Friday, February 11, 2005

Worst. Date. Ever.

since my love life here in my sleepy little non-tolerant town is all but nonexistent, i have decided to share with you a story of my dating past. now, normally i do not go on dates. (and NO, i don't just hook up either. though lately that claim is questionable.) i usually find them to be these nervous things where two people get visibly frustrated whilst trying to come up with decent conversation. or maybe that is just my inability due to my strong distaste for smalltalk. but i digress. i did go on a date once with someone who i wasn't too interested in but went out with anyway and what follows is the horror that was and will *hopefully* never be again. enjoy.

someone brought to my attention that was once here was a very mean-spirited post. and after reading it again i would have to agree. sharing stories from my past might make for good blog fodder, but this one was unduly harsh. even though im quite certain that the date in question (along with most of the rest of the world) doesn't read my blog, it needed to go - for karma's sake, at least.

lets just suffice it to say that i went on a date, it wasn't good. bad conversation and an oral hygeine situation. but i am judgemental and at the time was increasingly superficial.

here's hoping that i won't have that type of complicated date situation again. but here's hoping that someone who is so awful and consistently swimming in the shallow end of life actually gets invited to go on another date at some point in my life.

Thursday, February 10, 2005

my very gay lenten promise.

i spent all day trotting about on the internet reading this little something or that little something all in some way linking back to being gay, or how gay it all is, or the gayest gay that ever gayed a gay and what have you. It was like my own mini pride celebration (seeing as how i've never actually been to a pride celebration its purely conjecture.) but every now and again i like to have these little moments where i remind myself that being gay is the best thing to ever happen to a boy from small town texas - because it got me the hell out. for a little while anyway.

as my blog can surely attest, i have been the poster child for gay america for the last year and a half - dating, marching, fucking, standing up for myself and for the most part just being as prideful as a one man pride parade can be. but without all the hideous raindbow accoutremonts. i mean seriously, too much pride can be has ugly and warping as shame. being gay is and always will be the least interesting thing about that person. that's why it is always better to compensate with fashion.

and so tonight when i went to the local blockbuster (which has become my new hangout/passtime/excuse for living) i thought, best to keep with the theme of the day and rent something unbelievably gay. i finally narrowed it down to the two only gay movies this small town can handle: The Notebook, and Touch of Pink. (i know what you're thinking. "the notebook isn't a gay movie" but in all seriousness, its a period romance staring the bitch from mean girls and this man, who i am assured will be shirtless at least once. i mean, lets call a spade a queer, shall we?) i couldn't decdide what would be the gayer of the two and so i said, oh what the hell! ill rent both!

so as im walking my tags up to the check-out desk to pay, i am suddenly stricken with panic. i have never seen the man behind the counter. ::GASP:: where are all the clerks who know me? do i really want my first impression with this new clerk (who i am positive i will see on a more than constant basis for the next two weeks) to be on my queerest of queer days and whilst renting the faggiest of fag movies? (well, the faggiest of fag harlingen,tx movies)i decide it won't matter, as long as i can make the transaction very brief, and just get him to not shout out the titles of the movies i have rented and their respective due dates at the end.

so what ends up happening, is for the brief moment i am checking out i follow everything the clerk says with "uh-huh, is that it?" he says, "so you're getting the notebook, and touch of pink?" the little shit smirked at that. and i replied "uh-huh, is that it?" and he told me how much is was and i replied, "uh-huh, is that it?" i mean, i was so convinced that the blockbuster clerk at the harlingen, tx branch was going to judge me that i pre-emptively judged myself. in fact, it was more that judging, i SHAMED myself. i finally, and with a seriously deflated ego, finished the transaction and fleed the store (i quite literally walked out on him while he was trying to shout out the names of my movies so anyone who heard and took a gander over to see who would actually rent such gay movies would see nothing but a little culligan-shaped cloud where a person once stood.

i drove home covered in shame. my OWN shame for being exactly the stereotypical gay person that the smug blockbuster clerk assumed i was. and it of course didn't help matters that I watched Touch of Pink first and that the story was all about coming to terms and finally embracing and being ok with your own sexuality. i mean, it was a horrible movie. but i laughed, almost cried (i am still not a crier, no matter how gay and full of shame i am), felt all warm and fuzzy, and smiled a lot.

still though, as im about to head off to bed and i recount tonights events, the only thing im left with is my shame and of course an addendum to my lenten promise to myself and to god. that i will never let someone make me feel ashamed of who i am again. (or at least for the next 40 days.)

Monday, February 07, 2005

in front of total strangers won't you kiss me? flowers for no reason, but you miss me.

so this weekend i got a big wake up call.

i went to austin to attend this big austin advertising awards show and won some things and was all excited. and since ive been living so so far away from civilization and was feeling slightly bad about myself in general, i broke down and made out with someone who i don't really find attractive at all. AT ALL.

it was awful. i felt even more not ok about myself afterwards - i didn't really feel guilty so much as just sad and kind of ashamed that i would do something with someone just to make myself feel better. shame is not a good feeling.

(i should probably furhter explain that the person in question was a friend and an old co-worker. so the possiblity for weirdness coupled with shame is great. and the reason i was feeling bad about myself is that i decided that i would see the cellist, even though since i moved, we've both been kind of distant. and he hadn't made any real attempt to make that visit happen for the better part of the weekend.)

so woe is me, i was feeling kind of crappy and packed up the very last of my belongings that my old roommate had been so kind as to shelter, but was getting dangerously close to chucking when my phone rang. it was the cellist. so i reconciled myself to go and pick up some dinner and have a quick visit with him before i took off for good. and i am so glad i did.

i forgot how much i liked being with him - we didn't even have to talk that much, just kind of sitting together, doing all that mushy holding of the hands, or just kind of leaning on one another. it felt so nice. it felt like home. and i feel silly saying that about someone i only dated for a short amount of time, but it really just felt right. and when he kissed me (keep in mind people, this is NOT why i visited him, but it was a nice surprise) it felt passionate, and with a kind of gentle eagerness about it. it was so nice and exactly what i needed. so even though i had to leave shortly after arriving, i think just that little bit of face time has put me right for a while. its amazing how much stock we put in feeling loved, but im good to go for at least a week. ::le sigh::