Since I last posted there have been a number of developments. First, the conundra (I'm going with this as plural for conundrum, because conundrums sounds stupid.) I introduced in the last post. The Will situation is fucked. After a week or so of not seeing one another, I bumped into him walking home from the subway one afternoon. While it was awkward as hell, I really missed him. We made arrangements to hang out.
In the ensuing weeks, I've spent time with Will almost every day, either hanging out and watching tv, or walking his adorable English bulldog. I love spending time with him. I'm getting to know him more and more, and my feelings for him continue to grow. I'm quite sure I'm in love with him.
But aside from friendly hugs, he hasn't touched me since that night. It's not even the sex I miss. I mean, I do, but I miss his gentle touch, and the way he kissed me, far more. It is so painful to want to just hold him in my arms and tell him how much I love him, and not be able to. One night he came over, and I could see a hickey on his neck, one I did not give him.
Every time he doesn't respond to a text, or leaves me after hanging out, all I can think is, "He's off to have sex with someone. Someone he really wants. Someone better than me." It hurts so much, but I am so scared of losing him forever. When we had our "breakup" talk (I hesitate to use the term breakup since we were never officially a couple, but I know no other term to classify that conversation/confrontation.) I made it clear that friendship alone was not possible for me. I would always have the ulterior motive of being with him. So the fact that we spend so much time together, so much of it being at his prompting, makes me think that he still does have feelings for me that way, he just isn't ready to go there yet. So I'm giving him time, not pressuring him, letting him take his time.
I honestly don't know how long I can maintain. It's pure torture to love someone so much, to have them so close, yet so totally inaccessible. I've never met a man like him, and I genuinely fear that I never will again. It's just that this holding pattern, which is the story of my fucking life, by the way, is killing me. I'm tired of being the noble, stoic one. When the fuck do I get the guy? So my patience has its limits, and Will is fast approaching them. I'm going to have to very soon decide, do I give the ultimatum and risk losing him from my life or do I accept my spot, and never truly build the relationship I believe in my heart we both deserve?
For the big one, Auden, I need a little time...
Saturday, June 16, 2012
Thursday, May 17, 2012
The George Washington Bridge to Nowhere
It's one thing to act out recklessly and keep hurting yourself. You ignore sound adivce and obvious clues and tedious patterns and keep plunging into situations you had total control over avoiding but chose to risk it anyway. People do it everyday, and it's no big deal, because they're only hurting themselves. It's not so simple when you're sober. When you rely on other sober people to keep your head above water, sometimes it gets tiring for them to keep diving under to grab you and pull you back up AGAIN when they've got to worry about their own head and their other friends.
That's sort of what's been going on with Auden and me recently.
For some reason, I decided that two months was long enough to break the self-imposed sex embargo my therapist and I had agreed on, and I waded back into the online dating pool. My first exchange was a disaster. This guy on Scruff chatted me up. He seemed really sexy, great body, beautiful cock, seemed like at least some fun sex was in the works. Then he began cross examining me on my body, especially my stomach. I'm down to 156 lb, and have a pretty flat stomach. It's just that there's that puddle of loose skin. Well, his level of scrutiny left me feeling very dirty. So I went to the gym before our planned meeting, and the entire workout I just felt awful. Cheap. Dirty. Not just because he had so thoroughly objectified me, broken me down to my parts and nothing more, but because I had offered myself up for that scrutiny, practically contorting myself under a klieg light for his inspection. Eleanor Roosevelt's line about not being made to feel inferior without your permission stalked my thoughts. So I took the subway home and sent him a message, very politely, saying "Look, I think maybe we should postpone, meet for coffee or dinner sometime, get comfortable with one another and make sure we're really attracted to one another to avoid an uncomfortable moment in someone's apartment." He just responded, "Uhm... ok." I could practically see his theatrical eyeroll as he wrote that. Anyway, next day I was at work when he texted me, being very sweet and flirty. I started to warm up and flirt back, and asked him what his schedule was like. He said he was free all day, had the day off. We flirted a little more, and I asked him if he wanted to meet up. He said, "Can't. Have to work." Riiiiight. Even though you JUST said you had the day off. SO I got pissed and texted him, "Dude, what is your deal? I didn't feel badly enough about my self last night you had to come back and finish me off?" This precipitated a long and nasty argument, and I really let him have it. I was articulate, verbose, and cutting. Honest, but cutting. I was miserable, but strangely comforted by the strength of actually standing up for myself.
I recounted it all to Auden. I needed to share my pain, and revel in the nugget of triumph within. But mostly, the pain. What has become a concern to me, and my therapist, is how at the whim of external events my mood has become. Every time I suffer a setback in dating and sex, especially, I plunge into truly frightening depression. I get suicidal. Sometimes the pain gets so great I just want to die. I'm so very tired. Auden, God bless him, talked me through it. Sometimes the only thing that keeps me from actually taking a walk along the George Washington Bridge is the promise I made to Auden. Because honestly, right now, even when things are good, I kind of feel done with life. It just seems fucking pointless to me right now. But I couldn't do that to Auden.
So as I picked myself up, I met two guys, Will and Topher. (Not their real names.) Will reached out to me on Scruff, and we chatted online, somewhat flirty, but mostly just goofing, making actual conversation. He lived right around the corner from me, so we met up after I left work that night. He is gorgeous. My sexual ideal. And we had a nice time just talking and chilling out. We were up till 4AM talking. Then he said he was really attracted to me, but he just got out of a 3 year relationship and his head wasn't in sex. Honestly, I thought he was just sparing my feelings. I thought he liked my personaility so much that he had to meet me, but seeing me in person, I just wasn't cute enough. But I liked him so much I was actually ok with just being friends. We ended up hanging out three more times in the next week, talking for hours. He told me he felt like we were so much alike, and I felt the same. In the meantime, there was Topher. A few nights after I met Will, Topher and I hooked up on adam4adam. He came over and we had wild, uninhibited sex. It was pretty awesome. And he seemed so sweet. We got along really well. We made plans to see each other on Thursday. He's a flight attendant, and would be in Indianapolis until then. On Wednesday, I texted him to make sure we were still on for the next day. No answer. After three hous, I sent another message. Still no answer. I'm in hysterics, trolling online, and found his LinkedIn account. He's from Indianapolis. I started hyperventilating. Oh God, I got played. I had an overwhelming urge to die. Right then and there, no matter how messy or painful I just needed everything to fucking stop. I texted Auden through all this. After loving support, Auden tried to offer wise, sober support. I was beyond reason. I couldn't see outside the hole. I couldn't hear Auden. I wanted to. I knew he was right. I just couldn't hear anything anymore. I somehow sleepwalked through the rest of the day. I trudged home... To find Topher at my door. He'd been called back to New York a day early. Since he was working at airports and in airplanes, his phone was off all day. He is from Indiana, but he definitely does live in New York, two blocks from me. We spent a nice night together, just kissing and holding each other. I texted Auden my news and how wonderfully happy I was. I got a terse happy for you email. The next day I texted Auden to see how he was doing. He told me he hadn't slept in two days. I expressed concern and offered support. After several hours, he texted me back like, "What are you talking about? I'm fine. Have a good weekend." It bothered me. But I decided Auden must just need some space. Mother's Day was approaching, and that's a tough time for him. So I rode out the weekend and texted him on Monday. No answer. Texted him on Tuesday. No answer. Left him a voicemail. No answer. He finally texted me to say that he felt played by me, like I had used him. For the sake of our friendship I didn't challenge him. I've got some competing emotions about this right now. On the one hand there is a lot of guilt. I threw myself another pity party. My pity parties are getting longer and more elaborate. I'm pulling him deeper and deeper into my shit. I really don't mean to. On the other hand, there is growing anger. I sometimes feel like I'm walking on eggshells around Auden. I feel like he dictates the terms of our relationship, and my choices are to either be on board or he's moving on. It feels like he's very selective of what he shares with me, but I'm supposed to be an open book. Sometimes even my words are criticized. When I finally had the exchange with him the other day, I expressed that I feel like he helps me so much but I don't do enough to help him. He replied that he didn't need my help. He needed a friend. That seemed to me a deliberate rebuke, like he was looking for a way to slap away my hand, and that's all he had to work with. It had nothing to do with my actual word of choice. It was a concerted, "fuck your hand of friendship" statement. So these emotions are battling right now. And I have to ask myself the question of how much of my anger is real and just, and how much is just to offset my guilt. At the end of the day I love Auden so much. He has been there for me in deep tough times, and he's fun to talk to, and he's so smart and has a good eye for style (he pretty much is in charge of my wardrobe now.) Most of all I feel like he's the only person in the world who gets how my mind works. I miss my friend so much. My therapist thinks it may be time to reconsider antidepressants. I've been resisting them so long, but maybe the decision isn't just about me anymore. Maybe I have a responsibility to be on more of an even keel, if not a responsibility to myself, at least to Auden, and the other people in my life who have inexplicably come to count on the relative stablity sobriety brought to my mood. I miss my friend.
For some reason, I decided that two months was long enough to break the self-imposed sex embargo my therapist and I had agreed on, and I waded back into the online dating pool. My first exchange was a disaster. This guy on Scruff chatted me up. He seemed really sexy, great body, beautiful cock, seemed like at least some fun sex was in the works. Then he began cross examining me on my body, especially my stomach. I'm down to 156 lb, and have a pretty flat stomach. It's just that there's that puddle of loose skin. Well, his level of scrutiny left me feeling very dirty. So I went to the gym before our planned meeting, and the entire workout I just felt awful. Cheap. Dirty. Not just because he had so thoroughly objectified me, broken me down to my parts and nothing more, but because I had offered myself up for that scrutiny, practically contorting myself under a klieg light for his inspection. Eleanor Roosevelt's line about not being made to feel inferior without your permission stalked my thoughts. So I took the subway home and sent him a message, very politely, saying "Look, I think maybe we should postpone, meet for coffee or dinner sometime, get comfortable with one another and make sure we're really attracted to one another to avoid an uncomfortable moment in someone's apartment." He just responded, "Uhm... ok." I could practically see his theatrical eyeroll as he wrote that. Anyway, next day I was at work when he texted me, being very sweet and flirty. I started to warm up and flirt back, and asked him what his schedule was like. He said he was free all day, had the day off. We flirted a little more, and I asked him if he wanted to meet up. He said, "Can't. Have to work." Riiiiight. Even though you JUST said you had the day off. SO I got pissed and texted him, "Dude, what is your deal? I didn't feel badly enough about my self last night you had to come back and finish me off?" This precipitated a long and nasty argument, and I really let him have it. I was articulate, verbose, and cutting. Honest, but cutting. I was miserable, but strangely comforted by the strength of actually standing up for myself.
I recounted it all to Auden. I needed to share my pain, and revel in the nugget of triumph within. But mostly, the pain. What has become a concern to me, and my therapist, is how at the whim of external events my mood has become. Every time I suffer a setback in dating and sex, especially, I plunge into truly frightening depression. I get suicidal. Sometimes the pain gets so great I just want to die. I'm so very tired. Auden, God bless him, talked me through it. Sometimes the only thing that keeps me from actually taking a walk along the George Washington Bridge is the promise I made to Auden. Because honestly, right now, even when things are good, I kind of feel done with life. It just seems fucking pointless to me right now. But I couldn't do that to Auden.
So as I picked myself up, I met two guys, Will and Topher. (Not their real names.) Will reached out to me on Scruff, and we chatted online, somewhat flirty, but mostly just goofing, making actual conversation. He lived right around the corner from me, so we met up after I left work that night. He is gorgeous. My sexual ideal. And we had a nice time just talking and chilling out. We were up till 4AM talking. Then he said he was really attracted to me, but he just got out of a 3 year relationship and his head wasn't in sex. Honestly, I thought he was just sparing my feelings. I thought he liked my personaility so much that he had to meet me, but seeing me in person, I just wasn't cute enough. But I liked him so much I was actually ok with just being friends. We ended up hanging out three more times in the next week, talking for hours. He told me he felt like we were so much alike, and I felt the same. In the meantime, there was Topher. A few nights after I met Will, Topher and I hooked up on adam4adam. He came over and we had wild, uninhibited sex. It was pretty awesome. And he seemed so sweet. We got along really well. We made plans to see each other on Thursday. He's a flight attendant, and would be in Indianapolis until then. On Wednesday, I texted him to make sure we were still on for the next day. No answer. After three hous, I sent another message. Still no answer. I'm in hysterics, trolling online, and found his LinkedIn account. He's from Indianapolis. I started hyperventilating. Oh God, I got played. I had an overwhelming urge to die. Right then and there, no matter how messy or painful I just needed everything to fucking stop. I texted Auden through all this. After loving support, Auden tried to offer wise, sober support. I was beyond reason. I couldn't see outside the hole. I couldn't hear Auden. I wanted to. I knew he was right. I just couldn't hear anything anymore. I somehow sleepwalked through the rest of the day. I trudged home... To find Topher at my door. He'd been called back to New York a day early. Since he was working at airports and in airplanes, his phone was off all day. He is from Indiana, but he definitely does live in New York, two blocks from me. We spent a nice night together, just kissing and holding each other. I texted Auden my news and how wonderfully happy I was. I got a terse happy for you email. The next day I texted Auden to see how he was doing. He told me he hadn't slept in two days. I expressed concern and offered support. After several hours, he texted me back like, "What are you talking about? I'm fine. Have a good weekend." It bothered me. But I decided Auden must just need some space. Mother's Day was approaching, and that's a tough time for him. So I rode out the weekend and texted him on Monday. No answer. Texted him on Tuesday. No answer. Left him a voicemail. No answer. He finally texted me to say that he felt played by me, like I had used him. For the sake of our friendship I didn't challenge him. I've got some competing emotions about this right now. On the one hand there is a lot of guilt. I threw myself another pity party. My pity parties are getting longer and more elaborate. I'm pulling him deeper and deeper into my shit. I really don't mean to. On the other hand, there is growing anger. I sometimes feel like I'm walking on eggshells around Auden. I feel like he dictates the terms of our relationship, and my choices are to either be on board or he's moving on. It feels like he's very selective of what he shares with me, but I'm supposed to be an open book. Sometimes even my words are criticized. When I finally had the exchange with him the other day, I expressed that I feel like he helps me so much but I don't do enough to help him. He replied that he didn't need my help. He needed a friend. That seemed to me a deliberate rebuke, like he was looking for a way to slap away my hand, and that's all he had to work with. It had nothing to do with my actual word of choice. It was a concerted, "fuck your hand of friendship" statement. So these emotions are battling right now. And I have to ask myself the question of how much of my anger is real and just, and how much is just to offset my guilt. At the end of the day I love Auden so much. He has been there for me in deep tough times, and he's fun to talk to, and he's so smart and has a good eye for style (he pretty much is in charge of my wardrobe now.) Most of all I feel like he's the only person in the world who gets how my mind works. I miss my friend so much. My therapist thinks it may be time to reconsider antidepressants. I've been resisting them so long, but maybe the decision isn't just about me anymore. Maybe I have a responsibility to be on more of an even keel, if not a responsibility to myself, at least to Auden, and the other people in my life who have inexplicably come to count on the relative stablity sobriety brought to my mood. I miss my friend.
Saturday, March 3, 2012
A Taking Care of Myself Moment 2: Aesthetic Boogaloo
In our latest and most cleverly titled Taking Care of Myself Moment, we've got a feature which I promise not to get in the habit of, not so much for your sake as the reader, but for mine as a lazy, somewhat fickle writer. I'm referring, of course, to narrative continuity. The topic of this Moment flows organically from the last post. Maybe less so since I'm taking an entire fucking paragraph to point it out.
Anyway, when I was in the throes of my fugue state about that BOY, one of the things I started to do to cheer myself up was another one of my Beautify Buddy projects. This one was focused on my hair. The day of my little breakdown (which was at work, btw. Yup, Tess McGill eat your heart out. I'm climbing to the top in this business fast.) I thought maybe going to one of my favorite places in the world and buying some stuff might help.
I've already mentioned, I believe, that Sephora's selection of men's items is pretty pitiful, particularly so at the Columbus Circle Sephora. After some hunting and browsing and coming to terms with my own masculinity, I found two intriguing products from the good people at Bumble and bumble.
Anyway, when I was in the throes of my fugue state about that BOY, one of the things I started to do to cheer myself up was another one of my Beautify Buddy projects. This one was focused on my hair. The day of my little breakdown (which was at work, btw. Yup, Tess McGill eat your heart out. I'm climbing to the top in this business fast.) I thought maybe going to one of my favorite places in the world and buying some stuff might help.
I've already mentioned, I believe, that Sephora's selection of men's items is pretty pitiful, particularly so at the Columbus Circle Sephora. After some hunting and browsing and coming to terms with my own masculinity, I found two intriguing products from the good people at Bumble and bumble.
Bumble and bumble Styling Wax
Sephora-$26
I decided to take Auden's advice (as though I ever have to think about taking Auden's advice on anything hair or style related.) and give the Bumble and bumble Styling Wax a go. As waxes and pomades go, this one is pretty impressive. It has a nice, subtle grapefruit aroma to it, and emulsifies on the fingers more quickly and evenly than any other wax I've seen. At the end of the day, though, it is a wax, with the attendant shortcomings. Sticky waxes are great for very short, messy haircuts like spikes. Once your hair gets longer than an inch or so, and even the silkiest wax becomes too tacky and unwieldy.
Bumble and bumble Hair Powder-brown
Sephora-$35
I saw this on the shelf next to the styling wax and was fascinated. Hair powder, or dry shampoo, is used to take away that greasy, shiny look your hair can get from styling product or when you've gone a bit too long since your last shower. I tried it and loved the way it made my hair look. At the end of the second day using it, however, I couldn't ignore the drawbacks. Every time I touched my head my hand came away with dirty brown smudges. My pillowcase got ruined (yes I washed it out. Or I tried to.) there was a layer of brown film on everything in my bathroom, and even after two thorough scrubbings my bathtub still looks like I had diarrhea in it. So, despite its fabulous appeal, the hair powder is officially relegated to special occasions.
As part of the reclamation process, I got my hair did. Now, you may have heard that New York City can cost a pretty penny to live in. This is no lie. So I did some research on beauty schools and made myself an appointment at the Aveda Institute in Soho. Got my hair done in a new style I totes love, and got my eyebrows waxed. (The unibrow was making its presence known.) All for $30. Which also led me, a few days later, to buy a better styling product for my longer hairstyle.
Aveda Light Elements Texturizing Creme
Aveda-$23
This was the product my student stylist used after cutting my hair, but I didn't buy that day because I had just bought my Bumble and bumble stuff a few days before. Well, after two days of trying to get the wax to work to get the right style, I broke down and bought a jar of the texturizing creme. It does an amazing job of styling hair without making it look too greasy or product-y (Yes, we're going to pretend that's a real word.) It also smells amazing. It smells of orange peel and something botanical I can't put my finger on. But it's amazing.
So, that's how I took care of myself this week, by spending over $60 on products I'm not even using anymore. Live and learn. As always, I encourage submissions of how you took care of yourself this week in the comments section.
Heaving Las Vegas
It's been a while since my last post.
Sorry about that. Life happens. There IS a long, heart wrenching drama behind this, and I'm sure I'll recount it in detail at some point, but some of the details are still too painful to revisit. Suffice it to say that I met someone. For a very brief moment it seemed like he could be someone really special. We had a connection, so much so that we exercised a lot of restraint in our physical intimacy.
That restraint went for naught a week later sitting in an HIV clinic in the Village crying hysterically, wondering what it wrong with me. I mean, it's not enough that I have to pick guys who break my heart. I have to find the ones who will kick me in the balls on the way out the door. This guy made a point of hurting me as much as he could when he decided he wasn't into me. It made me question myself, all the progress I've made thus far, my very sanity. It is without doubt the single worst moment in my sobriety to date. I think I came very close to killing myself. At least when I was drinking, blackouts could help me avoid the pain, postpone it for a while. The gifts of sobriety, of course, are that I get to be fully aware for every awful moment in technicolor.
The long and short of it is that I literally cried for four days nonstop. I even cried in my sleep. I shit you not. I would wake up crying, my pillow sopping wet in spots. I had no faith in others, no faith in myself. I wanted to die. I wanted to close my eyes and never feel anything ever again. Relapse was only a threat in that it would have been the chosen means of suicide. I wanted to "Leaving Las Vegas" my way out of this world.
I don't know what happened, what pulled me out.
It helped that my first instinct was to reach out, both to Auden and my sponsor. I told them I was hurting and that I didn't know if I was safe, that it was more about my life than my sobriety. They were there for me as I wept. I don't think I heard more than 10-20% of what either of them said to me (sorry if you're reading this, guys!) but just to know that they were there, just to know that they cared enough to drop everything to be there for me. It made me want to stick around just long enough to see if maybe tomorrow might not hurt as much.
Eventually it did. I just put one foot in front of the other. I went to work. I went to meetings. The thought of him is still painful. The worst and perhaps most shameful aspect of that is that there is still some part of me that wants to see him again, to kiss him and hold him in my arms, pretend none of that awfulness ever happened.
But it did. I'm a little older, wiser and less trusting.
And that's sad.
Friday, February 17, 2012
A Taking Care of Myself Moment
As much as I started this blog to address my hopes, dreams, fears, etc. as a homosexual drunkard, a weighty and often morose topic, I feel it's important to have some moments of lightness. My current sponsor (a great guy I'm sure we'll discuss at some point soon... like probably tomorrow, idea for tomorrow's post already germinating. Let's call him Mike.) was one of the first people to teach me the value of taking care of yourself in sobriety. Not just healthy eating and living, but in treating yourself well. A lot of alcoholics have some serious self-esteem issues, both organic to the disease (in that it was one of those character defects that started one drinking) and often from guilt as an alcoholic starts working on their fourth step and realizing the SHIT we've done to people. So it's important to be nice to yourself, to treat yourself occasionally.
So in a soon to be recurring feature, I'm introducing a Taking Care of Myself moment, the ways in which I tell myself I'm pretty fucking awesome and deserve this. This may evolve, like becoming a once a week thing, the same day every week, (hopefully) a wittier name, in keeping with the kickass post titles I've managed to yank out of my ass, or (even more hopefully) submissions from readers, should I ever get any.
This week's Taking Care of Myself moment comes courtesy of my friend CBGB (not his real name, obviously. Although I'd be curious to meet the parents who would name their child such a thing.) I had been planning to have anonymous sex with an asian guy I'd met on Manhunt when CBGB texted me to say he was going to Sephora, to which I replied with the gayest phrase I have ever written, "Oh man! I wish I wasn't about to get fucked. I wanna go to Sephora." So I took a raincheck on the Asian dude.
CBGB's finally gotten that bug that so many gay men get, when they realize they will be 30 someday, and Father Time is racing toward it right across your face. I'm actually jealous of him for realizing it at 24, when he can do a lot of preventative maintenance. I didn't get that bug until I was 34, so my process involves a little more reclamation and clever concealment.
At any rate, we met at the new Sephora in the Meatpacking District. I buy stuff at Sephora sometimes, and have their "Beauty Insider" card, but their selection of skin product for men is pretty pitiful. CBGB suggested we try the new Meatpacking location, as it's their closest location to the gay areas of Chelsea and the Village. Well, their selection of men's products were no better than other locations, but the people working there were really nice and shockingly knowledgeable. I asked one employee for a tinted moisturizer with SPF protection that wouldn't make my face look too shiny. I'd been using Clinique for Men's M protect, and I liked it overall, but it didn't do much on my big problems, my splotchy Irish face and raccoon eyes. Also, it gave me that "gay guy over 30 shiny face" thing. She immediately showed me this...
So in a soon to be recurring feature, I'm introducing a Taking Care of Myself moment, the ways in which I tell myself I'm pretty fucking awesome and deserve this. This may evolve, like becoming a once a week thing, the same day every week, (hopefully) a wittier name, in keeping with the kickass post titles I've managed to yank out of my ass, or (even more hopefully) submissions from readers, should I ever get any.
This week's Taking Care of Myself moment comes courtesy of my friend CBGB (not his real name, obviously. Although I'd be curious to meet the parents who would name their child such a thing.) I had been planning to have anonymous sex with an asian guy I'd met on Manhunt when CBGB texted me to say he was going to Sephora, to which I replied with the gayest phrase I have ever written, "Oh man! I wish I wasn't about to get fucked. I wanna go to Sephora." So I took a raincheck on the Asian dude.
CBGB's finally gotten that bug that so many gay men get, when they realize they will be 30 someday, and Father Time is racing toward it right across your face. I'm actually jealous of him for realizing it at 24, when he can do a lot of preventative maintenance. I didn't get that bug until I was 34, so my process involves a little more reclamation and clever concealment.
At any rate, we met at the new Sephora in the Meatpacking District. I buy stuff at Sephora sometimes, and have their "Beauty Insider" card, but their selection of skin product for men is pretty pitiful. CBGB suggested we try the new Meatpacking location, as it's their closest location to the gay areas of Chelsea and the Village. Well, their selection of men's products were no better than other locations, but the people working there were really nice and shockingly knowledgeable. I asked one employee for a tinted moisturizer with SPF protection that wouldn't make my face look too shiny. I'd been using Clinique for Men's M protect, and I liked it overall, but it didn't do much on my big problems, my splotchy Irish face and raccoon eyes. Also, it gave me that "gay guy over 30 shiny face" thing. She immediately showed me this...
Dr. Jart's BB Beauty Balm-Multi-Action Skincare + Makeup
w/SPF 25/PA++
$32
It's a moisturizer with a light foundation. Tried it on and it gave my skin this even, velvety look. My Clinique is now being used to masturbate. (KIDDING! There's glycolic acid in it.)
CBGB was also looking for a signature fragrance, an important decision for any gay man of distinction, style, and just enough pretense. I myself love things to be pretentious about. The sexy tall black guy working in fragrances almost had CBGB sold on Givenchy for Men, but then we decided to see if the most exclusive and pretentious cologne we could think of would be good.
So we went to Bond No. 9.
Bond No. 9 is a luxury perfumer with half a dozen boutiques in the city, and counters in Saks Fifth Avenue and Harrods in London. They make amazing perfumes and colognes designed to reflect the character and experience of New York City. They have a bunch of different fragrances with names of neighborhoods, like "Wall Street" or "Flatiron." CBGB and I went, and both fell in love with one of their new fragrances that is ONLY sold in the NYC boutiques and Harrods, not online or in Saks.
Harrods for Him-Bond No. 9 New York
$155
Now, $155 ($168 after tax) is a LOT to spend on cologne, I realize. But I've always wanted to buy one of their fragrances. Besides, it's not cologne, it's eau de parfum. There's a distinction. I swallowed hard and handed over my debit card. Thankfully I can say there's very little buyer's remorse here. It smells AMAZING. It's subtle but very lingering. It has a light mix of citrusy and floral, with a little muskiness and spiciness going on in the background.
So that's how I took care of myself this week. In the comments section, I'd love to read how you take care of yourself this week.
Burning the Bridges of Madison County
I recently decided to leave my home group, and join a new one. In AA, this is a pretty major life decision. It's probably not a stretch to say that most, if not all members of AA have one particular "group" they call their home group. It's a group whose meetings you go to regularly, participate in the service commitments (such as setting up chairs, making coffee, etc.) that keep the group running, and participate in the monthly business meetings that most groups have, in which all questions and business concerns of the group are democratically decided by the members. As it says in the preamble, the only requirement for membership is a desire to stop drinking. So you are a member of a group if you say you are, with all the rights and privileges that go with it.
The fact that I have so many choices of home group is one of the great things about living in New York. I once heard someone say in a meeting that there are over a thousand meetings a week in New York City, and hundreds of groups. Different neighborhoods, different vibes, different group consciences. Some groups are okay with, and even encourage discussion of other drugs, while some suggest a "singularness [sic] of purpose" in restricting one's contributions to their alcoholism. Some groups are set up by and targeted toward specific groups. I've seen groups for women, groups for African Americans, Spanish-speaking meetings, "gay-focused" meetings. All this adds up to a lot of choices for an alcoholic looking for the right fit. In some parts of the country and the rest of the world you don't have a lot of options. My first sponsor lived in the south for a while, and there was ONE group within driving distance which met twice a week. Here in New York I can find a meeting any hour of the day or night (except between 3:00 and 6:00 AM. Even alcoholics who guzzle coffee need some sleep.)
I'd been a member of a particular group on the Upper East Side since I first got sober three years ago. They're a large group, with hundreds of members and a meeting every night of the week. And they work a serious program. Everyone has a sponsor. Everyone is working on the Big Book and Twelve Steps with their sponsor. Everyone has at least one service commitment, usually two or three. And they're wonderful people, who kept my chin up and helped me become a functioning person in sobriety. I needed that structure and that accountability. I needed to be told and shown how to show up, be responsible, start living an honest and humble life.
With the last year's huge changes in my life, the weight loss, hopping back into the dating pool, my career (or lack thereof), I feel like my emotional and spiritual needs are changing. It would be unfair and slightly melodramatic to say I'd outgrown my old home group. I just felt increasingly troubled in my home group. The specific reasons aren't important, and it's not my place to take the inventory of another alcoholic, let alone a group of them. And my resentments toward that group are just that, my resentments, which I have to work on. Suffice it to say I felt that it was time to find a home group that was a bit less formal, more emotional.
Coming to that decision was very difficult for me. I'd celebrated all of my milestones in sobriety for over two years with these people. There are a lot of people in that group I respect, like and even love. Some of the "old timers" in that group have been so selflessly generous, loving and supportive to me that I still get dumbfounded with gratitude when I think about it. I was finally able to come to terms with making my program my program. I'm not doing this thing to impress anyone else. I'm doing this to keep relapse and insanity at bay for another 24 hours. So I started hitting different meetings, "trying them on" in a sense.
My close friend Auden had been going to a meeting in the Village for some time, and our routine of coffee/lunch and a meeting began taking us to that meeting more and more often. It just felt right. It was loose. People shared what was really in their hearts and on their minds, whether they were in a joyous and grateful mood or an angry and resentful one. So on my third anniversary, I celebrated there.
It felt right.
The point of this somewhat meandering post is that in this whole process, so many people walk into their new group badmouthing the one they just left. And that's just pointless. Like I said before, it's taking their inventory. Plus, it's poisoning your relationships in your new group with your anger and resentment. Plus, it's disrespectful of all the people in your old group who helped you. Not to mention the coldly self-preservationist motive in every alcoholic, you never know when you might need those people again, so why burn bridges?
The fact that I have so many choices of home group is one of the great things about living in New York. I once heard someone say in a meeting that there are over a thousand meetings a week in New York City, and hundreds of groups. Different neighborhoods, different vibes, different group consciences. Some groups are okay with, and even encourage discussion of other drugs, while some suggest a "singularness [sic] of purpose" in restricting one's contributions to their alcoholism. Some groups are set up by and targeted toward specific groups. I've seen groups for women, groups for African Americans, Spanish-speaking meetings, "gay-focused" meetings. All this adds up to a lot of choices for an alcoholic looking for the right fit. In some parts of the country and the rest of the world you don't have a lot of options. My first sponsor lived in the south for a while, and there was ONE group within driving distance which met twice a week. Here in New York I can find a meeting any hour of the day or night (except between 3:00 and 6:00 AM. Even alcoholics who guzzle coffee need some sleep.)
I'd been a member of a particular group on the Upper East Side since I first got sober three years ago. They're a large group, with hundreds of members and a meeting every night of the week. And they work a serious program. Everyone has a sponsor. Everyone is working on the Big Book and Twelve Steps with their sponsor. Everyone has at least one service commitment, usually two or three. And they're wonderful people, who kept my chin up and helped me become a functioning person in sobriety. I needed that structure and that accountability. I needed to be told and shown how to show up, be responsible, start living an honest and humble life.
With the last year's huge changes in my life, the weight loss, hopping back into the dating pool, my career (or lack thereof), I feel like my emotional and spiritual needs are changing. It would be unfair and slightly melodramatic to say I'd outgrown my old home group. I just felt increasingly troubled in my home group. The specific reasons aren't important, and it's not my place to take the inventory of another alcoholic, let alone a group of them. And my resentments toward that group are just that, my resentments, which I have to work on. Suffice it to say I felt that it was time to find a home group that was a bit less formal, more emotional.
Coming to that decision was very difficult for me. I'd celebrated all of my milestones in sobriety for over two years with these people. There are a lot of people in that group I respect, like and even love. Some of the "old timers" in that group have been so selflessly generous, loving and supportive to me that I still get dumbfounded with gratitude when I think about it. I was finally able to come to terms with making my program my program. I'm not doing this thing to impress anyone else. I'm doing this to keep relapse and insanity at bay for another 24 hours. So I started hitting different meetings, "trying them on" in a sense.
My close friend Auden had been going to a meeting in the Village for some time, and our routine of coffee/lunch and a meeting began taking us to that meeting more and more often. It just felt right. It was loose. People shared what was really in their hearts and on their minds, whether they were in a joyous and grateful mood or an angry and resentful one. So on my third anniversary, I celebrated there.
It felt right.
The point of this somewhat meandering post is that in this whole process, so many people walk into their new group badmouthing the one they just left. And that's just pointless. Like I said before, it's taking their inventory. Plus, it's poisoning your relationships in your new group with your anger and resentment. Plus, it's disrespectful of all the people in your old group who helped you. Not to mention the coldly self-preservationist motive in every alcoholic, you never know when you might need those people again, so why burn bridges?
Wednesday, February 15, 2012
Keeping Up Appearances
Have you ever gotten someone a gift that you weren't sure they'd like? When you first saw it in the store, you thought it was the exact perfect gift for your friend. But as you stand there and see him opening the other gifts, all of which are exponentially better than yours and clearly make him happy, doubt starts creeping in. Your impenetrable bravado is crumbling as the seconds pass. But he's seen you, and seen the gift in your hands, so there's no backing out now.
You take a deep breath, gather all the courage you can, put on your best face, and hand the gift to your friend. He takes it with a huge grin, patting you on the shoulder and eagerly rips off the wrapping paper. All of a sudden, the grin is no longer natural. It's frozen in place for a second, the brow furrowed, before returning even bigger, bigger than any human grin has any right to be. He looks at you with that maniacal, unnatural grin, and in a voice a half octave higher than his usual voice, proclaims his love for the gift. Makes a big production of showing everyone, saying, "Hey, look at this great oven mitt Buddy got me."
He hated it. Because he is a good person, he will never tell you that. He will intransigently insist that he loves that damn oven mitt, uses it every day (even though you know the stove in his apartment has never been turned on.) He will tell you and everyone to stop, move on, he loves it. Except he didn't. You saw the face. Can't fake immediate reaction.
This is what sex is like for me.
As I've mentioned before, I look pretty damn good in clothes, and my friend Auden is helping me with my wardrobe and style. I do have a style, but 3 decades of draping myself in baggy, form concealing clothes have made it difficult to ascertain what that style exactly is. At any rate, I'll meet a guy, online or in person, and he'll think I'm kind of cute. We'll talk, get to know one another, and he'll think I'm really sweet. So sometimes we'll decide to retire to the boudoir. We'll be kissing, making out, getting more serious. I'll take off his shirt. All systems go. He'll take off my shirt.
The face.
It's happened with every man I've ever slept with, except one, but he's dead now. They look at the mess that is my midsection, a hanging, swaying paunch of residual fat and loose skin ravaged by stretch marks and cellulite. The only thing that could resemble it would be Droopy Dog's hanging jowls, if they were made of shorn scrotum instead of dog fur. They're usually (but not always) kind enough to hide the initial shock and horror, but you can still see that moment of assessment and appraisal, as though they're asking themselves if they can endure sex with me. Can they live with the grossness that would be sex with me?
I can't explain how much this hurts.
I can't blame these guys. The only reason I don't make the face every time I look in the mirror is that it isn't a surprise to me. I'm used to it. And I'm doing everything I can to improve the situation, but when you've had that gut all your life, there's only so much elasticity left in your skin, and only so much all the toning exercise and cocoa butter can do. And I certainly can't afford a tummy tuck, upwards of $9,000 in New York City, unless I monetize this page or start a 7th Tradition collection, and that would be just a bit tacky.
It's my albatross.
So I don't know. I keep chugging on because what are my options? Not chugging along? Relapse? Suicide? Neither of those are particularly appealing, for the either gratifying or needlessly irritating reason (not sure which yet) that I still have the tiniest nugget of hope that somehow this will get better. If there is one object lesson in my past 3 sober years, it's that when I have put in the work and acted honestly and forthrightly, things have always worked out for the best. So as much as I hurt right now, I have to hang on.
I don't really believe it right now, but there seem to be others who love me who do believe it. The saving grace of AA. I've been emotionally carried so many times that I can honestly say that the success in my life is not just my own. It's AA's. So I'm chugging.
You take a deep breath, gather all the courage you can, put on your best face, and hand the gift to your friend. He takes it with a huge grin, patting you on the shoulder and eagerly rips off the wrapping paper. All of a sudden, the grin is no longer natural. It's frozen in place for a second, the brow furrowed, before returning even bigger, bigger than any human grin has any right to be. He looks at you with that maniacal, unnatural grin, and in a voice a half octave higher than his usual voice, proclaims his love for the gift. Makes a big production of showing everyone, saying, "Hey, look at this great oven mitt Buddy got me."
He hated it. Because he is a good person, he will never tell you that. He will intransigently insist that he loves that damn oven mitt, uses it every day (even though you know the stove in his apartment has never been turned on.) He will tell you and everyone to stop, move on, he loves it. Except he didn't. You saw the face. Can't fake immediate reaction.
This is what sex is like for me.
As I've mentioned before, I look pretty damn good in clothes, and my friend Auden is helping me with my wardrobe and style. I do have a style, but 3 decades of draping myself in baggy, form concealing clothes have made it difficult to ascertain what that style exactly is. At any rate, I'll meet a guy, online or in person, and he'll think I'm kind of cute. We'll talk, get to know one another, and he'll think I'm really sweet. So sometimes we'll decide to retire to the boudoir. We'll be kissing, making out, getting more serious. I'll take off his shirt. All systems go. He'll take off my shirt.
The face.
It's happened with every man I've ever slept with, except one, but he's dead now. They look at the mess that is my midsection, a hanging, swaying paunch of residual fat and loose skin ravaged by stretch marks and cellulite. The only thing that could resemble it would be Droopy Dog's hanging jowls, if they were made of shorn scrotum instead of dog fur. They're usually (but not always) kind enough to hide the initial shock and horror, but you can still see that moment of assessment and appraisal, as though they're asking themselves if they can endure sex with me. Can they live with the grossness that would be sex with me?
I can't explain how much this hurts.
I can't blame these guys. The only reason I don't make the face every time I look in the mirror is that it isn't a surprise to me. I'm used to it. And I'm doing everything I can to improve the situation, but when you've had that gut all your life, there's only so much elasticity left in your skin, and only so much all the toning exercise and cocoa butter can do. And I certainly can't afford a tummy tuck, upwards of $9,000 in New York City, unless I monetize this page or start a 7th Tradition collection, and that would be just a bit tacky.
It's my albatross.
So I don't know. I keep chugging on because what are my options? Not chugging along? Relapse? Suicide? Neither of those are particularly appealing, for the either gratifying or needlessly irritating reason (not sure which yet) that I still have the tiniest nugget of hope that somehow this will get better. If there is one object lesson in my past 3 sober years, it's that when I have put in the work and acted honestly and forthrightly, things have always worked out for the best. So as much as I hurt right now, I have to hang on.
I don't really believe it right now, but there seem to be others who love me who do believe it. The saving grace of AA. I've been emotionally carried so many times that I can honestly say that the success in my life is not just my own. It's AA's. So I'm chugging.
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