Author Archives: Robert

Every once in a while I am struck with a feeling of emptiness inside.  It’s strange to think that I could be missing something since I have everything a man could possibly want.  Good relationship, job, roof over my head; all the fixins for a happily ever after.  There’s just this one thing that seems to leave me feeling unfulfilled.  Perhaps it’s a lack of spirituality.

My mother is Presbyterian.  For a short time as a small child there was Sunday school but that didn’t last too long.  From third to sixth grade was Lutheran school, complete with weekly hymn sing and chapel.  That stopped abruptly when my parents divorced.  Soon after that was a bout of teenage born again Christianism which ended when the church I was attending booted out a member who came out of the closet.  This guy turned to his fellow Christians for help and guidance and they shunned him.  That just didn’t seem very Christ-like to a budding homosexual like myself.

Jesus loves me this I know/If I’m white and hetero

That particular experience made me struggle with Christianity but I still believed that somewhere down in the muck, there was truth and honesty in it all.  Unfortunately, once George junior got into the White House all bets were off.  I have become so turned off by Christianity thanks to our fearless leader who seems to think he’s on a mission from God.  And they say Satan is scary.  Actually, I have become turned off by all religions.  There is so much vile hatred and bloodshed in the name of God that all organized religion has become scary to me. 

So what to do?  Find an unorganized religion?

For a while I flirted with Buddhism and kind of liked it.  Paganism seem quite relevant to me from a respect the earth and the elements perspective but people hear the word Pagan and think you’re a six toed mutant sheep fucker–which is really funny because a lot of Christian holidays ripped off–I mean appropriated–pagan rituals.  Isn’t it a coincidence that Christmas is right around the same time as the winter solstice?  What’s up with bringing a live tree into the house in the dead of winter?

I admire Christianity from a technical standpoint.  It’s beautifully constructed and it has hell–which is a brilliant concept.  You simply can’t argue with H E double hockey sticks.  Do something wrong and you burn in hell forever. 

Then there’s the “Christians aren’t perfect, just forgiven” or CAPJF clause.  I love that.  A Christian does something wrong and simply asks to be forgiven and all is right with the world.  Is there a limit on how many times you can be forgiven for the same thing?  There should be.

Now what sucks for me is being stuck with the Go Straight To Hell card because I’m gay.  I never even had a chance.  Perhaps I can use the CAPJF phrase every time I have sex. 

Oh!  Now…how did that happen?  He he….sorry.  I promise it won’t happen again–until tomorrow.

To be fair I have to acknowledge the people who exemplify what a good Christian should be.  They’re out there.  The only problem is that they’re overshadowed by self righteous freaks who blow up abortion clinics or hold up signs at Matthew Shepard’s funeral saying that God hates fags.  Being a gay man who gets pissed off when the media focuses on the flaming queen in a speedo with body glitter at gay pride festivals…well, let’s just say I understand how it is when one person ruins it for an entire group.

I’m still in a rut though.  The empty spot in my soul seems to grow as I get older.  Drugs, sex and Mary Tyler Moore reruns just don’t fill the void anymore. 

I guess I have to look on the bright side; If I am going to hell for being gay, at least all of my friends will be there. 

Well, tomorrow we’re off to Chicago for the weekend–for the third time this year.  My friend Colleen is getting married.  It’s a nice time of year to visit.  I’m sure there’s going to be some cool Halloween nightlife events going on not to mention a few good meals at a few good restaurants.

I remember when I first moved to Chi-town back in 1995.  Having grown up in Lost Angeles, I was totally enamoured by being in a real city (sorry LA, you’re not a city, you’re more like a ginormous suburb–deal with it).  Ray had just moved into a condo in the Gold Coast on Dearborn and North right near North Avenue beach.  I was so in love with living in a place where people actually walked and seasons actually happened that I wrote a song about it.

After ten years, I was no longer taken in by living in the city–any city for that matter.  Ray and I missed the Southwest but didn’t wan’t to go back to LA so we decided to head out to the Middle of Nowhere, Arizona.  No regrets on that one.

It’s nice to fly back to visit the old hood now and again.  I have very fond memories of living there–especially being a full-time college student for the first three years and working for the Tribune.  Every day I walked through the doors at Tribune Tower I was in awe at the fact that I worked in such a fantastic building.  If you like architecture, you’ll love Chicago.

Ray always said that Chicago is a very livable city.  He’s right.  The funny thing is, as much as I’m excited to visit, I’m already looking forward to coming back. 

Arizona is where I belong. 

OK, I never fart.  I mean I never fart in public.  Today at work, toward the end of the day, while I was wrapping things up at my desk, I let one go.  No one was around except my one coworker in the office down the hall.  He always stays late and when he leaves, he exits through the door at the far end of the building so I knew it was safe.

It was a good one.

Or a bad one depending on who you ask.  I did, after all, have butter and garlic brussles sprouts the night before.  I turned around to leave and there was my coworker standing at the door to my office.  Talk about the elephant in the room.  He started asking me all these questions about the meeting tomorrow morning.  I tried to act like nothing happened but…you can’t ignore a fart.  It’s not like some thing you can shift off into a corner.  It’s everywhere.  I tried to busy myself with my briefcase.  It didn’t matter.  My fart was permeating the air. 

I did the only thing I could do in the situation.  I just sat back down, smiled and answered his questions as if the fart-smell was as plain as the sun was shining.  I took ownership of the fart.  I claimed it.

He chatted for a bit, said goodnight and left. 

Whatta ya going to do…?

Sunday can be a good day for food around our house.  Last night Ray made stuffed portobello mushrooms and stuffed butternut squash.  With all the different seasonings going on, the whole house smelled like October. 

I did my part too.  I made herb and garlic brussels sprouts! 

Yes folks, there actually are times when I break out the cooking gear to prepare food and yes, I did say brussels sprouts. 

I love brussels sprouts.  I threw some chopped onions, garlic, thyme, oregano, salt, pepper and butter into a skillet.  After stirring that up for a bit, I threw in steamed brussles sprouts that were halved. 

Ray fired up the juicer as well.  He is such an alchemist when it comes to food.  After extracting the juice from a bunch of carrots, he whipped together a carrot cake thingie with the leftover pulp.  It was pretty good–anything is if you coat it with enough butter.  Butter is the solution to all food experiments and it’s good for your coat.

The one thing I like to do when cooking with dry seasoning is to break out my pestle and mortar.  A quick little grind is optimal in unlocking the flavor and it’s a great way to work out your daily frustrations. 

Dinner was totally delicious.  We scarfed down our food and watched the first season of Family Guy on DVD. 

Ray didn’t serve the butternut squash though.  We’ll probably have that tonight. 

This is the time of year when it’s dark before six o’clock.  Winter is closing in fast and evening wind-down desires shift from cocktails by the pool to spiced tea by the fireplace. 

Both Ray and I hunger for harvest foods like pumpkin, squash and sweet potato.  Eating (and cooking) becomes a sensory experience.  I think it’s due to the fact that the holidays are just around the corner.  The smell of harvest foods, spiced tea and roasted anything set off a chain of melancholy childhood memories.  I become giddy and excited like a little kid. 

I’m so looking forward to the holidays.  Halloween, Thanksgiving, the Pagan one with the tree that the Christians appropriated and New Years are all favorites of mine.  It’s all good…until it’s over.  Then it’s just cold and dark.  At least here in Arizona, it’s like that until March unlike Chicago where it’s winter until late June…

Arizona was, and still is, the Wild West.  This week the Gunfight at the OK Corral celebrates its 126th anniversary in Tombstone which is less than thirty miles from our house. 

It is not uncommon to see people walking around packing heat.  When we first moved here, I saw a woman in the grocery store talking to a friend near the produce section.  Her toddler was secure in his little seat and her cart was loaded with foodstuff.  A holstered gun rested on her hip. 

Later on, I saw a man in front of the post office talking to a friend.  He too had a holster with a gun and was just nonchalantly chit-chatting away. 

I asked our real-estate agent if it was legal to carry a gun out in public.  She said yes and I burst out laughing.  Annoyed, she asked what was so funny.  I told her that I grew up around the greater LA area and lived in downtown Chicago for ten years.  There, I could imagine having a gun but here…what are you going to shoot at?  The Javelina?

She was not amused.

People in Arizona totally exercise their god given right to “protect themselves” by owning and carrying a gun.  Ray and I have had people do a double take when we tell them that we live four miles from the border without firearms in the house.  They think we’re nuts.

Ray’s brother Donald–a gun-toting Californian who recently relocated to Tucson and loves the relaxed gun laws–had the same feeling about our lack of firepower so he did the only thing an older brother could do; he gave Ray a shotgun for his birthday. 

Donald, along with our nephew Tyler, came down from Tucson this morning to give us instructions on how to use Ray’s new shotgun.  Donald has had guns all his life and is definitely not some yahoo when it comes to firearms.  Tyler is a West Point graduate and, well, I would trust his judgement when it comes to this kind of stuff.

After being shown all of the general dynamics of the shotgun, the four of us went outside to try it.  I got to shoot first. 

I am of the left-handed persuasion but I golf, bat and, well, shoot a shotgun with my right hand.  I loaded the gun, aimed and pulled the trigger. 

Now, I’ve had friends say the first time shooting a gun is a memorable experience–almost like sex or something.  When I shot the gun, I wasn’t sure what to expect.  I was surprised that it wasn’t difficult or scary.  It was sort of anticlimactic from a sexual standpoint.  I didn’t have the urge for a cigarette afterwards.  It wasn’t much of anything really other than being loud.  Very loud, and my ears–which are already messed up from tinnitus–rang even harder. 

OK, it was kinda fun. He he he…

I blasted the little target man with buckshot.  That’ll teach him to listen next time I say, “Git off mah property.”

Ray went next.  He was a bit more accurate in his aim than I was but at that point it didn’t matter.  Little target man was full of holes and wasn’t about to go anywhere.

Tyler, the smart one, protected his ears.

So now we have a shotgun.  I was ambivalent about having a gun but it was the kind of thing where we felt like we should at least take it to a range and shoot a few times before we formed an opinion of guns and the people who carry them.  As far as being inside the house, you don’t even have to keep it loaded.  <<In my shotgun ownerspeak>> “All you really gotta do is stand by the front door and cock the mother fucker.  Whoever’s outside trying to break in will hear it, get the idea rightquick and leave.”

That sound is quite universal.  I know if I heard it, I’d think twice about breaking into a house. 

If someone would have told me years ago that I would someday move to a remote spot in Arizona, grow a big old stache, get a motorcycle and a shotgun, I would have laughed in their face.

Guess they got the last laugh…

I am the Database/Web Specialist (webmaster) for the county I live in.  I don’t go into too much detail about our web site because we’re (translation: I’m) about to embark on a ginormous web redesign project and I’m not ready for the “before” site to be seen.  I’m sure it’s not too hard to figure out what the county site is since I frequently mention a certain town that I live close to (and no, it’s not Tucson).

Duh.

Anyway…our IT department had an off-site meeting yesterday at a place called Sunglow Ranch .  It was so nice to get outside.  Most of the time, actually all of the time, I am trapped in a room with two programmers baking under awful fluorescent lights while the air conditioner has me donning a sweater in July.  There are windows in our room but the other programmers close the blinds. 

I will never understand that.

I absolutely hate it when people who sit near a window shut the blinds.  It’s awful and depressing.  I totally loathe working in fluorescent lighting hell but right now there’s nothing I can do about it other than use the law of attraction and keep thinking about my private window office that lies ahead for me in the future.  The very near future.  (Yeah, yeah; I read The Secret.  The idea behind the book is no secret though.)

Breakout session in progress.

Clowning around while I present our ideas. 
NOTE: IT geeks are not good spellers.

Sitting by the teeny tiny lake after lunch. 

It was a productive meeting and we got a lot done.  After work, I had a different meeting for the Mule Mountain Relay For Life to be held here next year.  I’m on the Committee and the, you guessed it, online chairperson.  I’m getting our site ready to be launched next month.

Once I got my two meetings out of the way, I dashed home to hang out with Homer and his friend Forrest who came down from Tucson.  We sat around, talked and ate.  I heart talking and eating.  Homer brought a Homer-made pumpkin pie.  It was really good.  We didn’t eat the whole thing so he left the rest of it here which is sort of evil and lovely at the same time.

I was very, very tired by the time I got to bed.  Fortunately, Ray and I have every other Friday off so I was totally able to sleep in this morning.  I slept for ten hours. 

Now I’m off to have a three-day weekend.  It’s supposed to be 85 today!  Tomorrow, we’re off to Tucson to see Avenue Q!