a few examples proving you wrong... the first one is on a bus in Jr. High... I was giving you long, stringy hair... and the start of my lifelong obsession with growing facial hair.  In picture number two, I look constipated, but it could be from being smooshed in between big, bad 80's hairdo's.  I'm not sure wtf is going on with the last pic... I hope that we were posing, because I'd hate to think that I'd throw some nasty, Century 21 Real Estate jacket over my shoulder, looking like an 80's ad for Match.com.  At least I learned my lesson of not being photographed from the side, with my big fat nose... I could have probably smelled the stink completely out of a skunk with that schnozola with one snort.  And, HELLO!... how about someone get out the Windex and clean the fingerprints off those windows!

Melting... This Time, It's for Really

Today, cutting grass, was brutal.  The only saving grace was that, with the heat, sun and no rain, all the grass was dead, so I didn't have to do most of the areas.  I do have to go back one day this week and pull dead flowers and still fix the washed out mulch from the rains a month ago.  I don't know when though... don't think it would be productive to be melted or passed out from the heat face down in the pansies.  I'm not going to camp this weekend... it will be slow the weekend after a big holiday, and I have a few projects to accomplish and can use the break.

Tonight, we went to Red Robin for Berry's birthday.  I had them sing happy birthday to him and they had the costumed robin character there as well... he was mortified.  Then we went to see the Last Airbender.  I'm not going to use up valuable pixels that could utilized by some other more worthwhile cause on the internet... like for Terrorists Anonymous or Sewage Daily... let's just say that it was the worst movie I have ever encountered in my life.  We laughed the whole time, it was so ridiculous, including the acting and the story and everything.  M. Night Shhhimalayan whatever his name is should have his IMBd card revoked and never allowed behind a camera again and restricted to only writing with crayons.  The funniest part is that the ending was such a set up for another movie, it was embarrassing for him to think that anyone would go see it. 

I finally got some of the pictures off my phone from the weekend:  (In order:  Me holding the ugly cute dog, a giant turtle, Paris with a bird on his shoulder, me trying to look butch, my room at camp, and two pics of the countryside on the mountain)

Blah

I'm off to do my weekly lawncare... it's supposed to be 95 degrees today... not fun.  I'm exhausted from the weekend (15 massages) and there's something going on with my Dad's bank account and what I suspect is that loan that my nephew is defaulting on... I think they took another lump sum out... but I really don't have the energy to get angry over it with the day that I have in front of me.

Tonight, it's movie night... and I think we are going to see Twilight Eclipse... It was Berry's birthday on the 4th, so we're taking him out to eat ahead of time.  Since he's settled into Pittsburgh, started traveling for his job and got a boyfriend and a bunch of new friends (along with my schedule and communication cut-off at camp), I haven't seen or talked with him much in weeks, so it will be nice to catch up.

Is That A Snake in Your Pants?

I know that I've talked about this before in past posts, and it's listed in my profile under 'more shit about me'... but I can't stand snakes.  I'm realizing that my fear has gone way past anything rational, as calmly pointed out by a guest this weekend after I went into hysterics.

I was walking down the main street which is a black-topped section in between two buildings and the person I was walking with said 'look at that'.  Just like when someone says to you 'smell this, it smells terrible' and you feel compelled to smell it even though you know it's going to smell like ass or something rank, but you still do, then kick yourself for being so stupid.  Anyway, I looked and there in the middle of the road, about 30 feet in front of us, was a huge, black snake, curled up in the middle of the road.  The bitch must have been over 5 feet long and it's thickest part (which may have had a small child in it that he just ate, or maybe a barnyard animal) was thicker than my calves and, mind you, I have the legs of a dancer, so they're very well developed (except for my left one which is slightly smaller than the right one due to muscular degeneration because of falling out of a tree when I was young, but that's another story for another day).  Well, I ran the other way and proceeded, like a little girl, to hyperventilate to the point that I thought that I was going to throw up.  Then, it slithered under the porch OF MY BUILDING, right under my room.  Then, as if to taunt or spite me, it stuck it's head out and gave me the hairy eyeball and stuck it's tongue out at me.  It was never seen again, but later, another one that passersby said was 7 feet long went towards my building, in the flowery area, but I, fortunately, did not see that one.

I understand that it is the outdoors and that they are black snakes, which are basically harmless, and they do take care of rats and other rodents... but I'd much rather have a mouse running around than some big-ass, slimy snake.  Sure, rats can carry lots of diseases, but they're so cute and cuddly... well, at least the pet store variety... not the New York City variety.  I also understand that this is a fear that I have to overcome, but it's something that I really don't want to.  For instance, I have a fear of guns, but I'm not in any hurry to run out to my local Wal-mart gun section (which is next to the wife-beater t-shirts and the hats that hold beer cans on it with a straw long enough to go down the back of your mullet so that you can sip the brand of your choice at your leisure while shooting something), and buy one and shoot my foot to work through it.  So you have to wonder how much are you supposed to push yourself to work through your shit.  Somewhere in either my childhood or a past life, I must have been traumatized to warrant such behavior... at least from 30 feet away.  I can discount my fear when it's poisonous and within striking distance, but this is just pure craziness.  Someone suggested going to a pet store and trying to hold a little tiny one... and someone said that I should try to be hypnotised.  I've made it this far in life... except for a few big girl moments here and there, I'm not sure if I should or not.  If I see a snake on TV, that night I am sure to have a nightmare about it.  With the picture above, I had to find a cartoon picture, and not a real one.  I just can't even look at a snake.  My friend Scott was sitting at someone's campsite on a chair and a small one went up his pant leg, across his crotchety area and back down the other leg.  With it's quick departure, I guess he got to looking around and snakes are size-queens too?

I suppose screaming over a snake at gay camp isn't all that bad... but it's kind of an oxymoron... and made people question if I was gay at all... if you get my innuendo.  Add that to my list of issues.

Wrapping It Up

Last night's fireworks went off without loss of limb or wig, so that's a good thing... I didn't really sit and watch them... in Pittsburgh, we light off fireworks for every little reason (with one of the largest manufacturers located near here), so you've seen one go off, you've seen them all.  And since the hillside fire incident upstaged them last year, this year without tragedy was kind of just plain.  I suggested that we take a drag queen or two in 5" heels and maybe shoot off some bottle rockets at their beehive hairdo's to test their trajectory skills and ability to navigate quickly in heels, but they didn't seem to go for that sort of thing.

There isn't too much that I haven't seen, heard, smelled or touched this weekend in some fashion.  I am on sensory overload.  I feel like I need another 5 or 6 days to just decompress.  Again, it's just amazing what we, as gays, discount as everyday occurances... but in rapid-fire succession, it can really push your levels of tolerance.  I can't even go into detail with some of the extreme situations that I've witnessed this weekend, but it feels like I've been doing my own 5" heel navigation to avoid them... I can empathize with the drag queens.  BTW... years ago, my friends said if I were to do drag, my drag name would be Anelle Retentiff (not pronounced anal retentive... but with a slight french accent, (A-nell Re-ten-teeeff).

I have become somewhat jaded and numb when it comes to finding someone... at least someone normal.  When I was young, a concession I'd make was that they wore Izod instead of Polo... or drove a BMW instead of a Mercedes.  What a silly fuck I was.  Youth is surely wasted on the young.  Now, it's who's job is it going to be to carry your oxygen tank... are you going to kill me in my sleep... and where are the rest of your teeth?  The likelihood of meshing with someone seems like an impossibility, at the very least.

I have a few massages this morning, then I'm heading back to what is usually deemed 'reality'... but after this weekend, this is just as much a reality. 

YUM !! (Patriotical)

One, Two, Three, Fourth

Like old age, the humidity is creeping back... but with the weather that we've had over the last week, you can't complain. Even if given the chance to hand-pick it, you couldn't come up with such a great combination for this time in July if you tried.

Yesterday, I did 8 massages back-to-back, with another 4 spread out over the previous couple of days, and another 3 or 4 today, so I have been busy.  The night before last, anticipating a long day, I decided to get my drunk on early with plans on winding down early so I could still have fun but not make it too hard for my big day of massages.  Well... I drank my blueberry vodka and Sprite like it was liquid candy and proceeded to get so shit-faced that an hour later, I went into my room and just passed out, waking up in the morning with a horrific hangover to start my day with.  Yesterday was miserable.  Last night was the outdoor partyand I sipped on a mudslide so as not to have a repeat of the night before.

There will be fireworks tonight put on by the resort, which is always fun (except for the year that the hillside caught fire, where we had to scamble to hook up hoses long enough to extend down into the field... meanwhile, queens running to get the valuables out of thier tents (hot rollers, favorite pair of heels, portable air conditioners, wigs) before the approaching fire engulfed their site).  Anyway, I digress... the backdrop of stars with the fireworks makes for a beautiful viewing, lighting up the surrounding hills.  I'm sure the locals around the place are like 'there go the gays again, being fabulous".  The 'blackout' party is the dance tonight, which means a lot of black lights which will mean a lot of scary looking people... moreso than usual. Not as much as seeing them in broad daylight though.  A gays best friend is ambient or mood lighting... it cuts the harshness like a knife through butter (that reminded me of toast which reminded me of my Dad... 6 days away, the toast crumbs in the kitchen must be all over the place).

I'm looking forward to heading home.  It's not been as 'in your face' gay as Memorial Day was, having a more relaxed feel toa big weekend for a change.  I'm really exhausted and have a few projects to do this week, so it will be out of the frying pan and into the oven for me.  I've decided to take a mini vacation for myself, by myself... and I was looking at some beachy options, but I'm more in the mood for a city adventure on foot.  Maybe Boston?  I have been chatting with a nice guy from Pittsburgh and I actually may go on a date again.  Sadly, he is from the same town as the guy from my last date, with the psychotic boyfriend.  Let's hope it's not in that town's water.

Happy 4th of July.

Up, Up and Away

With the air being so crisp and clean, it reminded me of this song...