Last Week, This Week, Next Week

Last week was so busy at work plus I had Thanksgiving at my house and had to make a bloody agenda for cooking etc. I am exhausted. I don't feel like writing but a few bon mots...

1) There is a new lad in my gym who I am all chatty with now. I used to think it was so hard to pick up people when I was younger. Now I know it is very easy. You just start talking. It is so much better than standing there aloof and looking cool. Anyway, I don't know what I wanna do with him yet.

2) My other gym boy came running over to after he saw me chatting this new one up. Shook my hand hello in this butch borough greeting that goes on here. I don't know what I want to do with him, either.

3) I am entering one of those phases where I just want to work all the time. Just stay there far too late and get there far too early. I can only assume it is addictive behavior again.

4) I remain unhealthily envious of this chick at work. Today the CEO took her to lunch. Why? Why??

5) I need someone to talk to work-stuff about. Not family because they don't get it. Not work people, of course. Most of my friends are just not interested. I need like a work-support group.

6) I'm feeling a tad unhinged these days. Very bi-polar. Sometimes I feel like I am the greatest thing since sliced bread, sometimes like I am about to get fired.

7) This young guy I had one night with when he was 22 (he is 25 now) and we remained friends is coming to NYC the weekend of the 15th. I told him I would be in South America. I can't deal with him. He is very sweet and funny and cute but I did not like the sex with him. He was good and energetic and into it and I would call him a masculine bottom, but he is such a bottom, no ifs ands or buts (hehe) about it. All I want is for him to be with someone who loves him. He likes me and makes believe he doesn't and I know if we went out it would happen again so it's better this way.

Anyway, there's probably more but I need to go to bed...

Ready to be a father?

Havanese Puppy

Or maybe a pet owner. I'm in love with this dog but don't know if I can handle the responsibility, the poop on the rug and the inevitable heartbreak in 15 years...but if I do, this is the dog I want.

Drama Queen

Apparently, that is me. Got myself in a complete lather last night and this morning over nada. But at least I was prepared. There were no Macchiavellian machinations at work, just the typical ineptitude and miscommunications. Oh well. Maybe I just did not get enough praise as a child.

Culture of Secrecy

It exists at my job. Lots of closed doors and hushed activity. It is alright when I am behind the door but not when I am outside.

Anyway, I am an expert at reading behavior and tomorrow there is a meeting that I am concerned about. It is being called by this girl who is parallel to me but who is calling it because my boss asked her to no doubt because his boss (CEO) asked him to. I am concerned it is going to be something like: Bart, you are reporting to Sara now. This makes no sense for about 250 reasons. Sara is basically a traffic manager, a collector of reports, a nudger. Yet the CEO adores her. It is a strange environment where someone who nudges efficiently is respected more than someone who has brilliant (and profitable) ideas. Yes, that would be me.

Now, I could be wrong and I hope I am, because if I am right I am going to very calmly say why I am unhappy with this set up. I hope I'm wrong because I like it here and want to be appreciated but if something like this happens it clearly illustrates that I have no future here.

I can't wait to read my blog tomorrow...

Schadenfraude!

So, I need to remember that if you wait long enough, karma will catch up with you.

There was this guy I was in love with/went out with/had first boy-boy sex with in high school. Long horrible story and I've written about it somewhere here before. Anyway, although it has been decades since our painful breakup and he should have nothing to do with me, for some reason he always seems to end up a few people away from me. It's a demi-monde thing, you know, like the people who all have jobs in media or wall street, you can ever really escap people. But still. I hear 2 1/2 yrs ago that he is living with/buying an apartment with a guy I kind of know but the guy is best friends with someone in a group my best friend knows. I have partied with these people before. Too close for comfort. Plus, I'm jealous in some fucked up way---ya know, they're living some shallow gay life of coops and St. Bart's and Heidi Slimane. But still, I'm skeptical because as far as I know they are both bottoms. I mean my HS BF was such a bottom he used to stick tootpaste tubes up his ass. Well, I hear things once in a while such as how he's always asking about me. And I know he's not asking cause he pines for me, he's asking in a competitive way. In high school, he was the first and last person to ever ask me how much my father makes. Ew. Did not know then and still don't. He was incredulous. I have no doubt I have been googled by him.

Anyway---breaking news---literally---they broke up. My friend is getting the whole pathetic story. And me? I was kind of pleased to hear the news. I think I was pleased because somebody told me that this gruesome twosome was making fun of another girl we know who is unfabulous but very sincere and it is just so juvenile to talk about people like that.

Fan Letter

When you are addictive, like me, you tend to do everything a little too much. Hence I could never buy 1 book, must buy 7. Could never buy one sweater, must buy 5. Because I appreciate all the colors, because they all look good on me, because I have such good taste---it's an ego-fest.

Anyway, the consequence of such actions is a lot of unread books and unworn clothes. Typically, they get purged every decade or so, but once in a while something pleasant happens:

1) Today I wore a John Smedley merino wool striped mock turtleneck that I bought at Barneys in----drumroll----1988. Yes. It's actually shocking that I bought something that tasteful back then because I had money and I had bad 80s taste. I still remember the acid green fucking phosphorescent blazer I was wearing to Palladium in 1985 and inexplicably Sally Randall let me in...

Anyway. Barneys. Smedley, Focus. It was too tight, too itchy, too clingy. I would put it on before going out and then yank it off.

But alas, I held onto it the way one holds onto things that were very expensive (I still have hope for these two incredible Versace knit shirts circa '88 that are a miracle of engineering--come to think of it, I bet they are worth a bundle since Gianni was offed) in the hopes that one day will see ROI.

Well, that day came. I put it on. It felt good. (I am no longer skeeved by wool --same with peach skin--no problem anymore.) Better yet it looked good. Nice and fitted across the chest but not West Hollywood fitted. Horizontal stripes, too. I looked like a fucking linebacker. So, I wore it to work and made the girlies swoon.

2) Now, the books. Different story. More of an investment of time. (Remember, I am going to die soon so I have begun to measure my activities in terms of their value --- would I rather be reading a so-so book, trolling the Internet for fresh ass or watching TV on Vico? The world is no longer a blank canvas...) I will often read 20 - 30 pages and then toss it down in disgust. Maybe write a scathing Amazon review if I'm feeling vindictive.

So, I looked through my library (yes, I have a library. A whole room just for books. Eat your heart out) the other night and came upon a title. I remember buying it 10 years ago, being less than pleased at the dearth of sex scenes, and calling it quits. But alas, I began to read it. It held my attention. It is called "Secret Life" by Michael Ryan and is a memoir written BITD when the market was not flooded with such tomes. It is about his molestation and sexual addiction and he is a very good writer and very humorous. I love that he spends an enormous amount of time writing about the so very awkward years of 10-15. I can so relate. Being a bit pudgy and very young but very horny and smart and just craving to be older. Ryan writes about the absurdity of himself at that age. Whatever. It touched me. So I wrote him a note and told him so. The kind of note I would like to get should I ever publish a book, simple: "Just wanted to thank you. I loved the book." Nothing creepy.

And would you believe he wrote back? Props to him. One good turn deserves another. I hope I made him happy. I don't need Oprah's (Uh, Bank America's) money to do something nice for someone. I do it every day.

Election Day Fantasy

I was thinking this morning that the US is ripe for a few things...

1) November 2006 -- Dems take back congress and senate

2) 2007 --- A methodical plan for peace in a self-sustaining Iraq is put into play. Wages begin to catch up with economic growth.

3) 2008 --- Stock market flirts with 13,000. A democratic presidential candidate emerges from the mid-west, of all places. It is not Hillary or Barack. Dem takes white house.

4) 2009 ---- Sweeping initiatives are put into play to help divide the gap between the rich and the poor. Education reform. Alternative fuel. Health Care. The emerging leverage of the retired baby boomer. A growing economy.

5) 2010 ---- The Christian right becomes marginalized. All my relatives need to die as this year there is no estate tax (thought I'd sneak that in there--don't hate me because I'm beautiful.) The new boom years have begun...roughly 11 years after the bottom fell out last time...

Diary

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My father's little brother who he was extremely close to drank himself to death when he was 31, a couple of years before I was born. Ten years ago my father gave me my uncle's "Book." It was more like a diary in outline form, a memoir, an autobiography. It had a profound effect on me because I recognized myself in it: the drinking, the inability to stop, the compulsion, the insecurity. I considered it to be some kind of guidance from this dead uncle. I think he died about 4 weeks after the last "entry."

I re-read it for the first time in a decade last night and it is heartbreaking. He begins as this optimistic, charming kid but it turns into this spiral of women, out of wedlock children, fights, cops, jail, depression, broken down doors, hospitals---I never knew a 1/2 Swede 1/2 Mic could have such drama...

The current running through it though is: blacked out, drank, resolved to stop, on the wagon, off the wagon, stopped, started again and on and on and on. I love this man I never met. By all accounts he was charming and handsome, intelligent (but intellectually lazy as the handsome and charming often are) and infuriating.

James Frey is an asshole, man.

For Mickey

Tina Louise

A still I bought back when I used to frequent Movie Star News when I was 13...

Wake me up in January

I am getting older and I am going to die.

Of course, this is not exactly a revelation but I think I am having a minor mid-life crisis. I am filled with a sense of regret at things not done, squandered opportunities. But it is tempered by a sense of profound accomplishment. I am self-made. And that expression slays me because my mom used to say it proudly about my dad. She meant he had no breaks, no education and he did well for himself. The irony is, they did nothing for me. They gave me no breaks, no education. My parents seemed to operate oblivious to the changing world around them. And such downers: You can't do that. You're not very good looking so you better work on your mind. And constantly making fun of me: something I said, misprounounced, wanted to be, wanted to see, listen to, read.

So, it's a wonder I came out of it. My good old ego got me through it. But sometimes my ego falters.

1) I look older. I don't want to change it. I think cosmetic surgery etc. is dumb. But I look a little haggard. I can't quite figure out why. I looked better two years ago and it's not just because I was younger.

2) I can't decide whether I am happy in my life or not. I am so easily bored. The best thing about my getting younger is that I become a little less manic as time goes by.

3) I can't decide whether I should strive for some new experience or whether I should just pursue a kind of unaware pleasure.

4) I realize that I do so few things with my friends etc. that when I see them I really value them. I have people I love dearly whom I see only every 5 or so years.

5) I think my parents destroyed me in some way. They thought they were doing a good job but it's almost as if I have spent years trying to become the person I always should have been if not for my mother's over-protection and domination.

6) I am angry with my parents. I thought I let all of this anger go, but their incident with me brought it all up.

7) I can do absolutelu anything I set my mind to. I have proven that time and again. But I tend to do things to prove I can do them. Once I have it I move on.

8) When you know you can do anything, it opens you up to deciding what you want...

9) Again, what do I want? I no longer want fame or money or things like that. I no longer feel the need to impact the world at large, to have strangers say he's so great or I want to be him.

10) I think what I want is to impact the people I work with and relate with.

11) If I am with this job a year from now, I will be there in 15 years and be CEO.

12) If I leave this job a year from now, I will take a job that doubles my salary. AKA sell out. I don't necessarily want that, it depends on how this job goes.

13) I have family coming over next weekend. I have family coming on Thanksgiving. I am going to go insane with them.

14) I have so much time to think. I think this is the advantage I have over people with children. When you have children you don't have time to think and time flies by.

15) I do not want children. I know this gay male couple with children. Adopted from foreign countries. That defeats the purpose for me. If I ever had a child I want it to have my genes. Ego. Anyway, I am very suspicious of gay men who want children. I don't think men have a paternal instinct. I think they just like the idea of little thems running around. Anyway, this couple---one makes the $$$ and the other is a "stay at home Dad." Gag me. I hate those fucking expressions. Anyway, this dude totally comes on to me all the time. He's seen me naked at the gym and he wants to blow me. I know these things. I am not a prude, but I think that is so gross. Cheat on your partner, fine. But you go through all this trouble and expense to adopt two kids because family is so important to you and then you want to go and act like a cliche fag and blow me in the steam room? Gross.

16) Anyway, not having kids and having a job is making me a little bored. I thought I would fall off the wagon and become a drunk again but that became boring after one night. And drinks got really expensive in the 6 years I've been sober. Fuck. I thought I would try to become an exercise junkie again but I did that to the nth degree before already. So what's left? I guess I can try and relax...I dunno. I really do feel like putting all my energy into work. Whatever. I'm getting exasperated. I'm going to watch some TV.