Project Mouseover

It's been a brutal week, readers. Last night I left the office at 6:15 so that I could ride into DC with b&c to see the Washington National Opera do The Pearl Fishers at the Kennedy Center. And it was well performed, but I think there are good reasons why it's also very rarely performed. The opera just isn't all that dramatically compelling. Odd when you consider that Bizet also wrote Carmen. Anyway, the opera only ran about 2:20, and b&c was able to drop me off at the office before 10:30, so I got to do another ninety minutes of work before the server went down for the evening.

Anyway, I'm tired and overworked, but it should all be more or less over by the end of this weekend. For now, I barely have the strength to be grateful that Korto wasn't sent home on Project Runway tonight. I was sorry to see Jarrell go, but I don't really pant over him the way b&c does. That would be beneath me.

It is not, however, beneath me to fantasize about having Nathan, from Top Design, beneath me. Preferably with Preston, who would serve as the bottom crust in a Nathan sandwich. I might even let Wisit provide the accompaniment. But not Eddie. He'd have to kneel in a corner so that when Preston or Nathan (or Wisit) needs to take a piss, I could point to Eddie and say, "Just use that."

The Full Dance Card

I've been getting regular e-mails and/or text messages from Logan, Judd, Nike, and two or three other guys, and they're all asking the same thing: when can we play again? And the answer is always the same: I dunno. Which is only sort of true. I pretty much do know when I'll be able to play again, but I kind of don't want to tell them that it won't be until the second half of October. Right now, b&c is home, and I've been working a lot of hours for the October 15th deadline. Both of those situations will change rather abruptly, at about, though not exactly, the same time.


I don't want to sound like I'm either complaining or bragging here, because I certainly don't mean to do either. It's truly ungracious to complain about having an embarrassment of riches, and there's no point in boasting about it, either, because there have been plenty of times in the past when I've had the opposite problem, and it's likely that I'll be in that situation again. I'm sure I've recounted before here how a few years back I had two really good FWPs, and then I invited them both to our holiday party, and they became an item, and I never saw either of them horizontally again. I don't really see them vertically, either. I got a call a couple of months ago from one of them, when he was home alone and feeling lonely on a Friday evening, but I returned his call the next day and got his answering machine, and I haven't heard from him again. (Which is no great loss: both those guys were always ten times as interesting when I was fucking them as they were when I was just talking to them.)


The only thing that really troubles me about the situation is that I've started to feel slightly guilty about not being able to play with the guys who want to play with me. I got a text from Nike yesterday: "Guess u not tlking to me anymore." (You know, I hate having to put that period inside the quotation marks: Nike didn't use any punctuation. Stupid American English punctuation rules!) I generally think of myself as a well-adjusted individual, and I do have the normal response (i.e., annoyance) to sulking and attempts at manipulation, but I'm also just fucked up enough to be one of the few people who find insecurity attractive. (The other only thing that bothers me about the situation is that I'm really a slut, so when b&c heads out of town, I'm going to want to play with these guys and bring in some fresh meat, and at least two of these guys regularly read the craigslist m4m ads, so I can't easily advertise without them being aware of it. What's a guy to do?)


So while I didn't feel guilty -- because I'd told him in advance that I wasn't going to be available -- about not responding to Nike's previous two text messages, I did feel a little twinge of sympathy. Because -- and hopefully I'm not alone in this -- there was certainly a time when I was in the same boat. I seem to hang out with a higher-than-usual proportion of guys who are still in the earlier stages of exploring their m2m attraction. Certainly that applies to Nike: I have shoes that are older than Nike (No, seriously. I have a pair of loafers that I got right around the time that I graduated from college. I haven't worn them in a while, but they're very good loafers, and they've been resoled three or four times, so I'm a little bit attached to them.), and I don't think he's at all out. Back when I was in that position (I was older, of course), I didn't understand the concept of playing the field, and if I met someone who was interested in hanging out with me, I thought about seeing him all the time. Even if he wasn't fully available.


Anyway, there's not much I can do about the situation, except maybe enjoy it. I mean, I could stop seeing other guys just so that no one would ever get hurt, but then again, no, I really couldn't. I could possibly not see other guys when b&c's in town, but I don't think I have it in me to just sit around the house and jerk off when there's a whole world of available men out there.


I suppose the other alternative is to find suitable boyfriends for all my current FWPs, but, you know, that whole "suitable" part is a real trick sometimes. I can just see the conversation, "So, hey, there's this really cool guy I'd like you to meet. He's nice, and he's great in the sack, but if you like him a lot, you still have to let me fuck him on occasion. Yeah, you can join in sometimes. But not always. No, sorry, wanting to keep him all to yourself is a deal breaker. Can I get you to sign this non-exclusivity agreement?"


See, if I could get by that little wrinkle, I think I might have a few friends who'd get along well with one or more of my current fuckbuddies. Judd, for instance, mostly wants an affable guy who'll fuck him like a jackhammer, and my buddy Christopher would probably be just the ticket there. My friend Brad would be a good match for Logan, though it might take some lobbying before Brad would see that. They have professional interests in common, and Logan somewhat resembles a string bean, which Brad likes a lot, but Logan's a bit on the quiet side. Still, it'd be worth a shot.


Nike would remain a problem, though. I just don't have that many friends who are into twenty-two-year olds with a small cock, a somewhat thuggish exterior, and a heart of gold. On the other hand, I suspect that Nike's ability to suck chrome off a bumper would be a selling point, and he claims that his ass is still cherry (well, sort of, after the last time he was over, but I really didn't get in that far). Did I mention that he compensates for the small cock with a big snake? A boa constrictor, to be exact. I haven't met the boa constrictor, but Nike talks about it a lot, so I reckon that if you're serious about him, it's one of those love-me-love-my-snake situations. Any takers?

Size Queens

The reception for the wedding that b&c and I went to this weekend was held at the St. Regis hotel in D.C. You really couldn't call the hotel ostentatious, but you certainly could call it expensive. B&c told me, yet again, how happy he was that his daughter had eloped when she got married because "for what they spent on this wedding, they could have made a downpayment on a house." I didn't want to disagree with him, but I have, I think, a better idea of how much these things cost and the current state of the real estate market, so I reckon they probably could have purchased outright at least a Baltimore row house for what they spent on the wedding.


While I believe that, in general, the wedding industry in this country is right out of hand, I know the bride's parents well enough to know that the expense of the wedding was almost certainly not driven by either a desire to impress anyone or an overly persuasive wedding planner. If I had to guess, I'd say that the mother of the bride had inherited some money that she'd decided might as well go to her daughter's wedding. (The bride's parents are both long-term government employees, so they have generous defined-benefit pension plans that will see them comfortably to the ends of their lives, but they wouldn't have easily been able to finance the wedding out of nothing but their salaries, I think.) And if I'm not mistaken, the bride and groom already own a residence, so it's not like they really need that Baltimore row house.


There's no significant chance that I'll inherit or otherwise acquire the sort of wealth that would allow me to spend that much on a wedding, and, if I were to acquire that sort of wealth, it's a dead certainty that EFU would tell me that she'd rather have the money than the wedding. (Unlike me, she would likely have been outraged by the level of expense that went into the wedding.) In fact, she's likely to say that at any price point. I take seriously Miss Manners' dictum that it's entirely proper to have a wedding reception where one serves nothing more than cake and punch, and as I'm entirely capable of making a wedding cake (and punch), I figure I'm pretty much set if and when the need arises.


But other people can do what they want with their own money, and this particular reception was as tasteful as it was expensive, so the only moment of conspicuous-consumption-related eye rolling had nothing to do with the wedding and happened in the hotel lobby. We'd finished our drinks in the hotel bar and were waiting for the reception room and terrace to open, and I had just finished admiring a very old but still functioning grandfather clock, when I walked to the other side of the room and saw a tall display case containing a pedestal upon which sat a bottle of Remy Martin Louis XIII Black Pearl:

Black Pearl is a limited edition cognac from Rémy Martin's stock of Louis XIII. Only one tiercon (a type of oak barrel) will be used, meaning only 786 bottles are available for purchase. The custom decanter, hand-crafted by artisans at Baccarat, is black crystal with platinum accents. The Louis XIII cognac inside contains a blend of more than 1,200 lots up to 100 years old. Purchase will be by invitation (initially at least) at a price of $8,000. After two months on the market, Rémy Martin reports all the bottles have been sold.

So I was standing there, reading the little plaque on the display case, and a hotel employee walked up to me, and we had a brief conversation.

Hotel Employee: I see that you're admiring our cognac.
TED: Yes.
HE: It's actually just a display copy.
TED: Ah. I rather wondered whether, when it arrived, someone didn't chug the whole thing and refill it with colored water.
HE: Uh, no. We still have the original. You can buy a glass of the real stuff, if you like. It goes for $1,936.
TED: Oh, you know, that's very tempting, but I'm pretty sure that I can go down the street and find a pretty good glass of cognac for $1,926, and I'm just not sure that yours is really ten dollars better.

And then he seemed to lose interest in talking to me. I guess some people just aren't comfortable talking about money. Anyway, just then, another hotel employee appeared, and he was holding a magnum of Champagne and a Champagne saber and looking inordinately pleased with himself. I'd always thought that it would be cool to watch someone open a bottle of bubbly that way, but when it happened, all I really thought about was whether there were bits of broken glass spraying over the lobby. They began to pour the Champagne and pass it around, but I figured there'd be plenty at the reception, and I was pacing myself. I thought about telling the hotel employee that a) handling a big sword wasn't going to make his penis any larger, and b) most people really don't care that he's not well hung anyway, but I suspected that it might not make him feel any better. Besides, he was walking around with a sword and a broken bottle, so it was probably best to keep my distance.

The F-Word

I had a mildly unpleasant time at Friday night's bowling party. I didn't get home from the office until about 7:30, at which point b&c pretended that I hadn't told him that we were proceeding directly to the bowling portion of the evening rather than joining everyone else for dinner first. How exactly he thought we would make it to Baltimore by 7:15 is something that I didn't bother to ask him, since any answer he gave would have been difficult to reconcile with the fact that I'd told him, specifically, that we weren't going to dinner with the others because there was no way we could get to Baltimore by 7:15. Anyway, he began to prepare dinner at that point (i.e., 7:30), and, because God forbid that he should just eat a sandwich or something, when I shook myself awake and came downstairs at 8, he told me that I should just go without him because his pasta wouldn't even be cooked until 8:15, and then he didn't want to rush his dinner, and then we'd be out late, and he'd be tired, and, hell, I don't know, maybe he mentioned the assassination of Arch Duke Ferdinand as a contributing factor. I may have stopped listening at some point. I said, "Are you sure?" and, when he said that he was, I left. I was a little bit put out, principally because I was extraordinarily fatigued, and I'd been counting on him to drive so that I could get a forty-five-minute nap on the way. On the other hand, I'd been very surprised that he'd decided to go to the party in the first place. He doesn't really like or get along well with the people who were going to be there, and, in the absence of extreme fatigue and an intense desire not to drive, I'd have preferred to go to this particular party by myself. (For the record, I'd rather go with b&c than by myself to most parties, especially any party not including a high proportion of Republicans.) So my pique was counterbalanced by a slight sense of relief. Mostly, though, I was just too tired to maintain anything approaching anger. We're talking thorough exhaustion here: every time I saw myself in a mirror Friday, I'd say, "Dude. Really?"


J. had warned me that the bowling alley was hard to find. "In a totally nondescript location" was how he'd put it. But I found the address and then I found a spot on the street, and then I walked back to the address, and then I took the elevator to the second floor, and there it was, a somewhat upscale bar (for Baltimore, anyway) with bowling lanes. Or perhaps it's a bar that would be upscale, were it not for the bowling lanes. Bowling (especially duckpin bowling, which is harder and harder to find these days, even in Maryland) is hella fun, but despite the many attempts I've seen or read about recently, bowling cannot be made upscale. You can certainly make it expensive, but, well, the phrase that comes to mind here is one that a certain local blogger has declared verboten. And, really, there's nothing wrong with either lipstick or pigs, but never the twain shall meet, right? Bowling is wonderful as an entertaining activity with solid working-class origins. Go, throw some balls around, and drink beer, which, as it happens, is also what you should be drinking with a great many pork products, particularly a pulled pork sandwich. Similarly, drinking an $8 Martini (and let's remember, please, that we're talking Baltimore here, not Manhattan, so eight bucks is an expensive fucking Martini) doesn't enhance your bowling experience. It just makes both the bowling and the martini less satisfying. I wasn't even going to get into the fact that what they were calling Martinis had Vodka in them, but, hell, let's not pretend that this paragraph hasn't spun so far out of control as to be irredeemable. Anyway, to recap: bowling -- good; Martinis (with Gin) -- good; beer -- good; bowling with beer -- even better; bowling with martinis -- stupid; Martinis (with Vodka) -- evil; bowling with Vodka drinks posing as Martinis -- Dick Cheney evil.

Anyway, I found the bowling alley, but there was not, sadly, much of a party. Apparently, a number of people had canceled at or near the last minute, including a couple who did not show up because one of them claimed to have a meeting with a client. At 9 pm on a Friday night. (And, no, he isn't an escort.) Anyway, aside from J. and his boyfriend, there were only two of us. We spent not quite two hours bowling, and then we went back to J.'s apartment, where J. turned on a baseball game, and then he and the other two guys immediately took out their laptops and got online. I was kind of WTF? but I didn't want to be rude, and, again, I was far too tired to be truly angry, so I watched half an inning of the game, excused myself -- citing fatigue and the lateness of the hour -- and drove home.


I'm pretty sure that Miss Manners wouldn't approve of inviting people into your home and then ignoring them so that you can read realclearpolitics, but, hey, whatever. My annoyance was substantially ameliorated by having just spent almost two hours hurling balls at pins (duckpin bowling is the Amélie of recreational sports: it is impossible to engage in the former or watch the latter without being caught by a good mood), and I couldn't help feeling sorry for J. It sucks to have people cancel on you at the last minute, especially when those people are supposed to be your friends. The people who canceled were all people who'd stayed with J. at his place in Rehoboth, and I'm pretty sure that what it came down to was that spending a Friday evening bowling, even with free drinks thrown in, simply wasn't as attractive as a weekend at the beach, so that it was a lot easier for them to find better offers. That they felt no particular compunction about canceling a previous engagement for a better offer is unfortunate, but not uncommon. Bowling is a lot of fun, but it's just not fabulous.

J. wouldn't put it in these terms, but what he wants more than anything (except money, but he has plenty of that) is the fabulous life. That's why he bought the house in Rehoboth: he had hoped that it would regularly be filled with successful and painfully attractive (but conservative) 'mos, who would regard him as the leader of the pack. And it sort of works out that way, but only during the season, when he has something that they want, and only if you ignore the fact that while most of those guys are relatively successful, none of them is painfully attractive, let alone fabulous.


For a long time, I had an unhealthy relationship with the very concept of fabulousness. I used to refer to "fabulous" as "the F-word," in part because in most settings, I have about as much reticence about saying "fuck" as I have about breathing. But mostly it's because I used to associate fabulousness (There is, to my mind, no truly satisfactory noun form, but "fabulousness" is going to have to do for the nonce. Also, I am avoiding a discussion of the various meanings of the word, but I am aware that "fabulous" comes from the same root as "fable," and its first meaning has more to do with something that is difficult to believe rather than something that is awesome. Furthermore, while I'm piling on the asides, I will note that if you do an image search for "fabulous nude male," you will find that a lot of people have very unusual notions about what constitutes fabulous, nude, and/or -- especially -- male.) with shallowness, pretense, and, well, stupidity. And while it's still true that if someone who were truly fabulous were to tell me, unironically, that any part of me or anything I'd done was fabulous, some significant part of my soul would perish in a loud and painful manner, fabulousness itself is no longer something I fear. If only because there's as little chance of my being associated with fabulousness as there is of my walking on the surface of the moon. In heels.

But while I might still laugh at people who think they're fabulous when they so clearly aren't, I recognize that there are people who are truly and effortlessly fabulous, and there's nothing whatsoever wrong with that: it's almost admirable. I think there probably is something wrong with, or at least unfortunate about, someone like J. trying so hard to be something that he never will be, but it's his life. And he still hangs out with me on occasion even though he (and pretty much everyone who knows me) knows a) that I'm the antithesis of fabulousness, and b) that I'm very happy being who I am.


Interestingly, the closest I came to an encounter with anything fab this weekend happened on Saturday, when I accompanied b&c to the wedding of the daughter of some of his friends of very long acquaintance. I'd met the bride's parents on a few occasions before. Otherwise, I really didn't know anyone at the wedding, but I pride myself on being a passable plus-one in almost any situation. (In this particular situation, I was helped along considerably by an ample glass of a very nice Pinot Noir at the hotel bar during the two hours between the end of the ceremony and the beginning of the reception, a small glass of champagne at the beginning of dinner, two healthy glasses of an even nicer Cabernet during dinner, and a Mojito somewhere in between. That seems to me like a lot of alcohol over the course of six hours, but, well, let's just say that upper middle class Catholics seem to drink a lot more than I do, whether they can handle it or not. The bride's parents had asked us to give a ride to a couple of their friends who live just around the corner from us. These people did not make an especially favorable impression on the ride down to the ceremony, and -- unlike it does with me -- alcohol did not improve them. On the drive back, their speech was slurred, and when we pulled out of their driveway, they were still stumbling towards their front door. I don't understand people who react to an open bar as if it were a bevy of Sirens. Really, being mildly drunk is such a pleasant experience and being very drunk such an unpleasant experience, that I can't imagine why anyone would want to migrate from the former to the latter.) The whole affair was slightly too elegant to be truly fabulous, but it was certainly very nice. At dinner, I was seated between b&c and the bride's father's cousin, whom b&c had dated briefly following his divorce. She was very amusing, and I kept hoping that events would arrange themselves so as to afford me the opportunity to say to her, "You ain't woman enough to take my man." But they didn't, and, upon further reflection, it's probably just as well that she left the table to dance when the band, and its four vocalists, launched into a totally kick-ass rendition of "Lady Marmalade." And it's almost certainly a good thing that I didn't have additional Mojitos, because then I'd likely have gotten confused and turned to her and said, "You know, I'm proud to be a coal miner's daughter," and it's really very difficult for me to imagine that particular phrase being interpreted in any way that reflects favorably on me.

Sitting on the other side of b&c were a couple from Westchester County who told us about their efforts to get their local parish to support a community in Nicaragua. B&c, because of his work in Managua, was very interested in that, but I was more interested in the couple themselves. He was a former priest, and she was a former nun. I wanted to ask them whether they'd met when they were both still under vows, but I guessed that they each had probably left the church for his and her own reasons rather than for each other. And, in any event, it was a lot more fun for me to imagine some sort of torrid Abelard-and-Heloise-in-reverse (and without the castration) romance. I often say that you should never let the facts get in the way of a good story. Facts are, as a general rule, insufficiently fabulous.

The Rules

(Very) recent events have made me think that some men may be taking advantage of my kind nature. Clearly this whole fuck-and-let-live approach I've adopted has its limits, so it's time for some additional rigidity. We here at The Neighbors Will Hear believe in personal responsibility, and personal responsibility means that misbehavior has clear and inescapable consequences. Accordingly, there will be some new rules.


1. If you show up thirty-five minutes late for an overnight date, no matter how apologetically cute (or cutely apologetic) you are, you don't get a glass of wine on the sofa before we head upstairs and I toss you on the bed and slowly undress you as I work your whole body. Instead, we head directly upstairs, and I toss you on the bed and undress you more rapidly as I work your whole body. You want the wine and the romance, you show up on time, mister.


2. Also, if you show up at 10:05 for a 9:30 appointment, you should expect to lose approximately twenty minutes of foreplay or expect that once I get around to pounding you, I will only pound for twenty minutes. Otherwise, I'll still be going after midnight, and I do have to get up and go to work the next morning, after all. And, no, it doesn't matter how much previously undisclosed cocksucking talent you show or how hungrily you wrap those very soft lips around my rod: the clock is ticking. Even if you knock the clock off the side table when you swing those very long legs around so that I can eat your ass while you're going down on me.


3. Finally, if you can't be bothered with punctuality, even if you are tall, slender, smooth, handsome, flexible, deep, and equipped with a thoroughly delicious European accent, when I get out of the shower at 7:30 the next morning, you absolutely, positively do not get to lie there and look irresistable and lure me back into bed for an extended makeout session followed by a third fuck (I'm not yet mean enough to deny you the second fuck at 4:30 in the morning, but don't push me, dude, or I might. I could definitely use that extra ninety minutes of sleep, and there may come a day when I'm able to wake up next to you in the middle of the night with a raging hard-on and resist letting you play with it.), causing me to have to jump back in the shower at 8:45 and then call the office and tell them I'm going to be an hour late.

I'm not just whistling Dixie here. I'm serious about these rules. Effective tomorrow.


I am very tired this morning, but it was very worth it. Alternatively: yes, I am exhausted, but you should see the other guy.

Anticipation

A couple of days ago, I sent my friend J. an email to thank him and his boyfriend for hosting us this past weekend. My email also included this short paragraph:

On another note, I wanted to apologize personally for the way Nancy Pelosi hurt the Republicans' feelings and scuttled the bailout. Hopefully, they'll get back on track later this week.

J.'s response, in its entirety:

NO NEED TO APOLOGIZE,NANCY PELOSI IS A CUNT

I'm not sure which is more puzzling: a gay Republican, or a college graduate who writes in all caps and has fundamental misapprehensions about punctuation (The language surprises me not at all. J. is a horrible misogynist.). What a world.


I also sent an email to Logan, confirming our play date for this evening. I'm not sure whether Logan is a college graduate. He probably is, but English isn't his first (or probably even his second, now I think about it) language, so I make allowances. Especially given the content:

My back is better but i should not put any strain or pressure to to my back for a week says my doctor, which may make me little passive tomorrow night.
The way I see it, nothing can stop me to spend a night with you.
So I'll see you tomorrow at 9.30

Normally, I roll my eyes a bit when someone tells me that he's "little passive," but, well, a) Logan has always been more than a little passive, and b) he is obviously asking me to dominate him. Logan always has that kid-in-a-candy-shop quality (very refreshing in a fifty-something guy; I suppose he'll lose it over the next couple of years, alas) to him when we're playing, and I'm confident that being fully submissive will only increase his awe. I can hardly wait to watch his eyes light up as I hang his head over the end of the bed and fuck his face. Not that I'll actually be able to see his eyes in that position, but I'll know they're lighting up.


I'm also very psyched about the whole sleeping over thing. As I've mentioned before, it's been quite some time since I've spent the night in bed with anyone other than b&c. It almost feels like I'm cheating. I'm mildly embarrassed to admit that the worst part about having an open relationship is that it's impossible to cheat. By which I really mean that I'm mildly embarrassed to admit that cheating is fun. It's also destructive, of course, and it's much more destructive than it is fun, but it's definitely fun. I'm 100% certain that b&c wouldn't mind that Logan's spending the night, but the fact that I haven't told him gives me a small buzz and heightens the anticipation.


Anticipation is, of course, a double-edged sword, but so far I have regularly tasted the sweetness of pre-coital fantasy and only rarely tasted the bitterness of disappointment. (Double-edged sword, sweetness, bitterness: harmless imagery or egregious mixed metaphor? You be the judge.) And it's hard to see how I'd be disappointed this evening. It's likely that Logan has never spent the full night in another man's bed, so this could be something of a seminal (ahem) experience for him. There are few things that I like as much as rocking another man's world.

More of the Same

It has struck me for some time that there's a fundamental inconsistency here on The Neighbors Will Hear. I'm fairly scrupulous about accurately describing my sexual activities (and other activities, I suppose). At the same time, the pictures are mostly eye candy, of the sort that I rarely get (or want, really) to devour in real life. But, hey, I like eye candy. I suppose I could post pictures of more ordinary (i.e., less visually attractive) men, but they're just images, right? Images don't really matter much to me. Images lie. I guess words lie, too, but mine don't.


Sometimes, though, it would be really convenient to be able to make stuff up without owning up to the fiction. Like this week, when b&c is home, and I'm working late, it'd be really nice to be able to say that I fucked a hot construction worker in the second floor men's room. There was a period of about six months at my office when they were demolishing and rebuilding the men's room on my floor (it ended up looking almost exactly like it did when they started), and during that time, we all had to use the rest rooms on the second floor. Also during that time, there were often hot Latin construction workers, and they sometimes walked around on stilts, which put their asses right about at eye level. So I spent a lot of time fantasizing about fucking a particularly attractive one in the second floor men's room. But I didn't do that.


For the record (because somebody asked), there was no sex with the Republicans last weekend. I'm not interested, and they're not interested. There was some fooling around with b&c, of course, but, well, fooling around with your partner is important and pleasant and sometimes hot, but generally unremarkable. Similarly, I would not and will not be engaging in any manner of sexual activity with any of the Republicans at the upcoming bowling party. They're all, to a man, the sort of people who will tell you that being gay is just a small part of who they are, but it isn't central to their identity. Except that they'll say it even less eloquently than I just did, and they'll all, to a man, tell you that as if it's something a) profound and b) original, as opposed to something b) that you've heard a zillion times before and a) stupid. Really, if you're sexuality isn't central to your being, I have no interest in exploring it.


But, because I know you all care deeply, I will tell you that b&c is heading up to New Jersey this morning. He'll be returning in time for Friday's party. YFU will be over this evening, but tomorrow night, I've invited Logan for a sleepover. So I may have something interesting to report. Thank Cthulhu for Sarah Palin (unless Sarah Palin is Cthulhu, something I've come to suspect recently): because of tomorrow night's VP debate, choir practice has been moved up, so Logan and I can get started an hour earlier than we otherwise would have. Last time he was over, he complained that we only got to play for ninety minutes, which wasn't long enough for him. Be careful what you wish for, Logan.


Nike has been pestering me to let him come over and suck me and b&c off. I've been putting him off because I really haven't had the time. B&c said he was willing, so I suppose that when the opportunity arises, we'll go ahead and play with him. I'm a bit hesitant because even though Nike is a nice guy, he's a little bit high maintenance, and I worry that he could introduce a small level of chaos into my domestic life. Not a threatening level of chaos, mind you. I just since the potential for small amounts of drama and moderate levels of guilt. If I want guilt, I'll rejoin the Southern Baptists.


Speaking of drama and guilt, last night's performance of La Traviata was magnificent. Elizabeth Futral was awesome. Violetta is a very demanding role, and she was more than up to the challenge. She has a truly lovely voice, and her acting was compelling, too. The other leads were also splendid, and Arturo Chacon-Cruz (whom I was able to forgive for being a handsome tenor because he's short) and Ms. Futral made a terrific couple. In other opera-related news, it appears that I will not have a ticket to see Aida later this year. I will, instead, be seeing Porgy and Bess. So no elephants in my immediate future, but I take that as a good omen for the fall election.


I could, of course, just not post on days like today when there's nothing much to say, but the real reason that I started this blog was that I wasn't writing enough outside of a professional context. And, really, explaining to the staff the proper treatment of interest on acquisition indebtedness may be of value to my employers, but it's not very fulfilling to me. I've always been able to write quickly, comprehensibly, and competently (also, I type very quickly, which is the answer to those of you who've asked how I manage so much output in my limited time), but I thought that writing on a daily or near-daily basis would a) entertain me and b) help me write better without sacrificing speed. And on those accounts, I'd have to say that the blog has been a) wildly successful and b) a dismal failure. I'm not saying that I write badly because I think that I write pretty well. I'm just saying that my writing hasn't improved significantly since I started. I still see the same bad habits. But, truly, keeping myself entertained is much more important to me, so I'm just going to keep writing. Even when I have nothing to say, I have a lot to say. Besides, any fool can churn out 5,000 words when he's got a lot to write about. It takes a special fool to regurgitate a thousand when he's got nothing to say. Go me.