Gay Realness

I had a realization today after walking into the disgusting Ace Hardware on the South Side. This creepy south-end-gay sales associate greeted me with a, "Can I help you find anything?" To which I replied,

"Caulk."

This hillbilly, who I might add, I could smell from a mere eight feet away, glared at me. I felt dumb. I just told some gross gay creep I was in the market for caulk AND I was wearing running shorts in public — which already makes me feel totally uncomfortable.

My realization? I am a self-loathing gay. I mean, this is clearly nothing groundbreaking. If you've read anything I've written in the last three years, or talked to me more than fifteen minutes, it is fairly obvious. I blame Ohio, not just being back here, but being born here. I guess its better that Iran. Sorry, Perry.

So, I decided I need to get over it. I need to own my gayness. I need to "werk it out". I don't mean like waxing my eyebrows or lip gloss werk, I mean just get over myself. Get over my self-loathing-ness of my sexuality. This is going to be hard.

I went to my freshman orientation for The Ohio State University. I felt elderly. Everyone there was eighteen and had both parents with them — which was totally weird. I mean, whose parents are still married?? The whole thing was so wholesome. I was hungover, of course, which I felt brought a real "grittiness" to the situation, which was much needed.

The orientation included speeches about parking, and dorms, and activities, and groups we could join — including a Quidditch club. It was queer. And to top it off, each PowerPoint presentation was sprinkled with "O-H" slides which we were required to cheer back "I-O". I think this was for the parents — something to get them jazzed about giving away half of their paychecks for the next four years. We were also given a buckeye. Which is a nut — for those of you who live in California — and the mascot of my new college, which is dumb, but not as dumb as my junior high mascot which was a specific type of plaid. Later that night, when I was drunk again, I saw the nut on the kitchen counter and for a very brief moment felt sentimental. I was pretty drunk.

I've been drinking too much this summer. It's been great. I'm really owning my drinking. I'm werkin' it, hard. That, after all, was my plan — have fun, enjoy life, etc. I've also been doing a little home remodeling. I decided to tile a few walls in the upstairs bathroom. Sounds simple enough, right?

What a fucking pain in the ass. I will never tile anything ever again. Ever. If I ever need anything tiled, I will hired a professional — or hire the Mexicans loitering around the Lowes. So, I don't know if any of you have tiled, but the process is something like: stick the tiles on the wall, grout, caulk, voila. Let me just say, after days of rage and a hole in the dining room ceiling, the job is done. Yes, somehow I managed to burst a pipe in the floor which leaked into the ceiling below which now needs replaced. This reminds me of when I tried to work for my dad one summer — well, he made me. I was paying off a debit I accrued on a credit card I stole from him. I was a good kid. Anyway, one summer I "worked" for him. Mostly I hid behind packing material and slept on forklifts, that and chain smoked, but technically I was an "employee". One day I was driving the forklift back into the warehouse at full speed, chain smoking, forks up — unknown by me — and blew through the side of the warehouse taking with me a large eight by ten piece of warehouse wall. In my defense, I was probably still sleepy from the nap I had just woken up from. Later that day my dad asked me if I was gay at a Coney Island.

So, here I am. Step one of owning my gayness. I'm not really cut out for manual labor, so why do it? Maybe my dad was right. From here on out I'm totally gonna own/werk my inability to do manual labor.

So, South Side gay sales associate, that is the last time I will come for your shitty caulk. Werk!

Oh, but on a side note: I did decide not go to women's events anymore (ie. bachelorette parties, baby showers, etc.) because I am still a man. Just because I'm gay doesn't mean I need to be all acting like a woman and be pretending to give a shit about your baby. That is your mistake and I am certainly not going to celebrate that. Maybe if you ladies start having abortion parties I'll change my mind.

The New Revolution

Jon and I just got back from Puerto Vallarta — well, now its been three months ago. This was my third time and Jon's second trip. Let me tell you, if you've never been there, you're missing out. It's a land of magic — not just because every fourth block smells like garbage and someone asks you to purchase their wares — but because you can get anything you want. Anything. When a cab driver asks you for a ride and you decline, his next obvious question is if you'd like any cocaine. If this too is something you aren't in the mood for, he offers you a blow job. How nice is that?! The fact is, the people there are just friendly. The pharmacia, or pharmacy to our American friends, is open to the public and anyone with an addictive personality is left feeling like a kid in a candy store. Muscle relaxers — buy one, get one free.
The most amazing part of Puerto Vallarta though, is the food. After living in New York and Ohio — where Mexican food consists of cheese slices or "queso" (which is Midwestern for "plastic cheese sauce") — it is amazing to eat authentic Mexican food again. Even if it did first require me eating Pepto Bismol, Gas X and Immodium.

I graduated from community college. Some people asked me if I was going to walk in the graduation, I scoffed. I think it insulted them. Really? Two years of community college and I should be proud enough — and feel accomplished enough — to walk? I did get the graduation pamphlet complete with the FAQ (number one being: do the gowns come in extra large sizes?) which I promptly discarded. I was supposed to start at OSU this quarter but, alas, I remain at Columbus State, because my transcripts never made it. I say this like it was someone else's fault, but truthfully, it was mostly mine. So, I've started my hospitality management classes at Columbus State. My first class was food safety and sanitation. Our "professor" was in front of the class (which is in a 70s basement — which went well with his 70s mustache) next to him, written in yellow chalk: HOSPATALITY MANAGEMENT. It was all downhill from there. Our first major discussion was on food temperatures. The focus was then shifted to types of food.

"What is poultry?", he asks the class.

I never answer questions. It's far too much fun to hear what people say, and besides, I don't want them thinking I'm smart or they might follow me back to my car and steal my parking money.

"Poultry are things that fly.. well, with a few exceptions. Can anyone name poultry that can't fly?", said his moustache.

"Ducks", said a fat girl.

"Nooo, nope. Ducks fly."

"Chickens" , boasted the other fat girl.

"Nope, chickens do fly, not high, but they fly." This all being said while a six foot image of a winged chicken was projected onto the yellowed screen. "The ostrich and the emu, they are both ratites", his moustache explained.

"What!? You can't eat no ostrich!?", the fat girl barked.

The remainder of the class time consisted of everyone learning how and why people wash their hands. A concept that left most people bewildered. How one makes it thirty years without understanding that bacteria and germs are picked up from various things that you touch is beyond me. When you take a shit, little particles of shit can get on your hands. Then, if you're making a salad at the Applbees where you work, your shit gets in people's salads and voila, Norovirus gastroenteritis!

"I don't wanna be eatin' no people's shit!" Well, genius — wash your fucking hands!

The class ended with a debate as too which fast food restaurant was the best — there was a unanimous vote for Popeye's biscuits, which were compared to crack based on their deliciousness — and finished up with the professor trying very hard to explain that the Olive Garden is not fine dining. Everyone decided that because they put nice clothes on when they go there, it was considered fine dining. Why argue.

So, I'm taking the summer off. Mostly for my own personal sanity. I think I've reach my maximum capacity for idiocy in this lifetime. Let the summer begin!

blog post number fifty three.

It seems like only yesterday that I was writing a post about how it was going to be 2009 and how much I hate writing the number 9, and now look—it's 2011! Isn't that fucked up? Two years have passed and now we have less than two more to go before we all die a horrifying death in the form of a mass destruction of the planet Earth, or as the ancient Mayans called it: the end of the calendar.

Zany.

If this ancient prediction comes to fruition, then I should graduate from college and die at just about the same time. But for serious, things just keeping dropping dead in Arkansas and Louisiana. Did you read about this? Like hoards of birds and fish and bugs are dropping from the sky or floating up to the top of the water. It's very end of times. So, maybe it's true. But isn't it funny how archaic that concept is? Like this idea of a vindictive, evil, smiting god, punishing us for 'saying his name wrong' or for having 'anal sex'. "And now I will kill all this shit because everyone is horrible!" And then we all throw a pig into a bonfire, rub mud on each other and chant. I have to agree with him though: People are horrible.. and pigs creep me out.

Still, not to point fingers or anything, but isn't this really all your fault, god?
God, god.

Of course, with my luck, the Apocalypse or whatever will totally come and you know I'll feel like a total schmuck if a giant white (Aryan) hand plunges down from the heavens on December 21st, or May 21st, or 1999, or whenever the hell it is now. And I'm sure all these people I know will be resting peacefully in the soft, giant, white hand looking down at me, mumbling amongst themselves, "He really shouldn't have been such an asshole."

On to something far more important: my car. I still haven't sold my car yet—7 months later. It's madness. While out running errands the other week, I drove passed a large store front window and caught a glimpse of myself gliding by. I was instantly embarrassed—embarrassed like when you fart in front of someone or like that feeling you get when you watch people sing on TV. It made me feel like a woman. Like more of a woman than when I used to wear tiny pants and makeup in the 90s. Why is that? It's just a car.

I started school again. My last quarter in community college! (noise of jubilation) In my geology class, as an "ice breaker", the professor made us all say our names, where we came from and something interesting about ourselves. I hate stuff like this. Everyone was like, "Uh, I'm from Lima, Ohio and I like dogs" or, "I'm from Grove City and I ride dirt bikes". I was trying really hard to think of something interesting about myself. Um, I like booze and food, laying around.. I don't know. Then he came to me:

"I'm Jacob, I'm from Toledo. I've been a hairstylist for the last decade and lived in San Diego and New York City... and now I'm here"

My professor: "Did you just make that up?"

..silence..

I then wished I could retract. (I like dogs, too.) Just saying the word 'hairstylist' to a bunch of hillbillies is like goosing a straight guy in a locker room. Needless to say, it caught them all off guard. I would have gotten a better reaction had I just said, "I'm Jacob, I'm from Toledo", then farted. Maybe I wouldn't have turned bright red.

Why do I honestly give a shit what people think? I'm thirty. But at that moment I felt just as gay as when I drove passed the beauty supply store window and saw my large head blinking back from the reflection of my little black car. My testicles felt like little pink jellybeans. I've never really been one to care of what others think and I've never been particularly masculine, so why now does my gayness make me uncomfortable? The older I get, the more aware I become.

The class turned away. My professor lifted his eyebrows and said: "So who's that one hairstylist in New York who charges like $1,500 a cut and flies in on a helicopter from the Hamptons?"

I was like, "No idea."

He was like, "C'mon, start throwin' out some names."

"Yeah, no idea."

I don't know who the coolest fucking hairdresser in the world is!? I don't even want to be a hairdresser! Why do you think I'm sitting in a geology class, learning about rocks, at 6pm instead of blow drying some bitchy old Jewish lady's hair? I was so embarrassed. I honestly have no reason to be, but I walked back to my tiny car after class, head hung low, squeezed in, and drove home listening to (insert gay song here), hunching at each traffic light just to see out.

Did anyone ever stop and think maybe the Mayans weren't predicting the end of times but rather just felt they had completed a sufficient amount of calendar? Like, "Let's just stop here. I'm tired and we're all totally going to be dead before we get to use this whole thing anyway." I mean, not that I'd mind if we all died at the same time. I'd actually prefer it. I think one of my biggest issues with death is that life would only be over for me and that everyone else would get to keep doing fun things, like drinking or going to the beach, and I'd just be dead. Like being grounded forever. So, if a giant meteor was plummeting toward the Earth, I wouldn't mind. "Oh, how's our luck, you guys? Looks like we're all going. Shoot." I'd actually find comfort in that. Does that make me selfish?

As the ball dropped on the year 2010, while standing in a dark gay bar wearing ass-less chaps, I clinked my plastic champagne glass (filled with $2 sparkling wine) with Jon's and I thought: "You know, Jacob. Being gay isn't so bad. I have the most amazing partner anyone could ever find, a great little life—complete with a cute little house—and my ass looks bangin' in these chaps. And that's more than most heterosexuals could say, right? So, bring it on 2011, you bitch!"

snap.

Over Hung

I am so hungover. I blame this on George for buying us those ridiculously tall drinks and forcing us to drink them, what a jerk. Despite this minor setback, I have managed to muster up the brainpower and drive to write this blog while drinking my morning coffee, stomach still churning from the Taco Bell I ate at 1 am. Today I am asking myself some important questions about life. First, why am I eating Taco Bell at 1 am when I'm almost 30? It's 90% plastic and I'm not 15. Second, what am I doing with my life? Work, school and a night of something fun every third month? I have to keep in mind that I'm working toward a goal. This will all be worth it.
School is killing me. I find myself reverting back to the blasé attitude I once had in high school. This quarter I'm taking biology and statistics. Believe it or not, the biology is the worse of the evils. It's not the subject matter as much as the people in my class and the professor. Everyone in my class believes evolution is a lie because "people just want to argue"— I won't even go there today.
My professor looks like a child rapist. He's gray, his skin that is, not his hair. He doesn't have any hair, not on his head, no eyebrows, pretty sure no eyelashes either. His lips are thin and purple as he sips coffee from a pre-war thermos lid and sucks on Halls cough drops at the same time while pacing about in his JCPenney polyester navy blue suit. He wears a pair of glasses from the 70s that the lenses have yellowed to a shade of nicotine and his eyes fix on yours for just a little too long to be comfortable. Oh, and he's the most boring person in the entire world. On the first day in order to better remember us, he says, we must announce our names as he "takes our picture"— with his creepy little video camera. Everyone sort of looked at each other like, is this a joke?. The girl next to me, Juana Steal (seriously), responded with a "huh, uhhhh."
Eventually, after the torture is complete, I will graduate and become a hospitality manager and will need something to manage. Jon and I have been discussing possible locations for our bed and breakfast/inn and have come up with a few. And here they are, in random order:

A) Vermont, the least religious state in the US.

B) Puerto Vallarta, the most funniest city in MX.

C) Sonoma, where wine comes from.

D) Cape Cod, I don't know, because it sounds nice.

E) Ohio, oh my god, I'm totally joking.

F) The Adirondacks, where they make those chairs.

G) Louisiana, that place where all that water was.

What are your thoughts?

No One Wants to Sit Next to the Gay Kid

My math class is full of dudes, twenty seven to be exact, and only three girls. It's a business math class, the foundation for the school of business, accounting, etc. I am the only gay one. Well, there was another gay guy, but he dropped out, leaving the seat next to me open.

Everyday I take my seat as the rest of the class slowly files in; everyone choosing a place to sit. Eventually, it gets to the point where all the seats are taken, except the one next to me—guys choosing floating chairs and the option of doing math problems in their laps, avoiding my neighboring spot. I know I don't smell. I shower twice a day, floss and brush my teeth three times a day. I'm also not a paranoid person—unless it comes to self-diagnosed Internet health issues—so I know I'm not making this up. What the hell? Is my gayness oozing out my giant pores and wafting through the air like deer pheromones? I'm gay, but am I really that gay? I mean, I stopped wearing tiny pants and foundation at the beginning of the new millennium. I don't get it.

Sometimes I think we forget how socially unaccepted gay people still are—especially in the God-fearin' Bible Belt. People just don't like gay people. I read this gay news blog every morning, Towleroad, it's pretty crazy how many gay people are beaten, murdered or prejudiced against every day. It's sad. Everyone should be ashamed. Jesus would be rolling over in his grave, if he only knew. Oh, and did I mention the guys in my class are all fucking gross? I don't know what they're so worried about. I wouldn't touch any of them with a ten foot pole. I'm pretty sure they eat McDonald's everyday and the classroom smells like a junior high locker room. Oh, and the roly-poly-neck-roll-boy in front of me smells like ham.

My theater class smells too. The kid to the left of me has the aroma of slightly soured milk. To my right, there is a girl named Chardonnay. She smells like cigarettes and Bath and Body lotion. In the class, we read plays and analyze them. Chardonnay was terribly disappointed when she came to the realization she wasn't going to be acting. She likes acting. She also likes snapping and popping her gum continuously, that and playing with her multiple gold earrings, sliding them back and forth through their holes rubbing past the callous lumps that once housed bacterial infections. She can get you free cable. She also hates Alicia Keys because she never told anyone she was biracial, so now she feels mislead and won't listen to her music anymore. For Valentines Day, her boyfriend sent her a Valentine from the state penitentiary. She doesn't like him anyway and her other boyfriend made it up to her by giving her a rose dipped in real gold. In front of me sits a young man that looks strikingly similar to Beetlejuice from the Howard Stern Show—no joke. He likes to itch his cornrows through his do-rag. His heart was broken recently and he plans to use this raw emotion in our upcoming class project. He told me only moments after gargling his Mountain Dew.

The other day I was thinking about a world without homosexuals. I really think people wouldn't know what they had until it was gone, you know? Just think of all those cute parts of town that were made cute simply because gays were the only ones brave enough to live there, redoing all the houses, opening coffee shops, opening faggy art galleries. Gays make cute parts of town. They also design clothes and make pretty hair. In fact, most beautiful and creative things are made by gays. I know that's totally stereotypical and kind of a stretch but it's still kinda true. So, if Christian Republicans had their way and all gays were exterminated, like in Uganda (which is my prediction for the next presidential campaign), just think how depressing the world would be? You heteros would have to eat at Olive Garden or Chili's every night, wearing burlap sacks, with six inch roots and you'd have nothing to talk about except what happened on Two and a Half Men the night before (because it would be the only show left on TV). Boring, and the food at Chili's is gross. And just think of what would happen to New York City? All those girls who moved there to be Carrie Bradshaw would be wandering around crying and wondering why there is no one to make their pink martinis and to design their four-hundred dollar shoes.

The Romans and the Greeks accepted gay people, back before Christianity was made up. It was normal back then. Thousands and thousands of years ago. They invented plumbing too, you know, and where would be without plumbing? Swimming in shit, that's where. And where would we be without all the gays throughout history? Leonardo DiVinci? Plato, Socrates, Michelangelo? Sir Elton John? Sir Isaac Newton?? Do you think a heterosexual would have ever noticed gravity? And I bet Alexander the Great wouldn't have been so Great if he weren't a fag and I'm sure no one was "not sitting next to" Aristotle when he set the stage for the future of physics and mathematics.

Just think about a world where all gay people, everyone in fact, could be happy and encouraged to succeed. Maybe Virginia Woolf wouldn't have walked into that river with pockets full of rocks if she had a dyke softball team to play on. And poor Eleanor Roosevelt wouldn't have been forced to have all that sex with fuddy-old-Franklin. The world could have been an even better place, a cuter place.

I'm not pointing fingers, but Christianity is a bit like the irresponsible parent who only feeds their child spaghetti-o's and tells them one side of the story. Unfortunately, until someone tells that parent that they're unfit, this whole mess perpetuates. I know it seems like I am always picking on religion, but it really is what is keeping the gays as second class citizens. Christians need to realize that we are just as normal as straight people. Gays exist throughout the animal and insect kingdom as part of the evolutionary structure and the natural world. It is fact, just as the earth is round, not flat, and the planets revolve around the sun, and that our solar system is in a galaxy that is one of millions in the universe. See what I'm saying? This is the way it is. I don't care if you think Jesus made it this way or microorganisms grew feet, but this is the world and gay people are a natural part of it. We have always been here. I know I can't prove my gayness is innate, just as you can't prove your God is real. You're "faith" is just as good as my word. So for now, we must try to live harmoniously—or at least until I figure out a way to "misplace" the 650 billion Bibles in the world.
In the meantime, I guess I'll just enjoy the elbow room.

I cried when I had no shoes, until I met a man who had no feet. And then I laughed...really hard.

I don't want to be a nurse anymore. The other day I was cutting this revolting man's hair, who had a large stain on his shirt, and I thought to myself while choking back vomit, "Could I put a catheter in this man's penis hole? Or wipe crusted poo flakes from his hairy anus?". And much to your surprise, that answer was no.

To some, changing one's mind could be seen as a weakness. To me it's a learning process of self-discovery and awareness. That and I want to do something more funner.
Jon and I have been discussing opening a business of sorts for some time now. Our original thought was a long term goal of owning a bed and breakfast somewhere in Mexico or New England. Later, we considered starting here in Ohio with a fancy booze store. Then the idea branched to a specialty foods store or a breakfast joint. So, you see, the possibilities are endless.. as long as there's funding.. and a business plan. So, that's what I'm going to get a degree in, owning something.

I will be meeting with my well-trained, randomly selected, advisor here at the Columbus State Community College and they will point this gleaming vessel of hope, me, toward yonder thar' future.

I have no idea what I'm doing.

blog post number thirty six.

Last night I dreamt I delivered a baby. I don't remember whose, someone I went to high school with, I think. It was so traumatic I woke up. I remember a few things about this dream, one being the smell. I can only describe it as "sweaty anus turd", which is what I think is what was happening when she was pushing out the baby. I was asked to deliver the baby because I was a nursing student, which is funny because technically I'm not even enrolled in a nursing program, yet. The possible ex-high-school-cohort was belly down on what looked like a folded down back seat of a car. I was pinned behind her, against the back of the car, but supposedly we were in a hospital. She was really quiet and sweaty. She pushed. I let the baby fall onto the floor, which was really close because we were in a car/hospital. I had to choke back vomit as someone else cut the cord. So, I guess all in all I didn't really deliver the baby as much as was trapped behind a shitting woman who pooed a baby. I woke up and my legs were sweaty.

My math class is the weirdest. The other day in the middle of a lecture, this zitty little boy one seat over, started nudging me. "Hey, are you a cop?", he said. I was like, "In the village people?". No, really I just sat there and stared at him. I said no. He was like, "Wanna buy some painkillers?". I thought hard for a minute, stared at his creepy prepubescent mustache, and said no. Ever since he hasn't stopped talking to me. The other day he brought in his photos he took while serving in Iraq. Pictures of dead bodies in the road smeared by tanks, random body parts strewn about. Why is he showing me these? Totes creeps. So, if you try to call me someday and I don't answer, I'm probably tied up in his basement in Whitehall.

Oh, Jon and I are opening a bed and breakfast in Puerto Vallarta, fyi.

They only want you when you're seventeen..

So here I am ten years later, about twenty pounds heavier (thank god), and in college. I can see how I didn't really like it the first time around. It's a lot like high school or junior high even, without the uncontrollable erections and acne, WHICH I still have, the acne that is. Yeah, it's very much like high school. I walked into my English class and there was everybody, "the hippy guy", "the rock guy", "the goth kid", "the cheerleader", "the nerd", "the black person".. and they are all seventeen! It made me feel old, especially since Jon and I went tanning the day before and I got a little burnt, so I felt like George Hamilton, a gay George Hamilton with a messenger bag. The worst. My teacher seems nice. She looked like a weathered farm hand with a bad dye job in a stripey sweater and Uggs. But that's just the outside. On the inside I'm sure she's amazing. If that's one thing New York taught me it was don't judge someone by how they look, just where they live.. or something. I guess people there judge people by how they look all the time. That got me thinking how awful it would be to go to school at FIT. Ew, all that out-cooling everyone and all that fashiony fashion!?. How could you concentrate? I'm sure concentrating is not hip anyway. Well, Columbus State is sooo unhip so concentration should be a breeze!

After English was my freshman psychology class, which begins at four. At 4:10 the professor had yet to arrive and about six guys got up and yelled, "ten minute rule!!", and ran out (which was so junior high). By 4:28 all but four remained, including myself, we all sort of looked around at each other and walked out. It wasn't really the most productive of days. All in all, I don't feel much wiser. I do feel older. And my car has an ugly parking sticker on it.