Today should be an easy day. I only have to work a half day, and then, I will be finished with work for the week. The weather is supposed to be better today as well. Yesterday, we had rain, freezing rain, snow, and graupel throughout the day. It was cold, nasty, and windy. Today, we should actually see some sun. The temperatures will be about the same, just above freezing. Tomorrow is not supposed to be a good weather day. We are expecting 4-5” of snow.
It’s going to be a very lowkey Thanksgiving tomorrow. I canceled my plans for tomorrow. With the weather we are expecting tomorrow and the fact that I am just not in the mood, I decided not to go to the trouble. I will cook some turkey and some cornbread dressing, but I don’t know what else I will have. I also plan to make some turkey and wild rice soup. I plan to come straight home from work today and not leave my apartment until Saturday or Sunday.
It’s Monday morning, and as usual, I wish I was still in bed. Isabella let me sleep until a little after 5 am, but I did not want to get up to feed her. However, I did get up to feed her and to fix my own breakfast. It should be an easy day at work today. I will be the only person there. My coworkers are taking vacations today, one all week and the other possibly the whole week. We will only be open today, Tuesday, and half a day on Wednesday. The student’s on campus are gone for Thanksgiving, so that means we won’t have any student workers this week either. I doubt we will even have any visitors, although one or two might trickle in. Hopefully, it will be a quiet week. With that being said, I wish that I too had the whole week off and could just stay at home and go back to bed.
As long as I am feeling well and get up the courage to actually do it, I plan to go out tonight and have a little fun. Since 2007, there has been a get together of gay men once a month called Burly Bears in Burlington. It’s basically a dance party at one of the bars. Burlington has LGBTQ+ events in a regular basis, and they are becoming more common in Vermont outside of Burlington as well. Most of that is centered on drag, which I love, and geared towards the LGBTQ+ community, which is great in itself. However, as far as for events geared towards GBTQ+ men, Burly Bears is the only thing out there in Vermont. Don’t get me wrong, inclusivity is great, but I also think there is a time when GBTQ+ men want to be surrounded but other men and not also surrounded by lesbians, which outnumber the GBTQ+ men in Vermont, at least 2 to 1.
I haven’t been in a long while and I would love to go to the Burly Bears event tonight. I just get nervous and, you might even say, cowardly about going alone to an event like this. I can be a very shy, nervous, and awkward person. When I host guests at the museum, give tours, or teach classes, I am not particularly shy or nervous, though I am probably still a little awkward. I am always afraid when going to events like the Burly Bears that I won’t get up the courage to talk to anyone and no one will come up and talk to me. I know I probably sound stupid about this, and I should just get over myself. I am not the most confident person most of the time, and, let’s face it, gay men can be a little cliquish, especially gay men in Burlington, Vermont. The city of Burlington tends to separate itself from the rest of the state. Anyway, tonight the theme for Burly Bears is the annual Black Party. As described on Facebook: “In the spirit of New York, Miami, and Montreal: It’s our Burly Bear Black Party! Pull out those black shirts, shorts, and Ts! Get those leather vests, jocks, pup masks, boots, and harnesses out.” Wearing all black is not an issue for me. I have a lot of black clothes in my wardrobe, so that’s easy peasy. Putting myself out there is the difficult part. I have to admit, I loved black leather and that whole part of the gay culture, though I have never ventured much into it myself. I just need to make myself go, because I know once I am there, I’ll be ok, and if I’m not, I can always leave. There’s only a $5 cover charge and all proceeds go to Outright VT, so if I just go and leave, it’ll only cost me $5 that will go to a good cause anyway. Once I’m there though, I’ll get a drink and, hopefully, have a good time. If nothing else, they always have hot bartenders working at these events, and who doesn’t love a sexy, flirty bartender?
If you will, send some encouraging energy my way, because I really would like to get out more, be more of a part of the LGBTQ+ community in Vermont, and meet some new people.
Luckily, I don’t have to work today. I have an appointment up near Burlington at noon, so if I went to work today, I’d have to leave around 11 am and would not be back until before 2 pm. It just wouldn’t be worth it.
Besides, while I am in the Burlington area, I have a few errands I need to run. One of those errands a is to run by a grocery store. (The other is to have lunch at a Mexican restaurant I enjoy.) I had planned yesterday to try a new soup recipe, but I realized it called for three cans of cannellini beans, and I had only gotten one. It’s definitely soup weather, and I love a good soup. The soup is a Creamy White Bean and Kale soup. The soup has two of my favorite things in a soup, beans and kale. I usually only buy kale when I am going to make Zuppa Tuscano, but this recipe looked pretty good, even if it is vegan, although I think the addition of ham, or even Italian sausage, in this soup might be pretty good. I haven’t decided if I will modify the recipe with a little ham or not; I’ll see what my mood is when I’m making the soup. The recipe says it’s for four people, but that sounds like a lot of soup for just me, so I may half or at least third the recipe. Anyway, this soup is what I plan to make for dinner tonight.
I love trying new soups. Sometimes, they are really good and I can’t get enough of them, and sometimes, they fall flat. Do you have a favorite go to receive for when the weather cools down in fall and winter? If so, let me know. I may want to try it.
This morning, my bed is calling me back to it. I would love nothing more than to just crawl back into my bed with its warm blankets and go back to sleep. If I did not have a class to teach this afternoon, I would call in sick with a migraine; however, instead, I took some medicine for the headache I woke up with this morning. I am hoping it will improve before I have to leave for work. Maybe after I have some breakfast and take a shower, I will feel more energized, but right now, my energy level is low.
At least, it’s Friday and tomorrow, I can go back to bed after feeding Isabella. I can do the same on Sunday and Monday, too. On Monday, I have a medical appointment at noon, and since it is up in Burlington, I am taking the whole day off. I need an extra day out of the office. Nothing bad has really happened, but work has been putting me in a bad mood this week. There are reasons for my grumpy mood, but I just need to get over it and go about my day.
It’s been a slow work week because there hasn’t been a lot for me to do. Today though will probably be different. I have several tasks that I need to complete today. I have two tours to do today and a class to prepare for tomorrow. I had my work from home day yesterday because I have to be at the museum tomorrow, my usual work from home day, to teach said class. I would rather stay home and crawl back into my bed, but alas, I have to go to work.
I’m about to start getting ready for my day. I have conference stuff this morning including a field trip to a museum, then we will hit the road to head home. I can’t wait to see Isabella. She’ll probably spend the first hour telling me how displeased she was that I was gone and how happy she is that I am back. She’ll demand attention and lots of petting. I can’t wait. I love that little girl. It’s going to be a long day. It’s been a long week with a lot of disappointment, but the week is almost over. I’ll be back home soon, but for now, I need to take a shower and get ready for my day.
Even with the disappointment I know we have all felt this week, try and have a wonderful weekend! I’m taking a friend car shopping tomorrow, and it will be so nice spending the day with her.
I woke up this morning with a headache. I hope it will bet better as the day goes on because it is going to be a long day. I’m still at my conference and have sessions to attend this morning, then sightseeing this afternoon, and dinner with coworkers tonight. I may go back to bed for a while though. Have a good day everyone!
Today is going to be a busy day. I have a class to teach first thing this morning, then a meeting shortly afterwards about a class I will be teaching in the Spring, a going away party for a coworker who will be leaving our department for another across campus, and this afternoon, I have an appointment to be fitted for my hearing aids. Tomorrow, I have a luncheon for an organization that I am on their board. Sunday, the time changes as Daylight Savings Time ends, so don’t forget to set back your clocks. Then on Monday, I have a dentist appointment first thing. From Tuesday through Friday, I will be at a museum conference.
Halloween is one of the holidays I most enjoy. I don’t have trick or treaters where I live, but I used to at my previous apartment. I always enjoyed seeing the little kids in their costumes. As an adult, I’ve gone to my fair share of adult Halloween parties (and by that I do not mean it in an adult movie kind of way. I merely mean a Halloween party with all adults in attendance. I used to regularly visit a friend of mine who lived in Thibodaux, Louisiana, at Halloween. She always hosted a fun Halloween costume party. A few times we went out to bars in Thibodaux where everyone would be dressed in costumes. Thibodaux is a college town, so there were a lot of hot college guys, usually in sex costumes that were a lot of fun to watch. I haven’t been, nor am I going to any Halloween parties this year because I’ve had a lot of other stuff going on, and I did not want to have to find a costume. Still, I enjoy Halloween.
This guy seems to be preforming a trick that is also quite the treat.
Halloween is an institution in the LGBTQ+ community and is occasionally referred to as “Gay Christmas.” Halloween has risen from its roots as a pagan fire festival about celebrating harvest and warding off spirits, to a day of celebrating everything spooky, transgressive, and fabulous. Halloween though plays a special role in the LGBTQ+ community not only because it can be a lot of fun, but also because LGBTQ+ people spend large parts of their lives hiding their true selves and presenting in a way that is at odds with their desires and identity. Halloween’s emphasis on dressing up as something you are typically not ends up being a powerful outlet to present ourselves in a way that expresses who you really are.
Each year, my friend Susan send me a Halloween card. This year she sent two. The Hello Kitty cards are always cute no matter what occasion they are for, but I think they are especially cute when they are Halloween cards. The other card she sent looks a lot like Isabella. Black cats get a bad reputation for being bad luck, though they are not seen as bad luck all over the world, but it’s a persisting superstition in the United States. One of the joys of having a black cat is that I have a natural decoration for Halloween, especially when she stands in the window and stares out at people.
I did not have a picture of Isabella in the same pose as the cat on the card, but the look in her eyes is similar to those of the cat on the card.
However you think of black cats, my Isabella is a beautiful, kind, and loving cat who brings me a lot of joy and is most certainly not bad luck.
Joe
