Carroll Baker

Dear Grandma:

God I am so sorry to take so long to write again. Well if you have been watching you know there has been a lot going on. It has been weeks since I have had a day off except for the lesbian wedding I was best man at....oh yeah you beat we have to talk about that sometime. My computer died and I lost all of the music I had been downloading recently. I wish I could explain to you how the world of music has changed since you and I listened to eight-tracks at the trailor. Do you remember how sometimes the entire set of songs would not fit on one section so half way through a song would stop and then pick up again when it switched tracks. Well now I sit at my computer and call up a song and press a button and the song comes through space and into my computer. It is like magical. For some reason I have really wanted to go back in time while somehow managing to live in the present. It has been wierd but I have gone back to listening to some of the music you and I loved to listen to. Right now I am listening to your all time favourite Carroll Baker. What a voice. She rang out so much emotions with her voice. You should hear how people sing today. Well if you call it singing....mostly it seems like a lot of yelling and so little emotion in their voice. It has been fun rediscovering music from my past. Thanks for introducing Carroll Baker to me all those years ago. Another memory I get to treasure all over again. Well I must go and call my friend Cheryl who just got out of the hospital remind me to tell you all about that too.

Love Jim

Can You Forgive Me?

Hi Grandma:

It has been a long time. I was actually afraid to start talking to you again. I know I have a lot to explain but I love you for being so patient. The first time you went away I had someone to blame. Sheila. The second time I had no one to blame so I blamed you and let you go. I am so sorry. I can't believe the mess my life has been since you left. Well, who is kidding who, it wasn't exactly off to a great start. As weird as this may sound it all seems to be coming together now. I have quit smoking but if you came back from heaven you know there would be a drink and a cigarette waiting for you. And a deck of cards so we could play rummy. Believe me I will be kicking back a drink with you and lighting up a smoke. I miss the nights we played cards and talked. It is hard to lose someone you love more than life. I realize now that there are some losses you just never get over.

Anyway so glad I took the time to touch base. You can bet you will be hearing from me again real soon. And hey if you want to send me a message go ahead it won't freak me out.

Love Jimmy

Visconti Triplets - Hot or............

Turns out there has been a lot going on in the world while I was busy indulging in myself these last couple of years. It would have been nice if the world had stopped so I didn't have to play catch up. I have been looking into the wierd and wonderful and....and discovered the Visconti Triplets, purely by accident. These very cute, very hunky 19 year old boys have started to become gay porn sensations by acting in porn movies together. I'm slightly replused yet turned on at the same time.

Hot - definitely if I am thinking with my cock. Young boys do not do it for me....ever. Well, never say ever, because these boys do it for me. They apparently don't "do it" with each other on camera (I have no idea about off camera, I am sure when they were younger they must have dabbled)so that means in my fantasy I would be the main attraction. So yes having three hot guys only focusing on me during sex is a hot fantasy. Who cares if they are brothers.

??? - if I am not thinking with my cock I don't know what to think. First of all I have no brothers so the close as I can get to this subject matter is trying to think about how I would feel having sex with someone and both my sisters participating. Well not hot doesn't begin to describe how I would feel...repulsed, horrified, my worst nightmare come true. No there is no way I can begin to wrap my head around it.

Hot - three brothers all oiled up, wrestling with each other to determine who gets me first....hot. Very hot.

But like many of my fantasies they are best left as fantasies. To actually watch it happening to someone else would be like driving by a car accident. Yes we all slow down and take a look but do you really hope to see a car accident when driving. No. Just like I am not sure I want to watch three brothers having sex with someone in a movie.

I have drawn my line. The amazing thing about life for most of us is that we can draw our own lines. So well done boys....all the best to you.

I Saw The Light.....and it isn't pretty....

"If every home in the U.S. put in one compact flourescent light bulb....the savings in greenhouse emissions would be wiped out by fewer than two medium-sized coal plants. The kind of plant that is being build in China at a rate of one a week" the headline stated.

What are we expected to do next if anything at all. The environment has been a concern to me over the last few years and it's slow destruction. I will talk about it a lot, although, rather ignorantly. I do feel an obligation to future generations that they may have an opportunity to enjoy the earth's beauty as I have. Changing my light bulb will have no impact. I have purchased recyclable bags to take with me to the grocery store but realize the number of plastic bags I would normally use in a week pales in comparison to the number of diapers that end up in land fill. I don't have a car and walk to work and use public transit to get around. I live in 700 square feet so I am not heating and cooling a large home. I actually live well below my means. And none of it matters globally. At least I have the knowledge that I am not a grotesque contributor to the problem and make my best attempts to improve the scenario however small it may be.

The answer. I think it is too late for the answer of trying to reverse the affects. Developing countries like China and India do not have the ability understand why they should cut their living standards and deny their kids better health care or schools when we in North America also show little interest.

Parents still want their kids to have everything. They still want to drive their kids to hockey/soccer/ballet (fill in any blank)in their SUV's. They want to have the big house in suberbia with the in-ground pool. And how can you fault anyone for that?

The world is a mess....who is kidding who. We can get up each day and enjoy our happy lives but I am afraid that we have a future in front of us that....I am not sure how to finish that sentence. Of course there is a future in front us and how it will look is anyone's guess. Perhaps a great saviour will be sent down from heaven. Perhaps life from another planet will arrive and have the answers. Perhaps people in power will actually step up. Perhaps I will be long gone before anything of real concern happens. I do beleive the future generations will look back upon the period of 1900's to now as one of the periods when civilization was the greediest.

Where There's Smoke....

So I am not smoking. It has been 10 days and all goes well. Of course I am medicated. I just gave up trying to do it on my own and finally asked my doctor for a prescription. It is pretty incredible really. You pick a start date within 14 days of starting the medication and then just do it. So my brain waves and moods are currently being altered by both the commencement of the drugs and the ceasing of the nicotine feed. I must say that I feel calmer than I have been in a long time and that is saying a lot as I feel like I have been going mad over the last three years. I like the pills....I am sure I will hate giving them up at the end of 12 weeks. Do I miss smoking? Not really. I had past the point of hating myself for smoking and was just around the corner from plain hating myself. Hating myself for breaking every commitment that I was making with me. This Monday I will stop or this Monday I will start reducing how much I smoke was a weekly ritual that fell apart within 15 minutes of starting every Monday. I was dissolving into thinking of myself as a complete failure in life. So I can honestly say my self esteem has greatly improved. Feeling level is pretty fantastic when you have been feeling low. With that said there are certain windows when I crave one and start making deals with myself. I honestly believe that I will smoke again. From time to time. Similar to how some people do recreational drugs. From time to time. I will never be able to keep cigarettes in my home. The deal I have made with myself is that at some point in the future when one of my friends comes over for an evening who socially smoked with me I will make them bring cigarettes with them. We will smoke a few with martinis and then throw them in the garbage. It will be a treat. I believe I can handle that but who knows. I am not near ready to try that experiment yet. I was hoping to write a book about stopping smoking. It was going to be clever and witty and a best seller. Until today when at the book store I found out David Saderis new book deals with that very subject so another dream up in smoke. But all is not lost. I bought a guitar last weekend. I figured that I would need something to do with my hands in the evening and decided I would learn how to play the guitar. So now there's a new dream.....it's Nashville or bust.

Good Bye Self Help

My forties so far have been just a little bumpy. There have been lots of great things happen and lots of challenges. Sometimes I long for my youth when there was an innocence and a sense of excitement about my future. Life has shifted that. I do appreciate being more socially conscious than I was in my twenties. With the start of my forties I started examining my life more closely. The things that were working, the things that weren't and what I wanted to change. I turned to ready a lot of self-help books. I have read more to many and they kept reshaping my thinking until I wasn't sure what I was thinking anymore. I kept telling myself how I should feel because I had read it. Two weeks ago I started a "Yoga Conscious Movement" class that ran for 9 weeks. Part of the course was to read Lousie Hay's "You Can Heal Yourself". I have read the first two chapters. I have now decided to throw out all my self-help books. As long as you are reading self-help books your mind is telling you that there is something wrong with you or something that needs to be fixed. I have decided that I am fine. I am a product of all my experiences and I am impacted by world events that go on around me. I make mistakes and I learn from them. I change and grow daily. I am optimistic about the future. I am fine. Reading for pleasure sounds like so much more fun.

Spring Is Here

There is only one way to beat this weather and that is too pretend spring is here. On Saturday I dragged myself through the snowstorm for my first pilates lesson. Time to start working on the spring body. Bathing suit season is creeping up like an assasin. I will have abs by that time. I spent today spring cleaning. Bought fresh tulips and placed them throughout my home. The snow can blow and swirl around me but I'll just pretend it is spring. Most of life is about mental attitude.

Drifting Away

I have been watching myself (yes I am a big observer) slowly drift away from the gay community over the last couple of years. I completly left it a few years ago and that wasn't the answer so I sort of jumped back into it. But over the last year I am drifting further and further away...while living in the middle of it. I never really found a home within the gay community. Like anything it has it strengths and weaknesses. I have witnessed both. But as I change and my needs change and the gay community changes it no longer seems to play a role in my life. Like all experiences we need to go through them. To appreciate them. To identify what works and what doesn't work for yourself. My world is becoming bigger. My experiences richer. Perhaps I have dealt with or at least understand most of my issues. And I witness too many gay men my age still acting out a lot of issues. Something I don't need to be around. Perhaps one day I will find myself drifting back. Perhaps not. I have moved on to getting on with my life and being gay is actually quite a small part of it.

Wild As The Wind

There is nothing I love more than a winter storm. Mother Nature blows in and takes control. Suddenly everyone's world shifts. It is funny to watch people. Some people just roll with the event and enjoy it. I am one of those people. Some people fight it every step of the way. You know the ones. Driving too fast to get to work because the weather is making them late. Odds are they end up in an accident continuing to curse the day and their bad luck. Yesterday was fantastic. Yes I do realize that I have the luxury of walking to work. But if I had to drive I would have called in and taken a personal day. We did close early...I got to go home and finish a novel I was reading while the snow swirled outside my window. I also bought on dvd the series "Damage" with Glenn Close and curled up on the couch and watched the first four episodes. It was a snowday....there is nothing else to do but embrace it...with both arms and hold on tight. Tomorrow it will be gone so why miss out on it?

Letter Home - 25 Years Later

Dear Me:

Hey, it's me. I know you don't know me at all. That's okay you will spend years looking for me. I know you oh so well, yet still, you often surprise me. You are an interesting one. It's 2008 and I will be 43 years old this year, but for you, it is only 1983 and you are just 18 years old. Your whole life ahead of you. I remember you as this naive young boy with the only dream of getting out of your one horse town. I want you to know that you will realize that dream and so many more.

I want to share somethings with you as you search for your place in the world. I wonder if you would still take that first job after university if you knew you were going to be fired? If you knew that you would get your heart broken a couple of times in addition to breaking a couple of hearts, would you love differently? If you knew that Grandma was going to die before your 25th birthday would you spend more time with her?

You will experience much joy in life. You will experience pain, sadness and darkness as well. I can tell you that you will go through a period when you want to give up. If I could wrap my arms around you tightly and whisper in your ear that it was all going to be okay I would. But you will find your way on your own. You will find a new strength, a new courage and emerge stronger and braver.

You will search for love and happiness and will someday find out that they have always been within you. You will spend too much time looking outside for it before you realize that you have to look inside.

And the mistakes you make. The tears you will shed and the regret you will hold on too. Know my dear friend that one day you will see all your mistakes as wonderful gifts that you will treasure always.

The friends you will make and the friends you will lose. You are a restless spirit and will try many things. That restless spirit will make you feel lost until you realize that that restless spirit will have allowed you to try so many things. You will find yourself living in a big world. The small town boy will be left in the dust. Be open to life's experiences and know when to let go of things that don't work for you.

There is no point worrying about what anyone else is thinking. That will be your hardest lesson. Your life is about you, for you. Hold on to that.

I don't know if we will ever meet. Perhaps one day the past and present will collide and we will celebrate with a night on the town.

I want you to know that I will never forget you. You have given me so much and you don't even know it.

I know I have said a lot in this letter. But please don't change a thing. You will be just fine.

Warmest Regards,

Me

P.S. I love you

Britney Spears

That girl can't be ignored. I wish she could. Thousands of magazines have her face plastered all over it and Dr. Phil is wieghing in as well as countless others I am sure but since I have really paid little attention it is just a guess.

So I say go on Britney....have your meltdown. And make it as public as possible. You have the time, the money, the attention and probably whatever else is required. For most of us we will never have that luxury. We must cope. Get up everyday and do what we have to do. Most days we love it. They are our life choices and hopefully we take full responsibility for our life choices. There is nothing more liberating. But I too have had periods of my life when I was really struggling. I just didn't have the time, the money, the attention or whatever else it is you need to have a meltdown. I had to just keep going.

Someday the poor dear may find herself working at Walmart and living in a trailer park and she will be just fine. Because she will have to keep going and will no longer have the luxury of a meltdown. So enjoy it to the fullest. Make it as public as possible. And then please just go away.

Brain Mush

Ok...my first two entries of the year have a similar theme. It is just that I did the second entry a few minutes ago as I spend all day saturday sitting in an SQL course but I have access to the internet. So I spent the morning surfing the net and then thought I know I will do a blog entry but so bored I had nothing to say. I never did well sitting in a classroom. Give me the book and I will read on my own. I have the attention span of a nat. I think I do suffer from ADD.

2008 - The Best Year

I have already decided that 2008 will be the best year so far of my forties. How can it not be? Turning forty wasn't so much hard as confusing. It made me really evaluate my life and where I was at and if it was where I wanted to be. Sometimes the answer was yes and sometimes the answer was no but most of the time the problem was the answer was I didn't know. I was never someone who had a plan or direction or a dream. I just dealt with each day as it came along. When my forties started I thought I need a plan, I need direction, I need a dream. And then I went racing around trying to make it all happen. It was crazy making. I was trying to change people and things to fit this new vision. Most of the time it blew up in my face. I am done with all that. I am just fine. Without a plan. Without a direction. Without a dream. Instead I have decided to go back to just enjoying and experiencing each day as it comes along. I have set some goals for myself this year. And they are all manageable. I have no need to change anything around me. I am much happier already. It has been a great year so far.

Hello 2008

The beginning of this year already feels so exciting and I believe that this is going to be a spectacular year. After three years of drifting trying to find something, anything to grab on to. Desperately searching for solid ground as the winds of change kept swirling around me. Perhaps it was a forties thing. I have no idea what propelled me on the journey that I have been on for the last three years. Searching for the meaning of life, my life. Searching for love. Searching for acceptance. Trying every possible door I could imagine. Disappointment after disappointment. Rewards after rewards. Trying so hard to be happy. As I sit here today I feel like I finally found it. It was right here all the time. Three years of looking for something external. Three years of searching to find it and it was right here all the time. I was too busy looking outside of me to look inside of me. As life goes I had to travel those roads to get back to me. I found it all right there, love, acceptance, peace. Armed with these new found gifts I embrace 2008 and all that it has to offer. I am getting it back on the road. I just took the long way around.