Jeremy Ryan of the blog, New Homo Blogo, just left a comment alerting me to the fact that Dr. Andrew Neighbors’s, who I featured in a January 2020 blog post, “The Eyes Have It,” dog Arbor is missing.  If you are in the Tacoma Washington Area, and spot the dog, please message Andrew via his Instagram account @andrewgoesplaces. To see Jeremy’s post about Andrew’s missing dog, go to LOST DOG – Tacoma WA Area. Andrew seems to be a very sweet man, and if you have watched any of his YouTube videos, you know how much he loves his dog Arbor. I don’t know how many people in Tacoma, Washington who read my blog, but if there are any, I hope you will be on the lookout for Arbor.

I don’t usually post pictures of dogs on my blog, as I am very much a cat person, but I will make an exceptions here:

UPDATE – Arbor has been found! Andrew is out of town seeing patients, but Arbor is safe with a neighbor.

Today begins my four-day weekend holiday. It was actually a five-day weekend if you count yesterday which I also had off, but because I had a headache most of yesterday, I’m not counting it. I slept in a bit more than usual today, but not as long as I’d have liked. Today may be one of those days when I take a nap in the afternoon. Anyway, I hope all of you are doing great. Have a wonderful weekend!

For the past several months, when I have gone to my local pharmacy, I’ve noticed that they hired a new pharmacy tech. Most of the people who work at the pharmacy are women, including the two pharmacists, but they recently hired a male pharmacist and a new male pharmacy tech. The new tech is very cute. I’ve seen him around town a few times, and it always takes me a minute to remember where I know him from. I doubt that will be a problem after yesterday. So, my two scenarios start the same way. I went into the pharmacy to get some prescription refills. The new pharmacy tech got my prescriptions and checked me out at the register. When he got to the register, he said, “I see you every morning at Cumby’s.” (Cumby’s=Cumberland Farms convenience store.) I saw him in there Tuesday morning getting coffee as I was getting an iced coffee before going into the museum. I may have seen him in there once before, but I rarely go to Cumby’s in the morning. It’s the opposite way of the university. Then we had a short conversation about seeing each other out and about and what the weather was like outside. While everyone at the pharmacy is very nice, some are more talkative than others. He has never been particularly chatty to customers and is generally busy filling pill bottles. So, it was not only unusual for him to wait on me, but that he was so talkative. So, which scenario do you think is correct?

Scenario #1

Guys generally don’t flirt with me a lot, but he was more than a little flirty yesterday. You really can’t tell when someone has on a mask, but you can tell a lot about someone’s eyes. He seemed a little excited, so I am wondering was he flirting. Should I go by Cumby’s a few mornings to see if he flirts more there? Maybe I just have an overactive (and hopeful) imagination.

Scenario #2

He was just being nice. He saw me the day before, and now I was in the pharmacy, so he may have just been making conversation. This pharmacy has always been very friendly, so I don’t think they’d have hired someone who was not pleasant with the customers. So, maybe he was just being nice, but he’s never really paid any attention to me before yesterday. He seems to have noticed me at Cumby’s, so who knows?

How would you take it? Would you do anything? Maybe I am just deluding myself into thinking he was being anything more than just nice. It’s a small town. People see each other around town all the time. Besides, he’s probably out of my league and too young. He looks to be in his late twenties.

P.S. This post is all in fun. While this did happen, I don’t really think there is a possibility he was flirting with me. I think he was just being friendly to a customer, but it’s nice to daydream occasionally.

As I said on Monday, I hate the heat. Vermont can get hot and humid in the summer. Vermont has warm and humid summers with average high temperatures of 75°F to 82°F in the peak of July. In contrast, Alabama summers have average high temperatures above 90°F and are among the hottest in the United States. Mississippi was just as hot and humid. Vermont usually only has a few days each year when the heat and humidity can be oppressive. Most people here don’t have air conditioners. I tried to live without an air conditioner for the first few years I lived here, but I just couldn’t take it. During those years without an air conditioner, I’d go to the museum, which is air conditioned and climate controlled, on the most oppressive of days. However, for the most part, I like the weather in Vermont. Yes, the winters can be brutal. Vermont winters are extremely cold and snowy, with average low temperatures during January from 2°F to 12°F range across the different regions in the state.

However, once the temperature rises above 60 degrees, the shorts come out and the shirts are put away, at least for men anyway. Technically, Vermont has no public nudity laws. We have public indecency laws, but no prohibition on public nudity. What this means is that anyone can be naked in public as long as they leave their house naked. If they undress once they leave their house, then it is considered public indecency. Vermont is an interesting state at times. In the last few weeks, we have had a warming of temperatures, and today, we are actually expected to be in the low 80s. This means we are likely to see a lot of skin. With the students mostly gone at my university, we won’t see a lot of shirtless guys here, but you will in Burlington.

The other day, I was in Burlington doing some shopping up there, when I saw a guy outside the grocery store unchaining his bike. He must have taken his shirt off as soon as he walked out of the store. He was a cute young blond guy. I didn’t get a good look at him at first, but once he got on his bike you could tell just how fit he was: nice chest, flat stomach, and broad shoulders. I had noticed the nice butt on him earlier. While I don’t often see shirtless guys on bikes in Vermont, I do often see shirtless guys out running. It’s always a welcomed sight. However, I read an article in GQ Fitness recently where the author said, “I’ve come to believe that, in most cases, running shirtless does look ridiculous. It’s an exercise in vanity, a sin against the unwitting bystanders who emphatically don’t need to see that.” My thought was, “Speak for yourself.” As long as the guy is in moderately good shape and doesn’t have a body like mine, I have no problem seeing him shirtless. In fact, it’s a very welcomed sight.

The article went on to give some guidelines for when to go shirtless and when not:

• Do wear a shirt if you’re running in a major American city with sidewalks where other, normal people are apt to brush against your slippery naked torso.
• Don’t wear a shirt if you’re in a place with population density ranging from “suburban bedroom community” to “more corn stalks than people.”
• Do wear a shirt if you’re at the gym, please. In fact, your gym should not even allow shirtless exercise. If everyone in a sweaty room is walking around topless, that room stretches the definition of “gym.”
• Don’t wear a shirt if you’re training for a Tough Mudder in the backwoods. You are clearly already insane and disinterested in hygiene. For you, wearing a shirt is just putting on airs. Don’t bother.
• Do wear a shirt if you commute to work by running. Obviously. And even then, we have to ask: Who exactly commutes to work by running? Do you people have showers in your offices? Isn’t that weird?
• Don’t wear a shirt if you’re at your local track. Anyone else committed enough to running to actually be at a track won’t mind if you’re shirtless. They’re probably shirtless, too.
• Do wear a shirt if you have a chest tattoo. We know you see this as your big opportunity to show it off to the world, but it’s cooler to be like Kevin Durant and keep the goods hidden most of the time.
• Don’t wear a shirt if you are—or physically resemble—Matthew McConaughey.

I wholeheartedly agree with the last statement. I’ve always found Matthew McConaughey to be very hot. While most people might name Magic Mike as a prime example, I have to say that McConaughey in A Time to Kill has been a particular fantasy of mine for the past twenty-five years.

There are a few drawbacks to the return of warmer weather. I will soon have to reinstall my air conditioner. That’s always a chore. It’s a window unit, so it’s quite heavy. Also, with the return of warmer days, we always have a large number of motorcyclists riding up and down the road. I have nothing against all motorcyclists, but I hate hearing the really loud engines that drown out the sound of my television even though I’m inside. I also have a problem with them blasting their radios. Not everyone wants to hear their (usually) crappy music. They make helmets with Bluetooth earphones, so it really bothers me that we either don’t have noise ordinances or no one enforces them.

Even with the drawbacks, I love this time of year in Vermont. There is something so incredibly sexy about seeing a hot guy shirtless, and I enjoy hearing the birds singing their songs and seeing the flowers and trees in bloom. Most people only consider the beauty of fall foliage in Vermont, but springtime, however short, can be just as beautiful.

I got a new phone yesterday. Mine was an iPhone 8 and has been running slowly for the past couple of months. The battery has also not been lasting as long as it should have. It was time to get a new one. Verizon sent me an offer that was too good to turn down, and so I bought an iPhone 12 mini. I didn’t want a phone larger than the one I already had, so I got the mini. I know there are other features on the iPhone 12 and iPhone 12 Max, but I really don’t need those things. So, I bought it online and decided to pick it up from the Verizon Store in Burlington. After I got off work, I headed up to Burlington to get my phone and run a few errands. 

One of the errands was to find some good English muffins. I ate an English muffin made by the Vermont Bread Company every morning. They really were the best. I’ve been trying to find English muffins to replace them because last week, the Vermont Bread Company abruptly closed along with its parent company Koffee Kup Bakery. The two bakeries had been bought out at the beginning of April by an acquisition company that claimed they were going to expand the bakeries. Then after owning the bakeries for a few weeks, they closed them and told the employees as they came to work last Monday that they were out of a job. So far, every Engish muffin I have tried is terribly inferior to the Vermont Bread Company English muffins. The search continues.

I really just don’t have anything to say today. I hope everyone has a good weekend. Thank goodness it’s Friday.

Dating apps, and really they are just hookup apps, suck! When you live in an area with very few gay people and no gay bars (not that any would be open right now anyway), dating apps are one of the few things to turn to in order to meet someone. Sadly, there seem to be only a few types of guys on these apps. There are the men who only want a hookup (most often they can’t host because they are cheating on someone), and all that ever happens with these guys is a suck and fuck and go, never to be heard from again. 

The one-night stand guys are bad enough, but then there are the scammers/catfishes. These guys are usually some guy at a computer in Africa, and they “fall in love” very quickly. They seem very sweet, but most often, their grammar is terrible. Some claim to be in the U.S. Army, often serving in Iraq or Afghanistan. Others just live a thousand or so miles from you. They love to send pictures, which you can often reverse image search and find who they are really of, but some even make fake social media profiles using those pics to try to deceive you further and cover their trail. Eventually, they slip up, or they begin to ask for money. Whatever it is, they seem to fall in love with you very quickly declaring that you are his soul mate. I hate these people.

Then, there are the cheaters who are in a relationship with a girlfriend, boyfriend, wife, or husband. They may not be just a one-night stand, though often they are. If they are with a woman, they are often bisexual or gay and in the closet. Years ago, back in Mississippi, I hooked up with a teacher. He kept talking about his kids the whole time. I thought he was talking about his students, as I always referred to my students as “my kids.” Then, mid blowjob, he mentioned his wife. It did not register with me at first. Honestly, I didn’t fully understand that’s what he said until we had finished, and he was leaving. I could be a bit naïve at times. That is the only time, to my knowledge, that I have ever hooked up with someone who was married. It was almost all worth it to run into him with his wife in Walgreens. The horror on his face was all the revenge I needed. I didn’t even act like I knew him, but it was obvious he recognized me. He hurriedly left the store with his wife.

Of course, there will always be the teasers. They want to lead you on. They get off on flirting and dirty talk, but they have no intention of ever meeting. This can be fun but also frustrating. You’re constantly led on, but nothing more ever happens. The worst is when they agree to meet and either cancel last minute or never show up. I’ve had this happen before too. We have probably all had this happen. Either they lose their nerve and never even go to meet you, or they get there, see you and turn around and leave.

In a small area, like where I live, you have another type, the ones who are always on the apps. You log on, and it’s the same guys over and over. You recognize all of them, and you know they are not compatible for one reason or another. Either they only want a very masculine guy, they want someone younger, older, or the same age, or they want a particular body type. I understand having a type, but jeez, give a guy a chance. You might find that you have more in common than you think. Even if it’s not going to be romantic, you could still be friends. Some guys will never give someone who doesn’t meet their ideal a chance.

Sadly, so few of the guys on these apps are looking for friends or a relationship. I have tried dating apps numerous times. On only three or four occasions have I met someone who wanted a relationship. For one reason or another, none of them ever worked out. Recently, I have tried the dating apps again, but it’s the same old shit. It’s all horndogs, scammers, cheaters, or teasers. Maybe some of the guys I’ve chatted with on these apps will turn out to be something, but I am not going to be overly optimistic. Honestly, is it too much to ask for a coffee date or to go out to dinner? I’d even be willing to go for a hike or something just to get to know a guy and meet him a few times before we jump into bed together. Is that so hard? I guess my title should have been, “Grindrs and Tinders and Growlrs, Oh Well!” It’s always worth a try.

P.S. I know we are in a pandemic, and options are limited until both parties are vaccinated, but this has been an issue for as long as meeting someone on the internet has been around.

 I’ll be honest. I was feeling incredibly lazy yesterday. I ran a quick errand to get a few things at the grocery store, but otherwise, I mostly just spent a lazy day watching TV. When it came time to write a post for today, I continued to be lazy. I hope all of you had a wonderful weekend, and that we will all have a great week ahead.