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welcome to the hole
Once upon a time, I kept a LiveJournal account, gryphons_hole, a deep, dark, comfy little hole in my brain where I kept notes on my life and queerness.
This is the archive to that account, mostly password protected, adult, queer content, stripped of photo content after the site restructured its photo hosting feature. I hope to restore that content as well.
If I know you, ask for the password. If I don’t, hope for a generous mood.
08.18.24 I have realized a need to continue in this space. A kink reawaking if you will, with content that may range into inappropriate for my other blog spaces.
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the long pauses in-between and another lost friend
So, these long-ass pauses… I am moved into the new place, the unpacking will be slow, since each room needs work and my budgets are tight as ever. I do not yet have wifi in the house, so internet activity is only when I can bare the packing up and trip to a coffeehouse or such… I should have in-house wifi by the end of the month; the delay is part my stubbornness, and part incompetency of Time-Warner. Of course, I insist the heavier burden of blame is on them. Who would argue that…? I will not loose work to wait for some bozo to show up late for installation, especially since I already did that once and he got it all wrong and never scheduled the outdoor pre-bury that he called in while standing in my house….
Stupid Time-Warner…
Moving on to more important things: logging in this afternoon, I discovered a note on Facebook from Jeffers back in Phoenix. Bob De Jardine, longtime owner of Tuff Stuff Leatherware died this Thursday. The shop was closed the previous week, Jeffers said it was taken by the state. It would seem that everyone there preferred pre-made, ill-fitting stuff over custom, hand-made… This whole affair makes me so said.
I should also mention that Bob was my first leather mentor.
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On lighter, fluffy topics, the dressing room is the most done in the house; it is crazy-stupid borderline obsessed, and I love it! I will work towards photos tonight or tomorrow. I hope. Also, I plan to document some sartorial projects I have begun; designed to get me spending more time in customized things as opposed to more time out spending…
My best to everyone still reading this, and apologies for my long and growing pauses.
*smooch*
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a kernel of truth in an pound of pain
I fell ill Thursday evening, missing work first Friday and now Monday as well, spiking a fever of 103.3 some point on Saturday. I will be making an appointment with my doctor when his office opens this morning. To spite my efforts, I am still running dehydrated, so I ache. Everywhere. And I have done little more than sleep and rest in bed since Thursday night. And my pelvic bone hurts to hell, I assume from sleeping in one spot so much in a short time. This is to the point of: I have be be gingerly on the stairs; I have to prepare myself to stand up from a chair, even a tall stool… This is effort. And it traps my mind deep into my body, which isn’t often such a bad thing, but what my body is feeling right now is not something on which I wish to be obsessed…
But from pain, there is knowledge. And this chunk of it has been a year and a half in the making.
To back up some: I received the beating (read: flogging) of my lifetime (BOML) at summer camp a year and a half ago. It was exactly what was discussed between us, it was exactly what I was looking to experience, but it was also a whole lot of something more. I have not be able to verbalize much from that experience except to say I now understand in specific terms that I am not a pain pig, nor do I believe myself to ever have been one.
I may have just received some clarity on that, in the kitchen, at 1am, with a fever of 100.3…
Prior to the BOML, I walked through my life with a noticeable, measurable amount of pain. Flat feet, bad knees, bad teeth, bad sinuses. Oddly, I just kept learning to bear it all as it piled on. In that experience, my mind often got tied down into my body, leaving me feeling trapped and overly aware of my pain. This was about the time I discovered BDSM.
Flogging became a very good device for me. It would amp up the everyday pain until it would all wash over me and free my mind, letting go off to roam as it always used to do. This worked very well for about a decade, but I had some awareness of being an atypical situation; I never explored single tails after the first exposure; I never sought out anything else that truly read as pain to me.
The major oral surgery, then cancer and the resulting nerve changes from the biopsy, then six months of chemo, then sinus surgery, then a pinched nerve in my shoulder (ow! ow! ow!) and the messed up cortisone treatments to help it, then three years of chiropractic care, then some weight loss and a smattering of random illnesses in between…
Whew.
Anyway, through this series of events, I now walk through my life with a noticeably lower amount of daily pain. It fluctuates, but it is much lower than it used to be. I know I can survive more, much more, but this isn’t about surviving, or putting up with… From the events of this weekend, it would seem that what once set my mind free from my body is now the same device that traps it deep in my body, aware of every iota of sensation. Sensation. This is good for: touch, and current, and pinch, and tug, and needle and on, but so very bad for beat and punch and poke and bite. So very bad.
As it turns out, I am not a masochist; and this is suppose to be enjoyable.
And I understand if the lesson from all of this reads as ironic: from pain, clarity.
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Protected: to entertain as I journey onward
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Protected: I *did* come
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Protected: half a review, half a review, half a review onward…
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world AIDS day
My status update from facebook:
yes, of course, everybody dies a little more each day, but sometimes I can watch it dance across my face, see it stare back from my eyes. today, I realized something about myself as I watch a retail clerk try oh-so hard to be polite as she stared at my nose-ring. I realized that I choose to wear the ring as a means to give others a more harmless reason to discriminate against me than being gay or having HIV. I dread the day that my meds show up on my face; I hope I have the strength for those looks then, because I barely have it now…
To elaborate: Watching the struggle on that clerk’s face in deciding if she could manage to be courteous to a courteous person with a ring through his nose, it hit me very hard and very clearly why I so completely wear the damned thing everywhere these days: I would much rather be singled out for such an arbitrary reason as a visual aesthetic than for something so basic as my being gay or living with HIV. It is clever, I think, but perhaps also dismissive of my potential. Perhaps it is too easy of a distraction.
But I get so tired these days. The Midwest has become exhausting, even with the folks I know here that I adore.
Coming out of a visit to SF makes it all a bit more difficult. This trip was nice in that I didn’t have the horrible withdraws of the first two visits, as if I understood that I get future visits; I get to come back as a routine part of my life. That was a nice realization. But also, now being back for a few days, I feel the raised level of frustration and am hyper-aware of my surroundings and how the random people react to me.
Oh! An added surprise: my oldest sister was visiting a southern Missouri production facility for her job, and I got to have dinner with her before her flight home. We had Chipotle, for her first time. On the way to meet her, I briefly debated about removing my nose-ring; it is still something I do whenever I go home to visit with my family, mostly for my parents, even though everybody (except maybe my father) knows that the piercings exist. I didn’t want to take it out; I think it is time for my oldest sister to get me ‘as-is’, especially on my turf, as it were.
I got a simple, “Oh! Look at you and the stuff on your face.” It was perfect her, and a moment later, it never happened and we were on to a full-tilt, fast-paced catch-up conversation. Nice.
Oh! And the high-point of my otherwise crappy (from work) day…? My other sister, the mother-of-two-turned-power-lesbian-with-chihuahuas…? She posted to my facebook update with the following: You get the strength from those of us who love you and will always have your back and struggle to resist the urge to beat them up for it!
I do love my siblings…
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more on the magical hub
If you recall, I once discussed my experience with the Magical Hub of the Universe (commonly called Castro and 18th) on my first trip to SF. Well, on it goes…
Friday, I spent a chunk of the day with the ever *swoon*able couple, fogbear and putzmeisterbear. We met at Whatever! the Castro comic-book store. As we were strolling to Starbears, I told them of my first experience with the Magical Hub. As we cross Castro street, walking directly through the very center of the Hub, we bump squarely into that same friend from all those years earlier. No shit, mister! So I introduced him to them, and we chatted for a few moments, and then proceeded to see any number of folks that one of the group of us knew…
Seriously. Funky stuff.
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um, did I not mention this…?
Um, oh, yeah… I’m travelling to SF for Thanksgiving Day. It will be a shorter visit than last year, and I am mostly obliged to my hosts, but I imagine there will be some free time about the Castro and such. I fly out tomorrow and stay through Monday late afternoon. I will not know when I am out and about until after I get there.
Sorry for the short notice.
Oh, yeah, one more thing…
*squeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee*
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on proper valeting
I acquired a 1940 edition, fourth printing copy of Etiquette: The Blue Book of Social Usage by Emily Post.
Fun yet silly stuff, but a few thoughts hold some weight for me. For instance, proper valeting.
I have made bad habits and allow heaps of clothes to pile up in my moments of decisions and getting dressed. I undress late at night when too tired to hang things properly.
I plan to address this after the move.
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call me mellow yellow
So here it goes, every time I set my mind to altering how I shop and spend, I find the perfect jacket. Although I have a couple tight houndstooth jackets, even in an earthy color range, none of them are this golden, none of them so warm to the eyes…
For me, it was pricey, but that just means it was nine dollars… The maker is Geoffrey Beene, and the cut is excellent on me. The shirt was found at the same time, half-off and is by Land’s End. They have a durability and weight to their clothes that I appreciate and their cut is always generous in the shoulders without fitting like a tent. The tie is Tommy Hilfiger, and of a nice, thick silk. The cable-knit sweater vest is John Ashford. The two have been sitting for awhile waiting for this to happen.
The fact that all that yellow is so peaceful together makes me happy; so does the fact that the dark blue flowers on the necktie match the trim of the vest and the pinstripe of the shirt exactly. I have stuff like that going on a good amount these days, and it keep my mind humming along as I go. So does the houndstooth on cable-knit on stripe, with a floral tie… I have greatly been enjoying the mixing of my patterns and textures; it should be obvious. But, lately, when I can do it in a monochromatic fashion, I am good to go.
Perhaps, I could call it my sartorial orgasm…
Would sartorgasm be too much?
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gryphon's hole 