Today is the beginning of a four-day weekend for me. So, I’m basically going to take the day off completely. Besides, I’ve written a lot already this week.
Category Archives: Miscellaneous
Pamper Party
My best friend, who live in Texas, roped me into a Mary Kay Pamper Party. I love my friend, and we’ve known each other for nearly twenty years, but I think she misjudged me when she signed me up for this. I never actually agreed to it, but she promised it would be fun. Boy was she wrong! The Mary Kay representative sent me the samples to use during the Party, and we signed onto Zoom to meet everyone. Luckily, I wasn’t the only man; my friend’s husband also participated.
I tried the moisturizers, sunscreens, and scrubs. I never could get the color correction cream opened, so I didn’t use it, even though the representative said I needed it for the redness in my face. What she failed to realize is that the redness was from the fucking creams she sent me. All of that was done only on the right side of my face; a charcoal mask went on the left side. The mask was yucky and itchy and really hard to get off of my face.
Once we got to the end (finally!), the Mary Kay representative asked me what products I liked best. Being polite, I didn’t tell her I hated them all, so I made up something about liking one of the moisturizers. At last, I was allowed to leave the “party.” I was hoping that would be the end of it, alas, it was not. The Mary Kay rep sent me a text asking me how I wanted to pay for the moisturizer. The nerve! I hadn’t said I’d buy anything. I decided I just had to be completely honest with her or she’d never leave me alone, so I wrote back, “ I’m not going to need any. To tell you the truth I have chronic migraines and the smell of the products is very strong and triggered one of my headache. Sorry. I just won’t be able to use it.”
I told my friend that I did not want to do the follow-up parties. There are supposed to be three in all, which I did not know beforehand. There was no way I was going to try and convince any of my friends up here into this. First of all, women in Vermont do not wear makeup, only my drag queen friends do. Second, my two friends who do wear makeup, they are from the South, would not be interested in this. I hated the whole experience and did not want to put anyone else through this, plus I found the Mary Kay rep a bit insulting. She told me my face was red and blotchy, I have a very nice tanned complexion. Furthermore, she called out two of the women for being old and needing special products. I’m sure that’s true, but hell, be a little more tactful.
After all was said and done, the smell really was giving me a headache. It was so strong and sweet. I’m gay, I like the smell of a man, not a woman. So I had to take a shower to wash the smell off of me. There was no way I was going to go to bed having to smell Mary Kay. Once I smelled like me again, my headache did abate a bit, and so I went to bed.
Wink, Wink
I’m wondering if anybody else reflexively winks when they see someone wink. Nearly all my life, at least in my memory, if I see someone wink at me, I instinctively wink back. When I was younger and had a fair number of straight male friends, they would often wink at me when there was a sort of inside joke, and I always winked back. I’ve never, to my knowledge, been able to control myself. When I see someone wink, even when it’s at a camera on TV or in a movie, I wink back. For me, it’s sort of like the yawn reflex. When I see someone else (or even an animal) yawn, I instinctively yawn. I know most people do. It’s a sneaky way to see if someone is paying attention to you. I have to say though, when a cute guy winks at me, my heart melts, and I go weak in the knees. I’m a sucker when it comes to a guy winking. Does anybody else wink when they are winked at? Or is it just me?
Leslie Jordan
https://www.instagram.com/p/B_5VdLPBsJq/?igshid=pu9pd2jgmsig
“Well shit…what are y’all doin’?”
Leslie Jordan has risen to Instagram fame with that phrase. He has gone viral on Instagram during the quarantine doing little videos of stories from his life. I have always been a fan of Leslie, and nearly every night before bed, I check out what videos he posted that day. He’s just a really talented and funny man.
Last night I watched My Trip Down the Pink Carpet. It was just what I expected. It was funny, sweet, and emotional. Some of the stories from his one man show he has repeated during his Instagram posts, but they are still funny. I realize that he might not be everyone’s taste in humor, but he just makes me laugh.
While I am no Hollywood star and I’m nowhere near as funny, there’s a lot that I identify with in Leslie. He grew up in East Tennessee, and I grew up in South Alabama. He was raised Southern Baptist; I was raised in the Church of Christ. We’ve both had our share of struggles accepting ourselves for who we are. This could describe thousands of gay men and women across the South, especially of my generation and the generation before. Even today, kids are scared to death to come out because our parents barber always accepting. Leslie has said that while his mother accepts him, she’s never understood him.
Leslie hasn’t lived a perfect life. He struggled for over thirty years with drugs and alcohol, but he’s been sober since 1997. However, I admire him so much. During the height of the AIDS crisis he volunteered for Project Angel Food. These days he works with The Trevor Project to help prevent LGBTQ suicides.
I hope you’ll check him out. He really does make me laugh.
Quarantine Update
I know this quarantine has been particularly bad for the extroverts out there, but I’m more of an introvert, so it hasn’t been as bad as it could have been for me. I can at least get out and go to the grocery store. I do miss the LGBT events that happen regularly in Burlington, but honestly, when I had to go alone, I was never fully comfortable at those things. So being a homebody isn’t the worst thing right now. However, with that being said, working from home is getting more and more difficult, especially having to document my day hourly. I never worked this hard at the museum. Yes, I do my job, and I mostly do it well, but my work is either feast or famine. I either have work that needs doing or I don’t, and when I don’t, I find other things to pass the time in my office (usually reading Facebook or news sites) or I go talk to my coworkers. If I documented everything I did when at the museum, there would be a lot of empty time on my work log.
On the news last night, one of the local news reporters said that while our “Stay Home, Stay Safe” order was set to expire on the 15th, it would undoubtedly get extended, thus even longer working at home. We had staff meetings Tuesday and Wednesday, and basically all they could tell us was that they don’t know anything. There are tentative plans on what we will do to phase in going back to work, but they don’t have the slightest idea what that timeframe will be. Even when we go back to work at the museum, we may not be able to open to the public for a couple of months. The largest museums in Vermont announced that they would not open at all this summer. They aren’t for sure when they will open back up. We are possibly in the same boat.
In the five phases of opening back up, Phase 1 is what we are doing now, which is a few essential people go into the office, but most are working completely from home. Phase 5, the final stage, is for when things return to normal, if that’s even possible. It surely isn’t possible until they have a vaccine, and who knows when that will happen. No matter what people in the government keep saying, vaccines take a long time to develop.
Honestly though, with no visitors allowed in the museum, how long will they justify continuing to employ us. We were told that the university’s provost has commented on what great work the museum is doing to keep a virtual presence during this time, so hopefully, that’s good news for us. The last time the university faced an economic downturn (the 2008 recession), the university did a 10 percent reduction, and we’ve been told to get ready for that. If they do a 10 percent cut across the board in employees and budgets, then I’m not sure where we will stand.
There’s just a lot of unanswered questions and a whole lot of speculation. Who knows what the future holds. To be continued…
Forgot
I may add more to this post later, but to be honest, I forgot to write a post last night. It was already really late when I realized I hadn’t written anything, so I just didn’t have time to come up with anything to write.
Strange Times
I have today off work. In fact, I have every Monday and Friday off work for the rest of the month of May. I had vacation time I had to take by June 1 or lose it. I’d have loved to have been off several days in a row and head up to Montreal for a few days, but of course, the borders aren’t open, so that’s no dice. You know, vacation days during a quarantine doesn’t mean a whole lot. I’m still at home, just me and Isabella, who might just be tired of me being home all the time. She was in a bad mood all afternoon yesterday. She bit and scratched me several times just out of the blue.
I did have something I’d needed to do today. I signed up for Pre-TSA, so I can go through security at the airport quicker. However, for the third time, they’ve canceled my appointment. I started this process back in January, and TSA gives you six months to go in for you background check and interview. Hopefully, I’ll get it taken care of before I have to reapply.
I’m really not complaining about the quarantine. I think it is absolutely necessary to keep, not just me safe, but all the people who are at high risk safe. I don’t mind doing my part to make that happen. Luckily, I’m in the fifth safest state right now. As our university president told us the other day, “Vermont is good at social distancing. We are spread out enough that we can’t make a crowd.” He was trying to make a joke, but honestly, with the exception of some LGBT events I’ve been to, people in Vermont never want to be too close to anyone anyway. So, I’ll stay at home and when I do have to go out, I’ll dutifully wear my mask, unlike the assholes in charge of this country.
Also, I’ve been watching two new streaming shows: Hollywood on Netflix and Upload on Amazon Prime. I’ve enjoyed both of them. I watched the whole season of Hollywood, and I’m halfway through Upload. I’d recommend either to anyone. Hollywood has a lot of gay storylines, and Upload is futuristic sci-fi. If either of those sounds interesting, watch them.
Ok, enough rambling for one day.
Nostalgia
I don’t think the generation after mine realizes how lucky they are. I am in awe of the wealth of information and data at our fingertips these days.. When I was a teenager, the Internet was very new. I think I’ve mentioned before that I was in college the first time I had the chance to use the Internet. I took to it fairly quickly, though. I was able for the first time to better explore my attraction to guys (even if I didn’t understand what all that meant at the time). One thing many of us take for granted is the quick and easy access we now have to more…adult content. Our content was so innocent compared to what young gay men have today. At least it was for me.
For better or worse, gone are the days of magazine clippings, underwear catalogs, and dial-up internet connections that take 15 minutes to load a torso. That’s what it was like for me as a teenager and a young college student. The idea of going to the adult section of a movie store, or god forbid just using your imagination, is completely lost on the youth of today.
One interesting thing though is that generations prior to mine were much freer about male nudity, especially in locker rooms and such male only spaces, but my generation rarely got fully naked in from of one another. On rare occasions did I see guys get fully naked in the locker room at PE or when I played basketball in high school, but even those few times were very brief. Masturbation was a completely taboo topic, and you’d never dare admit that you did that. In some ways, the generations after me have been freer to discuss such things, and they are becoming less shy in the locker rooms again.
Earlier this week, Twitter came together to reminisce about these desperate times. The conversation was initiated by Chris Kelly, known for his work on Saturday Night Live. “What photo do YOU remember printing out on your family’s shared computer and masturbating to for weeks/months?” wrote Kelly, alongside a pixelated picture of a shirtless Jon Bon Jovi.
Gay Twitter sprung into action, all too eager to share the first additions to their own masturbatory fantasies. There were some of the usual suspects. Celebrities like Justin Timberlake, Heath Ledger, and Marky Mark. There were also clippings from fashion magazines and underwear advertisements. Does anybody remember International Male or the Undergear Catalogs?
Then there was even a smattering of some obscure ones. The kind of pictures you might resort to in a pinch (we’ve all been there). My most obscure (i.e. embarrassing) was probably the Nelson Twins. Good God, that hair! Those clothes! I remember I had a special edition magazine dedicated just to them. I actually did like, their music.
There were also the myriad of workout magazines. Those magazines, the catalogs, etc. were what I kept secretly under my bed. Then when I was in college, I discovered A&F Quarterly. OMG, they were so homoerotic, you could even excuse the fact that they sometimes showed girls. It just took a little bit of skin back then to turn me on. Tastes change though.
Now there’s PornHub, Snapchat, Twitter, and OnlyFans just to name a few of the massive amount of masturbatory material out there. Not to mention all the information you’d ever want about being gay. While things were beginning to change back in the late 90s and early 2000s, things were nowhere near as open as today. Kids are coming out younger and younger. Many do not have the fear and stigma of being gay that my generation had, and it was worse for the generation before mine. I said many because there are still very religiously conservative enclaves out there, such as my home state of Alabama or God forbid you’re a gay Mormon in Utah.
So my question of the day is: What was your favorite special material to get you off? Who was it? Where was the source of your entertainment? I honestly would like to know. You can always comment anonymously if you’re too embarrassed to sign your name to it. Let’s hear it.
Too Much Hotness
Ok, I just had to share this. As the tweet says, “Best 12 seconds this week.” I’m not for sure I can really explain it, but damn this guy is all kinds of sexy. I think during times like these, we need an escape occasionally, and he’s mine right now. I can watch this over and over. I don’t know if he’s gay or straight. Honestly, does it matter? He’s just nice to look at, and that smile drives me crazy.
Sleepless Nights
First of all, I want to thank everyone for their thoughtful comments on Monday’s post. Y’all have some amazing stories.
For the past several nights, I’ve almost dreaded going to bed. Even with my CPAP, which helps so much in getting a restful night’s sleep, I’ve been waking up all through the night. I just haven’t been sleeping well. I’m not sure what’s up. I’ve been having some anxiety issues, which could be a contributing factor. Several times a day, I feel a sinking feeling in my chest like I am on the verge of a full on panic attack. I’ve experienced this before, but it’s been quite a while. All of this is also causing my headaches to increase again.
I know I’m not the only one, but I’m ready to return to normal. However, unlike those jackass “protestors,” what George Takei called the “Flu Klux Klan,” I don’t want to try to return to normal until it’s safe. And that’s not going to happen until we have enough testing. When we can better track this virus COVID-19, we cannot return to the old status quo. We have to be diligent and patient, and above all, vote that asshole president out of office in November. The United States has needed leadership, and we aren’t getting that from the top.
Even when this quarantine is lifted, we will not return to normal until there is a vaccine. However, with enough testing, in addition to social distance and personal safety, we can at least begin to return to normal. Things will be different for a while, but if we return to the old status quo too soon, we will have the same issues that the post-WWI world had with the Spanish Flu.
If we lift the restrictions too soon, the spread of COVID-19 will spread again and again and will possibly be worse until there is a vaccine. Even then, we will have to battle the anti-vaxxers who will resist a vaccine and continue to spread the virus. As I said in Monday’s post, my mother was a public health nurse and was a firm believer in vaccines. Because of this, I only see pure stupidity and danger in anti-vaxxers. As a teacher, I caught whooping cough because some idiot didn’t vaccinate their child. My vaccine as a child had worn off but that shouldn’t have been a problem if people had vaccinated their children.
As you might be able to tell, I’m in quite a mood.
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