Boot or Sandal?

The rest of social media is going to break me if I don't take a break at some point.

Sleep deprivation is real, and I just had an encounter with it in the form of a customer who clearly needed to get some sleep before the 40 minutes of DSL support hell I just hung up from even had a chance to occur...

Just finished tiling the bathroom floor with John - started about 10:30 this morning with lunch and beer breaks in between. Much like with the paint, we ran out mortar just at the end (so one shelf tile remains unattached as of right now, with grouting to commence sometime tomorrow evening or Tuesday).

I wanna sleep right now...

Still kinda reeling from an email I got earlier this week after a weekend with my Minneapolis men - a very direct plea to get my shit together regarding my driving (after just missing some pedestrians while making a turn... and running a red light... and apparently hogging nearly every crosswalk I stopped at...) that seemed to only confirm that my prior decision to resume therapy was a good one.

This email was followed by a couple of phone calls with both Dave and Mark - both of whom are asserting that I should use today's stop at my therapist (a very positive - and necessary - visit in hindsight) as a gateway to much more intensive things, possibly with a prescription or two thrown in. We'll see about that; what I feel pretty sure of is that the relationships have changed a bit - for better or worse remains to be seen.

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!

(That felt better.)

(The following statement was originally posted earlier today on the "Gay Men with Depression" tribe on Tribe as an answer to the question "What's so gay about depression?" - however, I decided to repost it here...)

In my case, it's these dueling feelings - that society sees me, "young and black and fine and gay" (to quote Audre Lorde), as a (varying degrees of) "valuable pelt"; but also that I have a cultural legacy/legacies that seem to have some social/commercial cachet that the larger culture wants little bits and pieces of. On top of that, I still have to try to live my own life, with all of the experiences (positive and negative) therein, within a society that has always preferred conformity to a strong degree despite platitudes and national constitutions claiming "freedom of..." or "freedom to..."

Everytime I have turned around, I get told or shown that my thoughts, my life, and my love of peace and comfort - and my feeling that others are entitled to the same - are less popular than I think it should be in this society that "liberty and justice" are supposed to be (on paper, at least) the bases of... and that lacking is something I take personally, maybe more than I probably should, to the point of letting it severely compromise the good relationships in my life - including the intimate ones with those men who love me and whom I should be loving as fully as I can in return.

Then again, not having been exposed to a sufficient amount of loving relationships in my much younger years (let alone loving relationshps involving someone of the same gender) and being overexposed to a lot of drama-bearing relationships that were less than healthy, how would I even know that you're supposed to REGULARLY do more than just say you love 'em and break off some dick-ass action every now and then? Of course, all that does is spread the bad feelings around, having the other partner(-s) wondering where things went wrong, if they were ever right to begin with.

I just feel like I get taken through some shit at times... challenged on a level I wasn't expecting when I woke up that particular morning. On those days, I take making it to bed in a place other than an alley or a jail as a victory.

Now, honestly there were some achievements today - the day at work began with me successfully programming a full set of cable remotes properly on the first attempt.

BUt there's also the memory of my final call of the day - damn near losing a customer's email through complete stubbornness!

This evening, John talked me into attending a debate on gay marriage... and I felt some heat all over the audience, and in me, too. It took a lot not to slide out of one of those Fluevogs and hurl it at the "gentleman" representing Focus on (Fucking Over) the Family - and by the way, I can now say that I have seen a haarrrrrrd right-winger wearing Birkenstocks (taupe suede Bostons, if you cared)! I can think of a few images more unsettling than that one... but for someone who watches politics and men's shoes, that was one I could've done without. The fact that he sounded like he was whining all throughout his speaking, trying to obscure or just shout down salient points by the other debater (and looked like a lesbian college professor, although the actual lesbian college professors in the theater probably wanted to beat him down about 15 minutes in) was equally unwelcome.

Some people have told me that I spend a lot of my thinking time "in my own head." I admit, I can get veeerrry self-involved sometimes.

Last night, for example, I was pondering my relationships at this point in life, especially the intimate ones. At one point while I was doing laundry, my thoughts drifted to the one time I ever ended a relationship - with my first boyfriend Eddie when I was 16 - and how ugly it still feels almost 20 years after the fact.

That particular breakup, as early as it came in my gay (and dating) life, may have been one of the events that seriously damaged my relationship with my father. That will happen when somebody who's had your penis in his mouth once or twice makes random, borderline harassing phone calls to your phone number when you're not at home, but your father - convalescing after a severe diabetic episode - and your grandmother - who has told you she's convinced homosexuality is a conscious choice, and one she has issues with - are. And the only way to stop him is to scream bloody murder at him into the phone one fall Friday night... which gets him to stop calling, but also has him calling you "arrogant" and "inconsiderate" to your friends and anyone else who'll listen (not the biggest deal now at 34, but straight-up embarrassing at 16).

Since then, I've been the dumped instead of the dumper in large part - and it's a position that I much prefer. If (when?) I had to end a relationship now, would I even have the skill to navigate it without the drama and the harassment?

In other events, I'm looking forward to the Rewey fireworks tonight after work (and the jerk chicken I'm making for the potluck at Susan's beforehand) and some other busy-ness between now and my departure for MMF on Wednesday morning.

In the middle of cleaning out my car before I drop it off at the mechanic.( The kind, gentle part ends here... )

Growing up with parents and other relatives who never really tried to bring anything other than conflict into each other's lives, I always automaticallyassumed that everybody else's circle of family and friends and such got along better. Living in a small town these past few years has brought more than a few challenges to that assumption, since most of John's and my friends seem to have segments of the community about whom they frequently have some less-than-pleasant things to say. John does it, too - after all, living in a place for 30 years produces those kind of relationships (and relationship breakdowns).

Last Saturday showed that "rule" and one of its numerous exceptions. The rule, in my estimation, was heading up to Spring Green with John for a graduation party for two of his nieces - one from eighth grade, one from high school. John's family always seemed like they got along... not robotically well, but well enough to ride some rough shit and still be able to be civil to each other, and anybody brought into the family. Friends and family all around, and (even though the food was real good this time) a good time was had by all who attended (It didn't hurt that there was a Cubs game on throughout, followed by a tape of a school play, "The Three-Piggy Opera," featuring the oldest of the Greenwood great-grandchildren as the Wolf.).

Contrast that with the Fire Department steak feed that evening back in Point. Things went well; we got our dinner and all. Some older lady came up to say hi to John; he said, "Hi, Gerda" and that would seem to have been nothing special. On the way back to the car, he told me who the woman was, and explained why he didn't want to introduce me (a cascade of personal beefs, some related to the theater group in town, some related to the woman's daughter and son-in-law; I only knew the son-in-law, and let's just say he doesn't think highly of John and me being a couple.). I asked him for some details (my inner gossip-hound!), and let's just say I got more than I asked for, as well as another excuse to ask John what it is about his circle of friends and their concentric circles that makes falling out with each other so damn easy.

I wonder what other rhetorical questions are still out there, just waiting for fools like me to act like they have real, concrete answers?