The Big Blue House is still in disarray, but the bathroom is mostly functional and breathing is now possible as the drywall dust clears.  The cats find empty packing boxes make exceptional playthings.  The mondo-ultra-hunky Mormon Verizon telephone installer gave me a smoldering look on his way out the door.  He promised to call this afternoon to make certain my telephone lines are working. 

The rain clouds are gathering, the windows are open and the sweet smell of freshly cut grass fills my office.  Birds hop from limb to limb in the trees outside and squirrels run across my lawn.  Whether created by a Divine Being in a flash of inspiration or millions of years of evolution, this planet is filled with the astounding and the beautiful.  Many people find contentment living in a single place, safe in knowledge of the familiar.  Others, like myself, wander the planet; perpetual tourists. 

If we are called to account for our lives at some point, I suspect I shall glance around and say:  "Well, at least I learned how to pack properly." Traveling for fifteen days on a single suitcase and never reusing the same pair of underwear must bear cosmic significance.

15 July 2004 - (Link to this entry) (Comment)

Our current president is a wad of bile who should be fed through a meat grinder.  Any person who voted or will vote for this meathead should be boiled in red wine and tossed in the smallest of the Great Lakes. 

Is it really possible people are so stupid as to believe gay marriage is sufficiently frightening, dangerous and important that we need four legislative days and a constitutional amendment to address the issue?  Balderdash.

We queers own some blame for this situation. 

First, too damn many queers live in closets, kiss behind closed doors and otherwise pretend to be just like any other heterosexual.  Pretending to be straight is nothing more than a disguise for our own self-loathing.  A good number of us still want to be the straight quarterback riding off with the prom queen.  No surprise heterosexuals think we are dangerous: most heterosexuals truly believe they don't know any queers.  How can we expect heterosexuals to understand queers are everywhere when we blend in like Gap ads in a mall? I no longer have tolerance for this nonsense.  Queers:  go get some therapy and then tell your boss your roommate is actually your lover...and you want benefits.

Decades ago, a debate raged about "outing" gays with fame, power or status.  Live and let live?  I think not.  Out them all.  If we are mature enough to ask for marriage, we're mature enough to rip off the closet doors and shine our D-cell powered Maglights inside.

Second, we queers haven't done nearly enough straight bashing.  Most of the world thinks queers are wimps, but I've seen the muscles on those gym boys.  This constitutional nonsense would never happen if senators and legislators knew we'd drag them into the rotunda and kick out their high-priced dental work.  I am not advocating we imitate gay-bashers who select victims at random.  Just aim for the blue suits with the congressional pins on the lapels. Maybe we can replace the nonfunctional HRCF with Aldo and Prada. 

Our current politicians are thieves yelling "Hey!  Look!  Vin Diesel is naked!"  While the country looks the other way, they carry away treasure in giant, plastic bags.  We gays are playing the role of Vin Diesel and the Flyover Meatheads are staring at us...and the criminals slink out the fire exit with Grandma's retirement funds.

Big Bad Voodoo Daddy is playing a free concert in downtown Portland this afternoon.  I'm going to attend and pretend I live in France.

16 July 2004 - (Link to this entry) (Comment)

My neighbor across the street is insane and not in the metaphorical sense.  She is what psychiatrists refer to just before they send men in white jackets to cart you away. 

An objective observer might say this old, German lady is just odd.  That she walks to church every morning cradling a plastic baby in her arms is no proof of mental defect.  That she stands in downpours wearing stiletto heels, a thin skirt and sweater, wiping the water from her face in flailing, angry motions, is also insufficient proof.  And perhaps, one might even disregard that she has, against her will, spent time in mental health facilities.

I call her Crazy Helga.

Crazy Helga's husband, Nearly Dead Olaf, spent his days sitting in a nonfunctioning Volkswagen, drinking beer and reading bad romance novels.  Someone took the Volkswagen away, so now he just sits in a plastic chair and mutters at Helga.  Nearly Dead Olaf is constructed entirely from small twigs and worn leather.  He is a walking corpse.

Crazy Helga knocks on my door and announces:  "I do not like gay people in my neighborhood!"

I retort:  "I'm not so fond of crazy people in my neighborhood.  Can I bring you a casserole?"

Several days later, while sitting in the front room with a friend, we observe Crazy Helga heading toward my yard with a trowel, a small rake and a shovel without a handle.  As I watch, she begins digging up my flowers and carrying them back to her yard.  Then, for the first time since moving in, I realize that all the flowers in Crazy Helga's yard came from my yard!.

Crazy Helga and Nearly Dead Olaf disappear around the back of their home and I head across the street to settle this matter.  I poke my head around the edge of the house and say:  "Hello there!"

Crazy Helga:  "Who are you!?"

Me:  "I'm your new neighbor.  Remember, we met last week?"

Crazy Helga:  "I've never seen you before in my life.  The man who owns that house said I could take all his flowers."

Me:  "Well, I bought that house nine months ago.  And while I'm happy you like my flowers, I'd like to keep the rest."

Crazy Helga:  "You did not.  That woman with the horrible dogs owns that house."

Me:  "No, she was my tenant.  I bought the house last year."

Crazy Helga to Nearly Dead Olaf:  "Well, I suppose if he is new to the neighborhood, that gives him the right to poke around other people's yards."

Me:  "Actually, I just came by to talk about my flowers..."

Crazy Helga:  "Fine!  All you have over there is weeds anyway!  WEEDS!"

Me:  "Well, then I'd like to keep my weeds."

Crazy Helga becomes quieter and says:  "That is how my son died."

Me:  "Um...."

Crazy Helga:  "You know I am pro-life?"

Me:  "Yes, I've heard that from the neighbors."

Crazy Helga:  "They all think I am crazy."

Me:  "Yes, they do."

17 July 2004 - (Link to this entry) (Comment)

I learn of a new fetish every day. 

Reading my server logs, I found a link to Road Trip 2004 from the Wet and Messy Shoe web site.  Straight people have a different definition of "wet and messy" than we gay boys.  People will pay $45 for films of designer heels walking through mud.  Who knew?

19 July 2004 - (Link to this entry) (Comment)

Several people asked.  Yes, everything I wrote about Crazy Helga is true.

On Saturday, a stray basketball flew into Crazy Helga's yard.  The neighborhood kids retrieved it before continuing their game.  Hours later, a large sign reading "Private Property" appeared in Crazy Helga's driveway, just feet from the basketball hoop. 

When my static IP address is available later this week, I will install the Crazy Helga Live Camera.  Watch Crazy Helga live on the internet!

Changing to the subject of crazy fetishes, David sent me this link to people with a fetish for Recreational and Artistic Back Bracing.  Perhaps I will start a list of exceptionally odd fetishes.  If you have a submission, let me know.

In other news, my best and favorite digital camera fell from the counter and shattered on the floor yesterday.  It is beyond repair.  Given the costs of remodeling my house, it may be some time before I can afford to replace it.  I feel a bit like a writer without a pen.

20 July 2004 - (Link to this entry) (Comment)

I am disappointed gay relationships don't come with milestone coins like people in AA get.  Significant relationship milestones should be marked by cheap trinkets for your key chain:  twenty four hours together, forty eight hours, two weeks, one month.  If you are lucky, or especially codependent, you may get a six month or one year coin.

One could immediately size up a potential date by evaluating his key chain.  A fistful of two week coins?  Better move on down the bar.

Like AA coins, Gay Relationship Coins would come with prayers on the reverse:

"Dear Lord, please don't let this itch turn into something scary."

"Dear Jesus, could you put him in better shoes for our next date?"

"Great Goddess, Give me the serenity to accept that things must be changed, the courage to confront those things he refuses to change, and the wisdom to dump him if something better comes along."

21 July 2004 - (Link to this entry) (Comment)

Here is a story getting so little press you may have missed it:

The Republicans are attempting to pass a bill that would block the Federal courts - including the Supreme Court - from considering any challenges to the Federal Defense of Marriage Act.  Believe it or not, there is even a clause in the constitution that allows this maneuver. 

Further, the Washington Post reports the Republicans plan similar legislation to ban appeals of laws governing other social issues (think abortion and the Pledge of Allegiance).

First our Republican president claims absolute authority to suspend the Constitution, now his friends in Congress are acting in a similar fashion to prevent review of laws they pass. 

It seems each day life in the United States grows increasingly odd.  It is enough to make my growing list of unusual fetishes seem mundane:

The list thus far:

Wet & Messy Shoes
Recreational Back & Spine Bracing
Long Fingernails on Men
Balloon Girls
Toothbrushing

(Thank you to David and Leigh for helping with this list.)

If you know of an odd fetish web site not listed here, let me know.

23 July 2004 - (Link to this entry) (Comment)

I discovered today a bag of presents from my Bon Voyage party.  Somehow opening the presents was missed during the party and the bag disappeared into a nondescript moving box.  People may believe that I have extremely poor manners as I have not yet acknowledged their presents.

I was in San Francisco for two days on business.  I flew home last night on a red-eye, arriving in Boston this morning.  By the time I drove to Portland, I'd been awake for 29 hours.  Gay men aren't designed to stay awake for this long without proper lighting and a good concealer. 

Tomorrow I have to pretend to be an adult and purchase a couch.  I'm content with a living room devoid of anything other than my aging recliner.  Guests, however, seem disappointed when asked to sit on the hardwood floor.  Eventually I have to buy a dining room table, but I have yet to tire of standing at the kitchen counter while eating and reading the newspaper.

26 July 2004 - (Link to this entry) (Comment)

I marvel at men who have the inborn ability to build and repair - the kind of guys who both know and own the proper tool to fix anything from fuel injectors to leaky sinks.  I am able to comprehend quantum physics but I haven't an idea how I can leave my house for an hour and return to find a contractor has installed new closet where one did not exist before. 

If necessity is the mother of invention, then impatience is the bitch who forced me to dig under the sink and pull out my own toolbox this weekend.  My faithful handyman is busy repairing the local Ronald McDonald House.  It seems a hole in the roof of Ronald's house exposed the parents of terminally ill children to the environment.  This was more important than fixing my back porch.  Maybe I'm a little self-centered, but the weather is lovely and a hole in the roof is a bit like a skylight if you think positively.

Regardless, I had projects to do and they could not wait.  So, I pulled out my collection of tools accumulated through years of pilfering.  I have screwdrivers that I kept from the Navy, hammers I borrowed from lesbian neighbors, and pliers that may once have provided stimulation for ex-boyfriends.  I  do not own a saw and as long as a project doesn't require something to be cut in half, I am appropriately equipped.

To my surprise, by the end of the weekend I'd installed new blinds, outdoor motion sensor lights, renovated my Mud Hall and removed and re-hung doors. The the word "butch" refers both to men who can install a garage door and women with short hair and large, unsupported breasts.  By the end of the weekend, I was feeling butch - more in the first sense than the latter.

When I was in the Navy, I could tear apart an air compressor or a nuclear reactor and have them functioning again by morning.  This military training never translated to the civilian world and my apartments have always been places with poorly hung art and dripping faucets.  Maybe owning a house will force me to finally learn all the skills I see on home improvement shows.  Or, perhaps I will just reshuffle my budget and find a way to hire more workers I can supervise from the front porch.

Mint julip, anyone?

27 July 2004 - (Link to this entry) (Comment)

Does a universal law exist declaring all telephone companies provide terrible customer service?  I believed SBC was the worst, then I moved to Maine and dealt with Verizon.  Oish!

Live video is now streaming across the internet from the Crazy Helga Camera.  Click here to watch for Helga.  It is a bit like watching animals in a zoo - the critters only come out at odd times never disclosed to casual visitors.

30 July 2004 - (Link to this entry) (Comment)

I have not seen much of Crazy Helga since I installed the Crazy Helga Live Camera.  I doubt Crazy Helga spied the camera and hid.  Her absence is tied to the lack of rain this week.  Who wants to go outside when the earth isn't being soaked in the tears of Christ? 

Starting today, domestic partners in Maine enjoy the same inheritance and next-of-kin rights as married couples.  It isn't equality, but the law is a nice step forward.  Helga put a Virgin Mary statue on her stoop today; I put out my giant rainbow flag.  I suppose everyone in the neighborhood has a different way to celebrate.