Word Play

My life is governed by simple rules to help me live better and to avoid looking stupid at all costs. One of these rules is to never use a word if I don't know the definition. One of my college professors always told me to look up every word I don't know and every word that I think I know. Constant nagging, or sage advice? I'm starting to wish that everyone else on earth would attend his lectures, because a lot of people are pissing me off with their word usage.

I was waiting in line at Subway and a woman was talking about Iran, or as she pronounced it (EYE RAN). She was telling her friend about how everyone is forgetting about their nuclear program and that the media needs to report more about the goings-on in Iran. She went on about how it's not safe that a country has nuclear capabilities, and that the threat of nuclear power is something that we should be concerned about. Nuclear, nuclear, nuclear.

Then I turned to her and asked what 'nuclear' meant, and she said: "It's when they bomb other countries."

I guess I should have been happy with her stupid answer. It could have been a lot worse. She could have SPELLED nuclear, thinking that this was a spelling bee.

Whose Brine Is It, Anyway?

I've been hiding a terrible secret for weeks. It explains why I've been so moody and why I break down into tears whenever I hear sappy music from a commercial or a television drama. I don't know how I'm going to explain it to my friends or my family. What would they think of me? How would my mother react if she found out that... I'm pregnant?

It's the only explanation. I've been working out for a really long time and I can't get rid of this bulge on my midsection. It's huge. And my appetite has become extremely voracious lately. I don't even bother with utensils anymore. Once my soup is done, I just start sipping out of the pot. You can also hear me grunting and gasping for air when I'm eating. It's pathetic.

It's a well-known fact that people who are pregnant often have weird cravings. Some people eat fried chicken dipped in mayonnaise. Others eat ice cream and gravy. My special craving is olive or pickle juice. They don't sell it in individual snack packs like a Capri Sun, so people in my condition are forced to strain the juice from a jar into a glass.

While I was at a trick's house last week, I was hit with the accursed pregnancy craving. He told me that I could help myself to whatever was in the refrigerator, so I took him up on the offer. I saw that he had a jar of Vlasic Dill Spears and I instantly heard the Hallelujah chorus from Handel's "Messiah" playing in my head. I poured some of that delicious nectar of the gods into a glass and I swallowed it faster than I swallowed him ten minutes prior.

Then he comes into the kitchen because he's horny again and he smells the pickle juice in the air. He's like: "did you eat a pickle?" And I said: "no." And he says: "oh, because it smells like pickles." And I said: "I drank the juice." then I smile innocently as he tries to suppress a look of shock and horror. That didn't stop him from giving me another great pounding. I know what you're thinking, and yes it is okay to have sex until the third trimester.

After the third time, he turns to me and asks about the pickle juice. I could have told him the truth about my pregnancy, but nobody likes a preggy bottom boy. I just told him that I love to drink pickle juice. We got into a huge debate about me drinking pickle juice, and I was starting to regret not reaching for the water when I was in the refrigerator at first. The debate quickly turned into an argument and I ended up leaving.

We've all had someone over for casual sex sometime in our lives, and we all have stories about the weird things that they do. I will forever be remembered by him as the pickle juice boy. That doesn't bother me because I have more important things to worry about at the moment. I need to contact Maury to get a paternity test done. I just won't ask Connie to sing in the background.

Proud to be gay, every which way, just mind the ants and have a good day!

With Gay Pride day just around the corner, I often get questions from my straight friends who want to know about fun experiences I had in the past. One of my friends assumes that it's a time when all gay men's hormones kick into overdrive and they have sex with anyone who's got a penis and a margarita. There is one gay pride experience that I will never forget, and it happened in Houston.

I was with my friends John and Jay, and I was particularly excited because it was one of the first parades that I'd been to since coming out. One float was throwing Pride Coozies and John had just enlightened me on what a coozie was, but I was too drunk to understand. I couldn't get a clear view of the parade, so I asked them if we could move to a better location. We were lucky enough to find a patch of grass under a tree that was unoccupied, and we wondered in the back of our minds why no one was standing there.

About five minutes later, as the gay firefighters rolled around, I felt a sudden flash of pain in my ankles. When I looked down, I noticed that my shoes were covered with giant fire ants! We'd been standing smack dab on top of a fire ant mound and we didn't even know it. In my loudest, most drunk and shrill voice, I scream to Jay: OH MY GOD, HONEY! FIRE ANTS!

We dart out of the crowd, still screaming but holding on to our drinks. Then we find a safe spot in an alley where we proceeded to take our shoes and pants off to shake out all the little buggers that were biting the crap out of us. Jay wasn't wearing underwear, so he was jumping around half naked while I had on my little tightie whities. This was a very frantic moment, and you would have panicked if you'd seen that many fire ants all over your shoes. Jay told me that he felt them crawling on his ass, so I do my best to swat them off. As luck would have it, two Houston police officers walk past the alley and catch a glimpse of the situation.

From their vantage point, they see a boy in his underwear, holding a long island iced tea as he spanks a half-naked boy who's jumping up and down screaming. They start coming toward us, yelling something, but all I could do was put my hand out and say: "We're not having sex! We're not having sex!" Imagine this happening in slow motion.

After Jay calms down and we both get dressed, we explained the situation to the nice officers. They laughed and we felt so embarrassed, but I'm just glad that I didn't decide to wear a thong that day. You can explain your way out of any situation wearing basic underwear or even nothing at all, but there's no way in hell you're going to look even remotely serious wearing a rainbow thong.

Tell me more! TELL ME MORE!

I've been having lunch with my boss (because I have to) and he's been really annoying lately. He talks with his mouth full and it's like looking at a monster from a science fiction movie... a leathery-skinned, fauxhawked, overly-tanned, mac make up, salad-eating science fiction monster who cruises young men. The problem that I have with my boss is that he makes up incredible stories to fill the empty air and I have a hard time believing anything he says anymore.

The latest installment of the boss queer's drama took place at Sidetrack on Sunday. He was being harassed by a drunk man who kept trying to expose himself to him. That part I believe. What I don't believe is that a cute 24 year old grad student kept eyeing him from across the room trying to get his phone number. After the drunk guy left, the grad student came up to my boss and asked for his phone number but didn't have a pen to write it down with so he left. That is complete bullshit. There are pens all over the place, and gay men will get a phone number quicker than they get goosebumps under an air conditioner.

Why do people have to make up stories like that? I think the last time I lied to get attention was when I was in elementary school. I told my friends that I was totally into the transformers and that I'd seen every episode. I did it to fit in and to get people to like me. I was nine years old.

My boss is well into his forties and he's making shit up to impress me or to make me wish I was him. Yeah that'll happen. I so wish I could be in my forties and still try to pull off the faux hawk and the tight gap jeans with the big belt buckle. I so wish that.

I don't need to make up crazy stories about my life because my life is already crazy on its own. I'd be more impressed if he told me that he stood at the bar looking desperate and the only person who talked to him asked for the time.

Dream Come False

I've always heard stories about guys getting freaky in the showers at my gym. Two men make eye contact as they're lifting weights, sweaty and grunting like two slaves in a Madonna video. Then one guy goes into the locker room and the other one follows, eager to feel his mouth on the other guy's quivering flesh. They meet in the shower and lose themselves in the rapture of their burning desires. This is how I imagine the encounters between men at the gym. It's one of my favorite dream fantasies.

Today at the gym, I was sort of making eye contact with a guy and it was one of those things where we kept bumping into each other. I just assumed that it was fate and in my mind I'm thinking: "we saw each other three times and that means we're gonna have sex!"

After my intense workout session, I hop into the shower and I discover mister eye contact man there hanging up a towel. As I go to hang my own towel, I immediately think of so many things like if my breath is okay because what if we might kiss, or if gag reflexes come back after they've gone away. You know, important stuff like that. I caught a quick glimpse of his body and I had to keep from getting a major erection there in the shower room. Fortunately, we were the only two people in there.

I walked past him so he could see me and get all excited, then I feel him grab my arm and I thought: "YES! FINALLY! SOMETHING NAUGHTY IS HAPPENING TO BORING OLD ME!" I turned around and touched his arm with this big smile on my face and I was happy that my little dream was coming true. But my dream bubble quickly burst when he explains that my towel fell off the hook and he only grabbed my arm to let me know about it. We finished our showers in silence, then I was horrified to learn that our lockers were right next to each other. It felt like eighth grade when I made a move on a boy in my class and he wasn't into me.

As I changed there in the locker room, we gave each other one final awkward glance and he went away. I learned an important lesson about the line between fantasy and reality today.

Paranoid Archaeology

I looked into my freezer last night in hopes of finding something to eat, and immediately became disenthralled when I looked at what was actually in there. The exact contents of my freezer are: batteries, Crown Royal whiskey, ice, 2 lean cuisine entrees, and poppers.

If you know me well enough, then you'd understand how neurotic I can get sometimes. I began to panic because... hey, what if something really bad happened to the earth like that episode of Benson where Haley's comet came by and everyone on earth turned into crystallized dust piles. What if people from another planet came to study our world to see what the people were like? They'd go into my apartment and see my freezer and they'd go: hey this guy must be a single gay boy who likes to ho it up at the bars.

Then they'd look at my computer and find 89 of the 120 gigabytes of space devoted to nothing but porn. I shudder to think what they'd think when they find the selection of different lubes and massage oils in my bedside drawer. Yeesh!

Now I'm going around trying to find tasteful things to put in my apartment to balance out the whore element. So far I've come up with antique weapons, a nice set of nesting tables, and a miniature sculpture of one of the warriors from the tomb of Qin Shi Huangdi (first emperor of China). Hopefully, that will let the aliens know that not everyone in the world spends 20% of their time having sex or drinking.

Boxers, briefs, or none of the above?

How do you react when people tell you that they aren't wearing underwear? I used to think that people were lazy or unkept when they went commando, and that it would be extremely uncomfortable, especially when wearing jeans. Boy was I wrong!

I forgot to pack an extra pair of undies when I left for the gym this morning, so I was a little flustered when I realized that I'd have to spend the rest of the day flopping around in my jeans. I was afraid that I would chafe down there and I'd have trouble masturbating later. That wasn't the case. Miraculously, my naughty parts have managed to stay relatively intact.

As I bent over to reach into my gym bag, I noticed a couple of people checking out my goodies. I had to be careful not to let my coin slot show, though. That's something I have to work on. If being ogled by complete strangers makes you feel all tingly in your no-no spots, then don't wear underwear tomorrow!

Oblogitory, v2.0

Oblogitory turns one year old today. I didn't have any special t-shirts made like I planned, so I'll just have to find another way to make my three readers happy. I didn't even think that I'd be writing on this thing for this long. It started out as a little alternative to writing in my journal. WARNING: I'm gonna talk about the drugs again!

It was during the aftermath of my crystal meth addiction. A little more than two months of not using drugs played all sorts of nasty tricks on my poor brain, and I quickly plunged into a bad little state of depression. Apparently, when you quit cold turkey from a three year binge of an array of drugs administered through various orifices and veins, the brain cells that do survive don't quite fall back into place the way they normally do. Through it all, I had my writing. I still keep my journal and I saw how bad it was during my drug use. I wrote all sorts of nonsensical things and my handwriting was extremely shaky because it was hard to hold the pen steady when your arm is trembling after a fresh injection.

I decided to concentrate on the blog because the writing speaks out on a couple of different levels other than the effect of the actual words that are typed. Every entry that I post says that I was coherent enough to log into my system and remember my password and spell the words correctly. Every entry that I post tells the world that I'm all here. I don't do it to build a fan base, and I could care less about the impact my writing has on the world. It does make me happy when people e-mail me, wondering about what the next entry would be like.

Anniversaries tend to make people think about things in retrospect, and everything comes full circle. I can safely say that in the year that I've been blogging, I have come out on top. Here's to a fabulous year of stupid gym folk and sidewalk shenanigans, and many more years of quirky little blog entries!

Calgon, Take Me Away!

Do you ever have friends who have other friends who are just so difficult to be around? You never want to call them out on how stupid they act because you don't want to look like a lunatic in front of your first friend. I always try to respect the bonds of friendship, no matter how fucked up they appear to be.

One such person is Randy. Every time I encounter Randy, he just won't shut the fuck up about himself. He's the kind of person who steers every conversation in his direction and he never lets anyone talk about anything other than himself.

His latest claim to fame is the fact that he's in a book about great homes of Chicago. He carries pictures of his condo and brags about how it's going to be in this fabulous book and he shows the pictures to people like it just happened to him and he tells the same long ass story. The fact is that his home is cram-packed full of furniture and it just looks so junky with all the shit packed together like that. It kind of looks like a haunted house. No one is even going to buy the stupid book.

I just don't know how anyone can yap yap yap for so long about themselves. I get the feeling that he only says the things he says so that he can get compliments from people. He's like a compliment whore with an addiction to flattery. If I could put flattery into little baggies, I could make a fortune selling it to him so he could snort it any time he felt unloved - which is all the time, because he's constantly looking for attention. He only associates himself with people to fill his need for attention. It's all about him! Look at Randy! Love Randy! It's revolting.

We all know someone in our lives who is exactly like Randy. Come on! There's always someone who holds their hand out when you see them so you have an opportunity to comment on how fabulous their new engagement ring looks. There's always someone who talks about how much they go to the gym and how much they lifted just because they want to make you feel inadequate. There are even people who tell tall tales about how they hooked up with a cute guy who claimed to be straight and they converted him to the gayness, expecting you to drop dead with the honor of being next so someone who harnesses that power.

We can only blame ourselves for their behavior, because we enable them to do it. The next time you encounter someone like Randy, just stare at them and don't say anything. Make it seem like you're not interested, which won't be hard because you really won't be interested. People like Randy depend on others to feed their malnourished self-esteem. I can't begin to tell you how much they thrive on phrases such as "tell me more" or "oh, really?" The trick is to master the "ah" and the lookaway. When Randy says something, say "ah," and look away. Eventually, he'll talk himself to death and he'll run out of steam. Don't ever worry about him asking you what's wrong or why you're being so quiet. Honey, he doesn't give a fuck!

You can't really launch a frontal attack on someone like Randy because it'll just make him stronger. It really sucks that there have to be battle tactics about social situations with friends of friends. What is this world coming to?

Bad Birthday Experiences

With my next birthday rapidly approaching, I think about how much I loathe the stupid day. It's not that I'm upset at growing a year older. I just have never enjoyed celebrating birthdays. They're just normal days and when people make a big deal out of it, it increases the possibility of the day becoming shitty. It's like when my mother plans a vacation itinerary and the whole vacation is ruined if something doesn't go according to plan. One of the worst birthday experiences happened right here in Chicago, three years ago.

It was my first year in Chicago and I didn't know a lot of people, so one of my friends dragged me out to one of the gay bars with him. He told me that it was to celebrate my birthday, but he really wanted to flirt with his security guard boy toy while his boyfriend (the bartender) worked behind the bar. Queens enjoy a certain element of danger in their lives and I can never understand why that is. I'd worked a double shift the day before and I was extremely tired. I just wanted to lay in bed all day and watch Mormon porn. I am a man of simple tastes.

At the time, I hadn't fully grown into the tough and centered queer that I am now. It was hard for me to stand up to my friend, who was obviously using me to live out his sick soap opera fantasy of sexing two men who work at the same place without either of them knowing. He was doing it all wrong, but I didn't tell him. When his boyfriend wised up about what was going on (after loosening my tongue with a few shots of Jagermeister), my friend dragged me away to another bar to avoid confrontation.

The second bar featured exotic dancers and they just happened to be short one guy that night. It didn't take long for my friend to rip his clothes off and volunteer because he was tanked and he enjoyed showing off his body. I enjoy showing off my body, but I do it in a classy way. I just don't disrobe in the middle of the dance floor like a $.35 hooker. The club owner didn't like his underwear and asked my friend to find another pair. He remembered from a conversation we'd had earlier that I was wearing a thong because I was doing laundry earlier in the day. Before I knew it, I was forced into a room where two large men took my pants off and stole my thong. I'm pretty sure that it's illegal to hold someone down while another guy rips someone off for their sexy underwear.

I went home in tears while my friend, who is no longer my friend, danced on a box with money stuffed in my thong. The sad part is that this would have been the second birthday where I'd go home crying and without underwear. Unfortunately, there's no gay school where they teach you how to cope with such extreme forms of drama. This was one of the necessary experiences that helped me develop a thicker skin when it comes to my personal happiness.

This year I'm going to Dollywood for my birthday.

The Town Bicycle

I was in Walgreens this weekend, browsing the condom section like a good boy, when my shopping was interrupted by a little girl who rudely stood in front of me and thumbed the shelves so she could look for something in that aisle. She chose condoms. This girl couldn't have been older than twelve and she had on a really short skirt with a crop top. I looked at the time and was puzzled because I thought whores didn't go out that early in the day. I was a little relieved that she was at least going to practice safe sex, but was horrified to see her put the condoms back on the shelf and grab some KY warming gel instead.

Now I'm the last person on earth who should be making judgements about someone else, but I will go ahead and let loose this one time for entertainment purposes. If the girl hadn't put the condoms back, I would have just assumed that she was dry in her nether regions and wanted some moisture down there to prevent chafing. I don't know how the women's stuff works down there. I just assume that with all the walking, some stuff is rubbing around and - you get the picture.

The big thing going on in my mind was me shouting at her: SLUT WHORE JEZEBEL I'M GONNA END UP PAYING FOR THAT BABY YOU'LL HAVE WITH MY TAXES SLUT SLUT SLUT. As she walked away, I rememberd seeing a lot of young girls in Houston dressing in short shorts with the "Juicy" logo on the back because they want you to look at their asses. I remembered every episode of Maury and Jenny Jones where the little trailer trashy girl was trying to get pregnant. I think the tag line was something like "i'm still in school, but i want a baby, you fool." That was so many years ago and I thought it would be a fad, but they're still out there. There are still slut girls who don't even have tits, but they've had like a hundred cocks.

It is really unfair of me to judge her like that because I was just as big a slut when I was twelve. I wouldn't have flinched if it was a young gay boy buying some lube and enema solution. I would have been like: you go, boy! Take one for the team!

The Queen Gene

There's a funny little thing that happens to every gay man to remind him of what he evolved from. It happens to some guys when they're flipping channels and their hearts skip a beat when they see a figure skater complete a triple axel. It happens when they're at a restaurant and they're taking a sip from a glass and their pinkies lift instinctively. I've also seen it happen to the butchest of men as they're waiting impatiently for something and their hand goes straight to their hip so they look like a teapot waiting to spout bitchiness by the cupful. This behavior is caused by something I like to call "The Queen Gene."

My Queen Gene makes me susceptible to feminine moments that come out in times of extreme terror. I have very fragile nerves and the fastest way my body expresses fear is to have one hand on my chest and the other hand out in front of me as I let out a high-pitched shriek. It usually happens when I turn a corner and someone is walking that way towards me. It also happens when elevator doors open. I'm not a paranoid person and I don't walk around fearful of getting assaulted in the bushes by a gang of college boys, so I really can't explain why I react like a horror movie victim all the time. I'm like those guys you see on America's Funniest Home Videos when their friends scare them on Halloween.

I believe that there's always a latent feminine anima lurking within each gay man on this earth. It's just a matter of finding the right trigger. Is your football-loving, beer-drinking, rough and tumble gay friend vehemently denying that he has the potential for nelliness? Try finding his G spot. I've done extensive independent studies that prove that when you find and work boy's G spot the right way, his voice will reach new octaves like he's auditioning for American Idol.

Blargh!

This weekend was crazy with all the people out on the streets for the holiday. There were people in from out of town for IML, there were Cubs fans, and there were tourists up the yin yang clogging the sidewalks with their constant gawking and overuse of fanny packs and culottes.

One night I passed by a girl who couldn't walk a straight line, bumping into bushes and parking meters as she made her way down the street. She looked like she just came from a frat party and was dripping with college semen. The funny thing is that she kept saying "Happy Labor Day! WOOOOOOHOOO! Margaritas!" After I passed her, I heard her throw up on the sidewalk and I turned around to see her hunched over as she staggered and she wiped her mouth on her shirt. There's a Christmas card moment right there.

It made me think about the last time I threw up in public. I was 21 and I just thought I was the big party boy in Houston, boasting my ability to hold liquor with my small frame. I was at a bar with my friend John and I got so drunk that I threw up in the middle of the place and all over John's new shoes. They had to clear a huge space to clean it up and I was asked to leave. From that moment, I swore to myself that I'd control my alcohol consumption. Fortunately, I've been able to keep it down pretty well.

I think that it's extremely gross to see people completely trashed when they're out in public. There's a difference between flirting with cuties when you're buzzed and fighting to keep yourself standing upright as you make your way past people who are afraid that you'll touch them or vomit on them.