Perspectologist

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.

Some years back I took a cooking class with a few friends.  It was a great experience, but unfortunately I hadn’t been practicing my culinary skills and they had atrophied.  Since I live alone, I usually just whip up something quick (frequently something frozen, freeze dried, or canned) to eat at work.

When Enrico suggested that we attempt to cook a Rachel Ray 30-minute-meal together I thought that sounded like a fun challenge.  It was also a nice opportunity to force me to tidy up (parts of) my house.

I had a good time.  Enrico is a fun guy (not to be confused with fungi) and a great cooking companion.  It was nice having  someone to cook with.    Follow our adventure over at his blog, Hotel Tuesday.

There was a time in my tumultuous, angst ridden youth that I wrote poetry. It wasn’t good poetry. While I had the emotional drive to express myself, I lacked the desire to learn the finer technical points of poetry. This was an era before spell check was ubiquitous, and MS Word felt slow on my system at the time. Most of my poetry was written in Notepad with horrible misspellings due to the fact that my vocabulary vastly exceeded my ability to spell.

I had a tendency to write rhyming couplets. Some were decent, but I had a lot of trouble growing them into proper poems. I was not a good poet. However, my writing helped me to channel and deal with my emotions in a constructive way during a very destructive time in my life. I am thankful for that.

I don’t believe that I was a uniformly crappy writer. Some of my best writing from the era of these poems may have been in letters I wrote to friends. I was a passionate letter writer.

Josh and Enrico’s frequent mention of poetry has inspired me to share some from my past. Looking back I found two poems that don’t totally make me want to vomit. Yes, they are a bit angsty. I shall leave them to face the world, and stand on their own below.

“Afflictive Moment”

Punch a wall, break it all.
Tear it down, turn it round.
Bleed the wound.
Poison spills from the broken flesh.
Slowly the anger drains from the body.
Empty, but for the sorrow and sadness.
Then the tears wash it away.
When it’s gone there is nothing left.
Nothing to hold onto.
Nothing but the need to exist.

“You Lie”

You lie.
You lie in my bed.
You lie to my face, and confuse my head.
You delude my heart,
so I can’t pull reality and illusion apart.
How dare you hide what I have to see!
I can’t be. Unless I can be free of my confusion.
You promise heaven but lead me to hell.
I take my stands alone. You hide and watch,
as they tear off my flesh, and rip me to the bone.
I stand alone.
Along will come the day when you turn and just walk away.
Actions speak louder then words. I am tired of the empty whispers.

Craig, from Puntabulous has been a huge source of inspiration for me over the past few years.  I discovered his blog for the first time in the very early stages of my coming out journey.  I was strictly a lurker, and did not connect with the community.  I quickly drifted away.  In time I eventually rediscovered his blog, and this time I started to become more involved with the community of commenters.  I have been fortunate to make some really great on-line friends over the years.  I have found it to be a great place to explore the vagaries of life, and learn from the experiences of others.  Hanging out at blogs like Puntabulous and Hotel Tuesday inspired me to start blogging and sharing my perspective with the world.

It was really special for me to have the opportunity to finally meet Craig in person.  Craig, thank you for being who you are and doing what you do.  You make a difference.

Chris and Craig Meet

Just over two years ago I bought my first house.  It was an exciting journey!  When I first started looking some years earlier, I was in for a rude awakening.  I was raised in and work in a relatively expensive area.  In some parts of the country people can purchase large homes on acres of land for the same price one might pay for a small home with a small yard in this area, and still pay lower taxes.  As a single person, with one salary, I knew it would be a challenge to buy a nice house on my own.  Needless to say I quickly realized that I had to save a lot of money in order to make my dream of home ownership a reality.

I briefly considered getting a condo or a townhouse, but the population density of the places I looked at turned me off.  I really liked the idea of having my own space and not living too close to other people.

I looked at a lot of small, very expensive houses in non-ideal locations (near busy roads, power lines, and train tracks) in affluent towns.  One house was very old.  It had a field stone foundation.  The first floor seemed normal, but the second floor was practically hobbit height!  That was very weird!  The house hunt was rather disappointing for a while.  Fortunately my investments did well just as home prices started to stall.  This put me in a more powerful position.

One day my Realtor took me to look at some houses in a nearby city that had not been on my radar.  It was a city, and it had the feel of one, including some of the not so nice areas cities tend to have.  My Realtor took me to the nice parts that I had been unaware of.  The houses were more in line with my expectations, and the prices were closer to my goal.

I remember the drive to the last house we looked at.  We drove down a street and hit a forest.  We turned and drove along it.  It reminded of the happy summers I spent in the woods as a child.  My Realtor showed me the woods, the field, the lake, and the creek.  The house was just across from where the woods met the field, and not far from the lake.  The area seemed so beautiful.  So peaceful.  The house was a 3 bedroom, 1.5 bath ranch.  I would have preferred a colonial, but wasn’t set on one.

I liked that the house is on a curve in the road, so it is angled away from the neighboring homes.  It faces a large nature park across the street.  There is a nice size covered porch spanning the front.  It has a private feel to it.  When I walked inside the first thing I noticed was a large stone fireplace.  I had always wanted a fireplace!  I liked that it had a rugged rustic feel to it.

I really fell in love with the area.  The house was not perfect but I felt it could meet my needs, and I knew there were expansion and enhancement options for the future.  I researched the area.  I learned about the city’s efforts to redevelop and revitalize their downtown.  Both government and private entities were investing lots of money in the city.  There is a train station with direct trains to NYC, the Shore, and Trenton.  I can walk to the station, but there is also 24 hour cab service.  It is not far from most of the major north/south highways and two 24 hour grocery stores.  I like having the benefits of living in a more developed city, but feeling like I live in the woods of the back country.

Every day I make a point of looking at the woods when I wake up.  Trees make me happy.  Except in the fall when I have lots of raking to do!   After a heavy rain I enjoy listening to the water rushing over the dam in the distance.  I have lived here for two years, and I still feel a little giddy when I drive home along the woods.

Take a look at some photos of where I live below.  Most of the photos were taken in the early spring.  The trees are more full now.  Click to see slightly larger photos.

My house, taken from the park across the street.

The view from my front porch, Spring.

The view from my front porch, Fall.

The view from my front porch, Winter.

The park, looking toward the lake.

The dam and the lake.

Closeup of the dam.

The creek. The water is low here. It is probably much higher now.

The park, looking away from the lake.

As some of you may know, I marched in the NYC Pride Parade with the NJ Pride Center.  It was a long day for me.  I had to wake up a bit earlier than I am used to, and I spent the evening hanging out with friends.  The weather was very nice.  Not too hot, not too cool, and no rain.  I also had a nice opportunity to meet another blogger, FDot from I Deny You The Nidus .  We had a nice time, and he got to meet some of my wilder NYC friends and experience a little bit of a mildly crazy night out on the town.   We had some nice conversations and I am sure we will hang out again.

FDot and Perspectologist at NYC Pride

FDot was also kind enough to send me the Torchwood Audio CDs.  I will be listening to those as I get ready for Torchwood’s return to BBC America.  Thanks again FDot!

Torchwood Audio Disks

My blogger friend Enrico, of Hotel Tuesday, ran a Project Runway inspired competition for his classmates at The College of New Jersey during the past school year.  For the summer he decided to turn the tables on his friends, and have the former TCNJ contestants become the judges.  The new “season” is called Project Runway: JNCT.

The goal of the contest is to design clothing and accessories for Barbie dolls based on a theme.  When Enrico first asked me to participate I was hesitant about the idea because I was intimidated by the creativity and skill exhibited in the prior season.  Even so, it seemed like a fun idea.  I knew it would be an interesting challenge, so I decided to go for it.

I was never one of those boys who played with Barbies and I am far from a fashonista.  Designing clothing is harder than I thought it would be.  I gave it my best shot.  One of the sub-themes in the competition is to include a photo of the contestants “designing in their boxers”.  Knowing that the Puntabulous renowned underwear model, Dave S. was competing, I decided to do my best to kick things up a notch.  You can check out the first round entries.  Even if I am the first to be eliminated it was fun to play along with such a talented and creative bunch of people.

As some of you may already know from his post, I was in Asbury Park, NJ for Pride on Sunday.  So I took advantage of the opportunity to meet Enrico, from Hotel Tuesday .  My day had some ups and downs, I will blog about that in a future post, but meeting Enrico was definitely one of the high points.

Enrico was very welcoming.  He is just as handsome in person as he is online.  He looked very dashing in his crisp blue shirt and he was a great waiter.  The food was totally delicious.  I’m sure he told the chef to make it extra delicious just for my friends and I.

Honestly, I was a little nervous about meeting him.  I had never met anyone from Puntabuland before.

Our world is full of forces.  Some, we know well from what we are taught in school, like gravity and magnetism.  Then there are vastly more complex forces at work in an ocean of subatomic particles.  All these forces are woven into the intricate web that is the totality of our existence.  We live on a tiny spec of dust adrift in the ether of space and time.  Sometimes, a conflagration of circumstances can upset these powerful forces.  When two or more Puntabulandians gather together there is always a chance that a rift in time and space will open and strange things will occur.

When Enrico and I were posing for our photo something a otherworldly happened.  He probably thought we were just having a picture taken, but really my digital camera was recording video.  You can watch the video below (after the fold) to see what happened.
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Sorry for the delay in posting.  I hit a bit of a sticking point.  I have lots to share, but I felt that I needed to get more early biographical material out there before I could write about more current happenings.  I have long admired writers who can bare their soul through their writing.  I am not sure if I am that brave.  I am going to try to be.

My youth was a very challenging period for me.  There were times when I couldn’t see my way toward a tomorrow.  Part of my reason for blogging is to share my experience with others.  I know there are many people out there who may be struggling in situations very much like those of my past.  I want to let anyone who feels alone or is in pain know that things can get better.  Sometimes I felt like I was walking through the fires of hell.  I thought that death might be my only release.  I survived my youth.  I have lived to enjoy a rich and rewarding life.  I have had exquisite moments that I would not trade for anything in all the world.  I have had the chance to make great friends who profoundly enrich my life.  I have also been fortunate to be able to make a positive difference in the lives of other people.

My father had been off his medication for some time.  He was convinced that he needed to discover his “true identity”.  His paranoia, delusions of persecution and delusions of grandeur were profound.  He forbid my family from visiting any of his family.  He was trying to force my sister, mother and I to change our last name to fit his delusional beliefs.  He demanded that my sister and I take a paternity test to prove we were really his children.  His mental instability was an extra challenge for me on top of the natural challenges of being teenager.  Beyond that, I was a homophobic gay teenager.  For a few years my life was a massive shit storm.

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I first set my eyes upon my valentine at my local Quick Chek.  It was love at first sight.  I had a deep emptiness inside.  I finally thought that chasmic void could be filled!  We went back to my place.  There was no time for pleasantries.  All garb was torn asunder. What great buns!  And then I…

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