I'M A WRITER

For whatever reason it's taken me nearly this fucking long to realize what my purpose for existing on this earth is: to write. I realized this, at 5AM when I couldn't sleep and my inner monologue was keeping me awake.

This isn't to say I am a good one (not fishing for compliments!) but it is an acknowledgement of my natural state of being; I haven't expressed this to more than 1 or 2 close friends, but I constantly play out scenarios and/or situations within my mind. Like all the fucking time.

This keeps me up at odd hours, and I can only imagine what my current Roomie thinks of me. He keeps odd hours too, but that's because he's a respectably employed student of medicine (that amount of studying simply blows my mind).

The other night, on Saturday, while working my Doorman/Bouncer/Lifeguard/Babysitter of drunks gig, one of the "regulars" came in. This guy is trendy in appearance, gregarious by nature and seems to support himself by pirating porno DVD's (he graciously offered me a copy of "Stuffin' Muffins 3" but I declined. Again.) Anyways, he referred to me as "Quiet Guy", in a most jovial manner.

It's not that I'm trying to came across as a dick. I'm just an observant person. Sometimes I wonder about the dichotomy between what people who read this blog, and my natural persona.

And now that I typed that I feel like an egotistical ass-hat.

But still. With my close friends, I am very loud and dare I say, vivacious, but with people I am not close with, I am positively stoic. As with every rule, there are exceptions; casual acquaintances sometimes lull me out of my quietude, and compel me to be witty.

Where was I going with this? Right! What literally gets me out of bed is a deep seated need to put words on a page, although I must note that I worry to excess about excessive use of the word "I" to the point that constantly forget to capitalize it (no shit, I just had to go back and fix that, haha).

Sometimes the need to write conflicts with my natural tenancy not to draw attention to myself, but I just can't help myself, and I admire those of you that put up with my random musings, as I don't consider them to be unique or particularity insightful (or grammatically correct). And this isn't modestly, just an observation.

LITTLE BIT OF FEEL GOOD GOES A LONG WAY

27 years, and 364 days ago Mama Guy From Chicago's water broke...AND THE WORLD WAS NEVER THE SAME!

Papa Guy From Chicago was on a business trip (thanks Dad) although Grandpa Guy From Chicago was present for my birth, which required Mama Guy From Chicago to get her belly cut open, since I didn't want to go the traditional route. How fitting.

Thanks to my Mama's recent call, I just got to relive the excruciating details of my birth. Apparently, I was not a screamer and on the way home from the hospital in Yorkshire, on the outskirts of Toronto, I slept, well, like a baby. But this caused my mother at one point to think "her baby was dead".

I may have come into this world quietly, but I will not won't be leaving as such! And in the meantime, I plan to RAWK with my CAWK out (please, someone hide my iPhone from me). Let's celebrate with some music, shall we? Yes, we most DEF shall!

Jamie Lidell "Little Bit of Feel Good"

JUST SMILE ALL THE TIME

How to fight loneliness
Smile all the time
Shine your teeth til meaningless
Sharpen them with lies
-Wilco, "How To Fight Loneliness"

For the last few weeks I've been struggling to express my current state of mind and have instead been relying on blogging about the "good times" while ignoring the other areas of my life. Therefore, in an attempt to clarify my thoughts, I'm attempting to - gasp - write about them. Hopefully this doesn't come off as blogging as therapy...

Let's start at last Sunday night. The Roomie and my great friend MarK (I've decided I like the term "great friend" as opposed to "best friend") were sitting around after watching the Soprano's. We were having a few drinks while discussing our activities for the week ahead. Roomie was preparing for her trip to Peru, MarK was going over his personal laundry list of things to do while my thoughts turned to work.

At first I mentioned how much I was not looking forward to going to work on Monday. The more I talked about how much I hate my job I realized more and more how much I dislike my current place in the world and how on a day-to-day basis I feel utterly useless. Then the tears started. And did not stop.

I'm 99% sure this was the first time I ever broke down in front of my friend MarK, (the Roomie has seen it a few times, though it' still rare). Although I'm usually somewhat straight forward in expressing my emotions and thoughts, this was different. Even now I'm having a bit of a had time getting this out, but I'm trying, so please bare with me.

The last few months I've felt a creeping sense of anxiety and loneliness. Not exactly depression, but just an overall sense of futility. For one thing, I've spent the last 18 months at a job I hate yet I still cannot find the time nor the energy to sit down and look for something else, (more on that later).

Besides my work-related frustrations, the other significant source of stress in my life is that, despite having plenty of good/great friends, I'm still single and thus lonely. When I was stuck in the closet I thought coming out would result in a decent relationship of some sort. Try as I might, I'm just not cut out for whore-dom. I need a stable relationship; I need someone to confide in, laugh at my jokes, take care of me when I feel like shit and wake up next to me in the morning. I need to need someone and someone to need me. I value my independence tremendously, but at the same time I yearn for serious honest to God boyfriend to share my life with.

It would be an understatement to say that I envy people who find themselves in this type of a relationship. Of course, it's always different looking in from the outside. For a few brief moments I thought I had found this with the infamous (at least in my mind) PD Boy. Not so. Despite his many, many qualities, (I swear if he was here right now I would be able to keep my hands off him) deep down I know in my heart he is not the one (by no fault of his own). And I know (I think) I'm not the one for him.

Perhaps I can boil this current state of mind down to the fact that I feel I should have made more progress with my life in the last 2 years, and yet I feel like I'm stagnating. Finding a new job should be easier than finding a significant other, and finding one or the other would go a long way towards improving my quality of life.

It's easy enough to sit down and apply for a new job (I have Friday off and this is the primary reason) but it's not so easy to "apply" for a boyfriend. Then again, it might be too much to ask of anyone to try to fill the emptiness I feel is gnawing at me. Part of me thinks that wouldn't be fair, and then part of me thinks I just haven't really experienced love like that and it might just be the reason I'm still hopeful that I will find someone special.

Or maybe I've been listening to too much Wilco tonight...

MY VISUAL DNA

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I HUNG MY HEAD

(I have no idea who these guys are but that's exactly the way I was feeling last night)

I removed my earlier post about last night's game since I think it was rushed and basically sucked. The Bears got off to such an awesome start with Hester scoring within the first 14 seconds. The Super Bowl party I was at erupted and the whiskey got broken into early. There are few things in life that give me greater joy than to see a roomful of happy, rowdy Chicagoans all shouting and high-5-ing. And the thing is it wasn't just all dudes, the woman at this party might have been more obscene than the men (or at least a few of them). One girl was rocking a vintage McMahon jersey which I offered to buy off her back (she declined my genourous offer of my right ring finger) and shouting some really fucked up shit at the television (even my seasoned ears we're taken aback more than once). I don't think I sat down once the entire game, preferring to hover over one of the 6 televisions, beer in hand. Today my voice is hoarse from yelling at the televisions and my arm is sore from my brother constantly punching me, a reaction he seems to like utilizing to express both his anger and his joy when the Bears are playing. Despite the frigid temperature (I've never experienced cold like this in my lifetime of living here, at least not that I can remember) my brother and his drunken friends ventured outside during half time for a quick football game in the snow. Being more sober than them I decided to stay inside and catch the Prince half time show, which fucking rocked! I'm not the hugest Prince fan but I thought he put on a solid set (seriously, that's bad ass to rock the guitar like that in the rain, even more so to bust out "Purple Rain"). I thought we would make a remarkable comeback in the second half but Evil Rex showed up and just couldn't make it happen. It's sad to see 15 or so grown men willingly exhibit their displeasure at once...we all thought we had this one but in the end it wasn't to be. Although disappointed at our loss I'm almost glad the NFL season is over...and thankfully baseball season is right around the corner. Will it be the Cubs year? My feeling is no, probably not (the 2003 season is still too fresh of a memory in my mind) but I don't think they'll be nearly as bad as last year.

I've finally gotten Johnny Cash's "I Hung My Head" out of my mind after playing it after last night's game. Dramatic? Yes, but music always help to soothe ones bruised psyche.

Although I should stay in tonight and relax I'm heading out in a few hours to meet up with an old friend and her girlfriend in Boystown. My friend, who I haven't seen in years used to ask me out to Homecoming dance every year and I always turned her down. Now that we're both openly gay (perhaps her more so than I) I'm really looking forward to catching up and sharing our experiences over the years. And with any luck...she'll know some hot, single gay guys. At the least, there should be some nice eye candy out there tonight.

(Chicago Tribune photo by Nancy Stone)

HELLS YEAH!

Whew. This was a long week and not just because work thoroughly worked me over the last 5 days. Back on Saturday I went and got a physical and had the doctor test me for STD's/HIV. I wasn't too concerned about the results but still, being a Virgo it's my natural tendency to worry needlessly. Well...just got the results back: NEGATIVE! No HIV, no STD's. I'm a clean boy! Drinks are on me tonight! Who-hoo!

WHERE'D THAT COME FROM?

"Everyone has those times when the night’s so long
The dead-end life just drags you down
You lean back under the microphone
and turn your demons into walls of goddamned noise and sound”

-Patterson Hood “Do It Yourself”

For some reason I had this Drive By Truckers song stuck in my head today, which is odd considering that for the most part I was in a great mood today. Anyways, what this song means to me is that whenever you are having a crap day it’s important to have some way to vent your frustrations in a positive way. Although I own a guitar, the damn thing has been gathering dust for about 3 years now so making walls of noise isn’t an option, but one of my positive outlets is working out. Now, I am in no way, shape or form a “gym rat”. However tonight I went to the gym and fucking raged it! I don’t know what it was or were this surge of energy came from, but when I was on the elliptical trainer and just let go and rocked it. I was also able to lift more weight more times than I have been able to in some time. Maybe my iPod was in a good mood also and we both wanted to listen to the same songs although it was on shuffle. Regardless, it felt great and whatever demon(s) that lay dormant within me just got a thorough ass kicking.

HELLO

So...here's my first blog posting. Actually, it's my second but I deleted the first one since I didn't think it was very good, so here's version 2.o. First, a little about me: I'm 27 and just came out a little over a year ago. Many of friends have asked me why I waited so long, and the simple answer to that question is, I'm not really sure. I suppose it took me awhile to accept myself for who I am and to be comfortable the life of a gay man, but day by day I grow more and more into myself and I explore this whole other side of me. I've tried explaining to a few people how I feel like I;m going through a sort of second adolescence in that things are new, a little awkward at times but overall very exciting. Some people may recall hitting their first crush or their first kiss as being thrilling and a little terrifying. Luckily, I seem to be past that stage now but things are still pretty new. I've meet a few guys and went on a few dates. Tried the whole gay.com thing but that's not really my thing since I'm not looking for One Nighters, (although a few probably wouldn't hurt). Most people tell me they were always perplexed by my sexuality as I generally avoided dating women preferring the random hook up with a guy. And although I don't "give of a gay vibe" as a friend recently told me I'm definitely into guys, although I think I'm still formulating exactly what it is I;m looking for (does anyone really know?). Over the next few weeks as I ramp up this blog I'll acquaint myself further with those of you out there in cyberworld. I think it'll be a fun ride...thanks for reading.