Too Early

Don't get me wrong, I love Christmas.

But on the way to work yesterday (October 30!), I noticed that a large department store in Montreal already had Christmas displays up in their windows.

Now it used to be that people would at least wait until after Halloween. Do we really need two months of Christmas - let alone two months of Christmas music....well, except for the Boney M Christmas album... ahhhh ....Disco Xmas

Frayed

The first memory that I have is from when I was about three or four years old. While I do not have many memories of much before I was twelve, for as long as I can remember, this has been my earliest memory.

It is only a snapshot really. I do not remember the context or anything that occurred before or after. My older brother and I are in our first home and are going down the stair to the basement. I don’t recall the house at all, but I remember the stairs. They were the type of stairs that do not have a back to them. All I remember was the fear that someone (or something) was going to grab my ankles though the empty space behind the stairs.

What bothers me about this memory is that it really is a memory of an emotion: fear. And I wonder just how much of my life has been coloured by that first memory and its content of fear.

For I see that much of my life is about fear.

Fear of failure.

Fear that people will see through me.

Fear that the decisions I have made will come back to haunt me.

Fear that those I have chosen to trust will betray me.

Fear that I will come to regret my life.

Fear that the mask that I put on to protect myself has become so attached that I could not take it off if I wanted to or so attached that I can’t even tell what is underneath it anymore.

Fear that I would disappoint the childhood version of myself.

Fear that if people knew the real me, that I would be rejected.

Fear that truly opening up myself to anyone will only lead to pain.

Fear that other people’s perceptions of me are more accurate that my perception of myself.

Fear that I will not be liked.

Fear that I will not be loved.

And I truly fear that I will never get over these fears.

Its all well and good to say that I need to get over them and learn to accept myself for who I am, but I still, at my age, find this very hard. I am constantly worried about what others think. And it can become an obsession. There are times that I have pulled back from something or someone out of the worry of how others would perceive it. And I have flaunted other things in the desire for people to perceive me in a certain way by associated.

Now you would think that coming out of the closet would have lessened this trepidation of perception a bit. I came out and most of my fears of that process proved unfounded. And yet, that is not the lesson that I have taken. I seem to act as if that would be the exception rather than the norm.

I guess it comes down to this – why am I afraid of myself.

Heroes

I must admit that I am a TV and movie lover. And nothing gets me going like falling into a new series.

I have always preferred ones that have stories that must be seen in order (like "Lost") rather than ones that can be watched independantly (like "law & Order"). And while last year I didn't really get into any new shows, this years I definitely have.

And I think that the old comic book geek in me has attracted me to the show "Heroes". Its a tale of how people discover that they have superpowers. And for me the origin tales of super heroes were always my favourite.

And another part of it is this desire to feel special. To feel unique.

And most of all, it is my all time dream to be able to fly.

Fight or Fluff

OK, well I understand Alfred’s comments to my previous post in my nomination of Gay Banker as one of my favourite blogs. As Alfred notes, “His stories don't get anymore interesting than fucking guys around London.” But that is one of the reasons why I truly enjoy a fix of Gay Banker.

Maybe I am one of those incredibly boring thirty-something guys. At least I have been feeling that way lately. I have become someone who gets up in the morning, goes to gym where I work out under the solitude-inspiring ipod haze, go off to work where I work in my own office with my thinking process being my major commodity, go home, have dinner and settle before the hyponotizing gaze of the television. Bud and I have laughed, far too often, over the fact that we are often in bed by 11 on Saturday nights.

Now this is not just a product of aging, but a problem with the been-there-done-that nature of where I am at right now. I spent so many years going crazy – weekends without sleep and more pick-ups than I care to admit to myself.

Much of this changed with my being with Bud. It has been my longest relationship and we are not in an open relationship. So the impetus for going out (i.e. to prowl) is greatly diminished.

And I must admit that Montreal has kind of died on me. It is a great city, but not without its problems. There hasn’t been a new place to go in the longest time. Its so bad that a club burned down, they rebuilt it, and I can’t even tell the difference. If it burns down at least you could try to make it look a bit different.

And its poor here. Nobody likes to admit it, but there is a lot of personal and public poverty here. The streets are a shabbles, garbage is everywhere and especially in the gay neighbourhood, street people occupy most doorways at night. It is just far too depressing. And the fact that winter is a six-month long season doesn’t help.

So what the hell does this have to do with Gay Banker? Well, the reason that I love reading about him is pure escapism with a touch of nostalgia. I don’t have to worry about dealing with the trials of life in his blog. It is a pure sexual blog that I smile at either through recognition of a past event in my life or in a cheerful happiness that I am no longer dealing with it.

Blogs don’t have to have the personal or the political to be enjoyed. They don’t have to cover all aspects of someone’s life, but like Gay Banker they can focus on one portion of a person’s life.

Sometimes I wish that I hadn’t revealed things in this blog. They have become so much more difficult to hide from myself once they have been published. But no matter what I have to deal with in my life, Gay Banker always gives me a moment to withdraw into an easier realm.

Fluff is not a dirty word. Sometimes you need it. There are days that I enjoy reading Salman Rushdie and others where I can curl up quite happily with a James Patterson murder-a-thon. Both have their purposes and neither pretends to be anything other than what they are.

Lone Star Verve Nominations

Lone Star Verve has announced his Weblog Awards! As many gay men are, I am a sucker for awards shows, and while I don’t have a nomination for everything, here are my nominations.

Major Awards:

Best GLBT Blog of the Year - Joey Destino the god of all bloggers!

Best GLBT Brand New Blog - Brave Hound - as it debuted in January 2006, I guess it could still be considered new – has the best mixes to download for the gym and the guy is HOT

Best GLBT Blog Writing - Sticky Crows - has an amazing ability to find something interesting to say each and every day

Best GLBT Blog Design - Aussielicious - always a great site with changing design and fantastic picture format.


Category Awards:

Best GLBT Eye Candy Blog - Beautiful The name says it all

Best GLBT Personal Blog - Eche Blog I just can't help but love this guy's site

Best GLBT Photo Blog - Sambags Blog - Love it always

Best GLBT Political Blog - Monotonous While not strictly political, it often has that slant


International Awards:


Best GLBT American Blog - Gay Empire while he has been out of action for awhile, I still hope that Gay Empire will return

Best GLBT Asian Blog - Mumbai Jerry how can I resist our Indian friend?

Best GLBT Australian or New Zealander Blog - At Worst, My best - a great blog on life in Sydney filled with personal details and great erotica

Best GLBT Canadian Blog - Acid Reflux an absolutely wonderful blog on the lighter side of life with HIV


Best GLBT UK Blog (Great Britain, Ireland, etc) - Things I can’t tell my Boyfriend I can barely deal with life without a daily dose of our favourite gay banker

Dance Sensation

Evolution of Dance



Saw this guy recently on Ellen and I fell in love with his passion for dance. Great way to start the week.

Kylie Bound

It is Bud’s birthday today and he gets a giddy as a little kid on Christmas morning – its so sweet.

I decided to spoil him with a gift this year. Since we have been together, this is the first year that I have had any money to speak of. And I am not usually very good at buying presents – lack of decent taste I guess.

Well, Bud is obsessed, as all good Australians are, with Kylie Minogue. You have no idea how crushed he was when she got sick. And because he is with me in Canada, her past tour was the only one he did not see in her entire career. Now, he is not so crazy that he sleeps with a Kylie doll, but its close.

So I decided to send him to her final concert in the UK next year.



Our friend Stuart, who visited us during the Gay Games, will host him for 10 days in London in January and then Bud and Stuart will head off to Manchester to see Kylie’s last concert.

His overjoyed face was a thrill to see.

But what came next was his gift to me.

I am sending him on his own. I just can't afford to take the time off. And as soon as Bud realized this he said, "But I want you to come. It won't be the same without you."

Mandy (aka Man-Candy)

Its been awhile since I posted a pic of a hot guy - but to commemorate by reaching 100,000 hits, here's my favourite ones that I have seen lately.





Thanks to all the visitors and posters. This blog has at times been joyful and then painful, but it has always been worth it.

And thanks to Beautiful for the photo

Photos for Previous

For some reason, blogger was not letting me post any photos on my previous post.

The first is of course the eiffel tower that Bud and I had the obligatory photo in front of:



Here is the amazing Sagrada Familia in Barcelona. Started in 1880 it is not expected to be finished until 2080. A poster noted in the comments that I sounded like I didn't enjoy Gaudi and nothing could be further from the truth. While his works appears to come from an altered mind, I love that fact:



Next we have the glory of Pompeii - a very large magnificent relic where every step is on a place where someone likely died in a painful volcanic eruption:



And then there is Rome - speaks for itself:



And no trip to Italy is complete without a visit to an island where the homes are built into the sides of a mountain - ah Capri!: