Category: Male

Posted on

The best laid plans…

The tail spin I’ve been in for the past few months is starting to be… less spinney. I’m not out of the spin yet, not by a long shot, but I’m getting better.

I had a plan for our retirement. A plan for what I wanted to do. I pictured us having a small home, with a lawn. I pictured actually having to own a lawn mower for the first time in my life. I’d even been shopping for mowers I might want. I pictured puttering around in a garden, and the two of us enjoying warm days with friends. Nice barbecues, dog walks and quiet times. Most of all I pictured having a mailbox. A “real” address and the joy of not having to worry about how something was being sent to me, because there was only one address to worry about. 

Yellow houseThese are small things. When you haven’t had them for most of your adult life they attain outsized importance.

I saw us enjoying hobbies and interests we’d not had the time to pursue because our jobs were always in the way. We always wanted to travel, we envied those of our friends who made traveling a priority and found the money to afford to do it. We always thought we’d have time. “Once we retire,” we’d say to each other.

I know this is an idealized view, and the reality of our retirement wouldn’t have been quite so… idyllic? Bucolic? But I thought that I’d be able to hammer some part of it out for us, even if it was only for a few years. 

Now, all that is changed. That’s what put me into the tailspin in the first place, aside from the shock, then learning that my other half had made no provisions for his demise.

You’d think I’d be mad, but I gotta say, “Good one babe, ya left me holding the bag!” 

I find myself wondering what now? What next?

I’m still here, the dog is still here, there’s still a small home with a patch of grass out there somewhere. There’s still barbecue, beer, warm days, mild winters, dog walks, and laughs. It’ll just be me and the dog doing all those things by ourselves. The dog is generally good company so that’s a plus. 

One distant acquaintance told me I’d meet someone else. She was attempting to tell me there was a future. She has no sense of boundaries, or decorum, and didn’t know that I’d long ago decided that I wasn’t going to “get hitched” again. I might not even date. I might simply decide that scratching a certain itch is best done in a way that ends with me saying, “Your money is on the counter, now please leave.” There is an interest on my part to “ordering from a catalog,” so to speak. I suspect that is cheaper than dinner & drinks, and I don’t have to be deafened by bar music.

I’ve decided that moving is best for me in the long run. Where I live now is a beautiful place, I have a view that I enjoy very much. But time is catching up with me, I don’t do as well in the winters as I used to. I’ve concluded it’s time for me to take the hint. I think I should go in search of the patch of grass and a mailbox that I’d fantasized about so often.

As I’ve looked at other places to live and the houses available, I’ve discovered that I like either brand new houses or I like really old houses. 1944 and before generally. I suppose it’s because those houses seem to have a lot of character. I know that is sometimes another way of saying they’re a money pit but some of the pictures of these older homes are very nice. The newer houses seem to have a lot of conveniences. 

I’ll have to adjust my visualization down to one chair on the porch but I’m working on that.

The mornings here are getting warmer, I’ve been taking my coffee and iPad out on the back deck to enjoy the quiet of the morning and scan the daily follies of the “Adults” in Washington. The dog likes it because he can watch the world and keep an eye on me at the same time.

I guess the lesson learned is plans and dreams change. 

Posted on

Something that made me smile…

In preparation for possibly selling the house, I’ve been cleaning closets.

The other half, God rest his soul was a heck of a packrat and had a habit of saving all kinds of paperwork in boxes, backpacks, shopping bags, and disused briefcases. Each one of which I must now open and determine from which epoc the paperwork within belongs.

That’s enough fun and I have found a lot of very strange things. I’ve also happened upon a treasure trove of CDs all of them classical music and none of them digitized. I’m at a complete loss as to why this would be. The resources to digitize and store all of his music on his computer, ipad, iphone or whatever were available. For some reason it just never got done and to the best of my knowledge I was never asked to do it or help. 

It’s one of those questions I’ll have to ask him when I see him next. I do hope that I can call him to the gates of heaven to chat for a moment or two before I’m put on the express elevator to hell. I doubt they’ll allow phonecalls between the two places and the long distance charges would be outrageous even if such calls were allowed.

Another part of cleaning out the closets has been dealing with the porn collection. There are quite a few videos we accumulated over the years. After the fire, we replaced a lot of what we originally owned on VHS tapes with DVDs or BluRays. As technology advanced and porn houses started offering their movies digitally I allocated a chunk of space on our server to store movies. I’ve also transferred many movies to the server, so that they are available on demand on virtually any device with a screen in the house.

As I was sorting movies from the shelf in the closet, I noticed a number of titles were not on the server and were not available for download from the production houses. So while going through the heartwrenching task of sorting or trashing things from boxes, bags, etc. I also began moving videos to the server. Once the DVD is on the server, I’ve been boxing them for storage and transport. 

This process has gone quite well. After moving the videos to the server, I decided to do a little quality check and so I told a player application to play the videos. I wasn’t watching them actively, I was spot checking as I walked something to the trash or checked on the dog.

The Dog will only allow me about an hour before he brings a ball in and drops it loudly next to my foot.

Anyhow, between laundry, sorting paperwork and the dog demanding that I play, I completely forgot about the videos playing on the TV in the bedroom. The volume was low and I was distracted. I’d returned to the front bedroom closet concentrating on the mountain of paperwork and odd bits & pieces of stuff collected over the past 13  years or so. 

I would ocassionally hear a voice, but couldn’t make it out, and thought that it was coming from outside the house. (The weather is nice so it’s routine for the crazy woman and her crazy man to be screaming at each other, one in the house and the other in the yard. Everytime they start up I first imagine an episode of COPS and then tune them out.)

Several hours pass as I’m digging through paperwork, playing with the dog, and tossing stuff into the recycle bin. During all this time I’ve been hearing voices and simply assumed it was the neighbors then cursed their classless nature under my breath…

Until one of the performers in a movie had a particularly loud orgasmic release.

Then I remembered the videos were playing in the other bedroom and found myself taking back all the unkind things I’d been thinking and muttering about the crazy neighbor and her mate.

So, Note to self, turn the volume up so I can hear the video playing the the other room, or turn the volume down and be happily surprised when I walk into the bedroom and see the porn is still running.

And now I’m off to throw the ball for the dog once again. I can’t deny him, but do think he’s mastered distracting me from the tasks that I need to accomplish.

Posted on

Really… How can a company be this out of touch with their clients?

I didn’t know who the fuck Dylan Mulvaney was.

Here’s the short version. He, and I do mean “He” is a dude who thinks he’s a woman and has achieved some fame on the Tic Tok application. He’s been calling himself a woman for a year.

Big Deal, SO WHAT?

There have been a lot of little blurbs about his partnership with Bud Light which I’ve mostly ignored because it’s just another Trans whatsit bunch of crap. Today there’s an article about some kind of backlash brewing over his partnership with Bud Light.

There’s an old saying that any publicity is good publicity and maybe that’s true, but a couple of decades ago, it was all the rage that Coors beer wouldn’t be served in Gay bars. I forget now what the deal was, I thought it was silly at the time, and quickly lost interest. Generally thinking, I doubt that the gay boycott of Coors had much of an effect on their bottom line.

Although at the time there may have been men ordering Coors in straight bars just to flip off the gays, perhaps that improved Coors bottom line. I kinda doubt it, most men didn’t spend more than a couple of seconds thinking about their beverage choices.

Today on the other hand, a non-trans boycott of Bud Light and Anheuser-Busch products will likely hurt the Busch bottom line. (Note to self, make sure that my broker sells any Anheuser-Busch holdings immediately.) On the plus side in six months to a year Anheuser-Busch stock may be available at rock bottom prices.

I have a feeling that the majority of our country and the world is sick and tired of hearing about all this Trans bullshit. I know I am. It’s no problem for me to avoid Anheuser-Busch products. I prefer Blue Moon, or Corona.

If I’m indicative of the rest of the country. I suspect we’ll see Dylan Mulvaney whining on Tic Tok that he’s not in a partnership with Anheuser-Busch anymore because of Trans Hate. Then we’ll hear of Anheuser-Busch’s executives being quietly shown the door. Perhaps then we’ll be having less of the Trans shit in our daily lives.

For your reference, Anheuser-Busch products include:

Budweiser, Bud Light, Stella Artois, Shock Top, Kona Brewing Co., Michelob Ultra, and Busch Beer.

If you’re of a mind to send a financial message to Anheuser-Busch.

Posted on

Trans folks it’s not hate, we’re just tired of hearing you bitch!

I say that as a CIS Bi/Gay man whose seen the LGB movement completely hijacked and turned into something that I’m personally revolted by.

You’ve completely destroyed the credibility and “normalcy” we spent decades building.

So thank you assholes for taking the rest of us down with you.

We spent years dispelling that LGBT people were pedophiles. Your drag queen story hour, child transitioning, males in women’s sports, and pervy guys dressing up as women to get into the girls locker rooms, have completely undone all our work in the eyes of the American public.

But on top of that, every time anyone looks around you’re screaming about some perceived slight.

There is NO TRANS GENOCIDE! Do you even know what Genocide means?

You have all the same rights as everyone else.

There are no roving bands of ARMED, CIS, WHITE, CONSERVATIVES, scouring the countryside looking for a trans person.

Nobody actually gives a shit about what you wear, or who/what you identify as on which day.

But when you talk about a day of “Vengeance“, As y’all did this last weekend, I have to ask what the hell did you expect people’s reaction to be?

It’s funnier than shit, that most of the LGBT community appears to be anti gun but then ya’ll start taking pictures of yourselves with AR-15s as part of your Trans Vengeance day.

I have to ask which is it?

It would be nice if y’all would just pick a lane…

OH RIGHT!!!! You can’t pick a lane about something as basic as gender so why the hell would you pick a lane about anything else in your lives?

No-one is out to get you, (At least they weren’t.) Most people didn’t think about you, in anonymity, there is safety. You idiots forgot that. You’ve pretty much painted a target on your own backs!

Most folks see a dude dressed in a dress and a wig, they politely ignore it. People see only what they want to see and folks don’t see an ugly woman, a dude in a dress, or a chick dressed like a man.

Most folks, myself included, aren’t concerned about your personal issues the only thing we’re concerned with in a business setting is do you know your shit? If you do, you can paint you ass blue and dress in animal skins for all we care.

Why do you feel it necessary to drag me, or anyone, into your fucked up drama? I supposed a better question would be, why do you Trannys need to generate so much drama?

By the way, that asshole that killed 6 people in Nashville… Wasn’t a victim. The 3, 9 year olds, and 3 adults were victims.

On second thought, maybe she was a victim of GAY INC. Maybe she started out as a person who had some mental issues that could have been handled with traditional therapy. But then she was sold a bill of goods from all the Gay organizations that trade upon victimization. You know, HRC, GLAAD, and all the rest.

Thinking this way, perhaps I could get behind naming GAY INC as responsible for these murders.

The bill of goods I’m referring to, seems to say that everything would be just fine if you pump yourself full of hormones your body wasn’t built to use, that through surgery all would be well and after your transition every single problem in your life would magically disappear.

Perhaps she bought into the thought that trans genocide was a real thing. Perhaps she was on testosterone. A hormone that men must learn to control over their entire lifetimes.

A hormone that during puberty, makes men act out, do stupid things, fight about inconsequential issues, etc.

You know… for years our society has called it testosterone poisoning. So is it still testosterone poisoning if doctors inject testosterone into a woman?

It seems like it should be.

In the case of a woman, there’s the added problem, most women have no idea how to handle riding the testosterone dragon. They also may not have time to figure it out before they lose themselves in ‘roid rage.

The same could be said of men transitioning to being a woman. I’m terrified to think what estrogen does to a mans emotional controls.

Talk about a sock drawer!

Trans people, do whatever the fuck you want to do to yourselves. I personally don’t care.

But my indifference is not hate. It’s being tired of your shrill screaming about shit that ain’t happening.

So take your drama someplace else and shut the fuck up.

Posted on

Life Events

We’re all getting older.

Deny it all you will, it’s a fact.  Currently, on my mantle is an urn. It’s a nice simple shape.

It contains the cremains of my Significant Other. We had 34 years together; some good, some bad, but the important thing is we endured the hard times and celebrated the good times.

There’s a finality to that urn. It’s like a stake in the ground that says, “From here you go on alone.”

Now, there’s all the paperwork and complications. There’s the digging through documents and trying to find accounts and pay for this, that, and the other thing. There are originals and copies of proof of death to be sent to various organizations. It’s complicated, litigious, and annoying.

There’s cleaning, and organizing of all the little bits of stuff that my S.O. considered important enough to keep and deciding the validity of each thing. Should the silly coffee mug from some professional conference be kept? It means nothing to me. But it was a cup that frequently was on the breakfast table. I suppose, in that, some objects have attained sentimental value, but are they important enough to keep?

How do you decide? What merits an object’s inclusion in a cabinet when everything in the house is something you remember picking out together? When your home is full of memories, how do you weight one item over the rest?

There are items that should be returned to my S.O.s family. I’ve been collecting those because these items have historical significance to the family and should be passed on. Like other objects they have little significance to me personally, but to the family they are bits and pieces of their history. The family should have the opportunity to accept or reject these items.

Our home is full of memories. These memories come unbidden at random times and they can be paralyzing.

Then there are all the good people who don’t know what to say or do. There’s really nothing they can say or do, this pain is mine. I appreciate their well wishes and concern. But really there’s little they can do to help, short of standing with me.

There are those among the friends of my S.O. for whom drama seems to be necessary. For them, sharing their trauma of losing a parent or sibling is supposed to be helpful. In reality their repetitive oversharing is just ripping the bandage off the wound.

It’s not that they mean to be cruel. They just don’t understand that grieving a spouse seems to be a private affair. Losing a spouse is very different from losing a parent or sibling. I’ve experienced all three now. The spouse, is a completely different experience.

When you’re growing up, you come to understand that death is part of life. You understand there’s an order to things. You eventually realize that your parents will one day, not be there, and you usually have a long time to come to grips with that concept. Often, your parents, realizing their own mortality, provide you with guidelines and instruction. It’s not overt, but you see your grandparents pass on and by observation you learn how to come to grips with that inevitably.

When your parents pass on, you grieve following your parent’s example of grieving their parents.

When your spouse passes on, you have some rudimentary coping mechanisms but those don’t really fit. You’re in uncharted waters and each day brings new and different pain.

You see something that your spouse left behind. For example, a mess, and your first thought is to be irritated by it, then you remember your spouse is gone. That’s when you feel guilt about being irritated with them, and grief washes over you. Then you wonder if you were good enough to them, were you petty when you expressed your irritation about them leaving messes in their wake.

Should you have been more patient and loving? Then you’re back to guilt.

You don’t really have time to process your feelings because there are plans and decisions to be made.

The love of your life may be at peace, but you’re anything but…

I’ve found myself losing hours of a day over something trivial. I’ve been awakened by the dog in the night because unbeknownst to me I was crying in my sleep. It’s a strange feeling to be awakened by your dog kissing tears away. In the dim moonlight I can see the dog’s concerned eyes. Once I’m awake, he lays down next to me with one paw on my arm, as if to say, “I’m here Dad, it’s going to be alright.”

I’m anthropomorphizing the dog. He doesn’t really understand, but he’s aware something fundamental has changed in our home.

Grief appears to be a journey. It’s not one that I’m prepared for, and not one that any of us have a choice in undertaking.

I’m getting the feeling that this is also a long journey.

All of which is to say, I’m likely to be writing intermittently at best.