Here's hoping everyone had a great weekend.  I know that I sure did.  I went to the Old Pecan Street Festival in Austin with some friends, and had a BLAST.  I also drank too much and got a sunburn, but hey, what are weekends for, right?  My friend Michael drank more than the rest of us, and got darned annoying, so we had to take some extreme measures, but in the end, he was still smiling!  I had a blast, though... loads and loads of fun!

Here's the motley crew that got me drunk!

After the Fair, Kurt and I went out and had quite a time by ourselves.  I had more fun that I should have, but not so much I'm ashamed of myself (probably because the batteries went out on my digital camera and I have no photographic proof of the end of the evening!).  I had a great time!

Sidenote:  The funniest part of the whole day is when this really, really pretty girl walks up to my friends Thomas and John and says "Ohmigod!  You're the guys who were in the parking garage that night that I peed, while you held your shirt up!"  I'm not sure what in the world that was all about, but I DID get them to all pose for a picture, and it sure merits mentioning here!

So I got this catalog in the mail that was chock full o' cleaning supplies and gadgets for the truly cleaning obsessed.  I've been on many mailing lists in my time, but never, ever a neatfreak mailing list.  I think they made a mistake somewhere.  Or perhaps they've heard from my friends who've been over to my house, "Lord Almighty! HELP HIM!  Make him see the error of his ways and live a clean life full of sin!"

Um, yeah, that's it.

If you didn't get to see the entry I wrote this morning, then you're outta luck, because I took it away.  Why, you ask, would I do such a thing?!  Because it was damned embarrasing.  I oughta be ashamed of myself... a man in my thirties... at a place called Boyz Cellar!

I'm not, though (ashamed, that is).

This weekend, I'm going to Austin (yes, again!) to see some friends, and attend a music festival.  Beyond that, not much going on... hope all is well with you, too.  Have a great weekend, I'll see you back here on Monday!

Well, it's official.  The tourists have left for the year, leaving only their money and tons of trash behind.

Not everyone knows that I live in one of Texas's biggest tourist areas.  In my little town, we have the nation's largest and highest rated waterpark.  We also have some of the prettiest rivers you'll ever see, and we're conveniently located between Austin and San Antonio, so it's a good place to come visit, and visit they do: the waterpark alone gets almost two million people a year, and they are open only two and a half months.

Anyway... I know that it's fall because they have drained all of the lazy-river-type rides in the waterpark.  You can now drive around town without half-drunk, half-lost fools getting in your way and threatening your very life.  You can eat dinner at a restaurant without waiting two hours... it's just a good time to be here.

Until the Winter Texans show up, that is.  That's a whole 'nother story that I'm sure I'll gripe about later.

So yesterday, I got an email from a girl with whom I went to high school (whom I suppose is now a lady... lordie KNOWS I'm no boy anymore!).  Bless her heart, if it weren't for her, we would never have any reunions or anything like that... hell, we couldn't even really plan shit when we were all in the same building everyday.  I really admire her for her tenacity in making sure that she knows were we all are, and she emails us and calls us and sends us mail... She's really good at keeping us together. 

BUT... yesterday, she emailed me with a file attachment with a draft for our nametags for our 20th reunion.  You know... the one that we'll have in 2009?!  Yeah.  We don't know much about what that reunion will be like, but we now know what the nametags are going to look like.  I'm getting excited about the reunion already!  Only seven more years to go!!!

All seems to be well.  We are having some awesome weather here in Texas, and that's always a blessing to be enjoyed while it lasts (not long).  I'm going to dinner in Austin tonight with some friends, and I can't wait!  Hope all is well in YOUR world...

It is TOTALLY not even Wednesday... feels like Friday.

Perhaps that's because I went out last night.  Yep.  I'm a decadent boy and decided that I needed to blow off some steam (not too much steam, mind you) and relax a bit.  Tuesday in San Antonio is Gay Dart League night, so lots of folks are out, and it's a good time to catch up with folks.

Speaking of catching up with people, remember Kurt?  Long time readers will remember him, I know... he's hard to forget.

So he called me, and off we went to some of our favorite haunts.  Dinner at one of our favorite 70-year-old places in town (it was nice enough to sit on the patio tonight) and then a little bit of bar-hopping to catch up with the dart folks.  It's fun to watch a man dressed as 80's Cher (black cowboy hat and gloves) shoot darts.  Really, I highly recommend it... esp. when the Cher-esque-type people are really nice like these are...

Not much else transpired... I DO have to work today, so nothing TOO exotic, and then, off to bed... what a nice night.

Ahhh... Wal-Mart at midnight.  What fun, what fun.  Actually, it's much less scary there at that time, because then, you are really only dealing with the creepy employees, not the employees and the mass of white trash humanity.

Here are some random thoughts that entered my little bald head as I scurried the aisles at midnight last night:

• Oh look!  Decent parking.  This is going to be a GOOD Wal-Mart trip.
• Why is there an old person greeting me at midnight? Shouldn't he be in bed right about now?  Damn, I really should plan for my retirement now, so I don't have to be in Wal-Mart when I'm seventy, greeting the dredges of humanity at midnight.
• I wonder why I don't shop for clothes here more often?  Oh.  Yeah.  Because they are horrible and cheap looking.
• Really?  Vinyl pants?  In a ladies size 26?  What were they thinking?!
• I wonder if Promise would like a pair of those?  Nah... too cheapie/trashy looking.  Good to know they're here, though... if she ever wants that look.
• Must be getting close to huntin' season... there's more camo in here than at Fort Hood.
• My LORD.  Does that shirt actually have a picture of a deer, along with the words "born to kill" emblazened upon it?
• OH MY GOD!  Do they REALLY need to put the lice shampoo on an endcap?  I really don't know if I want to shop in  a store that needs to have that stuff so readily available.
• Oh, look, that crappy Weird Al movie is on DVD for ten dollars.  My uncle, the smart one who's a doctor, swears this is among the best movies ever made.  I must own it.
• Look, shoe polish.  My shoes really are starting to look neglected and stuff... I'll get some polish, and might as well get the nice brushes, too.
• Oh shit.  This means I need some sort of container to put all my shoe polish stuff... over to the Rubbermaid aisle I go...
• Damn, for shit that's all plastic, this Rubbermaid is expensive stuff... oh well... it lasts forever.
• I wonder what time it's getting to be?  Dayum... almost 1 am?  I should get home...
• How in the HELL did I spend fourty dollars in here?  I just bought a DVD, some cleaning stuff, the shoe polish... oh well, here's my card, Mr. Late Night Wal-Mart Cashier.

I really didn't need anything, but I ended up buying lots of stuff that... well, I needed.  You know how it is!

So, I'm again going to stay close to home.  I think I'd like to go to Esther's Follies in Austin, and perhaps spend some time with some friends in Austin.  Should be fun.  I mean... you read this site... don't I always manage to have fun?!  Damn Skippy.

Hey there.

So something's been on my mind lately.  Not nagging at me, but enough on my mind that I'm going to write about it here, because, frankly, my weekend was so uneventful that I don't have anything else to write about.

On Friday, Will wrote on his site that "Occasionally people think Todd and I are together, which we find very amusing."

And then, I went out in Austin, and ran into some friends of mine who, to be fair, are ALWAYS out in public together, and the conversation turned to the fact that EVERYBODY thinks they are a couple, when they are really just very good friends.  It bothered them a bit.  I don't know why, but it really did.

It's happened to me, too:  no matter how much we say differently, some people are totally CONVINCED that Mark and I are a couple.  We're not, and we never have been.  Why mess up a good friendship with sex?

For the record, Mark and I have never been a couple.  We have never dated.  When you see one of us out with a date, the other one of us will not be upset, we will be happy for each other.  That's how friendships work!

You would think that urban gay men would know better.  You would be wrong.

I DID get to go to a little houseparty on Sunday, and had a lot of fun... even got to sit in the hot tub a bit.  You can see pictures (of the party, not the hot tub) right here.

Hey there... there's good news and bad news today:

The good news is that you get a special, bonus weekend entry today.  I know you are thrilled.

The bad news?  It's all about lip balm.  I shit you not.  This entry is recycled from one year ago.   Enjoy:

Okay... so last night...

It rained all day.  Like, the skies had opened up and hell was raining down upon us.  Except it was, you know, water and not fire, so it wasn't technically HELL raining down... I guess it was just raining down, but that's not a very good metaphor is it?

(Damn.  one paragraph in, and I've fucked up a metaphor already.  This doesn't bode well for you, the gentle reader, does it?)

So it's raining like crazy all day long and I think I'm not going to get to go get my Lesbian Steak, and I'm kinda bummed out by that, because I'd psyched myself up for Lesbian Steak, and damn it, that's what I wanted.

I got home from work, and the sky cleared.  The Weather Channel radar, which everyone knows is the best, showed that it was clear all the way up I-35, so I decided to go to Austin for my Lesbian Steak.  Yay!

By the time I got to Austin, I was early, so I went to visit Thomas, a friend of mine who tends bar near the Lesbian Steak Bar.  Thomas was in a good mood, and we chatted a bit until it was time to meet my friends, and I gave Thomas this URL, so "HI, Thomas!"

Steak was good.  Baked Potato:  good too!  Salad: eh.  Okay.  Only a lesbian would think that iceburg lettuce made a good salad.  But all and all.  Good meal.  Good company, too.  I had a good time visiting everyone, and I'm glad I went.

So dinner was over quite early, so back I went to Thomas's bar.  I sat there, sipping my Diet Coke, and watching the world go by.

Pretty soon, I determined I needed to come home, and here I sit, typing this drivel with the crappy metaphors.

Have a great weekend, folks!

So right now, I'm not sure if I should be flattered or weirded out.

A look around my kitchen yesterday made it glaring obvious that I needed to go the grocery store, which I so very much fucking hate to do. I don't know why, but I HATE the store that is here in town. It's just... not nice. It's always got huge masses of humanity, in various stages of hygenic decline, and it's so freaking crowded, you can't wait to get out of there.

Did I mention it's pretty much the ONLY grocery store in town?

So I go in, and take my basket. Not much eventful happened while I was shopping, but when it came time to check out, one of the baggers came up to my checkout lane and told the boy who was there that "he'd handle this one."

Um, okay. A complete stranger is fighting to bag my groceries. This is getting weird, right? Um, no... not yet.

Bagger Boy has kind of a creepy smile on his face as he bags my groceries, and when he's through, I start to take my basket, laden with my recently purchased foodstuff (and enough bottled water to drown a rat) out of the store.

Except that Bagger Boy won't let me take my OWN stuff out... no no no... he says that HE'LL take it out, he would be HONORED.

Whatever.

So once we get to my car, he looks at me and says "Tim, I read your site everyday. I think you are the coolest person in town. I just wanted to tell you that."

How do you respond to that? Total strangers recognizing me? WEIRD. And then I went and looked at my referral logs. You know... what keywords people put into Google to find me on the web, and lo and behold, several people had searched for "gay blog New Braunfels" Guess who's at the top of THAT list? (Other search phrases that will yield you this site, incidently, are "San Antonio wealthy men gay bar" and "Gay Tim bear Xanga".)

I have many journaling friends, some with far larger readerships than my own, who choose to keep themselves anonymous. They use tons of nicknames and such, and I respect that. I also can't do that myself... it's just not me. But it makes me VERY AVAILABLE here on the web. Pretty much, you know my last name and what town I live in. You can find me, no problem. Please don't, but you could.

So I think it's cool if Bagger Boy recognized me. I think that's awesome. I hope that he gets as much from reading these pages as I do from writing them. I also hope he leaves me alone.

Well I don't know about you, but that was the LONGEST Monday ever.

Perhaps it was our overcast, rainy day, or maybe it was the fact that I was just SNOWED UNDER with work and things to do, all of this compounded the fact that I really just want to curl up under my desk and sleep when the weather is like this...

But now, it's Tuesday.  Monday's over, and the skies are supposed to clear, and pretty soon, I'm going to sound like a Broadway showtune, so I'm going to stop this now.

So I didn't tell everyone about Friday night, did I?

I had several offers of how to spend my time.  One was to go to San Antonio, have dinner with a good friend, and unwind.  However, in Austin, there were TWO things going on, and it was on the way to Temple, Texas... on the way to my friend's house.

So I chose Austin.  Friday night was the monthly installment of the the Guerilla Queer Bar, where a bunch of gay people show up at a straight bar, all dressed alike and pretending like they belong.  I've never been able to resolve my schedule with such a thing, but here it was: Friday, and I was able to be in Austin.  Cool.

So the first thing I had to do was find it.  This required Mapquest, because really, I only know how to get the food and gay men in Austin.  Everything else requires MapQuest.  So I finally find the place, and it's FULL of frat people.  At least I think it was... I couldn't find a damn parking place.

I'm by no means lazy.  I'll walk from where ever, but I couldn't find a place to park my car for BLOCKS.  The place looked like fun, and I wanted to see my friends that I know were there, but I decided to show my defiance by driving around the place six times with a pissed-off look on my face.  GO, GAY PEOPLE!

There was another social oppurtuity for me, and it was in a gay bar that had the decency to have a parking garage adjacent.  So I pay to park, and NONE OF MY FRIENDS are where they said they'd be.  At this point, I'm less than thrilled, but life goes on, and so I went to YET ANOTHER bar, and found a few of my friends.  We sat and visited, and then I decided to get on the road to Temple.  Fun night.  Not.

The little sidebar on the side of my site says that "there's a whole world out there" and yet, I have no links of people I read often.  Part of that is laziness, and a big part of it is that I read so many, I don't want to choose favorites.

So... here are some of the weblog/journalers from OUTSIDE Xanga that make me happy when I read them:

• Uncle Bob:  He's always funny, and never politically correct.  I read him everyday.  Every. Day.
• Weetabix:  Damn funny stuff, and it's very personal writing.  I'm lucky to get to read her everyday.
• Kim: She started this whole thing for me, and I've talked about her here before.  I think she rocks, and I have read every post she's written in the past few years.  I'm lucky to get to trade emails with her sometimes, too... when she's not so crazy-busy!
• M. Giant:  He's funny, smart and never fails to entertain me.

There are more (oh, so many more) but these deserved mention here.  Not that they need it... each ONE of these sites has an enourmous readership (which they totally deserve).

What are you waiting for?  Go.  Read!  Have a great day, and I'll see you here tommorow.  Same bat-time, same bat-URL.

Oh. My. God.

What a weekend I had.

I had some personal stuff happen that I'm not going to talk about here, and that was... stressful to say the least. SO I did what any healthy red-blooded American gay man would do: I got nekkid in a hot tub with a woman.

Yes, that's right. Me. A woman. Naked. In a hot tub.

And it's not as scandalous as it sounds, actually. It was all innocent and non-sexual. No part of my flesh touched any part of her flesh, so it's not like I've changed or anything. The weirdest part was that I don't think I'd seen a woman naked in YEARS. Amazing creatures, women. Esp. this one.

Obviously, I had a great time this weekend. My friends whom I was visiting are really nice, and I was lucky enough to meet a lot of their friends, too. They were all, without exception, cool, smart, honest and forthright people. I'm glad I got to meet them, and honestly, even though there were TONS of people at that party, I felt welcome and comfortable all weekend. It rocked.

Site notes...

So I guess people have noticed now... the site looks different.

First of all, I've added this Weatherpixie thing on the side. I didn't know much about it, but it shows the weather in my town, and a man dressed for the weather. I really, really didn't know that he would shed his shirt when it was 90 degrees or warmer, but he nice abs, so I've decided he can stay.

You might also notice that the Tiki stuff is gone... for now. Once again, I have to thank HeatherMarie for her help. This look actually reuses elements from a former site design... she's so darn busy with her impending move and I wanted a change, and this was a good way to do it. Thanks, HEATHER!. As usual, you are amazing. I will miss you when you are not in Texas anymore...

Also, I am trying like HELL to produce more consistent writing here. I will admit that in the past, I've posted stuff just for the sake of posting, since I have that committment to myself to post every weekday... but there's no point in posting shit! I've been putting more effort into it, and it shows... my traffic is up, and I of course will derive more satisfaction out of producing a quality site, complete with fresh, thoughtful, insightful and entertaining writing.

Let me know when I produce some of that, okay?

Howdy, everyone!

Whew!  I'm glad that's over.  I respect the dead, and I'm very, very sad.  I'm also, for the  moment, tired of hearing about it and seeing it and talking about it, and reading about it...

Catch me next Patriot Day, okay?

That being said, I was struck by how much closure this anniversary brought to myself and others.  Perhaps that's why we had so much hoo-ha... we had to process our emotions out loud... to feel them one more time so that we could see them, and then move on.  So move on I shall...

Well y'all, it's official... I'm now a Deputy Registrar for Voters in Travis County, Texas (that's Austin to you and me).  I was sworn in and everything... and how great of a country is this that I can take a solemn oath whilst sipping away on an Absolut Citron Cosmo, in a gay bar two blocks from the State Capitol building?  Pretty damn faboo if you ask me!

So now, I get to sit in bars and persuade drunk people to sign up to vote.  That shouldn't be a problem, because drunk people are easy to persuade.  Just ask Sharon Ozbourne.

I have been so busy lately... with tons of stuff piling up at work, and also in my personal life.  I just never seem to stop.  My little planner is full for the next three weeks.  I sure hope I get to sleep in some of that time... I'm feeling a bit "draggy" lately.  It's important once we get to a certain age that we take care of ourselves, you know?  Some of the things I have planned are:

• I'm going to my friends house in Temple (about an hour north of Austin) on Saturday because I've been wanting to visit them for a long time, and they are having a party or something this weekend, and you know me... don't want to be left out!
  
• The following weekend, I'm going to Dallas for Gay Day at Six Flags, their gay pride parade, and (most importantly) to see my sister and her family.  My nephew Noah just keeps growing!
  
• I've mentioned the voter registration thing, haven't I?  That's several weekends, though it's not ALL weekend... so it's cool...
  
• My work is hectic, and I'm going to spend most of October planning a transition of software at work.  This is no small project, and I'm going to have to bust ass to get it to go smoothly.  I can do it, though!
  
• The State Fair is in Dallas next month, too, and I sure do want to go this year.  JustMargie makes me crave the Fletcher's Corndogs and really, it's just a TON of fun!
  
• I am committed to spend a weekend at home, with nothing planned.  I'll do that sometime next month, too... just you wait!

See?  I told you I was busy.  That's not EVERYTHING, mind you!

I found an old family photo album yesterday that was about 21 years old, which means I was about ten when most of the pictures were taken.  The album depicted vacations, birthdays and holidays from my youth.  In almost every picture, we were smiling.  It's neat.  And then, I flipped the page and saw The Picture. 

Right there, in between pictures of my tenth birthday, and Christmas pictures at my childhood vacation home (one of my favorite Christmases ever) there was a snapshot of the New York skyline, circa 1981.  It's faded with age, but still clear.  I think my father snapped it from a ferry in the harbor.  That's the picture I chose to post today. 

It's odd…it's one of the few pictures in the album that doesn't have people in it.  I cried when I looked at that picture, and I cry when I think of it.  I cry for the loss of life, and I cry for those of us left behind, who have to know the evil that mankind is capable of inflicting upon himself.  God help us all.

So here we are.  September 11.  One year since we learned that even though we lived in the US, we were not immune to terror, even on our own soil.

For me, this anniversary is more difficult than the actual event.  I was of course upset by the Attacks, but in many ways, I hadn't fully processed the information.  Perhaps the fact that the planes hitting, and subsequent collapse of the building looked so much like a special effect from hell, like something out of Industrial Light + Magic's studio, that it didn't seem real to me.

How COULD it seem real?  That's a bizarre thing, isn't it, to think that someone would cause such suffering on purpose?  For someone who thinks of himself as a very worldly person, I am totally naïve about such things.  I have always functioned with the assumption that people are basically good.  I know that's not always the case, but I'm always a little surprised when someone is not good and honest.  I suppose we can blame my idyllic suburban upbringing for this.

So for me, anger and frustration began to set in as I began to read people's personal accounts of what happened.  Sarah Bunting's For Thou Art With Us stands out as one of the most amazing personal accounts I've read, but of course, the media was full of them.

I suppose that I protected myself from the pain by not dealing with it.  By the time I had accepted what had happened, the media was on to other things, like a War in Afghanistan, and the uninspired “Where's Osama?” stories.  Of course, Enron and their ilk shifted our focus for a bit, and then this summer, everybody seemed concerned with a lot of missing children.

So now, every media outlet is rehashing the Attacks, and the images bother me.  A lot.  I wept as I read the Newsweek Special Edition that hit the newsstands last week.  The loss is so… vivid and clear to me.  I think I'll do a lot of crying in the next few days.  Now, it's real… and it hits me in unexpected ways.

Bless the people who lost loved ones.  Bless the people whose lives where shattered.  Bless those of us who felt so helpless, watching the Attacks unfold thousands of mile from anywhere where we could make a difference.  Bless those of us who made a difference anyway.  The triumph of the human spirit has been show to us all, and we are humbled by it.  Please, let us never forget the lessons learned.

ONE YEAR AGO

So... Tuesday.

I'm very busy with work, and I have a project looming that I need to begin planning in earnest so that it will go smoothly.

However, I can't do that, because I have apparently been blessed with a myriad of people who lack basic point and click computer skills.  Yesterday, I literally had a user call me because she was worried about the fact that AN ICON ON HER DESKTOP WAS HIGHLIGHTED WHEN SHE CLICKED ON IT.

I am a man of great patience and I love all of the people I work with.  They are, without exception, some of the nicest people I've ever had the pleasure of meeting.  I enjoy working with them, and I don't mind answering basic questions about computer use.  HOWEVER there is a limit to what I can help you with.  Really.  If the use of a MOUSE is a problem for you, then I'm not really sure how I can help you further.  It makes me head hurt to imagine the software change we have coming up in a few months.  We'll ALL be lost then.

Other than that, life is good.  I am off to Austin today to get started on the AGLPC Voter Registration Project.  Should be lots of fun.  I get to see a lot of my friends when I'm in Austin, too.  Should be great.  Special Bonus:  I'm carpooling to Austin with a friend, so I can have a cocktail or two this evening, too.

That should help me deal with my user, who will once again ask me on Wednesday how to reply to an email in Outlook. (Um, just click the button at the top of the email that says "Reply").

Oh yeah.  It's a good day.

So this weekend, I found a few old photo albums from when I was a kid (more on that later this week) and in the back of one of them, I found a few old papers from when I was in high school.  Among them was a writing assignment, dated 1986 (I would have been in tenth grade).  It was on yellowing tractor feed paper, most likely printed on my old Apple Imagewriter in "letter quality" mode.  I have no idea what my writing assignment was, but here was the result:

The smooth glass doors are ominous yet still inviting.  The sights and sounds can be experienced through the glass in a strange, detached sort of way.  A patchwork sea of garments surrounds one as he first steps inside.  People are moving leisurely, stopping occasionally to examine a certain item.

 

The aromas wafting from the fragrance department eventually draws one near there.  There are elegantly dressed women spraying people, often involuntarily, with the latest in fashion fragrances.  Some women are being given new insight into the application of makeup.  To the right, there is an UP escalator.  It is strange to see people drifting effortlessly up a flight of stairs without using their legs.

 

Upstairs, elaborate displays are designed to make you desire the designers’ latest wares, and they succeed.  One begins to fantasize about owning a certain item and what he would do with it.

 

The “beeps” of the cash registers give their electronic approval to the further inflation of credit cards.

Yeah, I know.  I don't know what I was writing about, either.  What 16 year old writes about a mall?  Oh yeah... THE GAY ONES!

ONE YEAR AGO

I don't think that I mentioned lately how much I love my job. I've been here for four months or so, and I just LOVE it.

I'm about to get involved in a new project that is scary and exciting all at once. I can't wait!

I'm just happy and pleased right now.

Have a great weekend. I don't have just TONS of plans, and I can't wait to relax and maybe, just maybe... SLEEP some.

Today, I'm going to talk about clothes.

When I was younger, I was always concerned about what I wore.  I defined myself by my clothing and made sure I always looked nice.  Sometimes, that backfired.  I'm pretty sure that "Polo Boy" was NOT a compliment in middle school.  In fact, most things you hear from your peers in middle school are not compliments.

In high school, I decided to experiment a bit.  You know that outfit in the Fine Young Cannibals video for She Drives Me Crazy?  The guy in the suit with the shorts, knee socks, thick soled loafers and porkpie hat?  Um, I OWNED one of those outfits.  I was really proud of it, too.  In my defense, it WAS 1988.  I also wore bolo ties with suits, and the legs on all my pants were so pegged I could not have pulled them up over my calves to save my life.  And I'm not going to even DISCUSS the acid-washed denim.  I'm just glad I won't have to wear that shit again when it comes back into fashion.

So I spent the first half of my life caring what I put on my body.  Or rather, I spent a lot of time making sure that OTHER PEOPLE cared what I put on my body.  I bought outrageously expensive clothing and I'll have to admit: I did look fashionable and well dressed all the time (well, except for that colored denim phase in the early 90s... why, oh WHY did I buy a pair of baby-shit denim Girbaud jeans?!)

Then, I found Donna Karan.  My love of all things Donna began about the time my alarming weight gain took hold, and I found out that her proclivity towards solid black and expensive, sleek materials looked good on, ahem, portly gentlemen.  I had a "look," and don't think I didn't take it to the extreme.  At one time, I owned so much of that look that if I ever came up missing, my friends and family could just tell the police, "He was wearing a black knit top, grey flat-front slacks and square-toed Kenneth Cole shoes!  Find him, hurry!"

I dressed that way for about three years.  My sister told me that she knew my mental health was getting better because I stopped wearing black all the time.  It was shocking to me, because that hadn't been a conscious decision.  But she's right, I don't dress that way anymore.

So what do I wear now?  (Would it be too glib if I answered, "Whatever's clean?")  Actually, I have all sorts of clothes.  Some expensive, some not-so-expensive, and some downright tacky.  I don't put nearly as much thought into what I wear anymore.  I by no means dress like a bum, but I don't feel like I have to put on a pair of 130 dollar slacks to go to Target, either.  I think it's because I have a healthy self-esteem, my own personality, and frankly, I don't give a rat's ass what people think about how I look (within reason).  Yeah, that's it... I now dress for myself, not for anyone else.

And you know what?  I still look fabulous!

So it's election time again, and that means that I'm about to get busy.

Next week, I am going to a meeting of the Austin Gay/Lesbian Political Caucus so that I may help with their voter registration project.  I think that voter registration and education is one of the key ways to get things happening, and so I'm looking forward to getting involved.

Fall also means a reassesment of goals.  I've mentioned this a few times lately, and I have a lot to say on this topic (as with any topic, I guess!), and I'll be writing about that all next week.

It's hard to remember when I've had a more pleasant weekend.  I got to spend time with some good friends, catch up on sleep, and even got to eat anything I wanted.

See, I made myself a deal.  I promised myself on Memorial Day that if I was "good" with the food all summer, I'd allow myself to not worry about things over the Labor Day weekend.  Seems fair, right?

So... I ate whatever I wanted to this weekend.  I actually scared myself a bit.  God, bacon cheeseburgers are GOOD!  So good, I ate two of them over the weekend!  I also ate fries.  And assorted other fatty and nasty things.

I was shocked, though that I didn't seem to want to snack a whole lot... I didn't want candy bars and junk like that all the time, which I used to eat without thinking about it.  I don't know why, but I just didn't crave them anymore.  I ate SOME candy, but not like I thought I would.

Well, that's all over, and as of this morning, I gained one pound.  That doesn't sound like a lot, but I haven't been going up and down--just down, or stay the same.

Also, I've very, very hungry today.  I feel like I could eat my desk!  Really, really hungry!  That's what I get for training my stomach to take more food, huh?  Oh well, that usually is the case for a few days, then I'm fine.  I don't mind eating better.  I actually kind of like it... I mean... really!  I'm a control freak, so it follows I'd like to control my food!

Next food orgy:  Wurstfest, first weekend in November.  Then, I'll need to formulate my holiday eating strategy.

Happy Labor Day to all my US readers, and a Happy Monday for everyone else!

SO, I've recently been listening to my personalized Radio Station on Launch, and I gotta tell you, it's getting weird.

For those of you who have never used the awesome music service that is Launch, the way it works is that you rate stuff as you roam around the site... every Artist, Track or Album is rate-able, and you can grade things on a scale of 0-100.  That data is used to recommend things to you, and also to program your own personal radio station.  It's really cool

Except my taste in music could, at the very least, be termed "diverse"  I like most types of music, though I do have my definate opinions of what I'm in a mood for at any given time.

So today, I'm listening, and the last three songs have been a Moby remix, some random trance song that sounds like... well... all other trance music, and the porn-worthy "wocka-wocka's" of the Temptations's Papa Was A Rolling Stone just started.  Next, I'm as likely to get the Dixie Chicks as I am Erasure.

I'm by no means complaining.  All of this music is music I rated and liked, and goodness knows that my somewhat bipolar nature can handle it.

The next song, by the way was Camouflage's wonderful The Great Commandmant.  I'm in high school all over again!