Perspectologist

I came upon a YouTube video called “Our Story” that I found touching.  It is two guys sharing the story of their relationship.  Watch it and then read the rest of this post. Read the rest of this entry »

I have a few posts planned, but in the interest of an attempt at timeliness I thought I should try to pop this post out now.

At the end of August we had a Puntabu-pool Party at Puntabulous‘s parents’ house out on Long Island.

When I first heard about this gathering I was really nervous, and not entirely sure I would be comfortable attending for an assortment of only slightly absurd reasons.  One of the reasons is that I tend not to be a fan of large social groups.  I am much more comfortable in small social settings, ideally one on one.  I think that I tend to worry about fitting in with a group.  Cognitively, I aspire to be an independent minded individual.  Yet, my human nature seems to crave acceptance and be hurt by rejection just as much as any other person.  I used to dislike my human frailty, but now I try to be more in touch with it, and let it shape me into a more interesting creature.  Humanity can be a beautiful thing!

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I have been tagged in some sort of photo tagging game by my bloggy friend and inspiration, Craig, from Puntabulous.com .

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Dearest blog readers,

Apologies for my moderately long hiatus from blogging.  I think it was due to a combination of Winter hibernation, a bit of (necessary and valuable) heart break, and some social overload.  I found myself directly communicating with so many (the word is relative here) people that I found that I didn’t have much communicative energy left for my blog.

You see, my person wasn’t cast in the shape of a big sharer, as are some.  Being open to other people has required work on my part.  It was work I didn’t have the energy for these past few months.  Few worthwhile journeys are easy.  And mine is not yet done!  I have so much more to share…

I just watched the new Dr. Who this evening, and its theme of the rebirth of the Doctor has got me excited and thinking about my own continued evolution.  We are each our own greatest limitation.

I do have a number of new and continuing projects in my life that will be competing for my energy.  I will be working on learning to balance my energies in an effort to prevent myself from becoming misshapen.

My next post will be a reply to a blog tagging, with some self reflection of course.  My posts won’t be super frequent, they never were, but I expect to have at least a few posts every month.  I will share some more of my most formative life experiences, as well as current happenings.

Stay tuned for more…

As many of my friends know, I don’t hookup or have one night stands.  What I crave is intimacy, and I can never really have that with a stranger.  However, I want to make it clear that I don’t hate sex or sexuality.  It can be a beautiful thing in the right situation.

Recently, a good friend of mine has encouraged me to get more in touch with my sexual side.  He inspired me to do a moderately racy artistic photo shoot with an eye toward eroticism.  For a long time I didn’t like myself very much.  I am sure that some of that insecurity was due to the challenges of my youth.  It was an interesting exercise to try to capture sexy images of myself, when I had never really seen myself in that way.

This blog is a vehicle for me to express myself and share my perspective with the world.  After being very closed and introverted for many years I now aspire to become a more open person.  Sharing is a part of that journey.  I have shared many parts of my life story on this blog.  I have shared my mind, and now I shall share a bit of my body.

I want to encourage anyone who feels trapped or confined in their life to consider stepping out of their bounds.  Too many people live, and die, constrained by their own fears and insecurities.  You are the master and commander of the ship of your life.  You can take charge and sail it in the direction you choose.

You won’t see anything you might not see in an R-rated movie.  I have had to do a little cropping due to concerns about terms of service issues with my web host.  Sorry about that.  Photography is one of my hobbies.  Unfortunately these photos are not the best example of my photographic talents.  Studio portraiture isn’t exactly my forte, and it is hard to adjust lights when you are posing and shooting yourself.  I can only apologize for the technical shortcomings.

If you don’t’ want to see more of me then don’t read below the fold.

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I am fortunate to live in a woodsy area across the street from a beautiful nature park.  Every situation has its trade-offs.  For me, the fall means lots of leaves on my lawn.  Removing all those leaves is a lot of work.  The first autumn in my new home felt almost overwhelming since I was not used to doing that much raking.  Over the past few years I have gotten better at it.  I find that I am less bothered by that chore than I used to be.

The amazing fall view makes all the effort worthwhile.  In the early fall I took a walk in the park across the street.  I captured a few photos that I will share in the album linked below.  Now if you want to enjoy the view in person, then you can come help me rake next fall!

Fall Foliage Gallery

The Lake

My blog friends Enrico and Josh recently posted about some inappropriate sexual advances they encountered in their youth. That inspired me to share my story. It is a little different. Things went a bit farther in my case, but not as far as they have to some poor children. Even so, if you are of a sensitive disposition you may have trouble reading this post.

I had only shared this story with one person. Now I share it with the all the world.

One day when I was in kindergarten, I had to use the bathroom. I asked the teacher for permission, and she told me I could go. The bathroom was down the hall. My teacher decided that another student should go with me. I suppose the thinking was that kids would be safer with a buddy system. It must have been early in the year because I could not recall having had to use the bathroom in class before. I didn’t like the idea of another person having to go with me. It seemed silly and even so long ago, I was of an independent nature.

I believe that the kid who accompanied me volunteered rather than being chosen. He was a black boy that I didn’t know very well. We walked down the hall to the bathroom near the gymnasium. As I entered the stall he followed me. I thought that was a little odd, but really, the whole idea of going to the bathroom in pairs was odd to me. I wasn’t particularly self conscious at the time. It might have felt more awkward to ask him to wait outside, so I just ignored him. I must have assumed that’s how things were done in kindergarten.

I dropped my pants and peed. Just as I finished I heard the boy standing behind me, a kindergartner just like me, say, “I am going to fuck your white ass.” I turned around and saw he had unzipped his fly and had his dick in hand. I am certain that I didn’t know what “fuck” or probably even “ass” meant at the time, but I remembered his words. Even if I didn’t know what his words meant, I knew that he intended to violate my private personal space in some ugly way.

I felt a surge of panic induced adrenaline. My fight/flight response kicked in and I did both. I quickly pulled my pants up, and pushed him back into the stall door. Then I dove under the door to escape. He grabbed my leg. I had to kick him off of me. He pulled off one of my shoes as I broke away. I ran back to my classroom like the wind. I flung the door open, visibly distressed and disheveled. I remember my teacher asking me, “Did he touch you?”

That is where all my memories of that incident end. I know that some people block out powerful emotional traumas. Here it seems that I vividly remember the trauma, but can’t recall the aftermath. Have I blocked it out? Was it so insignificant I just don’t remember? If something like this happened now, there would have been law enforcement involvement and probably at least some counseling. I don’t even know if that happened in my case. I don’t recall ever seeing my attacker again.

I never talked to my parents about what happened, that I can remember. The first and only person I told about my experience was my best friend, about 10 years ago. I had never suppressed my memory of the attack. I always knew what happened, but just filed it away in the back of my mind as something I chose not to talk about.

Certainly a traumatic experience of sexual violence can have a profound effect on a kindergartner. I think that was my first violent confrontation with a stranger. No child should be exposed to that kind of violence at such a young age. How can a little kid believe that the world can be a safe place once he is attacked? By a peer, who is supposed to be just as innocent as himself, no less? Perhaps that is a part of why I had so much fear and anxiety in my early youth.

I mentioned that the attacker was black. Up until a few years ago all of my significant experiences with black people were negative. One tried to rape me in kindergarten, one was a manipulative acquaintance of poor character, and one tried to mug me in high school. My parents were racist. They would routinely say disparaging things about black people.  I knew these weren’t politically correct notions. I knew there were bad people of all races. However I never had black friends. I think on some internal level I had trouble trusting black people based on my own bad experiences.

I was a white Anglo-Saxon Protestant from an upper middle class town; it wasn’t until I was working on my coming out journey that I became more aware of what it was like to be a minority that is discriminated against. I became acquainted with some gay black people on that journey. They treated me well, and I felt a common connection with them. I have become a more open minded and accepting person, but I had to work at that.

I referred to the other boy as the attacker. But certainly he is also a victim. How does a kindergartner learn how to rape someone? How did he learn the words he used? What kind of hell did he endure before our meeting in that bathroom stall? Is he still alive? I am sure that initially my anger was directed at the boy who attacked me. As I got older, and realized that he was probably a victim of molestation himself, I could not be angry at him anymore. He was born innocent. It was the world that molded him into a kind of monster that lashed out at me. I can only hope that the person or people who molested him were brought to justice, and that he got the therapy needed to heal and have a more normal life.

Sadly, children, even very young children, are capable of all the evils of adults.  In some sense they can be even more dangerous than adults in that they lack a mature  emotional and cognitive understanding of the consequences of their actions.  Nothing happens in a vacuum.  Our world creates many of its own monsters.  This is a community problem.  I believe that we, as a community, can improve things.  I will be exploring this in future posts.

As many of my readers know, Craig (from Puntabulous), recently had a birthday.  I have been a fan of and commenter on his blog for the past few years.  He was one of my inspirations to get started with blogging.  A whole amazing community has blossomed out of the Puntabulous blog.  I wanted to give him a special birthday gift.

I thought that it would be really cool to give him a stuffed animal version of his S.V. character.  I had been thinking about it for well over a year before I was able to bring the idea to fruition.

In middle school I was forced to take a sewing class ( and cooking class) as part of the required curriculum.  Being the macho kind of guy I was at the time I would NEVER have taken it by choice.  In the class we made a stuffed animal.  I made a green octopus.  We actually learned how to use a sewing machine, and all that jazz.  I had totally forgotten almost everything I learned about sewing in middle school.  I was practically starting from scratch.  I think it took me almost half an hour just to figure out how to thread my machine for the first time!

An acquaintance of mine had told me about a large fabric store in my town.  He said that is where many Broadway set designers go to buy their fabric. So that is where I went.  Hey, if it is good enough for Broadway it must be good enough for Craig.   It was a bit overwhelming.  The place was fairly huge.  I spent hours trying to find just the right fabric.  My color choice is not perfect, but it is fairly close to the cartoon colors.

I drew up a template of all the parts in Power Point.  I traced the patterns onto felt for the facial features and used fabric for the front, back, arms, legs and intended to use it for the cape.  I did not posses the hemming skill required for the cape, so after a number of failed attempts I switched to a felt cape, which seems to have worked OK.

My crazy sewing work area

I should have started the actual sewing much sooner.  Toward the end I got better at it, but in the beginning it was slow going.  I had dinner plans with Craig on Wednesday and I REALLY want to have it done so I could give it to him.  The night before I didn’t even have the shells sewn together!  I was not at all confident I could finish it on time.  I went to bed that night and I actually dreamed about the big procedure for sewing the shells together and attaching all the limbs and cape.  I knew that final critical part of the assembly could make or break the entire project.  The pressure was on Wednesday morning.  I attached all the parts according to my dream and everything worked!  Yay!

S.V. sitting on my couch

The final result is not perfect, but it actually turned out better than I worried it might at some points in the project.  I am pleased with what I was able to accomplish.  I am certainly not good at sewing, but it is a useful skill I can pull out when needed.

I was thinking about sewing my own curtains.  I am not sure if I am ready for that just yet.  I totally need to work on my hemming abilities first.  I may start with some table skirts for the folding tables I am using as end tables, to help fill them out.  Eventually, I think it would be cool to be able to tailor my own clothes for a sexy custom fit.

We had a Puntabulous meet-up in New York city this weekend. It was a great opportunity to meet many fellow bloggers and Puntabulous commenters. It was a fun time. My highpoint was when I got to see a different side of some of my blog friends.

Here are some of the things I learned:

• Dave S. owns a shirt (maybe even more than one!).
• I love the way Jere says “literally”.
• Jere is also a kick ass rapper.
• Kári is very handsome.  I already knew everyone else was handsome, but hadn’t seen him before.
• David is a great singer!  I knew of the talents of Enrico, Josh, and Jere; but I had not heard David sing before.  I need to try to see one of his performances sometime.
• I know that am not always a very outgoing person when I am in large groups containing more outgoing people, however I think I did mostly OK at the meet-up.  It helped that I felt like I already knew most of the people though their blogs and comments.

I had been fortunate enough to have previously met Enrico, FDot, Josh, and Craig.  It was good to see them again.  It was really wonderful that Polt and Dave S. came all the way to NYC for the meet-up.  It was a great group, and I really liked everyone there.

I want to offer a huge thanks to David for helping get our Karaoke activities started.  We needed an MC to get us shyer guys going.  He also helped spontaneously arrange the rest of our night.  I am in awe of his organizational abilities, considering that I have, at times, spent close to half an hour debating where to eat in the city with much smaller groups.

Here is a list of the attendees and their blogs:

Craig – Puntabulous
David – Someone in a Tree (NSFW)
Jere – Blind Prophecy
Dave S. – Spike 300
Polt – Polts Palace (NSFW)
FDot – I Deny You The Nidus
Kári – Vegfarandi
Josh – Josh is Trashy
Enrico – Hotel Tuesday

I didn’t have any time to write a creative narrative of the meet-up since I spent all my free time editing a video I shot.  So, I will let the video be my narrative.  You can watch Part 1 of a video of the festivities on YouTube.  I will try to post part 2 in the next few days (or maybe late tonight).

Once again I am thankful for the friendliness, kindness and generosity of the Puntabugang.  I am hopeful that we will have more meet-ups in the future.

As I have previously mentioned, I live across the street from a nature park.  Over the two years I have lived in my house I have seen a number of interesting animals.  I see lots of birds on a regular basis.  I once saw a sneezy Possum (it just kept sneezing, must have had a cold) walk across my front yard at night.  I have even seen a red fox twice.  My neighbor told me that we also had deer in the neighborhood.  While I thought it was plausible that there could be deer in the area I had not actually seen any.

One morning I had trouble sleeping, and woke up very early.  I got a drink of water and walked into my living room to gaze across at the park bathed in dim early morning light.  I find it very relaxing to watch the trees dance in the breeze.

This morning there was a surprise waiting for me.  I saw two small deer scampering about.  I grabbed my camera and tried to get some photos from my window.  It was really special for me to feel so close to nature that morning.

Deer in park

A few months later, I spent a late night hanging out with friends in NYC.  When I came home I noticed a surprise waiting for me.  I saw a deer standing right in my backyard, just staring at me!  Of course I ran and grabbed my camera.  This time I was able to get a better shot because the deer was much closer.  It actually hung around for a few minutes as I photographed it.

Deer in backyard

It was awesome to see another deer!  I love that I could hang out with my friends in NYC, and less than an hour later be at home hanging out with a deer!  That morning I was really pleased with the urban/rural balance that I found when I purchased my home.  Home ownership isn’t easy.  There is a lot of work and expense involved.  However it is the special moments that make it all worthwhile.