Once a legitimate blog. Now just a collection of memes 'n menz.
And it's gotten worse as I've gotten older. But I wasn't always this way. Yeah, I'd always been somewhat shy, but I was never one to avoid interaction with people. I really think the tipping point was when I lost the full use of my voice and I was no longer able to be heard in loud gatherings. I think that also speaks to my discomfort in large crowds…
That could also be why I took to blogging with such gusto—and against all odds stay with it. In its own twisted way, it allows me to be heard.
Inspired by seeing Joe Orton's obsessive diary keeping as depicted in the film Prick Up Your Ears, I began to record my own life events—both mundane and salacious—from late 1987 until mid 2002.
Lately I've been going through those old journals, attempting to convert them from their original ancient Word and WordPerfect formats into something readable on today's equipment. Word 2016 won't open any native document prior to the 97-04 format, but Apple's Preview application has no trouble (go figure), allowing a rather painless cut-and-paste into the new format. But nothing I own will open the old WordPerfect documents save for Apple's own TextEdit—which unfortunately also displays all the garbage that WordPerfect threw into those documents in addition to the actual text. It's a very time consuming process to weed that crap out and get it in a usable format. And the very few files that I for some reason password protected—even if was able to recall passwords from 20 years ago—are lost completely.
As I've written about before, the Mark who existed prior to the 2003 cancer diagnosis is very different from the one who came out of that ordeal, and nothing has brought that into sharper focus than going over those old entries.
It's worth noting that while my own obsessive journaling started sputtering out a few months prior, it came to an abrupt end at the time of my diagnosis for two reasons. Firstly, I really didn't want any written record of the thoughts and feelings I was experiencing at the time because I couldn't come up with words to describe any of it without sounding full of self-pity, and I was just not that kind of person—knowing full well even then that I was going to come out of it okay. Secondly, only a few months after completing treatment and on my way to a full recovery, I discovered blogging, and while I couldn't be quite as open and unfettered with my words being published for anyone to see as I could when writing only for myself, blogging did scratch the itch that journaling had ignited.
While I'm not proud of a lot of the things that are recorded in my journals (much of it is embarrassingly cringe-worthy at this point), they do accurately represent one gay man's journey through his thirties while looking for love and living in San Francisco in the late 80s and 90s. In spite of the AIDS specter constantly looming, there was sex; lots of it. There are many names in those journals of men with whom I was obsessed but am now unable to conjure a face for. There were broken hearts and hearts broken.
San Francisco was even then an extremely expensive place to live, and while I generally made enough to get by (if only barely), angst about money was a recurrent theme. (Some things never change, even now.) But there were also reflections on the magic that existed in that city, whether it was catching sight of the fog spilling over Twin Peaks on an August afternoon, or the way the sun glinted off the bay, or the first evening after daylight savings kicked in and you found yourself walking home from work in the crisp dark air, or something as simple as a smile exchanged with a handsome stranger on the train.
My growing love for technology—and the horrific amount of time and money spent acquiring it—is spelled out in excruciating detail. Trips to computer fairs and installing hardware or software are so obsessively documented that I want to reach back in time and slap the shit out of that Mark, telling him to get the fuck away from that glowing screen and go to the beach!
There were also many a rumination about spirituality and attempting to find meaning and my place in the universe; pondering alien life and reincarnation—oftentimes punctuated in the same entry with a description of an unexpected orgasmic encounter with a total stranger in some public venue.
I knew even as I was recording those encounters for posterity that some day, with older and wiser eyes, I'd recoil in horror, and ask, "What were you thinking?! You were such a fucking asshole!" And sure enough, I now find myself doing exactly that. Really, Mark…you're damn lucky you didn't get yourself killed or arrested. ANY NUMBER OF TIMES.
Ah, the innocence of youth.
And yet I am reminded of two quotes from a onetime favorite book, Illusions, the Adventures of a Reluctant Messiah, that I always kept in mind when recording my adventures:
"You are lead through your lifetime by the inner learning creature, the playful spiritual being that is your real self. Don't turn away from possible futures before you're certain you don't have anything to learn from them."
and
"Live never to be ashamed of anything you do or say is published around the world—even if what is published is not true."
I realized the other day it's been fifteen years since my bare feet last made contact with a beach. It's no wonder they ache.
As 2015 rapidly spins down into memory, I figured it was a time to take quick stock of the past year.
It's been an interesting one, that's for sure. I don't think either Ben or I anticipated moving back to Phoenix—at least not this year—and yet that's exactly what happened. I wish I could say it was a bittersweet departure from Denver, but I can't. On the other hand, I also have no regrets about the past four years we spent there. We wanted an adventure, and that's exactly what we got in Colorado.
As for the two resolutions I'd made a year ago, I managed to fulfill both of them. What a shock! I've taken a a lot more pictures than I did in 2014, and I got the hell out of DISH.
Now if only the next chapter in my employment saga would start, I'd be a happy guy.
In March, we visited Ben's cousin and his partner in Atlanta, then drove to Columbia to spend a day with our friend John. At the end of May, we saw Bianca Del Rio's Rolodex of Hate, and last month we saw Chris Hardwick's Funcomfortable show.
Next year I'm looking forward to taking more photographs and seeing Donald Trump's campaign (and by extension the entire republican slate) implode, wither and die. And then there's the whole getting a job thing that needs to happen sooner rather than later.
A large winning lottery ticket would also be nice. But I guess we'd have to play in order to win…
A couple weeks ago I got a call from a recruiter back east. Normally I don't bother working with out-of-state agencies because it has been my experience that it's a complete waste of my time and resources: I send them everything but a blood sample and I never hear a word back from them. But this one sounded a bit different (and actually spoke English), so I went ahead with all the required paperwork and actually landed an interview with a local company. The position was described as "customer service/deskside support." It was with a well-known financial services company that ironically occupied the same building of the company that summarily dismissed me twelve years ago after I received my cancer diagnosis.
The recruiter was serious about getting me in there and hired, so much so that the account manager coached me on the phone yesterday at length about the type of questions I'd be asked (he had actually worked for this particular company prior to going into recruiting) and offered some very useful tips about how to turn the interview to my advantage.
I was still nervous as hell when I arrived at the today because I hate selling myself—and as experienced I am in my field, I am notoriously bad at answering off the cuff technical questions. ("Where in the Windows registry do you find x?") As it turned out, however, I shouldn't have been so worried. The position they were interviewing for bore no resemblance at all to the description they'd given the recruiter. It was a call center help desk position and I'd be on the phones 100% of the time. It was also third shift.
Needless to say, it was the shortest interview I'd ever had. I explained this was not what had been sold to me by the recruiter, and thanked them for their time. Even the I.T. Director who was sitting in on this said he was surprised that with my background and experience I'd was applying for this particular job.
I went out to my car and called the recruiter. I explained what had happened and she verified the job description they'd been given. Nowhere did it mention "100% phones" or that it was third shift. She apologized profusely.
And to think I lost sleep last night worrying about all the possible interview questions that would be thrown at me today.
I'm disappointed, yes. But more than anything else, I'm angry. I'm angry because I thought this might actually be "the one." As I've quipped on Twitter, "Looking for a job is like looking for love. You have to kiss a lot of frogs before you find your prince."
Adding insult to injury, while sitting in my car talking to the recruiter who sent me to this debacle, I received a call from a local recruiter I'm working with who informed me that I was not selected for the State job I'd interviewed for last week. This was the second time I'd interviewed with those folks, and the second time I did not get selected. And of course, the recruiter got absolutely no feedback from the client as to my performance in the interview, so I have no idea what I could've done differently to win them over.
I hate interviewing because you never know what kind of crazy ass questions you're going to be asked. Two weeks ago I interviewed for a short-term contract at a firm I'd contracted with back in the late 90s that also went nowhere. I was asked to describe how to make a PBJ sandwich. Seriously. (Okay, now that I know why that particular question was asked it does make a little bit of sense in the Alice-Through-The-Looking-Glass environment that is modern Corporate America, and I'll have the proper response ready if I'm asked it—or something similar—again, but it caught me totally off guard at the time.)
Just as a job seeker you're looking for your prince, companies also seem to be looking for someone who fits their pre-defined glass slipper perfectly, and I'm starting to feel like one of the ugly step sisters.
But I am trying to stay positive. I keep reminding myself that after my position "had been eliminated" following my cancer diagnosis, it was nearly a year before I was working again full time, and we're not even halfway to that point yet. And I also gained a few good interviewing tips from this experience that I hadn't known previously.
Still, I'd like to get back to work because every day that I'm away from the enterprise computing environment, the more my skill let deteriorates and my ability to answer those off-the-cuff technical questions with any degree of accuracy gets even worse.
1983 and 2015. 32 years and 50 pounds later…
A meme I've noticed making the rounds recently is "Things I Would Tell My Younger Self."
As fascinating as this little thought experiment might be, I long ago realized that alerting my younger self to any of the myriad major things I might wish to warn him about—assuming he would even listen—would ultimately fundamentally change the course of my life, and as much as I bitch and complain about aspects of it at times, I wouldn't change it for the world.
So to prevent any major life alterations—as much as I might want to tell him to buy a thousand dollars worth of Apple stock in July 1982 and hold onto it no matter what, if I had to offer up advice, I'd ask him to only do three things:
Because in the area of things, these are the only items he will regret no longer possessing.
Health issues, jobs, friends, and love affairs…just let them unfold on their own. Own the scars. Each and every one of them will put him on the course that will ultimately lead him into Ben's arms, and when that time comes, he wouldn't want to change that for the world.
I took Anderson into the MINI dealer yesterday to have some recall work done (the passenger seat air bag sensor that's been wonky for the last six years). While the recall repair didn't cost me a dime, I got the car back with a multi-page list of recommended repairs. Thankfully, none of them were critical, and all the major mechanical systems were in good shape. But still, the total (should I win the lottery and decide to have the work done) for all the recommended repairs came to a whopping $3400. Even if I were working, this would still have given me pause.
Curiosity drove me over to the Edmunds Blue Book site to see what the car was actually worth at this point, and I came away severely disillusioned; it came in at $164 less than the cost of repairs.
Before I left the dealer, I asked the Service Manager about two cosmetic items that didn't appear on the estimate: the passenger headlight lens and the driver's side seat cover. The passenger headlight lens has gotten severely oxidized over the last two years. I tried buffing it out myself with one of those $25 kits a little over a year ago, but the results were…disappointing. But yes, the dealer had some voodoo magic capable of bringing it back to like new for a meager $40-60. The other item was the rapidly disintegrating edge of the driver's side seat cover. Because of the way I get into and out of the vehicle, this has been an issue with every car I've owned; the difference being the damage is much more extensive this time because of the mileage I've racked up on Anderson. I paid a premium for leather seats in the last couple cars I've owned, erroneously believing that the leather would handle the abuse a bit better. (Hint: it doesn't.)
The Service Manager suggested getting the seat cover done through a local upholstery shop, since because of the age of the car MINI probably wouldn't have any more in stock and would have to custom fabricate one anyway, making it hella expensive (well over $1000 just for the cover itself, not including installation).
I'm not averse to getting a new MINI as an alternative to shelling out that chunk of change (plus an additional $1600 down the line for a new clutch in about 20K miles) once I'm gainfully employed again—but I've enjoyed not having car payments these past couple years, and frankly it's not going to be easy to say goodbye to lil' Anderson in any case. We've had some grand adventures, and I've can honestly say I've never bonded with a car the way I have with this one.
So yeah.
All this has done is contribute to what I can only describe as a sense of melancholy that has overtaken me of late. Between this, my recent aborted employment adventure that I had so hoped would be "the one," some ongoing problems Ben is having with one of his students, the general level of stupidity screeching from a certain portion of the population, and the fact I'm pretty much sleeping like crap every. single.night, I'm feeling drained.
I think Ben and I are both also feeling a little disappointed that our return to Phoenix hasn't been full of sparkle unicorns shooting rainbows out their asses as we'd hoped. When I start feeling that way however, I have to remind myself that it usually takes a year or so for me to get into the groove of a new place after a move. While Phoenix isn't "new" to me per se, relocation is still considered a major life change and stress producer.
At least it's finally cooled down and we can turn off the air conditioning for the year.
How's that for a non-sequiteur?
I realized today that if my first lover—who died in 1991—had immediately reincarnated, he'd now be older than we were when we first met.
I feel old.
I came to the realization this morning that I am a digital hoarder—and I suspect so are a great many other people.
The only reason there aren't intervention shows about it is because the hoarding is virtual and hidden. There are no horrific physical piles of stuff for camera crews to step over; you won't ever be found dead in your home, buried under a pile of roach-infested garbage, but I suspect the problem is just as real.
Why else would companies now regularly be shipping terabyte drives with their new systems?
I came to this realization this morning while trying to clear out my downloads folder. This is where I throw everything from software installers to cat memes and nekkid menz. When I started there were over a thousand items. I'm down to about two hundred and at the point where I just want to do the equivalent of shoving it all in a closet; moving it all into my equally unruly "to be sorted" folder just to get "downloads" cleared out. The irony is that nothing in the "to be sorted" folder ever gets sorted and currently stands at over a thousand items itself.
And don't even get me started on my meticulously curated "Menz" folder. I remember back in 2002 a friend dubbed me "The Porn King of Phoenix" when I had something like 10,000 pictures. Now I've got six times as many and frankly I don't even know why any more. Years ago when I was living in San Francisco I stopped going to the pride parades because I thought, "How many pictures of pretty men do I really need to take?"
I know some of this hoarding comes from blogging. I run across a handsome face or other interesting picture and think, "I'll repost that." Most of the time it happens, but there's a higher probability that it will simply get filed away and forgotten. I fear that if you compare what I've actually posted to what I'll culled off the internet with the intention of reposting we'd both be shocked.
Dare I say it's the same thing as my late father's habit of keeping stuff—and by stuff I mean junk—because as he used to say, "I'll need it someday."
I know without even looking that hundreds of images in my collection that are 800 x 600 pixels in size or smaller could easily be classified as junk now, simply because the resolution is so poor and need to be discarded—regardless of their content.
Time to start weeding.
Yeah, like that's gonna happen.
I'm not going to just throw all the stuff in a closet; I'm going to do the equivalent of buying a storage shed and transfer everything onto an external hard drive. Out of sight, out of mind, but still accessible if I "need it someday."
Denial ain't just a river in Egypt, y'know.
You are not here just to fill space or be a background character in someone else's life.
Consider this: Nothing would be the same if you did not exist. Every place you have ever been and everyone you have ever spoken to would be different without you.
We are all connected, and we are all affected by the decisions and even the existence of those around us.
Yesterday I tweeted:
But today I ran across this:
One of the strangest—and most unexpected—effects of being back in Phoenix is feeling the profound absence of my father. While my mom had passed before we moved to Denver and I still feel her loss, my dad died while we were there, and my involvement with his passing was minimal and long-distance (something that has caused a continued rift between myself and my sister). Being back here now it's smacking me up the side of the head and I have to keep reminding myself that he's no longer just a few minute's drive away as he'd been before we left.
Ironically however, when I look into the mirror I'm seeing more and more of him staring back at me, and perhaps more disturbingly I'm finding more and more of his well-known stubbornness and general temperament rearing itself in my personality; something I'd just as soon do without if truth be told.
When I was younger I didn't look like either of my parents, but as I've aged, his genes are starting to assert themselves. While I don't resemble him completely at this age, there's much more of him showing through than my mom, so hopefully his genes will maintain their supremacy and guard against the onset of Alzheimers that plagued Mom and so many others on her side of the family.
Who wants to come help us unpack?
Overnighting in Gallup. So close to home I can almost taste it.
New Mexico really needs to change its state motto from Land of Enchantment to Land of Endless Road Construction.
I can't recall a single trip through the state over the last fifteen years where we didn't run into major road construction of one type or another. The place is obviously mainlining federal highway funds.
That being said, the place is still incredibly beautiful.
Twelve years ago this week I was told three life changing words: "You have cancer."
It didn't exactly come as a surprise. I'd been dealing with continual hoarseness with no definitive diagnosis since late 2000. But it was still one of those moments when time seemed to stand still.
I had no health insurance, but thankfully—somehow—I managed to qualify for Medicaid. This at least eased the worry of how I was going to pay for any required treatment and though I was now out of work (after the diagnosis and a week in the hospital my contracting position was "eliminated") and eeking by on unemployment and the kindness of friends and family, I knew all my medical expenses would be covered.
I found both a great Otolaryngologist as well as a Radiation Oncologist. I approached this ordeal knowing that I would make it through to the other side of treatment and beat this thing that had been dropped into my life. That was never in question. I wasn't about to let a clump of cells less than half the size of a pencil eraser destroy my life.
Alter my life, yes. Completely redirect the course I was on, yes—although neither of those were particularly conscious decisions.
The next six months were hell; there's no denying that fact. Seven weeks of radiation therapy left my throat so burned and inflamed that all I could mange to eat was pudding, jello, and Ensure. Occasionally I could manage some well-cooked pasta with mild sauce. I laughed at the time that one unexpected and welcome side effect of all this was that I lost 40 pounds. I looked great.
Toward the end of the therapy however, I was so sore even the maximum dose of Oxycodone wasn't helping alleviate the pain, and oftentimes I'd wake up in the middle of the night sobbing. I did a lot of reading during those long, sleepless nights.
I asked my doctors if I'd ever get my voice back (because there were several weeks when I was left unable to speak at all) and they said, "You won't get your old voice back, but you will have a voice."
Considering the alternative, that was a welcome prognosis.
After the treatments were completed and my throat had healed somewhat, a biopsy was taken of the previously affected area in my larynx. The tests came back negative. The radiation had been successful. And thankfully this particular type of cancer was one that had one of the least chances of recurrence.
Over the next couple months, the pain and inflammation subsided and I was able to speak again (now with a voice that reminded me of an elderly woman or a young child, especially on the phone) and once again return to eating regular food.
Where did it come from? Everyone—including my doctors—were baffled because I'd never smoked and never drank to excess (the two leading causes of laryngeal cancer). But while I haven't been tested, at this point it I would almost guarantee the source was HumanPappilomavirus, something that at the time was just starting to be correlated with the disease and contracted no doubt during an episode of unprotected oral sex during my wilder days in the underbrush of Golden Gate Park—or any number of other venues. (I won't make apologies for not sticking a condom on every dick I sucked because I weighed the risks based on available knowledge at the time and found them acceptable.)
Anyhow…
When my five year anniversary arrived—the point at which one is generally labeled "cured" (or "in remission")—I decided to mark the occasion by getting my first tattoo. Those of you who have been with me during this crazy blogging journey know how that turned out.
My semi-annual checkups kept coming back clean, so when the ten year anniversary rolled around I celebrated it with another tattoo (this time done properly) and breathed a healthy sigh of relief. Even though I'd been told repeatedly "You're fine. You're cured," until that ten year anniversary arrived I'd always felt that perpetual Sword of Damocles hanging over my head. In fact, it wasn't until my last checkup about six months ago that I reached the point where I felt I really could finally relax.
I am so not good at being sick.
I've never been one to make resolutions for the New Year, but his year I will make an exception as there are concrete steps I can take to bring these resolutions to fruition.
TAKE MORE PHOTOS.
2014 was the first year since I started doing it that I couldn't rustle up enough shots I felt worthy enough to be included in a yearly photo book that I've been sending to a good friend in Phoenix as a holiday gift. Even if you add in my iPhone and Instagram photos I couldn't find enough that I truly liked to make the endeavor worthwhile.
This year will be different.
As I was catching up on all the people I follow in Instagram this morning, I realized I need to get my ass off the couch and get out there and do what I truly love doing.
GET THE FUCK OUT OF DISH.
To that end, I've finally scheduled the test to get my Mac OS X Support Credentials. I'm sensing that—unlike what my boss is undoubtedly counting on; that once I have that cert I'm one more warm body to drop to my knees and service executives and their enormous egos—it will be my Golden Ticket out of that hell hole.
…combined into one image that are forever burned in my memory that sent my 19 year-old imagination to overdrive and launched me on a spiritual journey that lasted for the next 30 years.
Ben and I have suffered through entirely too much death during the past twelve months.
2014 was supposed to be better.
No, seriously.
With the exception of only one or two actual bright spots, the past twelve months have been crap; a festering, pus-filled boil that is finally being lanced and drained with the arrival of the New Year.
It started out with my dad's passing, followed immediately by the arrival of Ben's mother into our home. Her domicile was intended to be only a temporary situation, lasting four to six months.
But yet she's still here.
While the apartment hasn't been completely trashed (I'd seen what she'd done to every previous place she's lived and this is the reason for my reluctance to agree to this in the first place), she has still very much left her mark upon it. (How exactly does one break a toilet seat, or stain black granite countertops?) The woman has far outstayed her welcome and both Ben and I are ready for her to get the fuck out. We delivered her eviction notice just prior to Thanksgiving and endured several days of sub-zero temperatures as a result, confirming my suspicion that she had gotten far too comfortable with the situation and had completely forgotten that this was intended to be only temporary.
No matter. She's on notice and knows in no uncertain terms that her time is up; that she will be out of this apartment by the end of January.
In late summer, after returning from an awesome vacation to Arkansas where we met up with Erik, his husband, and my longtime friend John (who I'd known for years but had never actually met in person), I quit the job I'd held at Stupid Central© for the previous two years. It was very spur-of-the-moment and done without having anything else lined up beforehand. Yes, my own fault that this contributed to the suck-fest of 2013 and looking back, this may not have been the wisest course of action at the time (at least in such a dramatic and spontaneous fashion), but I've long maintained that if you're miserable at your job, quit and find another one.
By the time mid September rolled around with still no work in sight, Ben and I both wanted—nay, needed—something good from 2013. As our five year anniversary was coming up and coinciding somewhat with a family wedding occurring in Santa Fe, he suggested we pile into his brand new Kia Soul and drive down to the wedding and while there take advantage of New Mexico's recent rulings on same sex marriage to get hitched ourselves.
That was the best part of this entire fucking year.
At the end of October, after having completely drained my savings, maxed out my credit cards, and suffered through nearly three months of depression, anxiety, and horrible, horrible job interviews—I finally started working again, landing a contracting gig for a large Windows 7 rollout project. It was with a company who had the dubious honor of being named the second worst place in America to work, but my experience there thus far hasn't been that bad.
The manager told me that the other techs really like me and they were all kind of surprised when I did not express any interest in applying for the permanent opening in the department. I've been reevaluating that position over the past couple weeks and after much contemplation, I went ahead and submitted my application last week. No, it's not perfect, but as Ben pointed out, is any job ever? I didn't want to go perm at my last job in Phoenix when my contract ended there either, but the manager talked me into it and I ended up staying seven years and made some lifelong friends (including that manager) in the process. So who knows? I figure that at this point it's at least worth putting it out there to see what happens. Que sera, sera, right?
2014 will be better. It has to be.
