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  • welcome to the hole

    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.

  • The Official Change

    I spoke to Todd a bit earlier. He said he checked my site today. It is down. Nothing left but an error message.

    Oddly, the only thing that bugs me is the realization that I have lost my hosting source for LJ images… so any previous post with photos will now have those damn-ass red x’s.

    I am good with this right now. I cannot care so much about the site. It started to waste me time and effect my art in a bad way. I think I was producing simply to have stuff to update. Yuck!

    I am okay. It is time for me time. So I will have the time and the space to just focus on me. Me as an artist, me in my own studio space. Me as a heaping pile of quivering mess.

    It will be fantastic.

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  • Out of Commission

    The Wescos are out of the boot circuit for a bit.

    I have finally given them the oiling they have needed for some time now. The leather has been too dry for too long and I am concerned about cracks damaging the boots.

    I have stripped off all the polish and cleaned the leather.

    Now, the oiling. Already they have soaked up two generous coats, leaving nothing behind. It will be a long process to get them back to a strong healthy shine, but I will enjoy the work.

    I am coming into a point of my life where I want to condense and simplify. I want to clean out the clutter and reduce consumption and spending. This will also mean focusing on preservation of those things I keep in my life. I think the Wescos make a perfect symbol for this.

    I would not be able to afford them if I wanted to buy a pair now, but I have already purchase everything I need, for less than 40 bucks, to keep them top-notch for a long time. I like this statement. I like this symbol. I also like tending to and treating leather. My friend and now studio partner has an acquired pile of leather devices piled up in various states of disrepair. I may move into tending to them as the months progress. Besides, I could use some well-worn restraints…

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  • Craving Isolation

    I just couldn’t get out of work fast enough today. At the moment, I seem overly aware of how little I make for how much crap I have to endure…

    From the moment I arrived last night, every event added to the lingering frustrations of the weekend. Each moment repeated my opinion that I do not much care for most people. Luckily, I still find solace in working third shift, since there are far less people around me…

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  • Continuing Silence

    I spoke to Todd on the phone this evening. I think I was chastised for not posting lately…

    Honestly, I have felt too incredibly ordinary lately. I have never been one to feel so ‘status quo’ but I am not shaking it and I just have nothing much to say about it.

    Funny, spending so much time in my youth wanting nothing more than to feel normal, and now feeling ill about when the moment arrives…

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  • The Slow Start

    That is were I am moving. His ex studio partner has gone to Chicago and he needs help affording the space.

    The nice thing…he doesn’t stay there, so I will be the only resident in the space, unless I want to take a roommate to make it more affordable. Since the other spaces in the building are business or artist, I think I am the only actual resident in the building…

    It’s located in the West Bottoms in KCMO. It’s a great building AND affordable.

    I will be glad to be in an ‘art’ space. It will be a good change for me.

    The down side…
    Although Michael’s studio mate lived there, he didn’t actually keep up the place. It has mostly been just a storage space for years. Everything is piled EVERYWHERE. It will be a long, arduous process…but I don’t mind it much. This is my busy time of the year.

    I am a bit concerned with the fact that I only have income guaranteed for the next three months or so. But moving, I will HAVE to resolve the problem. Staying here, I would just sulk through another lay-off.

    I did take photos of the space the other day when I went to start the cleaning. It will be awhile before I get them to this computer. (that’s another hidden bonus. I will be forced to put the new computer on-line when I move, which I don’t mind so much. That will put everything back onto the same system. No more scanner and camera and printer on this one, internet hook-up on that…)

    OH OH OH! One of the great ‘inherit’ parts of the space…Michael has a varied collection of gurneys and exam table in the space. I am looking forward to sprucing them and putting them to some use…

    I like the idea of a long term, step-by-step process of making the space more usable. The building has semi-annual open studio events, which I have participated in twice to date. In the past, we have had to bust balls to have ANY of the space ready for a studio night. I love the idea of an ‘always-on’ space. Living and studio and dungeon all rolled into one. Michael wants to keep the name they have been using, which is fine with me. Open Wider Studio. They had nasty problem with the previous studio space they shared. Of course it was Open Wide Studio. I like all the obvious and hidden levels to it…

    And Michael had a long history of dirty shows, questionable content and installations that challenge the norm of midwest ‘art’. He will have no problem with wanting only erotic subjects exhibited. I like that. Especially smack-dab in the hub of midwest conservative hell.

    I am ready to up-right myself.

  • Moving On

    Well, it is done.

    I was not brave or brilliant or even really courteous. I simple got sloppy enough that it eventually got back to David that I wanted out. I am a coward. Or too wounded to impact the change first-hand. Or both.

    But we will both mend. We will both eventually move on and find our own happiness. And I think it likely that we will have a lasting friendship.

    I am ready to be me again, as flawed as that person may be. I have felt like someone else for a very long time…

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  • They Left Them in the Fuckin’ Door…Again…

    For the record, the new regimen is as follows (four pills, five drugs – yeah, five):

    Combivir – two of the three parts of my old regimen. I have technically grown immune to one part of it, but my doctor says that it still tends to help other meds work better, so some gain may still be had with it.

    Viread – an NRTI

    Norvir – a protease inhibitor, used as a booster for the final drug…

    Reyataz – another protease inhibitor.

    The two PIs in combination are supposed to be very tolerable…Norvir at full strength can be ugly, but used as a booster to Reyataz, not so much.

    The strange thing, I started my meds this morning and by lunch I felt this overwhelming peace wash over my body – well, I guess TECHNICALLY my torso or stomach. It is almost like my old regimen, namely viramune, literally had a strangle hold over my stomach and GI tract. If this is actually so, I cannot believe I felt a change so quickly. I will hold it as a good omen – a FUCKIN’ great omen actually.

    For the first time in two years, I don’t FEEL like I am on meds, something I have always had in my life. I am very happy about that…

    (oh, yeah, I almost forgot…last week was my two year anniversary of the start of chemotherapy. I had realized it was approaching but most have gotten too wrapped in things to remember it passing.)

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  • Why the *#%$@! Am I Still Awake?

    Let me tell you…

    Healthcare.

    I have spent the entire afternoon – when I SHOULD be sleeping – trying to arrange shipment for the new drug regimen that SHOULD have been here over a week ago. The poor medical assistant at my doctor’s office kept calling in the prescriptions that SHOULD have been in Caremark’s computer system almost two weeks ago. They always think I SHOULD be calling Mail Order instead of Specialty, and Mail Order always thinks I SHOULD be calling Specialty, which I actually SHOULD be doing…

    They don’t know what the other hand is doing. FUCK! They don’t even know the middle finger of their own hand is flipping them off! I have been giving up other work options to make sure I have insurance, which I need. I seem to have lost Ryan White Funding even though I am 5 thousand below to cut off income. I am continuing meds I know don’t work, waiting for new ones that no one can prove will fair any better.

    The bottom line is this. I have played the good little soldier ever since the lymphoma and chemotherapy, doing everything numerous doctor’s have asked, even though they ALL contradict each other…I have taken every fucking pill, I have stayed insured. I have struggled to stay employed. And I am screwed every step of the way. I have very little left in me for the good little soldier routine. The ‘new’ doctor that was supposed to be all ‘doesn’t play well with others’ and all whacked and unorthodox, does little more than pointless test that cost me more than the office visit SHOULD cost…

    This is why men rub chicken’s blood on their testicles hoping for a miracle.

    The ‘system’ fucking sucks and doesn’t give one stinking damn about me. I don’t understand why I am so invested in it.

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  • The Here and Now of KCMO

    This weekend, I discovered that two more dear acquaintances are planning on leaving KCMO to various other parts of the country.

    Leaving me teetering on the brink of a growing sadness, the news clicked something in my head. Something I have suspected about the KC community for some time…

    It would seem that KCMO is mostly a spring board to other cities. Those great people born into or other-wise trapped in tiny little spaces in the surrounding areas eventually work their way to KCMO. Then, with more opportunities to meet travellers from other parts of the country, they eventually move on to bigger places.

    Not so odd, really.
    But it seems to leave the remaining, smaller minded individuals to rule the roost with their egomaniacal bend. I think I will study this further in the next year, as I explore my regained freedom and determine if KCMO is worth the struggle or if I will simply move on to other pastures as other do in great numbers these days…

  • the center of the silence

    One thing I cannot seem to finger.
    There is a certain detachment I feel from people.

    I mean, I am about to leave a four year relationship, and I am okay with that. Of course, I love him. But I don’t think I have ever understood the importance of love. Well, other people’s importance of love. That importance that drives them to be miserable in order to feel that they have someone to love them.

    Is that REALLY the point? Honestly.
    Love is not that important to me.
    Love in incidental. Accidental.

    I love everyone in my life, but that love does not invoke or entitle anyone else to the loss of my own happiness. It is okay to love someone without being able to live with him. It is okay to be single and living alone, with intent.

    Love happens, but I don’t not think it is the point of life. It is the accident of life. It will happen over time, so why so much drive and force to make it happen faster? That kind of love I don’t think I need. I know I don’t need. Or want.

    I have most of my life – I mean including childhood (it is uncanny how long I have felt this) – wondered if I am incapable of loving someone. Incapable of caring. I never seem to be as strongly attached to folks as they are back to me. Even those I adore beyond words.

    I have learned – right or wrong – to soften my words, the way I express my feelings. Because others seem unable to understand their strength, their intensity. I mean, when I connect with other being, I know fairly quickly, instantly. I understand the rarity and like to acknowledge it. It seems to me that many folks cannot accept this praise for someone too new in their life. Or feel they cannot live up to it, even though I hold no expectation but a chance to see a friendship grow. They scare off.

    For the most part, I don’t think I mind the need to taper myself. I’m okay with softening the punch, quieting down, not mentioning what I hold in my heart. I cannot expect others to be where I am. I cannot demand them to be as I am. I understand. I accept this. So I wait.

    But not always wait. Sometimes, as like now. I have to stop waiting, or at least move further away to wait. I cannot sit this close and feel my life choke away as I lose myself in someone else’s strangle hold of love.

    Most of my life I have wondered if maybe I was missing something, something integral to life, to life among humans. If perhaps I was placed here to simply watch and record and learn without actually engaging in life. I don’t think I ever shake this feeling for long.

    I have also been my own victim of cycles.
    I always think I am changing and learning new habits. Altering bad ones, building good ones. Then – ultimately, there I am, back at the beginning of the cycle.

    Starting new. Starting alone.
    Thinking I am designed to be that way. Really being okay with the thought. Some day I hope to remember that before I move in with another lover.

    I don’t need them here. They are allowed to have their own homes. I don’t need to share a house to share a life. I know this. I just keep getting swept up in other folks’ dreams and desires. One day, I hope my own will take a worthy place in my life.

    I know this. I hope to continue to know this throughout time. As long as I so easily lose myself in others, I need to buffer my life some…I understand, as much as a person is driven to find someone else to keep himself safe, I am the only one who can INDEED hold my own life safely.

    No one – with any intentions of anything – can manage that save me. And I am okay with that.

    If you are reading this and looking for the point, you should have left at the beginning…because, beyond reminding myself of something I always forget, there isn’t one.

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