Marking Up My Body

In a week and a half, I will have my fifth appointment with my tattoo artist in as many months.  Yes, I’m getting quite a bit of work done.

I got my first tattoo when I was about 30 or so, and then got four others over the next few years.  I finally decided to tie them together in a common theme.

Draft of Work to be Done

After my third tattoo, my (then) best friend remarked, “You’re just going along with this fashion trend, which is going to be tired and over in a couple of years.  It will be so passé.”  In retrospect, he was wrong.  I’ve yet to regret any of my skin art.

In proof of my fatherly influence, my son (upon turning 18 years-old) went immediately to the tattoo parlor and got a HUGE piece inked on his upper arm of a dragon wrapped around a sword.  He had planned to follow that up with our last name tattooed across his upper back in Old English style lettering.  I successfully convinced him not to go this gangsta route.

Having a large tattoo on my arm has presented a few challenges at work.  Since I work in a fairly conservative corporate environment, I wear long-sleeved shirts almost exclusively.  I only wear short-sleeved shirts if they cover down to my elbow. 

I plan on getting a full sleeve tattoo on my left arm.  My closest friend at work says at that point I should make sure to wear short-sleeved shirts as often as possible to show my anarchist nature (although, again, I wonder if tattoos are so nontraditional in today’s place and time.  I see small ones on co-workers and other people in the company quite often).

Although I do like to buck the system, I mostly just like to be me everyday of my life.  And that includes showing how I’ve decorated my body.  I can live with that.

I'd be better at this if I just had more champagne...

On the first day of 2012, I posted on my regular Facebook profile:
          

My main New Year’s Resolution for 2012 is keeping track of how quickly it will take to break all of my New Year’s Resolutions

It’s been difficult tallying. 

Now, let’s make it clear.  I think the idea of New Year’s Resolutions is a bit dumb.  I understand that some people see the first day of the year as a time for new beginnings.  I view New Year’s Day as just another day (realist, not grump).  I am a bit annoyed by all of the people who suddenly flood my gym during the month of January.  I wonder how much resolve that they will have (grumpy and judgmental, admittedly).  I notice that the church parking lots are at high occupancy in January (smug and sacrilegious).

But this year, I sincerely thought about some things that I would like to change in my life:

·        Stop smoking. After puffing on cigarettes since the age of fourteen or so, I’m certain that I have permanently damaged my lungs, clogged my arteries, and jacked up my senses of smell and taste.  It’s four days into the New Year, and I can report that I am still smoking.

·        Gripe about work and my management staff less. What’s the point?  Work is work.  I have to work to pay bills.  I enjoy our house and have to pay the mortgage. I like to travel.  I need to feed my menagerie, etc.  I can report that yesterday was my first day in the office for the year, and I was only mildly successful at keeping my grumbling to a minimum (not regarding my projects, but management was going the extra mile to break this resolution for me).

·        Allocate my home time more reasonably. As I reported in early December, a new video game was released.  As I reported, the game would probably swallow my life.  I can now report that it did.  Completely.  As you might note, my last post was that December one.  I spend most waking hours either playing the game or thinking of strategies for playing the game.  I even spend my “should-be” sleeping hours in that other fabricated world.  Last night all it took was a couple of snores from The Man and then Luke whimpering loudly in a dream (we must have played fetch too long yesterday), and I was jolted awake.  12:33 AM.  And what do I do?  Head to the living room and jump on the couch.  After playing the game for a while in the dark, I turned on the light to check the time…3:35 AM.  Perfect.  Up at my regular time of 6:00 AM.  I almost face-planted in the shower this morning.

·        Keep a better track of finances. The Man and I both have our separate bank accounts and one house account.  I maintain my own and the house account.  I can report that there is a stack of receipts on my desk.  We recently switched telephone carriers, but we are still paying both companies.  Duh.  We have a movie service (you know, the one that sends you DVDs by mail and allows you to stream movies through the Net), we NEVER use that.  There are other countless ways to shave off fat in our budget.

I think that’s about it for my resolutions.  Off to a stellar start in 2012.  I guess I can reload. 

2013 is practically around the corner.

And Then I Became a Wood Elf...

If the blame needs to be placed somewhere, put it on The Awesome Son.  He moved in with me while he was in his mid-teens, bringing with him something that stirred an overwhelming hunger inside me. The addiction began slowly, as most gripping ones do.  Before I knew it, almost all of my waking hours were spent running around the wilderness:  dodging rouge critters, looting mines and caves for treasure, finding portals to hellish realms.

 

The Elder Scrolls series.  If you are not familiar, approach it with my warning.  I’ve never been much into video gaming, but that all changed with the third installment in the series.  Morrowind.  Just go to urbandictionary.com and search the word.  You will find numerous definitions; most alluding to the fact that you will never again have any genuine social contact in your life.  You will spend your time with graphic adventurers and bandits, running with beastfolk (lizard and cat people), and encountering elf politicians & law enforcement officers. 

 

When the fourth game in the series, Oblivion, was released, I played it compulsively as well.  And with utter abandon.  One of my friends was at my house one day, watching me play the game as my character (an Orc brute) crushed enemies with a sword and an axe, generally destroying everyone or thing in his path.  My friend was mortified.  And here I was, laughing raucously and swearing at the characters and the creatures as my Orc annihilated them.  Not too characteristic of a peaceful, friendly guy in his early 40s. 

 

Skyrim, the fifth game in the series was released a couple of weekends ago.  The Awesome Son and I were beyond excited.  Anyone who plays the series was also probably foaming at the mouth before the date.  Since the game is a single-player one, my son and I cannot play at the same time.  But that is no matter.  He and I shared adventure stories from the previous two games. 

 

Both he and I took a vacation day on the release date of Skyrim.  I traveled to Louisiana to spend the weekend with him and the Fiancée.  He and I played all weekend, in shifts of two-hour turns in front of his huge TV screen (talking about total game immersion).

 

Our gaming style said a lot about our personal styles.

 

• My son’s character of choice was a Nord, sorta like a Viking, big and brawny.  The son’s style?  Crushing enemies.  Running through dungeons and obliterating the undead, picking and choosing which chests and containers to check for treasure.  Running all over the landscape, slaughtering any hostile animal or human.  The Awesome Son is a gusto kinda guy.
• My character was a Wood Elf, short and slight.  My style?  Sneaking past enemies.  Creeping through dungeons and picking off enemies with a bow, checking every container for treasure.  Cutting a wide berth around any aggressive being.  Harvesting ingredients for potions from flowers and plants.  The Queer is a slower moving kinda guy (as least in relation to my exuberant son).

 

The weekend flew past.  Finally Sunday morning, I was brought back to reality.  I received a message for My Extraordinary Nephew mentioning that I hadn’t posted to my blog in quite a while.

 

So here I am.  Back to reality for a while.  Resolved to only play Skyrim one hour a day.  Everything in moderation.  Even diversion.

 

On the drive back to Houston , I was alert.  Checking the roadside for sources of alchemical ingredients, watching the horizon for saber-toothed tigers, checking the skies for dragons.  I probably will have to push toward reality with a bit more might.

(P.S.  I've logged in almost 70 hours playing this game in less than a month now.   See you at the Asylum)

"Once Upon A Time, George and Weezie Moved to a Deluxe Apartment in the Sky"

I woke this morning in time, barely.  7:55 AM.  As I threw back the covers and took my initial stand, The Man was already beckoning “CBS Sunday Morning is about to come on.”

The Man…oh, The Man.  How he’s changed my life in so many wonderfully expansive ways.  And one particular not-so-wonderfully-expansive way.  Re-introducing Cable TV into my world. 

It’d been years since I enjoyed Cable TV.  I haven’t watched much TV as an adult, mostly because I had pigged out on every 60s & 70s sitcom available in my youth.  You name it; I watched it. The Jeffersons, Gilligan’s Island, The Brady Bunch, The Partridge Family, I Dream of Jeannie, Bewitched, Good Times, The Facts of Life, Diff’rent Strokes, etc., etc., etc.  I can remember sitting on the floor with my back against my parent’s bed, door closed, watching One Day at a Time and smoking cigarettes. (My parents both smoked, so their bedroom smelled like a pool hall anyways.)

At any rate, I did get hooked on CBS Sunday Morning.  It’s my kind of weekend morning news program; no pieces too incendiary to blow the Hell out of my mood on my (Christian-upbringing) pre-designated day of rest.  So I settled into one of the orange living room chairs to enjoy the show.

And my mood was blown to Hell.  At the top of each episode, Charles Osgood offers the “serious news.”  He could have kept it to himself today.  Washington fighting over the debt crisis (still) and tax reform.  A national sales tax?!  Really?!  Great, U.S. government, infringe on the method in which many states and municipalities fund their own governing bodies.  I was outraged.  I settled down rather quickly (I always do).

What followed was:

• A wonderful story about a young woman, who started a school in Georgia.  The academy teaches refugee children who have settled with their families in this small rural town.  Heartwarming and inspiring.
• A fascinating story on Clive Davis, and his influence and success in popular music.  I’m wild about music, so this story was especially enjoyable.
• A thought-provoking, but characteristically-acerbic commentary by Nancy Giles.  This little rant focused on excessive bank fees. Of course, she mentioned my mortgage holder – the granddaddy of all evil financial institutions – Bank of America.  Again…look at me, outraged. 
• A segment on some surfer.  Whee. 
•  A piece on Martin Sheen.  Perfect for a Sunday Morning actor feature.  Martin Sheen is like a tepid oatmeal breakfast.  Filling, but not tasty.  (For my morning meal?  No oatmeal.  Over-hard eggs and grape-jellied toast, courtesy of The Man.)

The episode wrapped up with the customary nature scene:  this one from the Tennessee/North Carolina region.  Lots of beautiful fall foliage.  Gorgeous waterfalls.  Open fields with tall wheat-colored grass.  Elk and turkey grazing around.  Having recently chosen a vegetarian lifestyle, all I could think was “I hope that is a wildlife preserve, or someone is gonna slaughter those animals.”

Next up…Face the Nation.  This is the part where I rather go kill bandits and monsters in my computer game or go play the piano.  But I stuck it out.  Mainly because Michelle Bachmann and Rick Santorum were going to be featured.  The Man asked, “Can we turn this off?”

“Oh, no.  I want to hear what these two say…’Know your enemy,’ right?”

As I expected, they laid all the blame for the recent warfare directly at the feet of Obama.  Hmm.  Didn’t our government originally take a warrior’s stance when George W. Bush was in office?  Hmm.  I honestly did enjoy the foolish rhetoric of Michelle and Rick. 

Then Joel Osteen with the Lakewood Church came on.  I didn’t feel like hearing platitudes (well, actually I never do…), so The Man suggested a bio-piece on Benjamin Franklin.  It was engrossing, but an hour in, when the program hadn’t yet reached the American Revolution period, I asked The Man how long the show lasted.  Two hours?  Interesting show, but I couldn’t devote another hour of my precious time. 

So what’d I do instead?  Nap.

After an afternoon of vacuuming, practicing piano, going to my piano lesson and ironing this week’s clothes, I made the mistake of turning on the TV.  And promptly got dragged into a new show, “Once Upon A Time.”  Great…I already have a weakness for fairy tales (I’ve mentioned it before – yes, I’m gay).  I watched the whole damn show.  And it sucked!  Well, I mean that it sucked a whole hour from my life.  

I know that I’ll be sitting in front of our TV next Sunday at 7:00 PM. 

Shit.

But what could I say...

I did say a few weeks back that I would try to post more often.  I didn't promise.  Who needs a promise from me?  I rarely say, "I promise...," anything.  That kind of sweeping statement can get a person in big trouble.  But I said I would try to check in on Sundays.

 So here we go (the best I can muster tonight).  Today, I...

• Woke up early, around 6 AM.  (Since I became a year older a couple of weeks back, I guess I'm officially old.  I can't even sleep late on the weekends.  Even on Sunday mornings, when the night before I've watched all of Saturday Night Live - if I can stay awake that late.  This week SNL was somewhat good, but Drake wowed me with "Headlines."
• Played "Oblivion" a couple of hours.  (Oblivion is an RPG - role-playing game - set in a land that is much like Europe in Medieval times.  Oblivion is a chapter of a larger game series called "The Elder Scrolls."  The next chapter in the series comes out in November.  I know that I'll be spending that weekend back home in Louisiana, playing the new game with The Awesome Son.  He's already told me that.  And I listen to The Awesome Son.)
• Watched CBS Sunday Morning.  (A couple of interesting new pieces to start a soothing "news" day.  It's not exactly Glenn Beck.  Oh, it's the antithesis.  Coldplay was featured.  Chris Martin is cool.)
• Enjoyed the breakfast that The Man cooked.
• Napped.
• Practiced the piano.
• Showered.
• Went to my piano lesson.
• Returned home.
• Dined with friends to celebrate my, a friend's (who happens to share my special day), and The Man's birthdays.  
• Ate tofu.  (I went vegetarian this past week - Let's see how that goes...)
• Visited our local grocery store for this week's shopping.  (As we approached the store, The Awesome Son called.  [Good...The Man volunteered to go shop, and] I - score! - was able to just hang outside and chat with The Awesome Son, who laughed his head off at some of my antics.  Let's just say that I gave The Man a racy but odd birthday gift...it involved a hole in a gift bag.  Enough said.)
• Arrived home
• Let dogs out
• Unloaded groceries.
• Cleaned the litter box.
• Corralled the dogs back into the house (because they were whooping, barking, and hollering at something in the trees, in the dark.  Hell, I couldn't see what it was.  And the dogs were nuts.  It took a couple of minutes to break their attention and get them inside.)
• Ironed my shirt for my runway appearance at the office tomorrow.  (Music courtesy of Mr. Springsteen "The Wild, The Innocent, and The E-Street Shuffle."  Good Stuff!)
• Put brown rice on to cook.  (It amazes me how the rice cooker knows how much longer the brown rice needs than the white rice.  I'm so easily stumped.)

Now, I'm sitting here typing.
Dang, my life sounds a bit dull.  That's o.k.  I'm having a good time.

Finally!

At last, it's raining in Houston!  I don't mean to be so excited about it, but it's been a long dry spell.  The last good rain that I can remember fell in late June.  We've had a couple of showers in the interim, but nothing like the past couple of days.  I even stood shirtless in the driveway last night, just to feel the cool wet drops on my skin.

Given my cafeteria view of religion, I'm left wondering who to thank for the rain:  I'm left with thanking God (my Christian beliefs), or thanking the Universe (my Buddhist beliefs) or thanking the Moon and the stars (my belief in Astrology).  OK...so it's a gumbo of beliefs, I'll agree.

If I followed my husband's beliefs as a chaos-theorist atheist, I would be left without being able to thank anyone.  You have to admit that it's kinda nice to just be grateful, period; without having to be caught up in thanking anything but nature.

Regardless, I say "Thank you, God," "Thank you, Universe," "Thank you, Moon and stars."

Thank you all for ending that damn drought.  Keep up the good work.

Everything Changed

It hit me.  Right out of the blue.  The feeling.  The one after the ceremony, which lasted all of about 10 minutes (it actually seemed shorter). 

With our procured witness (one of a couple of Key West gents who were – after 41 years together – also in New York City to be married), we entered the chapel.  The justice started with a question: “Which one of you is Kenneth?”  And off we went.

“Do you take Jason…?  Breath.

“I will.”

“To be your lawfully wedded spouse, to…blah, blah, blah…”

I guess he was a bit excited.  After she was able to finish her question, he said “I do.”

I said my “I do” at the appropriate place.

“I now pronounce you…married.”  I had wondered how that would end.

And with those words, everything changed.

It was weird.  I hadn’t expected those feelings.

We walked out of the lower Manhattan courthouse.  He had a huge smile on his face.  I’m certain I did too.  We walked to the park across the street and sat on a bench in the shade.  I called my son, my sister, my dad and my best friend.  He called his dad and his brothers.

On the subway ride back to Brooklyn where we were staying, I looked at my new husband and examined my feelings.  And they were familiar. 

I had been married, long ago.  To my then-best friend.  And I had loved it.  I tell people all the time, “If I had been straight, she and I would still be married.”  I know it in my heart.  But…I’m not hetero. 

A wife didn’t fit me.  A husband does.  Regardless of what other people feel or believe. 

I love being married.  I love having a husband.

I’ll keep him.