You know what I hate?

- Painter's jeans. Only people who are actual tradesmen are allowed to wear these things; all others are fakes and trend-hoppers.

- People who talk overmuch about the weather. This is worst during the winter, when a morning forecast for three inches of snow becomes a blizzard by the evening. It's like Whisper Down the Lane with a madness-causing agent.

- Naming conventions. If I don't find out that there actual African people with made-up-sounding names like Aquanda, Tanisha, and Kia, I'm gonna be really angry. I also hate those names that are adapted from common names with the first letter changed, like Taren or Tevin. I reserve special scorn for common names spelled in an annoyingly quirky fashion, like Sandi and Jacqui. Oh, and hyphenated names? They suck. Ladies, take his name, give him yours, or keep your own, but don't try to act semi-liberated by jamming the two together with a hyphen in the middle. A name like Moss-Coane sort of works (in a way), but Galiano-Bagaglia? No, no, no.

- Dog-owners. Some people have this belief that they know their dogs inside and out, and trust in this belief so well that they let their dogs run attended and unleashed, knowing that the animals pose no danger to anyone. It ain't true. I walk around Bala Cynwyd at lunch, on secluded little streets, and to date I've been threatened by dogs on three separate occasions. One dog wasn't very big but was plenty aggressive, but my bluffing was evidently convincing enough to back it down. The second was a big German Shepherd that was content to drive me away from the house in which it lived (that dog could have done me some damage had it felt perkier that day). The third came right up to me, tail down and growling; this one wasn't fucking around. I took a few swings to drive it back, then dodged away and put a parked car between us. After a minute I moved on, but as soon as I broke cover the dog renewed its assault. I'd had enough, and I charged the little bastard, growling myself. That did the trick, and my foe scampered up onto a lawn and cowered there. Feeling manly, I fixed it with a baleful look and then went on my way. I tell you, if I'm ever bitten, I'm coming back with my car, and either running down the little bastard or beating it to death with the Club. I kid alot on this blog, but I am dead serious. The dog that bites me has bitten its last. Believe it.

Another long-awaited post

I'm turning over a new leaf and blogging again. Then I'll most likely turn it back over and disappear for two weeks.

North Carolina was fun. Beautiful area (Raleigh-Durham), but I think I'd commit suicide if I had to live there. There's just not much going on, or at least much in which I am interested. Craig and Shawn live in a rather conservative area, just one mile from this Baptist seminary, and there's no way I'm up for that. They're more willing than I to be open about being gay with people who aren't necessarily the most accepting about it. I guess that's another way homosexuality gains mainstream acceptance, but I'd rather gravitate towards people who are already inclined to be open-minded about it.

Southern food is, uh, interesting. Everything is breaded and fried, which is kind of fun as a novelty but gets old fast. Corn fritters are tasty, and cheese grits were good, but to have that stuff every day? No thank you...I like my 32-inch waist. Nobody, but nobody makes biscuits like southerners, though, so it seems that fighting the Civil War to keep them part of the union was worth it. Oh, and eliminating slavery was good too. :-)

A long-awaited post

I don't actually know if anyone was waiting for this post, but it seemed to make a good heading. So there!

Star and Dan commanded me to blog a remark I made the other night. We were talking about gay guys and therapy, between which I maintained (and still do) that there is a significant link, and I said, "We put the 'men' in 'mental health.'" I have now discharged my duty.

I'm off to North Carolina this weekend to visit some friends, and I view food prospects of this trip some trepidation. (Hey, is that tripidation?) Some of southern cuisine is tasty, but all of it is rather fatty, heavy, and salty. I had a ham biscuit for breakfast, and it took two glasses of water just to restore the fluids soaked up by the salt in the country ham. Corn fritters were admittedly tasty, but possessed of more grease than I like to think about, and I won't even mention barbeque. Ugh.

Stupid People, Revisited

As I've said in other posts, I very rarely call people stupid, because I think very few truly are. Foolish, yes, but stupid? No. However, because of my employer's new office design, we're all on top of each other, so I get a first-hand view of the intellectual capabilities of my colleagues in Finance.

I realize that numbers people are not creative, but rely on accuracy, procedure, and good organizational skills, and that doesn't make them dumb. The numbers people in my office are just dumb. A few examples:

- Maureen was complaining to one of the techie guys about the malfunctioning voicemail indicators on her phone. He explained that the problem was company-wide, and that the server was hung up but would be reset that night. She said, "What?" Like me, he assumed she just hadn't heard him, so he repeated what he'd said. She replied cleverly, "What?" Finally, he realized she wasn't getting the "server hung up" part, so he reverted to child-speak and said, "Maureen, the server is broken. It's broken." Context, Maureen? Huh?

- The subject of this one is Taryn, and let me state that she got off on the wrong foot with me just because of her name. I hate names that are really just other names with the first initials changed, such as Tevin. (I know some of you have friends and family with those kinds of names, but my blog, my rules.) Also, I hate when basically common names are spelled in a quirky manner, like Marriya (Maria) or Jacqui (Jackie). So you can see how "Taryn", which is really a distortion of "Karen", really ticks me off. Anyway, we had a fire drill last week, and Taryn (grrr) and I were the last ones out the door. I headed for the stairs, but this zero starts pressing the elevator button. Hasn't she ever experienced a fire drill before? You don't put yourself in a small, metal, windowless box when there is fire a-coming. The guy running the fire drill had to direct her to the stairs, and I'm surprised he didn't have to instruct her on how to use them.

- Taryn and Maureen are chatters, and their conversations have an inanity level just short of what would provoke the average person to a letter-opener bloodbath. They're both as thin as sticks, naturally, and they go on and on about how terrible they are with food and they eat too much, their faces are too fat, blah blah. There are women in this company who could eat both of them before breakfast and still have room for a bagel, and they're complaining about that two-sixteenths of blueberry muffin they had that morning? Margaret Cho said the first thing you lose on a diet is brain matter, and these two had very little to begin with. Either that, or they once weighed a million pounds each, all brain.

Writing this post has made me feel strangely liberated. And hungry for blueberry muffins.

A Very "Ist" Post

If you're overly sensitive about "isms", skip this post now instead of writing me angry emails later.

There's a guy who works in my office who is a tremendous lech. The problem is that he's also tremendously unattractive, yet completely unaware of that fact...a deadly combination. I've seen this before with straight guys, and it never fails to amaze me. Why on earth do they think women will rush into their arms if those arms are really really unattractive?

I'm not proposing that all straight guys become gymbots; hell, there are lots of men who are perfectly attractive and who don't have 30-inch waists or visible abdominal muscles. However, there is just no excuse for untrimmed nose hair, stubble, and visible carpenter's crack. Straight guys, I know you don't like to tuck in your shirts, but for crying out loud, at least buy shirts that fit! Here's a tip: If the juncture of sleeve and torso hangs three inches below your armpit, the shirt is too big. Also, stop it with the pants that hang around your hips with the crotch somewhere between your knees. I know you think we gay men won't look at your asses if you wear almighty big pants, but guess what? We look anyway.

Thankfully, the straight guys who come to Movie Night wear clothes in their size, else I might have to start naming names. BTW, I wouldn't have sex with the office lech unless that sex involved me beating him senseless with a dead monkey. A ripe one.

Tales from the Restroom

I work in a dreadful office complex in Bala Cynwyd, and to escape my increasingly dreadful job I walk 3-4 miles every day at lunch. On the way back, I sometimes stop in the 1st-floor restroom on the way back to my desk. It's always an adventure. One time I was treated to the unmistakable sound of someone in one of the stalls, uh, entertaining himself. Yes. Last week I was in there and the guy two sinks down starts splashing water into his face with cupped hands, making all these snorting and snuffling sounds. I thought he was trying to drown himself until I realized he was blowing his nose in the sink. I thought, "Dude...I'm right here!", but he kept right on, oblivious.

Sometimes, I have learned, it's better to hold it until the 4th floor.

Oh frabjous day!

For the first time in a long, long while, I had a marvelous day at work yesterday. (Today ain't too bad, neither.) Why, you ask? Because my VP, the cute but useless exec who has completely blown off my very valid concerns, and whose wife makes lousy cookies, has been demoted. Tee-hee! They even kicked him out of his corner office. When I heard this I literally spun my chair around and said, "Whee!" I don't recall that German word for taking pleasure in the discomfiture of others, but whatever it is, I'm feeling it. It's not pleasure; it's a nearly orgasmic joy. In honor of the occasion, I went home and ordered a pepperoni pizza, which I shared with Sean whilst watching Babylon 5.

BTW, Sean is getting into B5, which thrills me since I can now discuss it with him as well. Yay!

The Coat of Doom!

My lovely, expensive new waistcoat has arrived, in all its glory. For those of you out of the loop, this bad boy is a gold brocade be-buttoned waistcoat with velvet trim at the cuffs and collar, and it's sweet. I was nervous about ordering it online (International Male sizes are, uh, interesting), but it fits pretty well. I'd prefer if it were a bit looser around the chest, but since the shoulders and sleeves fit so well I don't dare move up to a medium. Now I just need a formal event to which to wear the thing.

(Yes, I did use the word "be-buttoned", which means festooned with buttons. I am an editor; I get to make up words. Live with it!)

Dan, Star and I played Dan's new card game last night, and had a good time. I nearly would have won if it weren't for those meddling geeks! We even came up with a new name that I'll not reveal here until Dan gives me the nod. Check out his Peccable Productions for news.

The stage is set...

...and John Kerry stands at its center. I despise the fact that I feel obliged to vote for him, just to get that dreadful George Bush out of office. The Democrats and Republicans have constructed a system in which a vote for a third-party candidate - any third-party candidate - is a vote for the major-party candidate who winds up winning. Therefore, Americans wind up voting not their hopes, but their fears. As a voter who plans to support Kerry, I am not above this. If we had instant run-off elections, we could vote our hopes and not our fears.

That being said, I urge anyone reading this blog who feels, as I do, that George Bush has done our country a great deal of damage, to get out and vote for John Kerry. I won't hold it against anyone who decides for vote Green or Nader or Libertarian (I like voting Green myself), but I feel strongly that this is not the election to stand on principle. If we can shoot that Texas cowboy out of the saddle we'll have done the country more long-term good than we will by voting independent. The Democrats certainly aren't the heroes of the story, but there's no way John Kerry can be worse than His Fraudulency. No way in hell.

Humble Pie Post

I've been rather self-complimentary in previous posts, so to balance the scale I thought I'd spend some time discussing one of my faults. Most people aren't aware of this, but when provoked I have a very nasty temper. It takes quite a bit to provoke me to that extent, but when it happens, it ain't pretty. In that state I'm worse than stubborn; I'm defiant. I will not only stand my ground; I will defend it tooth and nail against anyone who looks at it cross-eyed. That temper sometimes provokes me to say more than I should, or press harder than is wise.

To my credit, I submit that I rarely get that worked up over anything. I'm generally pretty laid-back in terms of my responses, which may explain why I overreact when someone f*cks with me.

Good or bad?

This is the post in which I rate things as good or bad. Don't look for consistency here.

Spiders...Bad!
Oreos
If Double-Stuf...Good!
If Single-Stuf...Bad!
Circus Peanuts...Bad!
Purple clothing...Good!
Sand in shoes...Bad!
Green Party...Good!
Slavery...Bad!
Harriet Tubman shaped by slavery...Good!
SUV's...Bad!

The Disgruntlement Code

One of my fellow employees, who is nearly as disgruntled as I, suggested that celebrities could be used to measure just how disgruntled one is on a given day, as opposed to colors to indicate the level of terror alert. I instantly gelled to the idea, and thus I have created...

The Celebrity Disgruntlement Code
Level 1: Justin Timberlake
This person plays at disgruntlement to seem cool, but is in reality pretty satisfied. A Timberlake-alert applies to those who just like the idea of being disgruntled.

Level 2: Meryl Streep
This person will sound off occasionally, but is generally willing to put up with the way things are. A Streep-alert is often called when an employee is being a bit childish because of bad hair or because his favorite character was voted off the island last night.

Level 3: Susan Sarandon
This person is generally cantankerous, but isn't often heard from except perhaps on specific issues. A Sarandon-alert indicates an employee more annoying than truly disgruntled.

Level 4: Johnny Depp
This person makes trouble on a variety of issues, but is quick to slink away or backpedal if confronted. A Depp-alert indicates an employee who is angry but is not yet hardened by true bitterness.

Level 5: Mickey Rourke
This person is angry, bitter, and completely disillusioned, makes trouble, and doesn't care who knows it. A Rourke-alert indicates an employee who prints resumes on company printers, surfs Monster.com openly and spends company functions commiserating with others of his level. He not only faces confrontations but relishes them, and will admit or even trumpet his disgruntlement to any and all.

This was more fun than it should have been.

Authority and my thoughts

First, I published a letter to the editor in the Philadelphia Inquirer today that has generated a good deal of feedback, both positive and negative. The positive: "Right on!" The negative: "Stupid!" You can link to the Inquirer thusly.

I've been thinking alot about authority, because several people have told me lately that I handle it well. At risk of sounding immodest I agree, and I'll share an experience that helped shape my views of the responsible use of authority. Some years back I was working at a law office, and in my duties I interacted with one of the senior partners named (for purposes of this blog) Mike. Mike was in charge of the lawyers in his field of specialization, and once, while sitting in his office, I got to hear him take a phone call from one of his subordinates. This guy was carping and complaining and being really quite insolent, and I remember thinking, "My gosh! This guy's talking to his boss this way? If I were Mike, I'd give him quite the smackdown." Mike, however, just nodded and smiled, and smoothly put the guy off, all the while remaining calm and composed. It was then I realized that composure and non-assuming attitude was the secret of Mike's success as a team leader. He didn't need to assert his authority; he never felt it was threatened. (BTW, Mike was a great guy with whom I feel lucky to have worked.)

A good leader wears his authority not like a crown, but like his ordinary clothing. Think about it: How often are you aware of that very fact that you're wearing clothing? How often are others? Answer: Very rarely, since you almost always wear clothes. Authority should be the clothes you put on in the morning and then don't consider much during the day. Only those who can't handle their authority feel the need to assert it frequently, or to wield it heavy-handedly. That's the difference between a petty tyrant who demands obedience, and a true leader who commands respect.

A Mighty Post!

I have some delightful news to share, in case you haven't already heard: Dan and I are back together. Yes, I know you don't know why we didn't do this before, or why we ever broke up, blah blah. All I can say is that sometimes you meet the right person at the wrong time, and sometimes the right time comes around when the right person is still there. So it has proven with us.

You may now begin the "I told you so" dance.

A filler post

I don't have much to say, but I thought I'd better post something here, if only to avoid a blog-slacker rep. I had the worst Sunday night imaginable, one that made me look forward to coming to work Tuesday. If you've been reading about my disgruntlement, then you get the idea how bad Sunday night was. I've had a non-stop headache since then, and if I take any more Motrin or Alleve I'm like to die.

Reread my last post about the election. By tomorrow I hope to post more optimistically.

Benedict Tracker

I was reading the other day about the presidential primary of the Green Party, and I felt this pang of guilt and anger. Why? Because I can't vote Green in the presidential election this year, and it pisses me off. I agree with nearly all the tenets of the Green Party, but I must do everything I can to get His Fraudulency George Bush II out of office. I strongly believe that man is a menace to this nation, and that he's sown seeds that will yield a bitter harvest for years to come. Therefore, I intend to vote for whatever Democrat emerges from the primary, as many times as I can. And that makes me a traitor to the Greens. All I can do is make a big Green donation this year, grit my teeth, and vote Democrat. Ugh.

One of the worst things about our two-party, winner-take-all system is the way it forces us to vote our fears, not our hopes. It divides our country, devalues our votes, and reduces our national dialogue to this vs. that. It's not in the Constitution (despite what many would have you believe), it's not the best system of government, and it sucks.

My dreams are fun!

Last night, anyway. I dreamt I was a telekinetic on the run from the government, who runs internment camps for psychics ala Bablylon 5's PsiCorps. Anyway, someone let me hide out in her attic, which proved to be enormous and many-layered, and I spent most of the dream skulking about it, eluding the agents who were searching the house. I went out on the roof and levitated myself over the side of the house, out of sight from anyone following me. The agents went away emptyhanded, but it was only then that I noticed that there was a nunnery across the way, and that all the nuns were crowded at the windows, watching the floating guy. They started yelling that I was a demon, which was fun. Then a priest came along and exhorted them to throw stuff at me, which was less fun.

You're probably wondering, "Why didn't you use your telekinetic powers to thwart the government agents?" I can think of several answers. Maybe my powers were not equal to the task, or I was afraid to alert the government to my presence in the house, fearing it would send even more agents. Seanbaby offers a good answer; like the Justice League of America, I may simply have forgotten I had powers.

It's good to be king

Emmett and I talked last night about being king, and my opinion was (and still is) that it would pretty well suck. Evil villains always want to rule the world, but IMO that's further sign of the insanity that will someday prove their undoing. Bill Clinton aged about twenty years after two terms in the White House, and he just had to govern (along with Congress) one nation. Can you imagine what he would have looked like after eight years as the absolute ruler of the entire world? I'm aging quickly enough, thanks.

Emmett (very kindly) remarked that he thought I'd be a good king, because I didn't want the job, and at the risk of sounding arrogant I'm going to agree. In any group I tend to step up to the plate in terms of taking charge of organizing whatever it is we're doing, and I rather enjoy it. It got me thinking about just what makes a good leader. I've boiled it down to three basic traits, which I present for your edification:

Humility: A good leader has to understand that a) he's not fundamentally better than anyone else; and b) that he doesn't know everything about everything. A humble leader doesn't put his own petty desires before the common good, nor does he dismiss a good idea simply because he didn't think of it first. He accepts that he can be wrong, and views mistakes as opportunities, not humiliations.

Decisiveness: Nothing destroys your followers' confidence faster than the appearance of weakness. A good leader has to know when to cajole and seek consensus, it's true, but he also has to know when to draw the line and stand alone. With leaders as with immortals, there can be only one, and he/she has to be willing to make the tough calls and then stick with 'em.

Vision: If humility is the road and decisiveness the car, vision is the map that tells you where you need to drive. Without vision, a leader is more a manager, which is useful but not the person you want in the big chair.

Of course, there are a multitude of other desirable qualities: honesty, intelligence, fairness, and a host of others. However, I think that the three I have named are absolutely indispensible.

Telepathy? No!

I was watching some Babylon 5 last night, and it occurred to me that being a telepath would suck. Yeah, yeah, I know telepathy gives you an advantage, but the things people do are pretty darn annoying without knowing the motivations behind them. You might be thinking, "Well, you could simply choose not to read minds except in special circumstances." Could you really? Given the power to know what people are thinking about you or anyone else, can you honestly say you wouldn't use it more often than you think? I sure can't. The temptation would just be too great to ignore.

Now, if we're talking about superpowers, here are a few I'd choose over telepathy.

Hair command. Think about it: Your hair does whatever you want. It can be long one day and short the next, red on alternate Wednesdays, and completely immune to the deleterious effects of wind, rain, and hats. You could also make it move around on its own ala Medusa, except without the snakey goodness.

Traffic light power. You could make every traffic light in your path turn green, thus expediting your journeys. Of course, you'd have to remember to make them red for the cross-traffic, or else you'd be the shortest-lived superhero ever.

X-ray vision. You're thinking, "Wow! You could learn government secrets and help the police find lost children!" Screw that. I'd just hang out at Penn near the athletic fields when the men's soccer team comes out to practice. Oh yeah.

Inaudibility: No, this isn't making yourself un-hearable so you can become a master cat-burglar. This is making other people completely silent, forever ending your worries about small children at restaurants and cell-phone boobs in movie theatres.

Telebrowsing: With this modem of the mind, you could Google your heart out all without lifting a finger or touching a keyboard, or alerting your boss that you're wasting time blogging when you should be working. (Ahem) You could even give yourself a neat name like Modemo.

Telepathy? Bah! And I don't even want to know what you think about that.

Happy Things I Think About

I think about these things alot more now that my job is going south fast. Here they are:

Getting my orange belt: I earned this when I was fourteen, skinny, with little self-esteem and even less confidence. At the test, I defeated my sparring partner easily, which was my first real taste of accomplishment. By the way, the martial arts form was Tang Soo Do.

Winning the Spirit Award: Back in 1998, the gay and lesbian Ultimate group I was with participated in a charity tournament one fine autumn day, and we bombed. We knew nothing, nothing, about the game, and I think we scored two points in three games. (That's a total.) Still, we had a fabulous time, and the other teams in the division voted us the Spirit Winners. Maybe they felt sorry for us, but I like to think it was because, despite our obvious ineptitude and crushing defeat, we never stopped smiling.

My Lambda nomination: Every year, the Philadelphia Gay News runs the Lambda Awards, to recognize outstanding service in the LGBT community, and in 2000 I was nominated for Outstanding Sportsman. I will never forget my surprise and delight when I received that phone call. There was an awards ceremony and everything, at which I lost by a landslide, but I discovered that what they say at the Oscars is true: The honor really is in the nomination.

New York on my birthday: Some years ago, my friend Jack and I went to New York City on my birthday, and we had a blast. It was one of those crisp, clear, warm autumn days you remember forever, and my memories of the trip are just as vivid. We hung out at Washington Square Park with the NYU students and the druggies, took the ferry around the harbor, and even went to the top of the World Trade Center. I will never forget the absolute stillness, and the way the city spread out around us. When I heard about the terrorist attack in September 2001, my mind leapt first to that visit, and Jack said his did, too. New York isn't the same without the WTC.

Writing this down has made me feel alot better, but I'll cut it off here. I should save some of these memories for tomorrow.