His side, your side

Here am I as always, still quietly standing in the background, patiently observing the both of you. Together. Indivdually. Impartial to the best of my ability. The confidant to both, though only full-time to one. I envied the bond you shared to the point I questioned its validity. Maybe it was my fault he began to question it too.

He asked me if he was doing the right thing. I told him he was, that he deserves to have balance, security, and happiness. And the only way he'll ever achieve that is by taking control of his life and surrounding himself with the people that foster those needs. In reality, I told him what he wanted to hear, which I hope is also the truth.

Part of me wants to intervene, to ask you how you could be so oblivious about what was going on. But having to ask the question at all provides the answer at the same time. I know it's not your fault. Or his. In the end, you are both moving in different directions. Be happy your paths overlapped and look forward to the time they might cross again.

That's all the wisdom I can impart for now. Good luck you two.

Most adorkable new TV host this season

Not that I've had a whole heck of a lot of time to actually watch much TV, but I did happen to catch The Works recently on the History Channel and found host Daniel H. Wilson to be utterly adorkable. Being that The Works is a brand new show and we're at the start of a new TV season, I'm ready to proclaim Mr. Wilson to be the most adorkable new host in all of the kingdom of television. I realize that such a proclamation might be somewhat ironic being that he is a man of science (or at least mechanics, the popular ones to be sure) and I, having not exactly complete exhaustive and comprehensive research into the matter or followed any sort of scientific method whatsoever, am so eager to make said proclamation. What can I say, I go with my gut. There's a lot of it these days, it's hard to ignore it so I usually just go along along with it.

So there you have it. As promised a new post that managed be both geeky and gay. And short. Wow! It's a three-fer!

The Five Ws of Procrastination

Who is procrastinating: me

What about: figuring out the GC dilemma, and talking to the GC in general

When will you grow a pair and move forward: don't know, by the end of the week probably

Where does this leave you in the mean time: somewhere in the middle, neither good nor bad

Why are you procrastinating: because I'm afraid that I already know the answer, that I've known it all along, but I'm too scared to do what's right for me at the expense of someone else's feelings…it easier to just let it decay naturally without actively speeding up the process on my part.

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Damn. How did I end up so spineless and passive when it comes to things like this? And more importantly, why has this become such a pattern in my life?

OK. I promise that my next post will be gay, white-trashy, geeky, or some odd combination of the previous three in nature.

The Mostly Unfabulous Social Life of Kenny Ray

It was bound to happen sooner or later. Life imitating art imitating other art. No, that wasn't a typo. Here's how it went down…

A recent phone call with Hooters (the person, not the place) inspired me to break out my Camp DVD and enjoy another viewing of it. The lead actor, one Daniel Letterle, was just so — and I know this is going to sound even gayer than I want it to — intoxicating that I ended up googling to see if he'd been in any more movies. Fortunately he had a couple follow ups and so I loaded up my Netflix queue and waited by the mailbox. With the amount of quality TV running thin these days (can't believe it's still almost 5 months until Lost returns with new episodes) I've been working my way through my Netflix queue pretty fast so in almost no time I opened my mailbox to find "The Mostly Unfabulous Social Life of Ethan Green" waiting for me. It's a low-budget (in a good way) film based on the popular comic strip of the same name. A comedy peppered with hunky guys was just what I needed to keep me pushing out of the funk I'm in, but in addition to the laughs, the sighs, and the "holy six-pack abs" I found was a wake up call.

Smack dab in the middle of the movie Ethan has a little walk and talk with him mother (played so gloriously by Meredith Baxter of Family Ties fame). Ethan has been steady downward spiral and Harper (his mom) finally levels with him. And me. This is what I heard…

Consider for a moment that you're having the Kenny Reflex. You get close, and then you pull back. Kind of like a rubber band. Just when you have something good … you do something to sabotage it. That is the Kenny Reflex and you've been doing it all your life. You're afraid of getting close, you're afraid of what you're going to hear, you're afraid of what you've got. And you are going to live in this little box of fear unless you change. Get some courage, darlin'.

I got called out. By a character in a movie. A movie based on a comic strip. Maybe it was because the lines were delivered by Mrs. Keaton, er, I mean Meredith that it made me pay attention. While certain semi-recent people have definitely deserved the boot because their part in the relationship had become toxic, she was totally right. I live in a box of fear. Fear of rejection. And, this is where it gets weird, fear of acceptance. That last part is way too deep for me to get into right now as the ear ringing is back and tearing my brain in twain. But it's giving me a good deal to think about over the next couple weeks while concluding what to do about the "glum chum dilemma."

Go rent or buy Camp and TMUSLOEG, both are very enjoyable flicks! Besides, supporting independent cinema is good karma.

Ear ring

No, not the piercing kind, the kind where you hearing a ringing in your ears. The really annoying kind. The kind that usually tag teams with a pounding headache and a feeling that your eyes might pop outta their sockets. The kind that gets so bad that it makes it nearly impossible to think because all of your focus is driven to that damn sound pressure in your ears.

That pretty much sums up my last 6 weeks. It was also what I was alluding to in my last post. Last week it finally got the better of me and after Betty convinced me that it was probably just Tinnitus that I came to the realization it wasn't going to get better on its own and finally went to the doctor. I don't like going to the doctor. Don't get me wrong, I like my doctor and trust my M.D., but I'm just leary of the modern medical methods that preach healing via antibiotics and chemicals. The last time I had to go see the doctor I ended up on medical leave for six weeks during which I took a total of 5 different antibiotics, each in increasing strength. They took such a toll on my system that my bright yellow Live Strong wristband (you know, the one Lance Armstrong made popular) actually changed color where it touched my skin in a matter of weeks. Freaky! Oh, and my shit didn't stink. Believe me, I'm not bragging. My shit literally didn't smell like, well, anything. (Sorry, was that an overshare?) I don't think I had any living bacteria — good or bad — left in my body after that. But after all that time the sinus infection/walking pneumonia finally met its match.

Flash forward nearly two years and there I am, back at my doctor listening to him tell me the ringing in my ears is most likely being caused by my sinuses. My heart sank. "I'm not going to have to take more damn antibiotics, will I?" I hear myself half-defensively ask. He seemed a little caught off guard by my question until he looked at my chart again and quietly said to himself, "Oh, that's right." I look down at the floor where my stomach had since joined my heart. "Why don't we start you off with a nasal spray instead to relieve the pressure and see how that goes."

So far the spray has been helping but it's now miracle recovery by any means. On a scale of 1 to 100 (with 100 feeling like someone drilling into my eardrums while endlessly projecting every sound imaginable into my head which is being squeezed in a vice while I'm flying in a plane that constantly keeps changing cabin pressure, which is what it felt like last week) I'm down to about a 40 in the mornings and top out around 70-75 about the time I leave the office. Hope that helps to explain why it's been so quiet round the blog for the past several weeks, and why it might continue to be a bit postless for a couple more.

The glum chum dilemma

I'm vexed. Probably shouldn't be, but I am. It seems that the towering projects, working lunches, and late nights and weekends at the office have had an unusual and completely unexpected benefit. They've all kept me siloed and, as a result, presented me with a different perspective on my relationships not only at work, but outside of it (what little there is at the moment) as well. And this is what vexes me. I didn't want to consider an alternate perspective. Was content in letting myself take comfort in the grand vistas while subconsciously avoiding the warning signs that perhaps I'm really just going down the same path I've been many times before that will ultimately end with me broken at the bottom of an emotional chasm. Too melodramatic?

Not sure why, but for some reason people like to open up to me, spill the beans, sing me their sad song, etcetera. I'm their bartender but without the booze, bar tab, or pickled eggs. And I enjoy listening to them, the intimate connection that is formed by the private communication involved and the ensuing friendship that comes along with that. Can I help them? Unless it has something to do with the Adobe Creative Suite or setting up a home theater, usually not. But sometimes just knowing that there's another soul to talk to can be enough to make them feel better I guess. I pride myself in locking away their confessions, complaints, and confidential matters not to share with another soul. The ace up my sleeve, but only for these situations is it really useful, is that my memory is like a steel trap — one rusted and stuck in the open position — so half of the time I forget the conversation completely, and if not entirely, than just the important parts.

So how does my emotional bar tending end up with me at the bottom of melodramatic proportions? Simple…it's when said connection becomes unidirectional and the balance shifts from that of friend to pro bono therapist. When it goes from talking with them, to them talking at me, that's when it's time to reevaluate. And now that I've been given some perspective and can see my current whereabouts, I find myself at the fork in the path and wondering if I'm about to, once again, go the same way as with Curious, with Carlos (has it really been a year since I put an end to that whole mess already?!), and several other before them. I don't mind being the friend-in-need friend, just so long as that's not all I am to them. To bring up the bar tending analogy one more time (and really, I'm not that big into drinking), if the right balance between liquors and mixers aren't achieved you're either left with something that tastes flat or something that will lay you out flat, rather than a tasty concoction that gives you a nice, warm, and oh-so-slightly buzzed feeling. I want the warm and fuzzy feeling that a true friendship generates, and not the "taste this…does it taste right to you" drinks being served.

Part of me is paranoid that I'm just being paranoid because I don't want to go through that again so soon. The other part of me thinks the paranoid part of me is reading into things and doesn't want to change course. I don't know which part to listen to. Layer in the concentration breaking ringing in my ears for the past month (more on that later) and, well, I'm vexed. Maybe the best action to take is to sit here at the fork in the path for a little while longer and when my head fog clears up if I'll be able to see down each path a little further. Oh how I wish I could just use Google maps for this!