Monthly Archives: December 2021
Moment of Zen: Books
I love books. I have hundreds of them back in Alabama, but I was never able to bring all of my books to Vermont. I used to devour several books a week, but my headaches make it harder for me to concentrate on reading, so I often just listen to audiobooks. It looks like this guy is getting ready to travel somewhere since he’s reaching for a suitcase. The great thing about books is that you can travel through the written word to far flung places. Books can take you to the most wonderful cities, the most remote places on earth, or even into space.
Sleep
Wednesday night, I had a new sleep study done. This time, instead of a home sleep study, I had to go down to New Hampshire for an in-clinic sleep study. The in-clinic sleep studies are more accurate. When I did the home sleep study, my sleep apnea was pretty severe, but with weight loss, I was hoping to improve enough to qualify for the Inspire implant that treats sleep apnea instead of wearing a CPAP every night. Because of the nerve damage that resulted in me having trigeminal neuralgia, it is very difficult and painful to wear the CPAP at night.
To qualify for the Inspire therapy, you have to prove that the you cannot use the CPAP, which was difficult to convince the Sleep Clinic of in the first place. I had to get my neurologist from the Headache Clinic to contact them. Finally, the Sleep Clinic understood the pain the CPAP caused and ordered a new sleep study to see if my sleep apnea had improved enough to qualify for the Inspire therapy. It had to improve enough to be considered moderate sleep apnea not severe.
Have any of you ever had a sleep study? The home sleep study was bad enough. It involved straps around my abdomen and chest, an oxygen tube in my nose, and a small machine strapped to me. However, at least I was able to sleep in my own bed. The in-clinic sleep study was much more elaborate. I was hooked up to about a dozen electrodes from my calves to the top of my head, tight straps around my abdomen and chest, and a censor in my nose that was taped to my face. In addition, the bed was very firm, which I hate, I had a camera on me all night long with people watching me, and only two flat pillows under my head.
I was able to sleep fitfully through the night, but it was not a restful night of sleep, not because of the sleep apnea as much as the very uncomfortable situation and bed. The woman administering the test was very nice. We chatted for quite a bit as she hooked me up to the equipment and then as she unhooked me in the morning. When I looked in the mirror I had red marks and goo all over my face and in my hair. The sleep study is now over, and I have to wait a week to see what the results will be. The whole thing is very anxiety inducing.
I asked the woman who administered the test if she could tell me anything about the results, but she couldn’t. She knows the answer but can’t tell me because only a doctor is allowed to do that because it would be giving a diagnosis. All she could tell me was that my test went pretty flawlessly. I slept on my back and side like they wanted, I reached REM sleep, and I slept the required length of time. I suspect by the way she discussed things with me (her tone and actions), my sleep apnea is still too severe to qualify for Inspire, but I won’t know for sure until I hear from the doctor about the results. Wish me luck, but I refuse to be optimistic. I don’t want to get my hopes up, just in case they are dashed after the results.
Delusions of Heterosexuality
When I was a teenager, it was inconceivable to me that I was gay. It took me being in college and reading some books, seeing some gay porn, and eventually exploring the internet before I realized that: Yes, I am gay. When I look back now, it seems crazy that I did not know I was gay. I had “crushes” on guys. I admired good looking guys. Hell, I even masturbated to guys at night when I was alone in my bedroom. How did I not realize I was gay when I only really fantasized and dreamed about guys? It was never women. I dated girls and even had sex with a few, but it was guys that I to whom I felt any kind of attraction.
Looking back, I bought fitness magazines and International Male catalogs. I told myself that I wanted to look like those guys. I wanted to have their physiques, even though I never have achieved that. I still told myself that I admired their bodies, but that I wasn’t attracted to them. Even with the guys I had fantasies about (and thought about being naked with them and doing sexual things with them), it never occurred to me that I might want a boyfriend or that I was gay. No, I told myself that I liked the way they looked, and I wanted to look like them.
Obviously, I was deluding myself because I was always taught that the worst thing to be was a “faggot.” That’s how the bullies tortured me. They called me a “faggot,” “fag,” or “sissy.” I was so scared I was one, that I could not let myself believe that I was one. I was taught it was something wrong and dirty. God, how they fucked us up!
Anyway, I’m curious. For those of you who did not come out early in life, who came out in college or later, what did you tell yourself about your attraction to guys? How did you justify to yourself that you were “straight” yet had an attraction to guys? I was so far in denial that I deluded myself into thinking it was just the admiration for guy’s physiques. What was your reasoning?
Sweatpants
Autumn means different things to different people. For some, it’s a crisp chill in the air, cutting through summer’s humidity. Even in Vermont we have a lot of humidity. I did not escape it when I moved from Alabama, but it’s still not as bad. For others it’s the abhorrent cinnamon sweetness of a Starbucks Pumpkin Spice Latte. Here in Vermont and much of New England, it’s the dreaded season for “leaf peeping” when tourists crowd our roads stopping at random places to take pictures of the leaves. It can actually be quite dangerous because the “leaf peepers” will stop anywhere even if they are blocking traffic. They don’t seem to care. And yet, for a shockingly large number of people, especially gay men, fall, and it continues into winter, is also the time of year for a very specific, very horny delight: gray sweatpants, and the outline of the wearer’s dick they can showcase.
It’s what is lovingly referred to on social media as Gray Sweatpants Season. For the uninitiated, this is the time when the climate finally mellows enough for men to pull those bottoms out from the back of their pajama drawer. Once an innocuous casual pant option, in recent years it’s become linguistic shorthand for the type of person who much prefers peeping peen over the kaleidoscopic colors of autumnal foliage. For those not in the loop, Gray Sweatpants Season is definitely a thing. It has not one but four dick-centric definitions at Urban Dictionary. “Just a Bunch of Hot Guys in Sweatpants to Warm You Up,” reads a headline from Elle magazine. It’s been fetishized to the point that there is a gay porn site called GuysInSweatpants.com.
It’s a titillation unique to our post-athleisure, post–Casual Friday era, where workout clothes are no longer relegated to gyms, but worn proudly in public. Gray Sweatpants Season also speaks to the fact that social media has lifted the curtain on the ways that sex is no longer just an activity for getting off but getting likes and shares, all you need to do is check out Instagram or TikTok to see this trend on full display. According to Twitter’s own statistics, since 2015 there have been more than 1.5 million tweets about Grey Sweatpants Season. According to its data, the conversation peaked in 2016—though, anecdotally, that conversation may have just migrated to platforms like Instagram and TikTok in recent years. But how—and, more importantly, why—did we get here? Why are grey sweats, of all articles of clothing, the unofficial symbol of fall horniness? The most obvious answer is because you can see the outline of the penis in sweatpants, especially gray sweatpants. Other colored sweatpants often hide the visible penis lines (aka VPL in gay slang). Their greatest appeal may be their sexiness is unexpected.
Some people enjoy being exhibitionists while other enjoy being the voyeur. Those who like to show off in their sweatpants gets the plausible deniability that they’re “not showing off.” You see this trend on TikTok a lot. Guys are able to basically tout their OnlyFans site without showing any actual nudity. For those who enjoy watching guys in gray sweatpants, they get the thrill of witnessing something, like a dick, that they’re not supposed to be seeing. People have always fetishized tight clothing. In the Renaissance era, men wore cod pieces. Initially, the item of clothing was meant for modesty, but it became a way for men to advertise their attributes to others signifying their sexual prowess. Henry VIII was apparently famous for his rather large cod pieces.
Sweats, rightfully, have gotten a bad wrap for being shlumpy clothes you wear when you’ve given up and just don’t care. However, there can be something sexy about a guy in sweats. Even if they aren’t gray, it can show off a guy’s assets really well form behind. Sweatpants, which have a current trend of being worn too tight, hug a guy’s backside in a way that accentuates the roundness of their butt. Trust me, as sweatpants season hits, and it gets closer to the end of the semester, guys have a propensity to wear sweatpants around campus more and more when heading to class. Every morning when I open the museum, I see guys heading to class wearing sweatpants that accentuate their butts. It would be one thing if it was always the same guy, but it’s usually different guys. I work on a campus that, if it isn’t, should be well-known for their guys’ butts. They are in great shape and when in uniform, the pants really accentuate the roundness of their behinds.
To add to the sexiness of sweatpants, there’s this very I-just-got-out-of-bed-and-threw-it-on sort of thing that says, “I’m tired of this semester. I want it to be over and done.” The supposed effortless sexuality of sweatpants is part of the appeal. Guys often seem to just pull them on without wearing underwear. I’ll be honest, when I am wearing sweats around the house, I’m not going to wear underwear under them, though I probably would if I went out in public, but young guys don’t often think much about modesty, especially on a college campus. They want to show what they have usually in an effort to get laid. College students are not just here for an education, they are also in college to broaden their horizons and experiment, often that includes sex as well. The more you can do to look attractive, the more you’ll get laid. All you have to witness is guys coming from the gym when the weather is warmer. Their clothing is skimpier and skimpier. When the weather is cooler, the sweatpants come out, and they have a new way to “accentuate the positive.”
The Fateful Day
The Fateful Day
By Fremont “Cap” Sawade
‘Twas the day before that fateful day,
December Sixth I think they say.
When leave trucks passed Pearl Harbor clear
The service men perched in the rear.
No thought gave they, of things to come.
For them, that day, all work was done.
In waters quiet of Pearl Harbor Bay,
The ships serene, at anchor lay.
Nor did we give the slightest thought
Of treacherous deeds by the yellow lot.
Those men whose very acts of treason,
Are done with neither rhyme nor reason.
For if we knew what was in store
We ne’re would leave that day before.
For fun and drink to forget the war
Of Britain, Europe, and Singapore.
For all of us there was no fear
This time of peace and Christmas cheer.
Forget the axiom, might is right,
Guardians of Peace, were we that night.
We passed the sailors in cabs galore,
Those men in white who came ashore.
But some will ne’re be seen again,
In care-free fun, those sailor men.
The Sabbath Day dawned bright and clear,
A brand of fire ore the lofty spear,
Of Diamond Head, Hawaii’s own.
A picture itself that can’t be shown,
Unless observed with naked eye,
That makes one look, and stop, and sigh.
What more could lowly humans ask
To start upon their daily task.
The men asleep in barracks late,
Knew no war, that morn at eight.
The planes on fields, their motors cold,
Like sheep asleep among the fold.
The ships at anchor with turbines stilled,
Their crews below in hammocks filled.
And faint, as tho it were a dream,
A sound steels on upon this scene.
A drone of many red tipped things,
The Rising Sun upon their wings.
Those who saw would not believe,
And those that heard could not conceive.
A single shocking, thundering roar,
Followed by another and many more.
To rob the sleep from weary eyes,
Or close forever those that died.
A hot machine gun’s chattering rattle,
Mowed men down like herds of cattle.
A bomb destroys an air plane hangar,
The planes within will fly no more.
Bombs explode upon a ship,
Blasting men into the deep,
To sink without the slightest thought
Of what brought on this hell they caught.
What seems like years, the horrible remains,
Blasting men and ships and planes.
And just as quick as they had come,
Away they went, their foul deeds done.
To leave the burning wreckage here,
The scorching hulks of dead ships there.
And blasted forms of dying men,
Alive in hell, to die again.
At night the skies were all but clear,
The rosy glow of a white hot bier,
Showed on clouds the havoc wrought,
And greedy flames the men still fought.
But from the ruins arose this cry,
That night from those who did not die,
“Beware Japan we’ll take eleven,
For every death of December Seven.”
And from that day there has arisen,
A cry for vengeance, in storms they’re driven.
This fateful day among the ages,
Shall stand out red in Hist’rys pages.
Those men whom homefolk held so dear,
Will be avenged, have no fear.
And if their lives they gave in vain,
Pray, I too, may not remain.
About the Poet and the Poem
Fremont “Cap” Sawade, who passed away at age 94 in 2016, wrote this the poem right after Pearl Harbor. Sawade was assigned to an Army anti-aircraft regiment in Honolulu on liberty, having breakfast the morning of the attack on Pearl Harbor eighty years ago today. Loud explosions sent him racing to his base in a cab. He could see the Japanese planes flying low, dropping bombs, and strafing battleships with machine gun fire. Back at Camp Malakole, Sawade ducked for cover when the Japanese Zeros strafed it. The attack caught the Americans completely off guard. Sawade said his unit didn’t even have ammunition for their big guns.
Two days later, with the wreckage of the Pacific Fleet still smoking, he sat at a desk at Hickam Field and started writing a poem. He’d never written one before. He hasn’t written one since. But over the next week, this one flowed out of him. He called it “The Fateful Day.” It captures how idyllic life was, before the attack. How lucky the service members felt to wake up every day with a view of Diamond Head. The poem captures their surprise, and then their anger at the Japanese, including a slur that was common then, offensive now. It captures the horror — “A hot machine gun’s chattering rattle/Mowed men down like herds of cattle” — and the raw thirst for vengeance.
He came home from the war to his native San Diego, worked a variety of jobs, including 10 years as a building inspector for the city of El Cajon. He got married, raised a family, and lived in Rancho Bernardo with his wife, Gloria. Over the years, he showed the poem to a few friends. He shared it a time or two in military newsletters. But the truth is he never thought it was anything special. However, today, nearly 80 years after he wrote it, it serves as a primary source for the thoughts of the men who lived through the attack on Pearl Harbor that fateful Sunday morning.
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The Closet Professor 