Gay Marriage: Get used to it

I'd like all the queers out there to please go check out this amazing post by my buddy over at Daddy Files. It's an amazing post from a straight ally in a fight for equal rights and marriage equality. I think it's important to give this man mad props for speaking out for the rights of all human beings. I want everyone to remember, when they're feeling frustrated about the pace of change happening right now that we're not alone in this fight.

Michael Jackson touched me

I have to admit that I was touched by the passing of Michael Jackson yesterday. I was never really a fan of much of his music, but I recognized his talent. I’m having a hard time reconciling the public outpouring of sympathy and sadness right now. For years the American public has done nothing but ridicule and vilify Michael Jackson. The amount of “shock and sadness” being shown doesn’t seem to match the treatment he’s received from the public over the last 6 year. While I’ve never been a “fan” of Michael Jackson’s music, I’ve also never made any assumptions about the man throughout his life.


When I was 12 I was fortunate to see Michael Jackson perform in Dallas at the Jackson' Victory tour. My oldest sister, Dana, had gotten 4 tickets to the show and gave one of them to me and drove me down to Dallas to see him. I was awwwwwwwed by the spectacle of the show.


RIP Michael. I hope you're finally able to find some peace. I also hope your children are able to have some peace.

I'm adequately prepared for hell

Folks, it's hotter than shit outside. Or, as my friend David said the other day, "It's hotter than a pygmy goats pussy in a pepper patch". I can't verify that, cuz I've never had a pygmy goat's pussy, but IT'S FUCKING HOT.

I did some screen caps on my idiot box the other night. This first cap is a monthly calendar of the temps, so far, for June. The temps in red indicate "record breaking heat". Keep in mind, these are "actual" temps, not "perceived" temps. Apparently the "perceived" temp, or the "feels like" temp is a good 10 degrees hotter than the actual temps. 105 isn't a temperature. 105 is Fairy Princess Holly's weight!

It's so hot outside that while I was walking home from the park yesterday morning with Adrian, at 1030 am, my flip-flop melted and stuck to the sidewalk. I'm not making that up. IT WAS 102 DEGREES at 1030 AM yesterday. ARE YOU KIDDING ME? It was so hot yesterday that when I got home from school at 10 pm it was STILL 97 degrees. BUT THE HEAT WAVE ISN'T OVER! They projected the temps today to be even higher.

Naturally I've been doing everything possible to keep cool. I've been taking the kids to the park at 3 in the morning so they don't over-heat. We've been in (and out of) the pool by 10 in the morning. We've been taking naps during the hottest part of the day (basically 9am to 11 pm). I've been going through ice so fast that the ice maker in my fridge can't keep up. I've been having to supplement with bags of ice from the market. While I know it's passe to have ceiling fans in your house, I have them in every bedroom and they are all on high blast. In addition to them, I've got "Vornado" fans (2 of them) in my 40 square foot living room blowing the air around. And, seriously, as long as you're sitting or laying in the path of the breeze, it helps.

My clothes have been completely saturated for a week now. I fear I'll be getting a fungal infection from my damp balls, because I just can't seem to stop sweating. BUT...there's a light at the end of this very hot tunnel.

When I opened last month's electric bill I noticed I had started using a bit more electricity from running my a/c a little more. I immediately walked over to my handy dandy programmable thermostat and reset all the "wake, leave, return, sleep" times and temps. I set the morning "leave" temp at 80 degrees and the "sleep" temps at 80 degrees. The wake and return temps were set to 75. I noticed today that I was actually chilly in the house and had to put some long pants on. Yes. When it's 106 (actual) degrees (at 2 pm)...111 (perceived degrees), 80 degrees is actually COLD! That's the good news! I'VE ACCLIMATED TO HELL!!!

GOD how I'm looking forward to the cold front next Wednesday!

Happy gay Fathers Day

I've posted a shout out to all my gay parenting friends I've met over the intertubes over at my OTHER BLOG! Hope you take a second to check it out...even if you're not gay...or a parent!

I'm #1

I'm not normally a paranoid person. But...

The other day I was driving around town with Adrian. He was upset at me for some reason. I'm sure it was something reasonable, like I didn't take him to Sonic, or bowling, or swimming, or Schlitterbahn, or some equally heinous act. I glanced over at him as we were driving down the highway and I swear I thought I saw him giving me the finger. But, surely I was mistaken, right? I mean, I don't use the finger. Jed doesn't use the finger. Nobody we know, really, uses the finger. I thought it MUST be the heat. The heat was making me see things.

Today we were driving around again. I looked over at him and he shot me NOT ONE, but TWO fingers. Yes, my son gave me the double-barrel finger-bang. I smiled at him and said, "Ummmm, sweety! What's that all about?" He let me know that some little girl in his class taught him how to do it. So I asked it what it meant. He replied, "It means you go to time-out".



I'm so proud.

(F)reddy got laid

Holy buckets of lead, Batman. When was the last time I posted??? Writer’s block? No, not so much. I’d like to begin by thanking each of my adoring fans (you know who you ams) for checking in on me to make sure I was still alive. My twitter and FaceSpace activity verify I am! Let’s catch up, shall we?

Since we last spoke, I got laid off. Don’t cry for me Argentina. I say this more as a point of fact more than a cry for sympathy. I was told by my mother decades ago that if I wanted sympathy to grab a dictionary and I could find it between ‘shit’ and ‘syphilis’. I have nothing bad to say about my former employer of 11 years. It was a great experience, I met lots of people that I consider to be “family”, and it was a good run. I considered the loss of a job an opportunity to catch up on all the things I had neglected in my life since Adrian came to live with us. To say it’s impossible to keep up with your house, school, relationship with your finger puppet, and raising happy, well adjusted children while working a full-time job is an understatement. I’ve, seriously, seized the opportunity to reacquaint myself with life.

My totally amazing sister, Dana, came down to San Antonio a few weeks ago for a business trip. While she was living in Oklahoma I got to see her quite often. Since she moved to D.C., I’ve gotten to see her exactly once (until dinner in San Antonio!). And we did it up Guy Fieri style. I’ve had this fantasy of taking over Guy’s job on “Diners, Drive-Ins, & Dives” since I started watching the show. I’ve settled on following in his footsteps and visiting the restaurants he’s featured on his show. So we took my sister to the Tip Top Café and had the biggest, most delicious chicken fried steak I’ve ever eaten in my life.

We’ve spent some time in Galveston visiting family too. Just this last weekend we went down for a “just for the heck of it” trip and had a great time with the fam. We spent an afternoon at the beach picking up seashells and chasing waves and teaching Adrian to swim in Aunt Jan’s pool. He was a regular Michael Phelps…as soon as he grabbed on to the “fun noodle”! Jed and I even drove around looking at some houses.

I wrapped up this spring semester at school with 3-A’s and a B. It was a brutal semester, and while I mourn the loss of my 4.0, I’m proud of my 3.9. I earned it! I’ll be posting a blog in the next few days of some of the experiences, and assignments, from the semester that I didn’t want to write about during the semester (for fear of alienating peeps!).

As mentioned, I’ve been catching up on neglected household chores. Pre-layoff, I hadn’t mowed the yard in several months. The neighbors were starting to stare disapprovingly. Pre-Adrian, Jed and I had busted knuckles trying to fix up the house, replace plumbing, foundation, put color on walls, etc. I had started a remodel on the bathroom…and promptly stopped…midway…the day Adrian came to live with us. Our bedroom had become the lone room in the house that never got any TLC. So I’ve started in the bathroom again (anticipated completion early next week!) and FINALLY got some color up on the walls in the bedroom. I’ve become quite the Susie-homemaker (cleaning, cooking, etc.) since I’ve been home. I’m not quite sure I’m up to being a gay-at-home dad forever, but for the time being it hasn’t been too bad!

I’ve ALSO become quite the homeroom parent for ALL the schools the boys go to. In part because Adrian has been “having problems” with his teacher again and I’ve been wanting to get into his class to see what exactly the interactions between him and his teacher are like. I’ve also been wanting to get into Nathan’s school and see what and how they’re working on things with him.

That’s what I’ve got for today, folks. Nothing witty. Nothing insightful. I just wanted to let you know that I’m still around. While I’ve not been “working”, I’ve been busier than I was when I had a full-time job. I’m not actively looking for anything right now, but I don’t know how long I want to do this home gig. Summer is coming up…QUICKLY…and I’m looking forward to spending quality time with the boys doing fun things. BUT, I’m SURE after spending three months at home with them I’ll be more than ready for them to go back to school and get a job myself! We’ll see. Hope you’ve each been well, and thanks again for checking in on me. It warms me to know that there are so many people that read this blog and cared enough to make sure Jed hadn’t put antifreeze in my Kool-Aid.

Can you hear me now?

I will make no effort to claim any sort of originality in this post, as I am positive this topic has been touched on by many other bloggers. This, however, is my own take so do with it what you will.

There are a number of places where cell phone conversations are not only inappropriate, but any persons violating the common courtesy rule should be immediately killed. There is a time and a place for a telephone conversation, none of these places are 'the place'.

When you're taking a shit, or any other toileting duties (IE: taking a piss, brushing your teeth, showering, bathing, flossing, exfoliating). I can't tell you how many times I have walked into the bathroom at work and have heard attorneys on the phone while they're popping a squat on the throne. Do you honestly think people want to hear you blowing air out of your ass while youre talking to them on the phone? What's more, is what you have to say so important that you can't wait until youre done washing your hands to have a conversation about what you want for dinner? And don't think you're fooling anyone when you say, "Hold on, I've got another call coming in"...(place phone on mute, flush, return to conversation). We got your number. You know what I like to do while I'M taking a shit and someone is talking on their cell phone??? I flush the toilet. REPEATEDLY. To let the person on the other end of the phone know that the asshole they're talking to is in the bathroom.

At a funeral. You would think this goes without saying, but I was actually at a funeral recently where not only someone's cell phone rang, but the tart actually had the audacity to answer the call. She thought she was being discrete as she said, "I can't really talk right now, I'm at a funeral. Six? Yeah, I can meet you at Chili's at 6." Have some respect for the decedents family people. Leave your cell phone in the car, or at least turn it off. At this same funeral, there were scores of other tarts text messaging through the funeral. This falls under the same category as actual phone calls as far as I'm concerned.

In a car. I've bitched and moaned about this in other blogs so I won't take too much time with it here. Before any of my IRL friends pipe up, I'll also admit that I OCCASSIONALLY break this rule too. But I don't do it while I'm trying to fix my hair while balancing a double cheese burger in my lap and holding onto a soda. If you can't stay within a lane of traffic while you're talking on a phone, or change lanes without clipping the car beside you, STAY OFF YOUR PHONE WHILE YOURE DRIVING.

When you're placing an order at any food place. Look, if you don't know what the person you're ordering for wants before you get there, don't waste the time of every person standing behind you reading off the entire menu to the person on your phone. At least have the courtesy to step back and let those of us who know what we want order before you.

At a movie theater or any type of live theater. Do you honestly think the requests at the beginning of a movie that say, "Please turn off your cell phones now" don't apply to you? I do not pay $10.50/ticket to sit and listen to you tell your friends that you're watching the new Harry Potter film and talk about how cool the special effects are and give them a play-by-play of the movie. Let them pay their own $10.50 to come watch it for themselves.

While some guy is getting ready to blow a load into any of your body openings. I know I'm not the only person who watched in horror as Paris Hilton climbed off her boyfriend's dick to answer her cell phone. If your sex partner has bored you so much that you have to answer your phone, please at least have the courtesy to fake the "O" to let him know you're done and just be done with the act entirely. Don't answer the phone and then climb back on to finish.

And finally, any time you are have a real live conversation with a real live person that happens to be sitting in front of you, have a little respect for that person. I can't tell you how many times I've felt sorry for a person when I'm out and see the person they're with chatting non-stop on the phone. It's rude, it's disrespectful. That person has taken time out of their day to spend time with you. Not sit there and listen to you make plan B.

Here's a newsflash in case you haven't figured it out yet. If someone calls you on your cell phone, there is a little thing called a call log that will let you know who called and when. When it's appropriate you can call that person back and have as much air time with that person as you need. Do it on your own time people, not at the benefit of everyone else around you. Oh, and if you HAVE to have a phone conversation in public, remember, IT'S A CELL PHONE, not a megaphone. YOU DON'T HAVE TO YELL to let people know what youve got to say. 9 times out of 10 its not that important anyway.