Hillsborough County Commissioner Kevin Beckner!

The guy on the right is Kevin Beckner, an openly gay man who supports protection of people like me, and for people who are not like me at all. That's the kind of fella I'd like serving my county! He won on Tuesday!

Notice how prideful Brian Blair was throughout the whole interview, patronizing both the interviewer and Kevin Beckner. He's against a gay agenda, yet he has "dear friends" who are gay? He tries to prove how much he likes people of color by talking about how many of his friends are people of color - that really doesn't convince me. I want to see what you're doing for those people besides letting them sit next to you on the goddamn bus!

That's my schpiel. Thanks Tampa Bay for electing someone who actually believes in separation of church and state!

to touch or not to touch. gross hairy men.

After simmering in my irritability for the first half of the month in reference to my choice of a career, my future plans, my desire to get the hell outta dodge, I've settled into the fact that I'm goign to be here for awhile longer. I no longer having that "flight" reaction to my current employment situation.

Surely my mood has to do with all of the things I've been doing to feed my desire for change. I bought a massage therapy textbook and I've been working through it. I gave Kay a massage as a practice run and she said that I was already as good, if not better than some students would have been with a month or two worth of class time. So. Sounds promising right? Well. The only problem with being an MT is that it is largely a female profession with a significant male clientele. So. I'm signing up to touch boys all day. Ew. Sweaty, hairy boys.

So! I've decided to start practice on all my favorite gay boys to start off with. As long as I can be comfortable with them, I'm sure I can make the leap to hairy gross old men, right? Uh. We'll see. We'll see. Kip is a truly adorable boy, though. His boyfriend Joel was in my Politics of Women's Health class. Actually, Joel is one degree between me and Dana - craazy! He works in the same plaza where Dana works as a sandwich craftsperson. Once I met her, Dana started talking to Joel about me and he realized who I was before he and I had ever really made acquaintances in class. Weird.

But Kip is Joel's boyfriend and they are ever so cute - very cuddly and clean, and he has a friend who is also a massage therapist. Apparently he himself has also been the guinea pig for many a massage student. We're having a date tomorrow afternoon for my first try at touching boy leg hairs. and arm hairs and back. Maybe he won't have a hairy back, do you think? I was sure to remind him that I have not even taken intro to "do you wanta degree in?" massage yet and so I don't really have any basic strokes. He seems willing to oblige my curiosities anyway.

I'm totally nervous because I have given so few massage with so little instruction. But like I've said before, I am a healer with healing hands and it is the intent of my heart. How could I go wrong?

Escape! Freedom!

rant. The move went as well as it could. He tried to tell me that the house was a mess all the time and that it was embarrassing to him when his mother would come over, and that he tried to work with Stefanie but that she would not cooperate, and that I owe him the rent for the rest of the months that I'm skipping out on. All of these things are untrue. I was at the house several days while she was staying there and it was never anything but his dirt and filth. My belongings were moved around, my empty boxes were put in the dirt under the house for me to scavenge for. When I needed help with my cousin living with me, he wouldn't work with me. In any case, all of his niceties were a lie and he really doesn't know how to treat tenants. On top of the place being covered in a layer of filth. I'm out and I don't have to think about it anyore. I don't have to move again for 13 months. hooray!

Now, a whole list of to do's! So. Tired. Dana has been so great throughout the whole thing. She and Stefanie have even been working on "mystery errands" which I presume have something to do with my upcoming birthday next week on Thursday. We're going to The Cheesecake Factory - I just might wear my black dress from the NYC trip last october. It will require a new sash - what color do you think? I'll probably go with red or blue.

By the way, if you link to me and I'm not linking back, pipe up and tell me so!

change of the tide

This morning I signed a least with my psuedo cousin for 13 months. This is seriously permanent. The place I moved into is really not what I'm looking for, and all I have to do is forfeit my $300 deposit to be able to move out. It's not worth my money to stay the rest of the 3 months left on my lease. I did this because my cousin, Stefanie had a minor snafu with the law, after getting kicked out of her mom's house, and she has since been staying with me. Well, my landlord who is also my housemate (oh the joys of subleasing from strangers!) has been allowing her to stay with me on the condition that she pay $250 by the 15th. The government was willing to pay the money but he refused to sign any document stating that she was allowed to stay in MY bedroom until 3/31 so the funds could not be released. He called me at work, rather than telling Stef - he wants her out by Wednesday (which is illegal by the way, you can't kick anyone out with less than 7 days notice, apparently.)

I decided yesterday that I didn't like the living situation either. They are very unclean people, especially for people with fluid borne diseases, as I have discussed before. They have sex in the shower and then Stefanie doesn't feel comfortable washing the baby in there. On top of that, they want her out because they don't like the baby being there. My room is too small for me, the landlord keeps telling her a different story than he tells me, and they keep having big fights where the cops get called. After speaking with the landlord yesterday, I decided that it was so over.

So in yesterday afternoon I marched myself down to the leasing office where Dana lives and got the applications, filled them out, had my credit approved, and chose a one bedroom with a den. I spend most of my time here anyway, and I'd like to be able to decorate my own place with my own stuff and not have to feel like I'm bothering someone else. The government assistance is providing a moving truck for Stefanie so most of my stuff can hopefully go in there, and she's going to work on getting assistance for our utilities. I feel very peaceful about it. Last night I tossed and turned and tossed and turned and I couldn't get right about which unit I wanted, but we went to see them again this morning and the choice was clear.

Now, to furnish an apartment on a very small income, with me carrying most of the finances. Where there's a will, there's a way, and it shall be done! I feel so free!

positive / negative

Stefanie (staying with me) called me about 2 hours after I left my house to tell me that my roommate just found out that he's positive and that his boyfriend (or whatever he is, i can never tell if they're broken up or together) had just beat in him up really bad when he told him about it. She had called the cops because my roommate was "covered in blood" as she said. When I spoke with her, the friend had run away so that the cops could not find him (he might not be legal in the U.S.? not sure). When I spoke to Stefanie, she was upstairs with the other, unrelated roommate, trying to stay out of the way. Her son was locked in the bedroom (it's a locking door) and didn't wake up the whole time.

This brings up so many things in my head. So much that is so fucked up. Like how gay men are at such ridiculously high risk for HIV and lesbians can only get it with blood to blood (or breast milk) contact. Like how there's so much silence around it that it can spread for months and miles unnoticed until one day somebody gets tested. I've been trying to make my friend Jay get tested for like 4 years and he won't do it because he "doesn't want to know" and he's "pretty sure" he's negative.

My first reaction was to go and give him a big hug, but I don't know how appropriate that would be with such a new roommate (and I've hardly even been there very much. maybe about 2 weeks out of the whole 2 months i've lived there.) So maybe tomorrow or Saturday I will take some time to go check on him. I feel like there's not much I can do to make him feel better...

Talk about it, people. And get tested. No excuses.

in which Miss Avarice gets a girlfriend

I have been lucky enough to be able to sleep in the same bed with Dana every night since we met. It doesn't feel like a new relationship, it just feels like we have always been together. It feels like we have known each other for years and year yet only just met. She's Jewish, and I really like that I'm able to share that with her. The church of which my family was a member when I was younger used to celebrate all of the Jewish holy days because our faith comes from theirs. I found a little book for passover - an activity that the childcare people had for me, and my mother kept it. I want to read scripture with her. I want to discover the Torah with her and eat latkes.

Dana has 2 cats and a dog - I know what you're thinking. Miss Avarice has violent hatred for cats, and pets in general. But her kitties are happy and clean and only mildly mischievous. Her dog is a chihuahua named Pete - he's exactly what I asked for, too - short haired and small. I get along with the cats really well, too. They come over when I call to them and they snuggle me and generally enjoy my presence. I've gifted her with some of my excess, too - curtains, dishes, bedsheets, things that were cluttering my life but now I get to enjoy them with her and not having to worry about where to stash them.

The new crash pad has not been so fabulous. The fags are in the bathroom like 24/7, or at least in the times that I wish I were in the bathroom. I did not realize it was 3 beds 1 bath before I moved in - should have checked on that first. We've spent part of our time there, but I've truly enjoyed staying with Dana. I hang out at her place while she's at work cooking healthy meals for her, and cleaning, and plotting my attack for when she gets home. We've shared some stresses together... homework, roommates, problems in cash flow. But it feels like we have always been us.

My favorite part about the whole ordeal is that I don't get butterflies in my stomach about it. I miss her when she's gone, and I love her when she's near. We talk and talk and touch and cuddle and enjoy being with one another. But it is not that dire, earth shattering love that ruins lives. It's a simple, uncomplicated love that allows us to both live our lives together. We've been compiling a list of hotties, too. We've listed people who would be possible sexual partners and it's nice to be allowed attraction to other people. If you stifle it, if you hold it down, it compresses and becomes more dense and intense, but if you let it go, if you simply say it and acknowledge it, then it doesn't blow up into something unmanageable.

I couldn't be more pleased. My love for her began as a tentative wish for her companionship and grows on a daily basis. The more I see her, the more I learn about her, and the more of our lives we share, the better things are getting. It's a waking dream.

the last 24 hours, in review

Gemini: Significant changes in a relationship have already started to modify your attitude about expressing your emotions. If you normally talk your way around deep feelings because they make you uncomfortable, consider spending more time exploring the shadows for the magic that is hidden in your heart.

Someone please explain to me why my horoscopes always tell me what I don't want to hear? It's all this "face the facts" nonsense all the time! I'm facing the facts!! I get it! Now go back to the happy horoscopes!

In other news, Miss Avarice broker number one drinking rule last night [eat a full meal before you take the first sip of alcohol] and paid for it big time. I didn't get sick, and I didn't get a hangover, but I got pretty smashed. I knew I couldn't drive home, and I was alone, strung up in a tight corset, hoping to start feeling better. When I finally realized that food was the only thing that would help me overcome the alcohol, I called Sol and Autumn to come get me. They drove together and Sol drove my car back to their place and put my on the couch. I went over to see Kay and Ash's new house and it's so gorgeous and I'm totally jealous! But it inspired me to go find a place of my own and with Jennie's help, I located a potential roommate under rooms/shares.

We went over to see him his afternoon, Jennie and I, and would you believe that he is simply the most adorable cuban gay boy - approaching his late twenties. The two of us have rooms downstairs and another boy, Feu (not to be confused with feo [ugly], which is what I thought he said at first!) lives in an upstairs apartment. We will share the bathroom between our rooms, and he has yet to finish the house, painting it, furnishing the apartment, so that is yet to come. But I like him already! Is it okay to like him right away? It's in the part of town that I want, they're relatively clean people (there was one, lonesome dish in the sink!), the appliances are nice, the kitchen is nice, the room is big, it's 8 miles closer to work and school, it's in the center of town and it's close to the freeway. He mentioned in a conversation later in the day how fabulous he thought Jennie was, so he already gets along with at least one of my friends...

Being the total, utter, obsessive fag hag that I am, I'm completely smitten! We're meeting again tomorrow afternoon to go over some more details. Wee!

After that I took T our to dinner and we continue to have a great relationship that doesn't even center around my recent coming out episode in the least! Things are definitely looking up.

secret santa

So, I offered to purchase a gift for a youth at Sylvia's Place, a shelter for glbtq young persons at the Metropolitan Community Church in New York City. But I'm in over my head. The fella I got asked for an apple iPod. The trouble with that is that when I signed up I was thinking y'know they probably have price limits on these things. any other time i've donated to other places, they've said not to exceed $20, $35,or $50 or whatever. Clearly that is not the case with this one!

Does anyone feel like splitting the cost with me? I don't want to be cheap and get an iPod shuffle for $80 (even though that's more than I was planning to spend), I was thinking of getting a new iPod Nano and that's like $150! Ack.

Lemme know if anyone's willing to pitch in even $10 or something to help!

quote of the day

I took my gay boy on a date tonight. He said he felt like he might be catching a cold.

"I can hardly swallow ... I've never had that problem before."

Oh man, it took me about two seconds to catch what he said and meant, but it made me laugh! I feel like Emmet from QAF has said that before.

My gay boy makes me nervous. He coughs a lot and won't get tested :(

hag

i realized the other day that i am a major, major fag hag.

two boys kissing just makes me smile and coo.

but i was looking at pictures of one of my butch friends kissing her butch girlfriend and in my head i caught myself thinking how incredibly hot that was.

and i can't get enough of it, apparently, no matter what type of boy, whether it's the darling gay boys or hot butches.