Irony of the Day

Did anyone but me notice the fact that the Discovery Channel website about the excavation of the alleged tomb of Jesus features advertisements for the show “Mythbusters”?

Ex-gay Boston Legal

This is a clip from a recent episode of Boston Legal. One of the attorneys makes an excellent case against the whole notion of ex-gays and churches who claim to “convert” homosexuals.

(Clip no longer available, unfortunately)

Clad in High High Hills

I left work early this afternoon (since I have to work at least four hours tomorrow night) and have been fiddling around with the “wallpaper” on here. What do you think? Too much?

Labeling Done (For Now)

Whew, that took forever. I think it is rather telling that, as of this writing, the three most common labels for my posts are

PERSONAL,

GAY, and

DUMB.

Since those are the three most popular categories, I thought I’d post something that covered all three. I thought about this long and hard, and I could only come up with one thing. This may possibly be the most personal and potentially embarrassing revelation on this blog, and may alienate a good-sized portion of my readership. Nevertheless, I believe in being honest and forthcoming in my written communications, so behold some honest-to-God hubris…

my secret fondness for Pete Wentz from Fall Out Boy.

I mean, just look at him! And the cover of the current issue of Rolling Stone isn’t helping. I would point him out in that lineup, but just take a look. Is it really necessary?

“Cock it and pull it” indeed.

The Label Fairy

Hey, I’m AJ the Label Fairy!

Since the person who blogs here has finally decided to use a “new Blogger” template (with widgets and page elements), I’m going to go around and add labels to his past posts! As labels are added, the label categories will show up in the sidebar over there. Keep your eyes on those categories, they’ll be growing!

This may take a while, as I’m only going to add 2-3 months worth of labels at a time, so check out the other great stuff on the blog while I do my thing!

Vindicating My Fear of Loneliness

In what could have been a plotline taken directly from CSI, an old man who lived alone in Long Island, New York was found dead in his home, sitting in front of his television. This wouldn’t be uncommon, except for the fact that the man apparently had been dead for over a year.

Vincenzo Ricardo died in December 2005, and all that time, no one wondered where he might have gone, and no one went by to check on him. He still had electricity (oddly enough), and he might have gone undiscovered for even longer had someone not called to complain when his water pipes burst and were flooding the area.

What a terrible thought, to think that your death would go unnoticed, and that people would only discover you when something on your property started to bug or inconvenience them. This only vindicates my crippling fear of being alone, and of there being no one who cares about me when all is said and done. One’s death can be meaningless after all.

My Mind a Hive of Orange Insects

I have found myself often dreaming of insects these days. I have regaled my friends (several times now) about a very vivid dream involving a particularly disastrous trip to an Asian restaurant where insects like spiders and fire ants were featured prominently on the menu, as well as a dish that possibly contained roaches, the “pasado” (see picture at right). I am a fan of neither insects nor “mysterious meat from a far away land” (as the pasado was described in my dream), so I was a bit perturbed by that imagery.

The other night, I had another dream where insects featured prominently.

I was in a “theme park” of some sorts, in some sort of live-action, first-person game, and I was with the members of my nuclear family. The world was dark from fog and haze (not unlike Silent Hill), and we walked through an old and apparently abandoned industrial district. Tall buildings and warehouses, contiguous for as far as the eye could see, were directly in front of us, and I consulted my brother on which to enter. He chose one that he said he’d never been in before, and it was around that time that I “knew” what the game was about.

We were exploring different varieties of Hells, and each building was a different kind of Hell.

We had to navigate some iron fire escapes that were twisted and inaccessible, and the building first chosen ended up being cut off entirely, as we could not even begin to climb the fire escape. So we ended up in a neighboring building, which was another that had yet to be visited. Inside, we found the building was like a small, suffocating townhouse, with brown plush carpeting and a stairwell directly in front of us as we entered. My family and I entered in a single-file line and we went up the stairs without bothering to look around the first floor.

At the top of the stairs was a hallway, and immediately at the landing of the stairs was an open doorway (with no door) leading to small sitting room or den. We entered this room, and I found my aunt and uncle (the two most conservative members of my family) sitting in a wingback chair and a recliner, respectively. My family and I filed into the room and we all took a seat on an unadorned couch that faced my aunt and uncle, with me sitting leftmost on the couch. Idle conversation was made, but I paid no attention to what was being said, and I don’t know how much time elapsed there on the couch before I started to notice the insects.

As we sat there with my aunt and uncle, a variety of brightly-colored orange and white insects began to crawl into the room from the hallway, as well as out from under the couch and the chairs and tables. There were spiders, scorpions, and centipedes, all lethal and nasty-looking, and they slowly began to pile up in the center of the room. They stopped moving once they got to the center, and it was as though somehow my family and I were “playing the game” and succeeding, since the insects seemed to pose none of us any real danger. This continued for a while, the pile of motionless orange insects growing ever larger, until I noticed a lull in the invasion. As the last spider stopped moving, I looked around, wondering why they had stopped.

It was then that I noticed a single orange insect, about the size of a marble, emerging from the right side of the couch, starting to leap along the edge of the room. In my mind, I knew this was some kind of wicked flea. It leapt from the arm of the couch down to the ground, then back up to my uncle’s armrest, and in my mind, I somehow knew that this was a different kind of bug, and I didn’t know whether we could stop it, or if we even knew how to stop it. I was astonished to see my cat (!) appear and leap up into my uncle’s lap, apparently chasing the orange flea and trying to dispatch it. Unfortunately, Jake was unable to capture the flea, and it continued along its inevitable route, leaping from my uncle to an end table, then on to my aunt.

I watched in horror as the flea continued to leap counterclockwise around the room, approaching me, and I was unable to do anything about it. After the flea leapt onto the couch, I then felt it leap into my left ear, where I felt it get lodged. At this, I started screaming at the top of my lungs. I knew that this was a kind of Hell, so I knew that whatever was about to happen was not going to be pleasant. I continued to scream as I jumped up from the couch and ran out of the room. I found myself unable to descend the staircase; I was effectively trapped on the second floor. It was at that point that I resolved that I was not going to wait around to see what was going to happen to me. Still screaming at the top of my lungs, and still feeling the flea caught in my left ear, I frantically searched the second floor until I found a place with enough overhead clearance for me to clear the handrail. I then climbed up and over it and leapt, breaking my neck when I landed.

I laid on the floor, looking sideways toward the door through which we’d entered, and then I died.

That’s when I woke up.

The Intersubway

Click this image to see what the U.S. Interstate system would look like if it was mapped out like a subway route.

I originally saw this on Towleroad.

Valentine’s Day Recollections

Today marks the third Valentine’s Day that Asa and I have spent since our paths crossed. I thought I’d share some memories with the world, because I want the world to know that I love him, and have loved him, and will continue to love him.

It was sometime in late January or early February 2004 that I first met Asa. He caught me completely off-guard, and I found myself surprised that I was drawn to him. He wasn’t the “usual” type that I fancied, and I’d never considered the possibility of being with someone younger than myself. But we really hit it off, and as we started to chat more and more often, we found ourselves growing closer and closer.

I remember one night, before we were officially an item, when Asa told me that he wasn’t feeling well, and that he was running a fever. I was concerned by this, but grew even more concerned as he continued to deteriorate over the course of the evening. When he said that he was going to get a friend to take him to the emergency room, I wished him well, then proceeded to go into full-blown panic mode. I couldn’t explain it; here was this boy of 19 that I’d only met weeks prior, and my stomach was in knots from being worried about his well-being.

It would be several nights before Asa would return to the usual chatroom on IRC, and the nights grew more and more worrisome each time I would log in to find he was not there. I organized a “notification chain” in the room, convincing mine and his online friends to let everyone know whenever anyone had heard something about him or his condition. I kept a vigil in the room, awaiting his return.

Was this love? I didn’t know. I at least didn’t want anything bad to befall the guy, and if something bad did befall him, I at least wanted some kind of closure. I wanted to tell him “get well soon” or “keep in touch” or something, anything other than not knowing what happened.

Well, he came back after a few days of absence, still quite sick but glad to return. I was overjoyed, and our relationship grew quite a bit deeper when he discovered how I’d been so concerned about him. The 4-letter L-word began to cross my mind, but I held my tongue.

About a month or two later, while I was considering the possibility of coming out completely, Asa encouraged me to speak with a counselor at the school I was attending, especially when I was able to find out that there were some gay-friendly counselors on campus. There were several occasions when I’d approach the counseling center and then turn away at the last minute, unable to face the prospects of people knowing such a potentially devastating truth. Each time I would return home, dejected and ashamed of myself, and Asa would offer me kind words of encouragement, telling me not to rush things, that all would take care of itself and that I would know deep-down when the moment was right for me to come out.

As it turns out, he was right, and I finally worked up the gumption to come out of the closet to a counselor. The feeling was completely indescribeable, at once bizarre, terrifying and liberating. And Asa was there to congratulate me, to tell me how proud he was of me, and to calm the tumultuous rapids of my heart with an ever-present peace rooted deep in his soul.

About a month after I came out, Asa and I had just had a particularly deep and revelatory conversation, when he admitted to me that he loved me. I’d been hinting to him that I loved him for a while, but now was the time for certainty. I told him I loved him too, and it was official. That was on May 11th, 2004.

Our entire relationship has been a history of ups and downs, of setbacks and unexpected opportunities, and of mutually being there for one another through it all. Our story is rife with anecdotes such as these, and I expect that much more shall pass in the days and years to come, both tremendous highs and terrifying lows. But I can think of no other person I’d rather have by my side to go through it all, and I want nothing more than to experience the fullness of life with this most amazing man.

I love you Asa. Happy Valentine’s Day.

About Buffer Posts and Terrible Fashion

I think it would probably be crass to post an inspired, heartfelt Valentine’s Day post just after a post called “Symbolic Orgy” that consisted of nothing but Mars symbols moving suggestively. Hence this, a buffer post.

What is a buffer post, you might ask? It’s a post you put between two posts that otherwise would look awkward or tacky next to one another. It’s cheap, easy content for your blog, and it makes the two posts it separates look better. Afraid or loath to put a writeup of your favorite celebrity’s personal stats next to a post where you pour your heart out about a recently deceased relative? Use a buffer post, and avoid that clashing creative material!

This is my buffer post: it is about terrible fashion and buffer posts in general. That fellow over there is a male model named Chad White who is sort of like a fashion Cassandra: his fate is to have the body for modeling but be destined to end up wearing shitty wardrobes. That getup looks like something that John Waters couldn’t convince Divine to wear… which makes me extra-nervous, seeing as how he’s holding that little dog and everything. Let’s hope the John Waters influence stops with the flowy robe and barbarian harness.

I shall call him, “Gandalf the Fabulous.” I somehow don’t think Sir Ian McKellen would mind.

Tomorrow: something more heartfelt and serious, inspired by the love of my life.