Cut the Shit

Living With a Migraine

For the last 48 hours, I've been dealing with one of the most incapacitating illnesses on the planet. Have you ever had a migraine? I grew up with them and it's the worst thing I can ever imagine. I was told that I would lose them during puberty. And if we were talking frequency, I definitely did. But severity? No. A migraine is a gift I get to open at least two or three times a year and each time it's just as bad, if not worse, than the one before it. After all the testing I've been through (you have no idea), it's clear to me that there is no particular cause or remedy. I have just learned to weather the storm.

As an experienced adult, I can catch most of the migraines ahead of time. Very rarely does it take me out of commission for days at a time. But then there are the persistent ones...the ones that refuse sleep and medication. And when they hit, they hit like a fucking nuclear bomb.

I not only missed one day of work this week, I missed two. In a row. That's a rarity for me. I have no problem taking a sick day, but two in a row?? That means I'm actually sick.

As of this moment, I'm deaing with the most mind numbing headache, but fortunately, that's all it is. A headache. There's a major difference between the two.

There was a moment this morning when I fully believed that I would have a headache for the rest of my life. Usually sleep and me killing it with medicine works, but for the last two days I kept waking up to the same mind-splitting ache. I haven't watched TV, I haven't eaten, and I surely haven't even looked at the computer screen. Even now, my left eye is straining to focus (that's the nucleous of all my migraines).

I can feel that I'm on the mend now. My head aches, but in the normal way and my stomach is no longer raging with nausea. I might get so bold as to turn on a light in my apartment tonight. Trust me, it's a luxury.

I just wanted to check in with you all, more so that I confirm to myself that I'm actually starting to get better. It's quite invigorating when you pull out of something like this. Like a new lease on life. My head may not hurt tomorrow!

That's enough.

Sleep well.

Free Association

It's what I do best, really. You know that. You also know that at this time of night I'm typing in a yahoo account due to my Microsoft issues. If you have a problem with the margins, F and off. I can't fluff right now and pretend that I'm concerned.

Secretly, I'm concerned.

I'm just irritated. For no reason in particular. Just overall. Yesterday I told Paul that I wanted one of my best friends dead and buried. He reacted like most surface-brained people and said "OH CUT IT OUT! YOU DON'T MEAN THAT!"

Fucking duh I don't mean that. But if I don't say it to you right now, I might stew with it and actually realize that I DO mean it. Just be my sounding board already. Fuck.

So I'm just pissed.

Tyler ate his own poop last night and when I caught him in the act, I didn't yell. I looked him in the eyes and whispered "Oh Tyler. That's the most disgusting and vile thing you can do with poop. You should NEVER eat your own poopski." When he would look away, I would guide his eyes back to me and hold his chin, "Tyler, poop eating is incredibly embarrassing to you. AND more importantly, it's embarrassing to me."

I'm fucking Mommie Dearest without the hangars. I prefer mental abuse over physical abuse always.

Anyway, I just love that little dude and he needs to know how the world works. Some mothers tell their kids to always wear the best designer clothes, always stay thin, and most importantly, never go out of the house without a full face of beautiful make-up and form fitting jeans. That gets on my motherfucking nerves. (Whoa. Who am I right now? The ultimate lesbian feminist? I'm cool with that.)

THIS mother tells her "kid" to NEVER eat their own shit. If you compare the two, I'm totally in the right.

I think we're done with that diatribe.

So...twiddle thumbs, twiddle thumbs...I'm mostly writing this entry so that I don't let you all down. I've been a shitty friend lately and I'm making an effort to be better. Downside, you have to read posts about dogs eating poop.

And then what happens in the story is that my mom calls and I end up talking to her for an hour and now I can't write any more.

You knew this post was called "Free Association". Were you foolish enough to think that there would be a pay off?

Stay one step ahead, ok? Otherwise, this relationship will never work.

Mosquitoes Are My Number ONE Nemesis

I’m having one of those days. You know the kind…you wake up feeling like you could kill the first person to say “Good morning” and throughout the day the anger dissipates and you become full of unexplainable sadness.

I know the immediate cause for sure. I went to bed last night at 11:30pm. At midnight, Paul came home and accused me of pretending to sleep rather than say “hi” to him. That was clearly not the case and when I asked him to get out of the bedroom so I could go to sleep, he did, mostly without a fight. I started to drift off when I felt a sharp sting on my hand. “I know that sting well”, I thought. I immediately turned the light on and found a family of mosquitoes resting comfortable on the wall above the bed. For some reason, my apartment is a breeding ground for those vile assholes.

During the summer I had some mosquito visitors and it drove me INSANE. Paul NEVER gets bit, but I get bit on every skin cell in my body.

With one fell swoop, I smashed the family of blood-suckers and turned the light back off. Just as I’m drifting off to sleep again, I feel another sting. “MOTHERFUCK!”

Paul comes rushing into the bedroom. “WHAT’S WRONG!?!”

“These damn mosquitoes are ruining my life!”

Paul finds one tucked into the crevice of the wall and when he goes to smash it, the little bastard flies away and sits on the cathedral style ceiling (about 20 feet above my head). Paul convinces me that if I just close my eyes and relax, the mosquito will do his own thing and I’ll be able to go to sleep. I wasn’t too convinced by this plan, but I allowed it to happen.

Ten more minutes passed and then STING!.

“FUCKING MOTHER FUCKING SHIT!”

Paul comes running in again. “Another one?”, he says.

“Paul, it’s now 1am and I really need to go to sleep and I know that there’s a mosquito in here cuz my chin is swollen like Rumor Willis.”

“Who?”

“Whatever. HELP!”

Paul decides to stay in the bedroom with me and go to sleep as well. We hunt for the mosquito king and I start to get so angry as the minutes tick from 1:10am to 1:25am to 1:35am. “PAUL! This is the worst moment of my whole day! I have to go to sleep! WE HAVE TO FIND HIS FUCKER!”

Paul slaps the wall and says “I GOT IT!”

“Let me see…I don’t believe you!”

“Trust me, its dead.”

“Fine. Thank you. Turn off the light and let’s please (for the love of all things wonderful) go to bed!”

We turn off the lights…and yes, you guessed it…STING!.

I literally scream and turn on the lights.

“PAUL! PAUL, you lied! I just got bit again. We have to find it or I’ll be dead by morning. Paul, please!"

At this point Paul just lies there quietly and closes his eyes. I sat (absolutely buck naked – oh did I forget to include that part in the story?) on the bed and stared at every possible inch of the bedroom walls. At 2:30am, I gave up, anger resting comfortably in my mind, and buried myself in every blanket on the bed with only room for my mouth to breathe.

Sometime after that I fell asleep and within (what seemed) seconds, my alarm went off. I got up, cursed the world, had my cigarette and began to start my day off with frustration and nausea.

If I don’t get at least 7 hours of sleep a night, I’m a miserable mess for the entire day. I was never able to pull off successful all-nighters in college and I’m not one to stay up for days straight on a drug binge. I just don’t have it in me. I need sleep if I’m even going to pretend to be happy that I’m alive.

Paul called me earlier today and he said “I have good news!” I immediately thought that he was off from work tonight, thus giving us one night together this week. But the good news was this: “I found the mosquito this morning and smashed it and blood splattered all over the wall!”

Well, THANK YOU Paul. But couldn’t you have done that 12 hours ago??

In any case, it’s almost time to leave work and I can’t wait to go home, scour the apartment for any leftover mosquitoes of doom, and get into my bed. Tyler, of course, will be curled up in my right arm and we will (HOPEFULLY) snooze our way right into our weekend.

The Truth About Cats and Dogs

If you know me, you know I love that title. I say it in my head, all the time, for no good reason. One of those things, I guess.

When I write a journal entry at home, I have to do it
in an email text box (yahoo for example). For some reason my Microsoft
Word only lets me type for 3 seconds before taking
another 3 second breather. Irritating to the maximus.
Most people would figure out the problem, but I do what I
always do and just go around it. Basically what I'm
saying is: the margins will be fucked up when I post this
in Blogger.

Yes, it was that important of a topic and it deserved
a full paragraph of type.

Now I just came up with a theme for this entry.

Figures, I already picked The Truth About Cats and
Dogs and now I gotta change it.

Ok, let's start over.



The Five Senses and Their Consequences

Ooh. That one is totally better. And I hope to come
up with some consequences quick!

Just so you know, I do carry a bit of guilt with me on
each day that I don't post. I know there are those of
you that check religiously and enjoy the stupid shit I
get emotional about. Conversely, I enjoy knowing that
you care. I think it sucks that I haven't been as
dedicated to this space as I have been in the past.
Primary reason being that I don't believe in personally
committing to a website that isn't constantly serving
my needs. Either keep a site or don't. The end.

So I apologize (because it makes you feel better and
ultimately turns me guilt-free) and I'll try not to be
so irresponsible in the future.

How ARE you by the way? Doing ok? I hope so. Shit
has been so intense in my life lately that I don't know how much
more extraneous drama I can take. Just been one of
those weeks. Err...years. Or maybe it's just me. I
do take everything right to heart. Whether it's a
bird lying crippled on the NYC sidewalk (still not
fully over that image) or the fact that not a single vendor
I visited today said "hello" or "have a good day";
phrases that I say automatically no matter what kind
of day I've had. Sometimes NYC is a nasty
place.

The Sense of Sight:

In a family of nine people (extended included), each
relationship is incredibly important. They're not all
the same in intensity, but they're all special in
their own right. My personal favorite relationship has to be my
two uncles who reside in beautiful San Francisco. One
of these uncles is by blood and it's his husband
(partner, lover, life-guru, whatever...I say husband),
that I consider to be my other uncle. There is no
blood difference here. I love them each separately
and together, three emotions mixed into one fantastic
package.

I was absolutely blessed to have them here for a
handful of days. In this time, we
talked...and...well...we talked...and then(!), more
talking. We did go to two beautiful dinners and
played some Trivial Pursuit: Pop Culture (yes
I'm addicted now Ari), but overall, it was the time
Shared, sitting on my couch, that had the biggest
impact.

Before they arrived, I was incredibly anxious and
excited. I ran around like a crazy person last week
and mostly I just tried to get through the days until
they would arrive. I haven't seen them in about 2 and
a half years and phone calls just don't make up for
the real life experience.

I choose them for my "sight" sense because I spent the
majority of their visit crying my eyes out. There
were many different reasons as to why I was crying
(and on each consecutive day), but looking back on it,
I've realized that it's all a representation of how
desperately I miss them and love them. Life is short
and all I want from these two men is more time
together. Somewhere, somehow.

The Sense of Hearing:

For the last two months I've been estranged from one
of my closest friends on the planet. 50% of it has
been HER doing and %50 of it has been MY conscious
decision to leave the ball resting in her court.

I've made the obligatory weekly call. I've emailed at
random moments just to see if she was checking. I've
let many of her calls go to voicemail, even when I was
available to take them. I drew an invisible line in
the stand and I expected her to figure it out.

As time went on and we hadn't connected, mostly
because she just started making more of an effort in
the last two weeks, I went from angry to absolutely
heart-broken.

Upon visiting my friend Angie last Friday (for exactly
90 minutes), I finally owned-up to exactly the way I
felt and it was a waterfall of pent-up emotions. I
began to trickle tears and then the tears became a
river and then my eyes began to flood the Upper West
Side. No one got seriously injured, but they've all
gotten blow-up rafts since the incident.

Lame? Never.

Basically Angie got up off her couch, held me like a
baby for 10 minutes, and I learned the true meaning of
"getting it off your chest". Today I received a phone
call from this friend while I was on the subway home.
I didn't play it right away as I wanted to wait until
I was settled, relaxed, and ready to hear it with new
ears.

The message was explanatory and flawless; the kind of
message I've been waiting to hear for two months. I
choked up again and rather than immediately call her,
I decided to write in this journal. Lucky you.

More importantly, hearing her voice and the way the
inflections indicated her missing me the way I miss
her...it turned this heart of black to a heart of
white (sick) and I think we may have a chance
afterall.

This may all come across ambiguous to you and I don't
expect you to understand why I've made the choice to
play this stand-off game with my friend. But I do
expect you to understand that this "game" had to
happen in order for me to engage her in a sit-down of
heart-smashing honesty.

My friend and I may have a future together, but it
won't be until the two of us can have it out. About
everything that's happened in the last 3 years.

Hey, I'm a Cancer. If I "choose" you as one of my
family, you better act as such. Reason - I will
ALWAYS treat you as such and to the point of
obsessiveness. I don't drop the ball often. And if I
do, I make an obvious and conscious effort to fix it.
My top tier of friends KNOW how much I love them. And
I expect OUR love to be open, honest, frequent, and
overall, mutually reciprocated.

The mother fucking end of The Sense of Hearing.

The Sense of Taste:

My uncles took me to a reputable restaurant in Midtown
before their viewing of The Altar Boyz (fucking
see it...seriously - excellent $37 tickets for a
phenomenal show - off-Broadway has some GEMS). If I
remember correctly, the restaurant was called Bobby Van's.
I showed up late, uncles were not happy. I talked WAY
too long, uncles were like "hurry it up". And then I
did the unthinkable. After absolutely LOVING my
Shrimp Bisque soup and eating one slice of my ($20)
pizza (which I proceeded to feed to three other people
throughout the night - and then again myself at 2am -
yes I carried that huge pizza box everywhere I went
last Friday - yes it's embarrassing and hilarious)
----oh please...you can't follow this sentence after
that tangent.

After all that amazingness, I proceed to bitch and
moan about how the restaurant is overpriced and the ambiance
and service sucked balls. My uncle made an off the
cuff comment saying "Most people would just be
grateful for a $250 meal." Oh. My. Absolute.
Pretentious. Self.

I've told that story to my friends. I've told that
story to my mom. I've told that story BACK to my
uncles who TOOK me to the dinner. And I still can't
believe that I have actually turned into the guy that
Kelly and I hated when we moved to NYC.

I can eat at an Applebees and be happy. Yet I go to a
"classy" restaurant and I've got nothing, but
judgments, to give out. WHO am I? Seriously...WHO
am I? When my uncle said that, he was being sarcastic
and has told me that incessantly since the moment.
BUT STILL. Point taken. I'm a DOUCHEBAG! And you
want to know why?

I don't entirely think I was wrong.

Yes, of course...don't say that shit to your host.
But what I felt about the restaurant still stands.
Good food. Overpriced. Crazy trashtastic service.
Ambiance of snore. Considering that Paul has made
the restaurant business his passion over the last
decade, I am blessed to go to 3 or 4 star restaurant on his tab. However, it seems that when I go to these places, I'm always bitter and disappointed.

These restaurants survive on their $30 salads and $60
steaks. And in my opinion...if my bill is going to be
$100 before I ever order a diet coke, I expect the
service, the ambiance, and the food to be impeccable.
True that I'm not paying, but Paul is and I respect
how hard he works and it's not fair to ANYONE if you
overcharge for a mediocre experience.

There are times when I get friendlier service at a
McDonald's than I do at a so-called 3 star
establishment.

It irritates to the max. I feel bad about being a
snot ball with my uncles. That's never cool.

But let it be known...I may wear jeans and polos every
day of my life, but I know the difference between an
egotistical restaurant with no talent and a restaurant
that works from the heart.

The Sense of Smell:

When I got home today, my apartment reeked of yeast
infection.

As a gay man, how would I know what a yeast infection
smells like? Please. I am 29 afterall. And also, if
it smells like scallops, then I'm right on the money.

Paul cooked some scallops today. I guess for when he
gets home tonight. But when I walked into my pad, it
went down like this:

"Hi Tyler!!!"
(Tyler jumps and cries to be held)
"You're SO cute and !" "Oh my God! !"
"What is that ?"! "FUCK! WHAT IS !"

I then proceeded to stand over the garbage can and gag
away until I could get my bearings and plug my nose.

Thing to know about Joe...

I don't do well with gag inducing smells or sights
(oooh, this works well with my "sense" theme). Poop,
DARK pee, vomit, REALLY bad breath, bleeding moles or
zits, poop again, and vomit again. I literally throw
up against will.

You wonder why I smoke so much pot? Maybe it's
because the daily nausea of living in NYC requires me
to settle my stomach SOMEHOW.

I’ve always said “If you have an upset stomach, smoke some pot. If it’s good enough for Cancer and AIDS patients, it’s good enough for you.” It may sound crass, but I stand by the validity 100%.

Whatever, it's a good reason.

Tyler looked at me as though the smell was just
delightful. I also have to tell you that I woke up
and farted this morning and was immediately rewarded
with Tyler licking my boxers. That bitch loves an
ugly smell and I just look at him like "Paul has WAY
too much influence on you."

Whatever, my apartment reeked of scallops today and
Tyler ate my fart. Love it or leave it.

Love it, ok? Cuz you KNOW that all day I was thinking
"My baby ate my fart this morning and I have to figure
out a way to teach him never to do that again."

The Sense of Feeling:

If you haven't noticed, the subconscious message in
this post is that I've been incredibly emotional over
the last couple of weeks. I've felt rather bi-polar
or at least a minor form of manic. I've been
over-analyzing, a bit insecure, and most importantly,
afraid for the other shoe to drop.

What is that other shoe you ask?

I have no fucking idea.

But I do know that I only get this mentally crazy when
it's a precursor to the moment when my life goes into
upheaval. Maybe it's the upcoming 3 weeks of chaos
(for you true readers) or maybe it's just going to be
a change in my life that is undeniable. Or maybe it's
going to be the death of someone close to me.

Doh?

I say that because I've been having some TERRIBLE
dreams about the death of my brother, my boyfriend, my
friend Rita (surprise Rita!) and my dog. They're all
different dreams, with different circumstances.
However, they carry a similar theme. Death means change and (hopefully) not an actual foreshadowing. I’ve learned enough through Tarot study, astrology, therapy, and dreams to know that the common theme is always CHANGE.

I can only hope that

I'm ready.

If it's bad
If it's good

I feel it coming and I don't know what it is. I'm a
bit scared. I'm a bit emotional (a bit?).

But mostly, I'm curious.

The five senses add up to one thing.

What's next?

(It was a fast ending, but it was a good ending. I'm proud of you Joe)

P.S. This post was done in an email text box. Don’t forget. I tell you this cuz punctuation and spelling might be off. You know I’m anal about that and I appreciate the extra help I get. Now back off. Watch Nip/Tuck tonight, cuz Rosie just got her own show based on her character. I don’t care what anyone else says. I LURVE that woman.

# posted by Joe : 7:23 PM

Sneaking in Through the Side Door

Hi everyone!

I’m such a prig for not posting for two weeks. As you can tell, I fasted so much for Yom Kippur that I woke up two week’s later STARVING and lying in a gutter. Go figure!

Thank you for the comments and emails wondering where I’ve gone. It’s like never-ending support from you people and I gotta say, it makes this boy feel very, very good about himself. My smile goes from NYC all the way to the Great Wall. You know which wall I’m referring to. Oh YOU know.

In any case, I’ve been so busy with work and then plans after work and I’ve got my wonderful uncles from California visiting me. It’s safe to say that going to bed at 2:30am and waking up at 7:30am is not one of the smartest things yesterday.

Next week will be fun with posts. No doubt. Ok, some doubt. But really, no doubt.

Have a great weekend everyone!

Love me.