it's not gay!

"It's not gay if you throw-up afterwards!!!"

I heard this exclaimed proudly over the sounds of my own retching.

"Get it? Because he knows it's sick!"

We'd been playing a game, of sorts, the entire night. It's not gay if ... you're blind, you high five afterwards or if you kiss him when you're done (because that means you're in love). This game came about mostly because we were mixing boredom with heavy drinking. It was easy to play and could be taken anywhere, kind of like Eye Spy for grown-ups, or at least immature twenty somethings. Of the three of us, Jake was by far the most enthused about the game and even more so with this new insight.

I was throwing up because in those days I was just beginning my habit of drinking 151 from the bottle. Plus, it's not gay if you're drunk. I still wasn't used to my new favorite drink and so I remember throwing up quite a bit for a period of time. Eventually though, 151 and I would reconcile and our relationship would blossom into something more akin to spousal abuse. 151 loved me, but in her own unique way. My abusive spouse would comfort me when I was down, but she would take her time letting me forget about her 'help' the next day. Of course, more often than not she'd still be 'comforting' me the next morning at work so I didn't mind too much.

It's not gay if you never look him in the eyes. Because that means you don't really like him. It came to be that my lady friend, Ms 151, would never look me in the eyes. I remember those days were filled with the dumbest drunken adventures I've ever enjoyed. One night I was drinking 151 until I was blue in the face. Seriously, I almost drown that night and I imagine that Jake would have told me "It's not gay because he's choking." Occasionally the 'it's not gays' wouldn't make much sense, but that didn't matter.

There was another pool incident, separate from the near-drowning, where Ms 151 helped me soak my new phone and ruin a pack of cigarettes and lose a lighter. That same night, if I recall correctly, (because it's not gay if I don't remember it) I walked to the gas station near my house with no shirt on and soaking wet pants. The cashier got mad at me when I decided to pay with wet money. He didn't care that I was dripping on the floor or stumbling around the place.



Ms 151 left quite an impression on me the morning I found myself buying a flask so that I could discretely mix her with my coke at Denny's. One of my best friends worked there, he was gay, and he loved the 'it's not gay...'s. If it made sense, he would have said it's not gay if you're gay. Instead Ms 151 helped me think of that particular expression.

My lovely lady friend, as I said, would stay with me long after I wanted her to leave. She was that kind of girl, 'the wolf' I believe they are called. You know the kind where you'd rather chew off your own arm to rid yourself of her the next morning rather than waking her. Maybe the phrase is 'wolf ugly' but the idea works the same. I thought of her like that because I worked outside. Around 11 every morning I would invariably vomit whatever the contents in my stomach were because the heat and sweat did not co-exist with Ms 151. She expelled them or they her.

I started to realize the destructive aspect of this relationship. It's not gay if you're breaking up with him afterwards. Because, well you're breaking up with him. And so I decided to try and call it quits with the lady. Except she would not go away. The friend of mine that normally bought my alcohol at the time (I wasn't quite old enough to drink yet) forgot about it the next time I sent him to the liquor store. I'm pretty sure he remembered but saw that he could pocket more change if he got that instead of a handle of smirnoff. I wanted to play the field a bit, 151 wasn't having that.

My misadventures tipped off another friend to the glorious underbelly of 151. If you drink enough of it, strange things will happen. I thought after that final hurrah from the 'mistake' above, things would be over. No, that week I shared my lady with this 'friend.' I feel that somehow 151 convinced everyone around me that she was good for me and that they shouldn't listen to what I said. I felt betrayed. People I thought were my friends were only keeping me locked into this liquid destruction. I wasn't about to quit drinking, I just needed some options that I wasn't being given.

Eventually I did break up with Ms 151. Every now and again I let her back in and she still gives me that warm feeling inside. It's different now somehow, I don't see her as much anymore so when I do, I forget how bad she treats me. Distance makes the heart grow fonder and all. I guess it's not gay if you miss each other. If that's true, it makes everything all right again.

daydreaming

There is one of just two things I think about during my last class of the day. I think of dinner, specifically what I want to make, and I think of RollerCoaster Tycoon. If I were to tell someone what I'm most passionate about, truly interested in, it would be building theme parks and cooking. I can't come up with anything that might incorporate these two lovely activities, aside from baking cakes that look like roller coasters. Bakers are fags, so that idea's out.

I'm left with . . . what? A dream unfulfilled? Hell no, I'm too persistent to give up that easy. I've decided on a course of action that I feel will suitably cater to my unique needs. Much like a special ed teacher, I approach this situation with caution. Always I'm mindful of flying feces and retarded fists of fury. I'm a cowboy taming a wild bronco bucking about like a palsy victim.

That imagery is probably more than is needed to truly explain this idea. I'd like to be Wolfgang Puck or Emeril Lagasse, but still retain my heterosexuality. You see, these two fun bags got down and dirty in Orlando. Emeril kicked it up a notch and hung out for a while at Universal Studios while Wolfgang most likely sucked off Micheal Eisner to get that awesome gig in that mega-verse of theme parks.



The beauty here is that these two can hang out in a damned amusement park all day if they so desire and they have throngs of fans willing to pay exorbitant prices to dine in their restaurants. Then, every time some unsuspecting Asian tourist happens along and gets the false impression that these two are the coolest cooks in America, he goes back to where he came from and spreads the word. If Emeril were so inclined, he could go to Japan and be knee deep in pint sized pussy. If only Alton Brown or me had there gig ...

But, look at the life of luxury these two titans of chef-ery enjoy; they can ride all the sweet rides they want, cook whatever the hell they want and call it delicious, and then they slam all the Asian tail they want until sunrise. Lather, rinse and repeat until they grow old and die.

What I don't really understand is how these two get by in America when neither of these top chefs can speak English. Emeril does his best impression of a retarded southerner while Wolfgang speaks like he's from wherever the hell he's from. I didn't bother to look this up, he's from Norway or Sweden or some fucking place, I don't live in Europe, they're all the same to me.

I figure if I can break onto this sweet scene, all these glories could be mine... and then some. You see, I would organize my Asian followers into a tiny band of marauders pillaging the countryside until one of these theme parks would let me design a roller coaster. I've all the experience I would ever need in this line of work from all my years of designing coasters on my computer. Here, everything comes full circle, back to daydreaming about RollerCoaster Tycoon and cooking dinner.

Day 4 - present:

I spent quite a while in Podunk, California. It's pretty close to Yosemite National Park where we saw some rocks and trees and shit. No Yogi Bear, so I was pretty pissed. Here's some fucking rocks there on the right, and some trees and shit.


And as a late edit, I lost the cable to transfer files from my camera to my computer, and the card reader-adapter is missing as well. Enjoy.

trees and some other shit

Day 3:

There's all kinds of history that abounds in regards to the redwood trees, like how they're big and reddish and people like them. They were ok, I wasn't nearly as impressed as I had hoped to be, though I guess they are the biggest trees I've seen that I can remember. This picture doesn't really showcase the size of the trees as well as a 'I'm standing right next to one' type of picture might, but I'll be damned if I don't think it looks pretty cool.

After the adventures in the woods, and having to endure the pain I picked up in my leg from walking around the other day in my broke ass boots, we traveled to a little valley called Sonoma where they love wine.

Here's a flower with some vineyards in the background. The fields of grapes look kind of nice, though the grapes themselves are all still green. The green on green on shit brown dirt isn't the best looking picture in the world, so I took a shot with this little flower, he's happy.

The winery we visited was pretty awesome, it was a 'community day' or some such bullshit and so they were giving away all kinds of free food and instead of just being able to taste the wines, you could drink as much as you wanted. I didn't go crazy with the wine drinking because real wine, from a bottle, not from the box, makes me sleepy.

I couldn't get too sleepy because we had tickets to the Giants game last night where good old Pirates alum, Barry Bonds, hit his 750th homerun. It's a pretty sweet stadium, reminiscent of PNC Park with the low, open outfield offering a view of the bay, while PNC Park gives a view of Pittsburgh.

There's a couple more pictures I want to share, but I don't have much to say about them.

The obligatory redwood growth that looks like a redwood nutsack... kind of like a pregnant tree, from what I gathered.


My eagle friend overlooking the grapes and the hills and what not.


This is just some tree, but it had a chair underneath it as if it were some old ass man's favorite spot to chill out, I sat in the chair and took this picture.

No sweet escape man today. Sorry.

Another fun day.

Day 2 (belatedly):

Some stuff happened yesterday and the main reason that I didn't post anything fun is that I had to take a jesus walk all around town.

Went to jail. Not the real jail, of course, but the old kind. The kind that has been converted to a national park, Alcatraz, seen to the right.

The jail island was a grand old time, though I was repeatedly warned to 'not mess with the birds' and in olden times, this would have obviously meant the 'jailbirds' but not on this fine day. The sea gulls, nature's hobos, had inhabited the island and are apparently not to be trifled with as there were multiple warnings that these fowl should be left to themselves.

In a word, I can sum up the Alcatraz experience: boring. It's a hike to the top of the hill and there's a bunch of busted up buildings and jail cells that you're not allowed to play in. Basically, a disappointment. Though it's nice to know firsthand that the place kind of sucked.

Lunch was on some pier and then we went to Ghirardelli's Square or whatever it's called, the chocolate place. I enjoyed this because I caught a sweet pic for my grandpa of this mermaid's titties. Glory be to the titties. Glory be.


Probably the highlight of my day came on our way back to the hotel. I guess it was an afternoon rush or something because there was an ass-load of people waiting for the cable car. Apparently whenever a group of people form in San Francisco for whatever reason, the homeless flock to the opportunity. We waited and waited in line for the cable cars to slowly load up the crowd, as someone who looked like Jerry Garcia sang songs and plucked his banjo for the masses. After a while a stranger came... Escape man. This will speak for itself.


And some video below: