Ray was sitting there checking his email when I shuffled into the office. He kissed me as I sat down at my computer. I felt numb and mildly cranky. As my eyes scanned over a couple of emails, Ray started to exercise. I could hear him huffing and puffing behind me. It was annoying — like a secondary alarm clock reminding me that I not only had to regain consciousness, now I had to start exerting a lot of energy.

After taking a healthy swig of my coffee, I mustered up every amount of energy I had to dismiss Mr. Fuck it (that’s the voice in my head that says, “Fuck it, you don’t have to <insert important activity> today.”) I got on the floor and started doing my push-ups.

Mr Fuck it got in my head and would not shut up.

“Why do you even bother working out? You don’t bulk up. You’ll always pretty much look the same.”
“Oh ha ha, now you’re doing curls. Your arms will always look skinny. It’s not going to happen.”
“Squats?? You’re a joke — a flabby-assed joke. You. Have. No. Butt.”
“Perfect Push-ups? Ha! Perfect loser. Face it, your never going to look any different — never.”

I continued my workout while trying my best to ignore Mr. Fuck it. Not an easy task for a man who has struggled with lifelong self esteem issues. My thoughts wandered off and before I knew it, Ray and I were in the car heading to work.

“I’m feeling really discouraged today,” I said. “Why do I do all this working out and running when I don’t see any real results?”

Ray was sympathetic and reminded me that he sees the results and that I just need to not think about it — kind of like waiting for a pot of water to boil. I needed to stop examining myself under a microscope and let the results happen.

I got into work and fired up my computer. I had this longing for someone to talk to. Someone like a guru or a spirit guide. Someone who knew me inside and out and could understand me…like a father. I looked at my calendar. It was July 15th, my dad’s birthday. He would have been 80.

Mr. Fuck it started laughing. It all made sense now. I was depressed.

I was never close to my father. We got to know each other in the last few months of his life. He passed away in December of last year. Turns out he was quite a great guy. Too bad I didn’t find out until he was dying.

I was adopted when I was four months old. I grew up in a loving family and had wonderful caring parents but for most of my life, I have wondered about the biological side of my existence. Where did I come from?

When I was 29, I found my birth mother and was surprised to find that I had siblings. It was interesting to meet her but I still felt as if an important piece of the puzzle was missing — my biological father.  Who contributed to the male side of me? My bio mom said that I look and sound just like my father and that he was a great guy but…who was he?

I fear that I will never be able to solve that piece of the puzzle. Today, being reminded of the death of my father by the date of his birth also galvanized the fact that I will probably never know my birth father (who, by the way, was described in my adoption records as having a muscular build — perhaps he could have given me training tips).

My birth father was 32 when I was born 44 years ago. If he was still alive, he’d be 76. My birth mother claims his name was Charles Long. When she told me that, it didn’t sound too convincing. He was married with children. She might not want me to find him. I can understand why…I guess. They met at Probst Tool and Die in Burbank, California. He was a machinist and she was a punch-press operator. Her name at the time was Kathy Dix. It was 1965. I was put up for adoption the following year.

Did I just give out too much personal information? I don’t know… perhaps I was just hoping that maybe, just maybe, if I put it out there, someone might be looking for me…

This photo was taken yesterday afternoon. The bunnies were gone this morning.

There were three of them in the little nest. I assume we’ll see them around from time to time as long as the don’t become dinner for some bigger animal. The courtyard is a safe place for them to hide from coyotes.

I love living in the country with the bunnies. I even like the snakes and lizards too. I can do without the insects though.

This photo is an example of how tiny the bunnies are…

So teeny!

On a side note, we celebrated Ray’s birthday yesterday. It was nice to be able to have cocktail hour in the pool again!

Now, Ray and I tend to have a very live-and-let-live attitude about the wildlife on our property but a hole in the middle of our landscaping project was kind of an eyesore. We have plenty of land with soft dirt. Can’t  momma bunny have her babies somewhere else?

Ray covered the hole back up. Sorry momma, this is where we draw the line. That being said; never underestimate the tenacity of a momma bunny. Just days later the hole was back.  This time there was a little surprise in it.

Isn’t baby bunny too cute for words? There are actually three bunnies in there! Ray is so funny. He’s like the protective father now. Checking to make sure they’re OK. Worrying that they are in a vulnerable place.  (I should have included a wider shot to illustrate how “open” this spot is.)

Anyway, the bunnies are fine for now. I’ll keep my camera ready for updates. They are so cute!! Who doesn’t love a baby bunny?

Last month I received an email from Esquire.com regarding this photo on my Flickr account.  They were interested in featuring it in an upcoming tongue-in-cheek article on their site titled “What Not to Wear to Work”.

What Not to Wear to Work???

I was mildly offended since I’m wearing a navy blue Emanuel Ungaro suit with a respectable red silk tie.   OK, So my hair was a little messy but really…

The photo was taken at my nephew’s graduation from West Point in 2006.  (George W. Bush delivered the commencement speech!  That was interesting.)

Since I am somewhat of an attention whore, I gave them permission.   I figured that perhaps this would be the “after” photo.  The example of what to wear to work.

After checking the Esquire.com site over and over for days, the article finally posted.  Sadly, I did not make the cut.  Perhaps they came to their senses.  I think I have a pretty good idea of what to wear to work.

Here is the article.

Over the past two days, it got up into the high 70′s.  Ray and I went running both evenings after work.  Been hitting the weight training with full force again as well.  It feels good to move!

I think I’m finally thawing out.   My whole mood changes when the days get longer and the temperature rises.  It’s as if my cumbersome emotional overcoat comes off and I can move about freely.  I have been taking a vitamin D supplement as well.  It seems to be helping.

After my father died in December, I took on the responsibility of a leading role in a play with our local theater company. I figured, I needed something to distract me from the grieving process we all go through when we lose a loved one.  The play is entitled, “Here Today” and is written/directed by a lovely woman named Pearl Watkins. Our local paper wrote a favorable article on it.

I play Alan, a man with a highly active libido and an inabilty to decide if he likes women, men or both.  It’s a big role and requires that I speak with a British accent.  The first performances went well last weekend but I have to admit, I’m ready for this to end.  It’s been taking up a lot of my free time.  THe last performance is Sunday afternoon.  In two weeks, my family is going to have my dad interred.  There is something symbolic about the play ending and my father finally being put to rest.  He was cremated so there’s no real rush.  I’m just ready for this chapter to end.

Ray’s 93 year old mother has been failing.  She’s in end-of-life hospice care at home now.  He’s been going out to see her a lot.  He’s going out again next weekend.

Here we go again…

I had the whole home studio thing going on with a Power PC 8600, Digital Performer software, Mackie SR24 – 4 Mixing board, Korg X2 keyboard/workstation and numerous rack-mount synths and effects.  It was impressive.  One day, my Mac just stopped working. Justlikethat. Poof! One minute it’s on, the next it’s off.  Dead.  I considered buying a new Mac but since I had spent about 10K for the original one (Yes folks — more than ten thousand dollars for a computer), I was kinda peeved at the fact that it just died only four years later.

My desire to write got the best of me so I looked into another Mac. The technology had improved so there was no longer a need to spend tons of money for extra RAM, sound cards, etc. but guess what?? Mac changed all of their plugs! Even my old monitor would not plug into a new Mac!  A new Mac meant a new audio interface and a new MIDI interface and a new this and a new that…

This happened after Ray and I had relocated to Bisbee and scaled way back on our expenses. I simply could not afford to revamp my whole studio with Mac products so I did the unthinkable, I switched to a PC — a Dell to be exact.  Monitor and CPU for just about $500.  Add another $500 and you’ve got software to record your music.  Fuck you Mac. I’ll do it on a PC.

In my opinion, if you spend that much money for something, it should fucking work for more than five years.  After, I got all my equipment configured to the PC environment, I happily blogged about it. There was just one little problem…

It never worked.

Never, ever, ever worked.  I had one messed up problem after another — most notably, latency.  I would strike a key on the keyboard and the sound would be delayed by about a half second.  If I had more than three or four audio tracks, the sound would pop and click.  Basically the shitty cheap PC could not muster up the processing power to do what I wanted — what I needed.

Around the time that I was trying to get my studio set up again, my good friend and fellow bandmate Mark Alan and I were both talking about how we wanted to get back into writing music.  He really took it to heart (and had a Mac) and, well, recorded a full-length album.  In anticipation of a release date, Mark asked me to remix a song of his. I was thrilled and got to work.  I did everything I could do to remix the song but my computer just couldn’t handle it.  I felt terrible telling him that I could not make a contribution.  This made me very upset.

And now, here we are a few years down the road.  Mark just released his fantastic album under the name Alphanaut and I’m sitting here with all this dusty equipment that doesn’t work and at the same time, my father who had been ill for years, died.

But shit makes things grow…right?

My father left behind some money for his children.  Yes, I put my share into savings and my retirement but I took some aside and bought a new Mac and some other little goodies.  I also did something I never thought I’d do — I got rid of equipment.  With the new computers and music authoring software, you don’t need a ginormous 24 channel mixing board. You don’t need a 76-key digital synthesizer workstation. You don’t need tons of hardware for synths and effects.  It’s all gone — and it all works! Perfectly.

So here I am two years later, trying again to take the music I hear in my head and commit it to some format that I can share with others.  For years, I have been wanting to do what Mark (Alphanaut) did. Compose, create, birth an album.  I finally have the right technical space to do what I want.  Thanks dad.

PS, Please check out Alphanaut. Mark’s stuff is awesome and it’s already going places.

Everyone had one of those shirts.  They were so cool, so profound — especially to a young impressionable eighteen-year-old who was dealing with his homosexuality by doing a lot of drugs and trying to sleep with anyone who would pay attention.

But I digress…

Choose Life!  What a statement.  To me, that was a testament to safe sex.  The AIDS crisis was out of control (it was 1984 after all) and the notion that I could choose to live was powerful since, as a self-loathing faggott, I had resigned myself to the fact that I was just going to get AIDS and die like everyone around me.

I grew up in Southern California.  By the time I came out and was hitting the clubs in West Hollywood, people were kind of, well, dropping like flies.

I remember seeing my friend Brian at a club.  I had not seen him for a while and ran up to say hello.  As I got closer, it was clear that something was wrong.  He was very thin and the shimmer behind his eyes was that of a 7 watt night-light.  To make matters worse, it was clear he was trying hard to look and act normal.  His forced smile could not hide his sullen looks.  There is no real makeup trick to camouflage sunken eyeballs.  With as much dignity intact as possible Brian died a short time later.  He was twenty-two.

In the early 80′s at the onset of the AIDS crisis, people — a lot of people — died of HIV related complications.  We didn’t know what was going on.  It was scary.  Every time I sniffled or coughed, the first thing that ran through my head was, “Oh my God!! This is it!!”

For me, safe sex was the only way to have sex — period.  There was no question about it.  No glove, no love.  Over time, I began to relax about the fact that I was probably not going to contract HIV.  I got tested regularly and never engaged in risky behavior.  Actually, since I was a gangly, shy twink with a taste for the Castro Clone type, I never really had to worry about safe sex because, at least in Los Angeles, Castro Clone types went for other Castro Clones.  They sported that look to attract it.

In the early 90′s, I had this friend named Tony.  He was Italian and a few years older than me.  Aside from being gifted with incredible looks, Tony was one of the most intelligent, funny, musically talented people I have ever known in my life. I was crazy about him.

Tony was like an older brother to me.  He constantly encouraged me to sing and took me with him everywhere. He knew everyone!  All of his friends were smoking hot and suddenly, they were my friends too.

One day I was returning from a very long trip.  Tony came to pick me up from the airport.  He put the top down for the ride home (naturally, he had a convertible).

“I have full-blown AIDS” he said.

Talk about a verbal bullet to the brain.  I knew several people who died and I’d seen people who looked really sick but this was way too close to home.  This was one of my best friends.  Over the next two years, my beautiful friend transformed from a rugged Italian stud to a little 80 year old man and then he died.

People seem to forget that HIV doesn’t necessarily kill you, it just destroys your ability to fight off everything.  So basically anything kills you.  Tony died from not being able to live anymore.  I saw it with my own eyes. It’s something that I will never, ever forget.  It was the most long drawn out death scene I have ever witnessed.

He died in 94.  I still miss him to this day.

Fast forward to today.  Not only are a lot of young gay kids are engaging in unsafe sex, older men who have been safe all this time are doing it too.  There’s this bizarre mentality that HIV is now just a “thing” you live with — like diabetes.  You just take a pill.  Have you ever seen the long-term effects of antiretroviral therapy??

I’ll never forget the day I was talking to some young gay guys in Chicago and one of them brought up barebacking and bugchasing/giftgiving.  I was in shock.  There are people out there who actually want to have unprotected sex with people they know are infected!! Not to mention the fact that there are infected people “giftgiving” their disease knowing full-well that this date is going to be dining, dancing and disease.  It’s like the new rite (not right) of passage.  Some sort of honor badge.

Stupidity has now become a choice!

People are choosing to be stupid.  Not only with sex but politics, denying climate change, following Sarah Palin, believing whatever the media tells them — that goes for all media but yes, FOX is on the top of that list.  It’s one thing to watch it, it’s another to believe it.  Even science is taking a beating!

To me the big indicator of this new willingness to be stupid are these tea party rallies with signs that are misspelled.

So, is dumb the new black?  Not for me.

As we ate dinner, I, for some reason, started reminiscing about how miserable I was being single throughout my twenties. I remembered yearning for someone who was real. Someone who would take care of me simply by being present. Someone handsome, confident and smart who would love me unconditionally. Someone I could love back…  I was drifting away on these thoughts when my gaze fixed on the man sitting in front of me. There he was. Someone.

Ray and I hit the sixteen year mark last Saturday.  I am more in love with him now than I ever was.  After all these years there is one thing that he and I have that no person in the world can deny — we’re married!  Sure the whole legal benefits are missing from the package but for all intents and purposes Ray and I are married and no one can stop it.

We are so married.

I love my man and mark my words, there isn’t a day that goes by when I don’t look up in the sky and whisper, “thank you” not only for Ray but for my health, my life…my everything. In the spirit of thanks, I’d like to take a moment to broadcast this message to the universe:

Thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you!

The last year was really difficult for me.  I would have gone crazy if it weren’t for my Ray.

Sixteen years…shit!

Mr. Depression has overstayed his visit.

As a young adult, I was told that I suffered from clinical depression.  Over the next decade and a half, I had bouts of depression that was treated with medication.  I hated medication.  Zoloft ruined my sex life (can’t have that).  Remeron made me instantly fat and Wellbutrin had me in such a state of paranoia that I became prone to panic attacks.  Ever have a panic attack?  It’s really freaky.

When I was in my late thirties, I realized that *my depression was mostly caused by poor diet, lack of exercise, cigarettes and my overall outlook on life.  To touch on the latter part of that statement; Happiness is a state of being.  It doesn’t just…happen. You have to be happy.  You have to wake up and say to yourself, “Wow! Look at the sunrise.  What a great day.”

However, that’s easier said than done.  Pollyanna I’m not.  You see, you can’t just say it, you have to mean it too.  The past couple of months, I’ve been saying it but without much meaning.

The funny thing about my relationship with depression is that I tend to be unaware of it.  I find myself wondering “Why am I so tired?  Why do I feel like a stupid piece of shit? That’s so unlike me. ”  I’d spill my coffee — a thing we all do occasionally — and it feels like the whole world was out to get me.  ”Why do I always spill my coffee??”

I was ruminating over all these feelings the other day when suddenly it hit me…my father died!  I’m still grieving!  My father is gone, it’s cold and gray outside, we still have all of February to get through for crying out loud!  It’s no wonder I’m depressed.  Rainy days and winter always get me down…and — my dad died!  My father! The guy who was always there from the beginning of my life is gone.  Forever.  It’s natural to feel sad for a really long time.

So, I know what’s causing my depression.  You’d think that would alleviate some of the symptoms.  It doesn’t.  I’m aware of what’s bothering me and yet I’m left feeling like a big stinky pile of dog poo.  Nonetheless, I’m trying to move on with my life especially my workout regimen.  It’s really hard when you’re trying to muster up the energy to run an extra mile and a voice in your head keeps reminding you to give up . . .

“So you lost weight, you gained it back while vacationing in Florida.”
“You’re always going to have a flabby belly.”
“Face it, you’ll never get any better at this.”
“Why do you even bother with weight training? You’re a joke.”
“Must be nice to be Ray, he just looks at a barbell and bulks up.”
“You should give up.  You’ll always look the same.  Always.”

Imagine that kind of negativity layered onto everything.  On second thought — don’t.

Most of the time, that little voice is muffled to the point of inaudibility.  I have learned to ignore it.  It’s only at times of fatigue and genuine sadness (like now) that the little voice gets a chance to pull free and start shouting in my ear.

Under normal everyday circumstances I’m standing tall and oozing with confidence which is the worst thing about depression.  One moment, I’m the King of the World and the next…someone is cursing the fact that they stepped in a big warm smelly pile of MePoo.  I’m the shit mashed into the bottom of someone’s shoe.

So, yeah, I’m depressed but it’s OK.  The key thing for me in handling my depression is recognition.  I know that after seeing there’s no more wine left, the fire has gone out and I’ve fallen asleep, Mr. Depression will realize he’s overstayed his visit, get bored and leave.

*My depression. I am not speaking for anyone who has had to deal with their own depression.

I noticed that the rest of the country was having terrible weather — especially back home in Bisbee.  I found myself posting more and more updates and photos on Facebook about how much fun I was having in the warm weather.  Yes, I admit I was being a little bit, “Ha Ha” about my good weather experience — OK, I was being a lot “Ha Ha” — as evidenced by what I found in my office when I got in to work this morning…

My office filled with packing peanuts or, “snow”.

The email confirmation for 18 cubic feet of packing peanuts.

A printout of the past week’s weather report (including the blizzard warning — BLIZZARD warning in Bisbee). There were also printouts of  my myriad “Ha ha, I’m having such a great time!!” Facebook updates and photos.

The random peanuts in the ceiling tile over my office door indicating that my co-workers had indeed filled up my entire office with “snow”.

Fortunately, they had only taped up the window and filled that up with packing peanuts. (Kudos to my coworker, ‘topher for his great freakout effect with the peanuts lodged in the ceiling tile.  For a split second, I really thought I was going to be cleaning packing peanuts out of my office all day.)  Actually, my friends did such a good job that the Facilities director had a fit when he saw it.  He really thought they crawled over the ceiling and filled the whole office.

But the pièce de résistance was the fact that my coworkers rigged a device over the inside of the door that popped a bag of packing peanuts when the door opened so it “snowed” in my office upon my return.  This is what happens when you work in IT with technical people.

I had such a wonderful vacation and was dreading going back to work today.  To be honest, this little stunt is a nice reminder of how lucky I am to work with such a great bunch of people.  I feel loved.