A conversation I had with my 18yo niece.

Niece
3:16pm

Hey Uncle Colorful! I've got a request. I need to ask someone some questions for my AWANA and I was wondering if you'd be willing to help?

Niece
4:01pm

If you could get back to me soon that would rock....

Colorful
4:07pm

I can try.

Niece
4:07pm

Ok. First question, where did you come from?

Colorful
4:10pm

Not sure how to answer that one. I'm guessing you're looking for something other than "Home state."

Niece
4:10pm

That's an acceptable answer.

Colorful
4:11pm

Okay

Niece
4:11pm

Why are you here on earth?

Colorful
4:13pm

To experience life and to help shape the world.

Niece
4:14pm

Where are you going when you die?

Colorful
4:19pm

That's actually a very complicated answer for me. To put it roughly and briefly, my essence will return to the Divine source and eventually enspirit new life in the future.

Niece
4:20pm

Do you live according to absolutes?

Colorful
4:23pm

To a degree, yes. I believe that some virtues, like love, are absolute. However, living them out and navigating them when they brush up against one another can get messy.

Niece
4:24pm

What can you know and how do you discover knowledge?

Colorful
4:26pm

Through reason, tradition, and personal experience. As for what we can know, that's practically limitless.

Niece
4:27pm

How do you explain human nature?

Colorful
4:28pm

I generally don't.

Niece
4:29pm

What is right and what is wrong?

That's the last question.

Colorful
4:31pm

What honors the human dignity and autonomy of all vs. What doesn't.

Niece
4:32pm

Thank you!

Colorful
4:32pm

You're welcome.

I'd like a man who…

…is funny
...is compassionate
...is attentive
...is playful
...is somewhat sexually aggressive
...knows how to be tender when it's more appropriate
...loves animals
...is at least tolerant if not completely supportive of how indulgent I am of Hellcat
...has interests that he cares about
...cares about other people and their problems
...is helpful when it's appropriate
...is a good listener
...has a great sense of humor
...likes to dance
...loves to cuddle
...is a top (obviously)
...is open to new experiences
...enjoys suggesting new experiences
...supports me in my dreams
...encourages me
...enjoys touching

Can I please slow down now?

I spent most of this past week on a business trip to sunny Orlando.  Before you congratulate me, please remember that this was a business trip.  For me, business trips mean spending just about every waking moment either at my hotel or at a customer's site.  (For this trip, those two things were actually on and the same.)  They also mean long hours (awake from 4am until 11pm on Wednesday, 6:30 am until 10:30 pm on Thursday and Friday.)

The one bright side was that I was able to stay an extra night.  I actually got done with work on Friday at around 3pm.  The office had booked my supervisor and I flights back home on Saturday.  He looked up available flights on Friday and decided to head home a day early.  He gave me the option of changing my flights as well or staying the extra night and come home on Saturday.

A single gay guy with a chance to spend an extra night in Orlando?  For me, that was a no-brainer.  (Alas, I was too tired to see if any other gay guys were in the area and interested in meeting up.)  Not that I did much, mind you.  I was pretty tired.  However, I did end up walking to a steakhouse that was just under a mile away from the hotel.  I had a pleasant time and just enjoyed the fact that I could relax and not have to rush around.  After all, those other days, I had enough time to shower when I got up before getting to work (or catching my flight in the case of Wednesday morning).  Then I had a bit of breakfast and lunch while working through the day.  About two hours before bedtime, I would go dinner with the people I was working with, then head back to my room and crawl into bed.  So being able to get dinner by 6 pm on Friday and then heading back to my room to get on my computer and watch a little television was a treat.

Plus, it turned out that I made the right choice.  My supervisor had nothing but problems on the trip home.  In fact, he ended up flying into a neighboring city and then having to take a taxi back home.  (I don't even want to know what the company is going to have to pay for that.)

Me, I had two pleasant flights after a good night's rest and plenty of time to get to the airport.

But I'm still tired.

Get Personal With Me: Risks

Are you a risk taker?  What's your comfort level with taking risks?  What would you consider the riskiest thing you can take.

Note that this week's topic is intentionally vague.  There are many areas of lives in which we can take risks.  We can take risks in our careers, in our relationships, or in our choice of liesure-time activities.

As always honor the Comment Policy when responding to the things other readers choose to share.

Friday Thoughts: Catharsis

If you get the connection between
this guy and the post, you have a
good chance at figuring out
my real identity.

Screaming into a pillow isn't going to change your circumstances.  But some days, it sure helps you feel better.

Life got in the way

Last week was a hectic week which culminated in this weekend both being Easter and an uncle's funeral.

I'll try to be more Colorful in the near future.  In the meantime, warm wishes and attempts to entertain, while not mandatory, will be greatly appreciated.

Get Personal With Me: Warmer Weather

What constitutes "warm" or "cold" weather can be quite subjective and individualized.  What's your concept of "warm" weather?  Is there a particular temperature it has to reach before you go without a jacket?  Put on shorts?  Make Brad's day?  Make Matty's day?

Today's questions are brought to you by Colorful, who's wondering who forgot to remind Demeter that it was the first day of Spring.

Back to writing and trying something new

Tonight, I officially ended my writing break.  And as I intellectually assumed, my fears of stalling proved unfounded.  I managed to crank out over a thousand words, and it was all on the part of the scene that I was concerned about.  I may still add to that scene later, but I wrote far more into it this time around that I thought I'd be able to.  I'm proud of that.

I also decided to try a change of venue today.  Rather than going to Home Bar to eat and write, I ended up going to a nice little bistro near home.  In fact, I'm writing this post from there.  I just decided I didn't want to drive thirty minutes to go to Home Bar.  And to be honest, I just haven't been satisfied with Home Bar on Tuesday during happy hour lately.  I didn't feel like I was meeting new people or even had the opportunity to meet new people.  This place potentially offers me that option, though I may have to work at being a little bit more outgoing and taking the initiative to say hello.

I'm not sure this will become a permanent stop, however.  I'm not entirely sold on the menu, as there aren't many things on it that really appeal to me as described.  To get a diverse number of choices, I'd have to ask them about changing the order (like leaving off stuff I don't really care for).  So I'll have to think about it.  If nothing else, it offers me another option that I can consider on a case-by-case basis.  And my waiter was pretty damn adorable, so that was a plus.

Taking a break and awful movies

Warning:  This post contains spoilers for a movie that is so poorly written that there are not enough letters in the alphabet to give it a sufficiently low ranking.  If you don't want me to spoil the movie for you, then you may want to stop reading htis post when I start talking about it.  But if you want my advice, the movie is spoiled, full stop, and you'd be doing yourself a favor by jut reading what I write about it here and skipping it.

I didn't do any writing (Note: I don't count blogging as writing) last week.  I decided I wanted a break.  I figure I'm over 40,000 words on the novel, I deserve a break.  Plus, I have two more months to get the rough draft done.

Granted, I'm a little nervous about my choice.  Whenever I take a break, I worry that I won't start back up again.  It's pretty silly at this point, as so far, I've always gone back to writing.  Granted, sometimes I've scrapped a current project to start a new one in the process, and I don't want to scrap the novel I'm working on now.  But a week break is just that, and the ideas are still coming to me for this particular project.  That's a good sign.

I may have to quickly finish up my current scene and jump ahead to a new one, however.  I'm just not sure what to do with the current scene.  Well, that's not true, or I'd just scrap it altogether.  I just don't know how to write it right now.  So I'm thinking I may just put in a brief placeholder or barebones skeleton and move on ahead.  After all, I alread know I want to edit this over the summer.  I can add stuff then.  Editing isn't limited to just deleting or revising.

I spent a good bit of time watching stuff on Netflix this weekend.  It was a "badly made movie" weekend in many ways.  It started out when I watched "A Little Bit Zombie," which was a neat idea but poorly executed.  And that ending?  What was up with that?  Did Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman write the script?

A screen shot from "A Siren in the Dark."  As sensual as
it is, the story about these two characters is horrifyingly
creepy.

But the movie that absolutely disappointed me was "A Siren in the Dark."  To be honest, part of the reason I watched this movie was that Netflix's description of it (Something like "a psychic cop talks to a gay teen about his lover's disappearance and ends up exploring something really hinky") made it sound like a movie that had managed to escape the gay movie ghetto.  In a sense, it had.  Except that about the only thing the movie had going for it (other than a neat premise that was poorly executed then strangled) was that it had a bunch of scenes with young guys being naked with each other.

First of all, the movie was told almost entirely as a flashback, where Danny told Cameron the cop what had already happened.  I admit I don't like that story-telling device.  Flashbacks are meant to relay key pieces of information about the past that is relevant to the story's plotline.  So when Danny finished his story, I was like "finally, we can get to the action moving forward."  Then the closing credits started rolling thirty seconds later and I was like, "What the hell?"

Add to this the fact that the movie kept repeating scenes and not everything was told in order.  It almost felt like someone was trying to pull the whole Memento effect without having any reason to do that in the movie.  No one's perception was messed up by short term memory loss or anything like that.  So in this instance, it made the movie unnecessarily confusing (whereas in Memento, the confusing nature was intentional and necessary to the point the movie was making.)

Then there was the whole fact that they never really explained the purpose or nature of the relationship between the woman (who they kept calling a "girl" despite the fact that she was obviously at least in her thirties) at Harvest and Joshua.  Nor did they really explain the (admittedly hot) scenes with Cameron's brother and the other boy he was talking to via webcam other than to mention that Cameron has a deeply troubled past due to sexual abuse (which was hardly referenced during the rest of the movie, so why even bring it up?).  And how did Danny survive when the woman from Harvest stabbed him?  How did he eventually get home?  Or was his interview with Cameron not real and some sort of psychic thing?

Then you have the bit at the end of the movie where Cameron is giving Ariel a ride home (the scene was actually repeated at the start of the movie).  It turns out that Ariel is actually Joshua simply trying to lure in a straight victim rather than a gay one this time around.  That would have been a cool idea, if the whole movie wasn't a complete waste up until that point.

I'm serious, this isn't a "B" movie.  This isn't even a "Z" movie.  There isn't a letter far enough down any alphabet to describe this movie.  I've seen better stories used as segues between scenes in porn.  In a lot of ways, I think that's what this "story" was, a bunch of very short (30 second or less) sordid scenes of sex and drug use with bits of poorly done "story" strewn around them.

Let's have a happy Friday!

Brad over at 2 Boys In Love wrote a post this morning in which he listed many (I'm assuming it's not an exhaustive list) things that make him happy.  It's a sweet post and I highly recommend that you go read it if you  have not done so already.  Since I could use a bit more happiness today, I've decided to follow Brad's example in the hopes that it'll "bootsrap" a bit of happiness in my own mind.  So here are some things that make me happy:

Pictures of animals being adorable
are another great source of
happiness for me.

• Reading Brad's list. Seriously.  His happiness is just infectious.
• Being told by random people that they remember me, especially if it's for something like "being super friendly."
• Getting a compliment on one of my humorous/naughty tee shirts.
• Finishing up a writing session for my novel and looking at the latest word count.
• Getting a call, message, or note from a friend, showing that they're thinking of me.
• A pleasant walk on a bright, sunny day.
• A pleasant walk on a warm, dark night.
• Spending time with friends.
• Watching small children play and laugh.
• Having an intelligent conversation.
• Learning something new.
• Spending time with a caring, attentive, and skillful lover.  (Would that it happened more often.)
• Being silly with friends.
• Reading a good book.
• Watching a good movie.
• Watching a corny, poorly made movie.

Sensual Sunday: Growing Hardness

Things are getting steamy in today's installment.

Darrel began to move his lips down Liam’s body, gently kissing a trail from the other boys lips, down his neck and to his chest.  Liam placed his hands on his lover’s head, massaging his scalp.  Darrel’s lips and tongue found one of the soft pink nipple’s on Liam’s pale chest and began to tease it.  Liam’s whole body jerked slightly at the sudden jolt of pleasure.  Darrel slowly caressed the other boy’s navel as he teased the tiny pink nub to full hardness.  Liam could only moan his encouragement.

Liam shivered as the hand on his abdomen eased down his body, coming to rest on the fly of his jeans.  He felt his shaft stiffen as Darrel rubbed at it through the material.  Reflexively, Liam spread his legs wider and pushed his crotch harder against the massaging hand.

Thoughts over a latte

So I'm feeling much better than I was on Thursday.  I'm not back to my fully colorful self.  However, if I was to say I was nothing but shades of gray (and not fifty) on Thursday, I'm back to a more balanced palette, but with subdued tones of all the colors.  That's definite progress, and I'm hopeful I'll be back to full technicolor in a couple more days.

One of the things that helped, I think, was getting a lot of sleep on Thursday. I was in bed by 9:45pm and didn't get up until a little after eight on Friday morning.  Well, other than getting up to take care of Hellcat's needs around 5:30.  She was a doll and let me go back to sleep without much fuss after that.

Then Friday night, I decided to run out and work on my novel at the diner.  Friday's not a normal writing night for me, but I felt like both getting out of the house and working on the novel.  That second part was a relief, as I was worried about my malaise interfering with or even sabotaging the efforts of getting this novel done.  (Such feelings of being down have actually shipwrecked a couple such attempts on my part, after all.)

Today, I hung out with friends for a bit. Then I ran over to a coffee shop to enjoy a latte.  I'm sitting here, sipping on said latte as I write this post in fact.  I'm enjoying the music and conversation in the background.  Every now and then, I look up just to see if anyone I know is around.  So far, I haven't spotted anyone.  That's probably just as well.  The only person I can think of that I know hangs out here regularly is Hot Pants, and I'd just as soon not see him, let alone interact.

So the rest, time out of the house, and work on the novel have improved my mood greatly, which is good.  Granted, I still need to figure out what to do about meeting and socializing with other people, but at least I don't feel quite so hopeless about it.  (Yeah, Thursday really was that bad.)  I'm seriously considering abandoning my time at Home Bar, other than the writing I do there on Tuesday night.  I'm not meeting anyone new there right now.  And if I'm being totally honest, I think I'm mainly going there now out of a sense of obligation to a couple of the people who work there.  To be even more honest, I'm allowing myself to question whether that sense of obligation is merited.  I'm leaning toward "no."

Friday Thoughts: The Importance of Intimacy

Some days, there is nothing more rewarding than laying next to someone you care about deeply and enjoying the physical connection as symbolic of the deeper emotional one.

Meh

I think I've been a bit down the last week or so.  We're not talking massive depression or anything too serious.  Just enough to impact my motivation.  I think part of me may just need a day or two off, where I do absolutely nothing.  Except I hate days like that, too.  At the end, I feel like I did absolutely nothing.  So I guess what I really need is a couple days off, followed by a day or two of fun and excitement.  Or maybe the other way around.  At any rate, I feel like I need something of a reboot right now.

In many ways, I wish that it was May already.  I'm planning a trip to Toronto in May.  I'll be there for a weekend.  What's more, I'll be going there to attend a conference, which should be a lot of fun.  I'll get to meet people, both complete strangers and people I've talked ot online for years (but have not yet met in person).  It sounds like just the thing I need right now.  Which is why it's so frustrating that the darn thing is over two months away still.

The meeting people thing is part of what I really need, too.  I feel like I'm stagnating, socially.  Or worse, I'm slippng backward.  I mean, now that Management and his partner are no longer running a restaurant and they're busy in their own lives, I don't talk to them much.  I tend to only go out to Home Bar at particular times, when the crowd is extremely small.  So I'm seeing people, but not making any new connections.  I don't feel that going to Home Bar when it's busier is an option, because the place has two modes operation.  It's either slow with a couple regulars (most whom work there) or it's packed, noisy, and way too chaotic.

I'm considering going back to the one cofee shop more.  I quit going there because I didn't feel I really met anyone there.  That's mainly because most people go there with others and I find it weird intimidating to walk up to a group of people I don't know and break into their conversation or start up one of my own.

That lack of contact, and the resulting feeling that I'm not meeting anyone new and therefore can't expand my social circles (and yes, eventually meet someone I can date and build a relationship with along the way) is something of a motivational drain right now.  So that's another part of why I'm down.

I know I'll break out of this funk soon.  I'll find a way.  But right now, it's just frustrating to me.

Get Personal With Me: Earworms

In your opinion, what is the worst song that ever got stuck in your head?  How did you finally get rid of it?

Sensual Sunday: Shirtless Liam

Today's installment of Sensual Sunday returns us to Liam and Darrel.

The hair's not quite curly enough
to be Liam, but yum!

Darrel slipped a hand under Liam’s shirt, slowly running it over his bare abdomen.  The touch sent such a shiver through Liam’s body that he broke off the kiss.  Darrel grinned and asked, “Ticklish?”

“A little.  And just so worked up.”

Darrel’s smile broadened.  “Good.”  With that, he resumed caressing the other boys abdomen, slipping his other hand under Liam’s shirt as well.  Liam moaned and leaned closer to Darrel, resting his head on the other boys shoulder.

Darrel brought his hands to Liam’s sides and used them to start pushing the other boy’s shirt slowly up his body, exposing Liam’s pasty stomach and chest.  Liam lifted his arms and allowed the other boy to remove his shirt completely.  He sat there feeling somewhat exposed.  Darrel placed his right hand on Liam’s chest and ran his thumb over the left nipple there, then he playfully pushed the shirtless boy backward.  Liam fell back, the futon’s arm pressing into him just below his shoulder blades.

Darrel knelt next to him and began to massage his bare chest while he returned to kissing him deeply.

Liam lay there, giving in to the pleasure his lover’s touch was producing.

Friday Thoughts: Writers and Gods

Writers often create characters who later turn out to be very different than what the writer intended.  In those cases, a writer may find himself faced with a character whose developed nature refuses to do what the writer's plan for the story requires.  At that moment, the writer is faced with the choice to either revise his story plans or force the character to act in ways that ruins the character's integrity, twisting him into something ghastly.

In this way, a writer can come to understand one of the greatest frustrations of the gods, who deal with very much the same problem with the real people they've created.

Get Personal With Me: Comfort Foods

 What are some of your favorite comfort foods?

Scheduling Woes

I'm trying to figure out a writing schedule for this week.  I've been doing so well writing every Tuesday, Saturday, and Sunday that I'm quite proud of myself.  This week, though, I'm not sure that arrangement will work, due to other things going on.

Last night, was out late-ish for a group activity.  It was highly enjoyable, but it means that if I go out to write tonight (as I normally would), I will be out two nights in a row.  As much as it pains me to admit it (because it probably means my age is starting to get to me), it can be tiring and a health drain on me to go out two nights in a row.  Especially when you consider that I already threw of my sleep schedule this weekend and I'm just now recovering from that.  I'll probably still write tonight, as I currently feel up to the task and I'm not sure I want to find or make time tomorrow or Thursday to do it.

Saturday is the other issue.  Saturday is the first Saturday of the month, which means that Manly Bar will be having its monthly bear event.  I want to go to that.  This means that I either need to do my writing after I go to Manly Bar or reschedule.  I'll probably go to the diner when I leave the bar anyway, so writing that late at night isn't a huge issue.  The bigger issue is that I don't want to leave my laptop in my car during the freezing winter (especially since I'm going to want to use it as soon as I take it in someplace warm, which is not a good idea), nor do I want to lug the laptop around with me inside the bar.  I suppose I could run home after getting done at the bar, grab the laptop, and go back to the diner.  However, that puts me out of my way.  Plus, once I'm home, I'm not sure I'll want to leave again.  So most likely, I will reschedule my Saturday night writing, possibly either to Friday at the diner (oh dear, that'd make two late nights out again) or at a coffee shop on Saturday afternoon.

Fortunately, Sunday night is still golden, so I don't have to worry about rescheduling that writing day.

Of course, I could always skip a writing day altogether, but I'm trying to avoid that.  I have some momentum going and I'd like to keep it up.

Blog Note

Posts are going to be a bit sporadic this week.  Between throwing my sleep schedule out of whack (will I ever learn?) and having a somewhat busy schedule, it's going to be difficult for me to find the time and energy I need to write, let alone manage to have both at the same time.

In the meantime, if you've never seen it before, I highly recommend you check out the 2001 movie "Friends and Family."  It's available for streaming via Netflix.  I watched it this weekend and thought it was hilarious.  Tony Lo Bianco plays a rather convincing Mafia Don, giving the part an air of understated authority and dignity.  Also, the way that the movie plays with stereotypes (imagine a group of stereotypical "Wise Guys" learning to "queen it up") is actually humorous, something I find rare these days.  I have no idea how this movie came out in 2001 and I only discovered it in 2013.