My blogging joints have all just cracked from lack of use, but lets get this going.

All my life, I’ve always been attracted to structure. Granted, this doesn’t mean I’ve always been the most structured person. On the contrary – my adult life has been rattled from dives into absolute chaos more times than I’d like to think about. Anyone who knows me will tell you that I’m prone to being all over the place, and that if there was one word I didn’t know the definition to it’s “agenda,” and they would be right. Not going to lie. Life’s all about fessin’ up sooner or later.

But as chaotic as my priorities are known for being, I still insist that I’m attracted to structure. The problem is, as I have known for a while now, that it just isn’t structure that I create for myself that I love so much.  Let me explain (not that I don’t think you’ve followed me up to this point, but I tend to explain my own language a lot when I’ve been drinking. An endearing or annoying trait depending on how you look at it): I was successful all throughout my youthful years because the structure within which I lived was set for me.  Legally, I had to go to school, and all I had to do there was give my guidance counselor a general idea of where my academic passions lay and I had a customized schedule set for me. I had 7-8 classes a semester that I was expected to attend, with assignments that I was expected to complete. These assignments came with instruction and tangible goals (this is what you need to do, and this is the date by which you need to have it done, or you fail). I had nutrition and field trips and school dances for recreation, all outlined. And thus, I did very well in school.

At home, I had a no-nonsense mother who made sure that I respected my house by keeping it clean, and that I respected my elders by obeying them. The rewards here were also very obvious: if I was obedient I was rewarded with privileges and trust. I obeyed my parents to a T and was the most well-behaved kid in my generation. And I had good grades. The result of that was, by the time I was 16, I could literally walk out the door and not come back for two days without fear of punishment. I had so earned my parents’ trust that they knew, without a doubt, that I wasn’t doing anything irresponsible (and it’s the truth. The one time this happened, I had gone over to a friend’s house to study for final exams, and I ended up staying the night because it was so late, and spent the entirety of the next day playing Dreamcast. Oh what a rebel I was). My sister, on the other hand, couldn’t leave the house for five minutes without our parents breathing down her neck.

Coming from a childhood that was so structured, where my goals and priorities were laid out so neatly, it was a shock when I thrust myself into the adult world, on the opposite end of the country, by myself. From the point on, it was my responsibility to create my own structure. I was solely responsible for organizing my goals and priorities, and I didn’t do so well at that. I did horrible, actually. College didn’t go so great, and my adult life has been one orgy of moving from place to place, trying to find myself and that one scenario that would just fit and make everything work out for me. And it’s a failing that has sort of continued on with my life. I excel in areas that are well laid out for me – I’ve always done well at the various jobs I’ve held, or things that I’ve volunteered for. Anything that came with a rigid set of requirements and expectations, I’ve met without fail.  Anything that has required me to limit and police myself? Not so much.

But that is something that I desperately want to change.

Enter Google Calendar.

If the first half of 2010 has been about getting myself grounded and stable, the latter half will definitely be about moving forward. It’s time for me to stop thinking about simply working a job and spending my money wisely.  It is now time to start thinking about the future.  The ways that I want to revise my life and how I’m going to make that happen.  This, of course, requires a lot of planning. It requires a lot of goal setting and providing structure for my own life. These are precisely the things that I’ve never been good at.

So what have I been doing to change this? Why, the oldest trick in the book: taking it one day at a time.

And that’s where my Google Calendar comes in.

I’ve always been a fan of technology, for some reason, I’ve always been able to relate to it more than something analog. I attempted keeping a physical journal several times throughout my life, but it wasn’t until I discovered livejournal that I was able to do chronicle my life with any consistency. I’ve always been bad with budgeting, until I discovered www.mint.com.

The same goes with scheduling. Until I discovered Google Calendar. The fact that it already interacts with my email, social networking outlets, and (most importantly) my Blackberry, makes it so much easier to consistently stick with. Last week I started off slowly; I only filled in my work schedule. This week, I entered in my work schedule and, besides that, started every day with a particular activity outside of work that I wanted to accomplish. And I’ve been surprising myself with how closely I’ve been sticking to it. I made an appointment to visit a doctor for a long-overdue checkup. I scheduled in time to read and exercise. I even scheduled time to blog. And, obviously, so far so good.  It’s so easy to follow along with my schedule when it’s kept so neat and organized. And, when I plot my week in my Calendar, I can then tackle every day and every task as it comes to me, instead of having a jumble of things I have to get done swirling through my head untamed. Google Calendar has enabled me to keep track of these things in a way that allows me to get over this hang-up I’ve had about structuring my own life. It’s refreshing.

Eventually, I would like to add more things to my Calendar. Like searching for a counselor/therapist, volunteering more, keeping in touch with old friends, and tackling financial hurdles that keep me from going back to school.  I know it’s not going to be easy. Part of the reason I was so good at following structure that was imposed on me over structure that was self-influenced was because I didn’t really have a choice. Having a choice allows for procrastination and broadens my margin of error, and keeping my Calendar updated is definitely something I’m going to have to enforce on myself. But, part of the reason I’ve been able to do it is that I’ve finally started looking at the things I’ve wanted for so long as non-negotiable. And, because of that, taking the necessary steps to get those things is not so much a choice anymore. These are the things I want out of life, this is what I have to do to achieve them, or I fail.

We can be honest on blogs these days, right?

Yes? Good — because right now I’m going to be honest in a way that I’m usually not. I’m going to have one of those brief moments of complete and unabridged honesty that enable a person to admit something a little more than potentially embarrassing. One of those honest-to-god truths that could very well change how people perceive you. Something that goes so against the good, wholesome, nice guy image you spend every waking moment aspiring to.

What am I going to be honest about? Here it is:

I’m addicted to the Missed Connections section of Craigslist.

Ok ok, I hear you now:  being obsessed with Missed Connections is nothing new. Everyone I know checks it every now and then, but I tell you, I’m absolutely obsessed with it. Whenever I’m near an internet connection for at least 5 minutes you can be guaranteed that I’m going to check the m4m section of Missed Connections at least twice. And I always joke that if someone left me a Missed Connection, I’d die right after reading it…or be so overcome with jubilation that I’d ascend to heaven right then, my life’s destiny having been fulfilled.

But now, I’m starting to think that might not be such a joke anymore.

The eye-opening moment occurred just a few days ago. I was out having a few drinks with friends (because I don’t do that nearly enough), when I noticed a guy across the bar staring at me. I mean, like, really staring at me.

I’m talking full-on, I-want-to-spend-the-rest-of-my-god-given-life-with-you-but-not-before-I-make-sweet-sweet-love-to-you-right-here-right-now staring at me.

Yeah.

And when I say this guy was attractive, he was freakin’ GORGEOUS. I’m talking good-looking on a level that’s dangerous, because the guy is so much more attractive than what you’re used to that you’d be tempted to enter into the most fucked up, dysfunctional relationship in the world just to be around him.

(You know, like with Hugh Jackman. So what he’s married to a woman he loves? So what they have kids that he loves even more? So what the aforementioned factors heavily indicate that he’s straight? By all that’s holy, you’d make it work.)

And here he was, this guy, this most perfect guy, devoting most of his attention (he was with friends, too) to me, and I’d had the required amount of rum-based drinks to flirt back! I had the sexy-eyes set to “full boner.” I was even doing the thing that you do when you’re out with friends and you’re flirting with someone – you know, where you glance at the guy and then quickly look back at your friends and laugh really loud and look completely invested in the conversation your friends are having, when in reality you couldn’t care less what the topic of conversation was because you’re too busy playing eye-footsy with the guy across the bar. I even managed to covertly loosen a button on my shirt to give him ample view of my man-cleavage.

(give him ample view of my man-cleavage…yes, I just typed that out…yes, that’s just how hot this guy was and how bad at flirting I am…)

But he was eating it up. Every time I looked over at him his eyes were dead set on me. Piercing, brown, and totally interested.

And I know what you may be thinking now, “Brando, I hope you’re writing this post from one of those hip  megabuses with the free wifi, sitting next to your new boo and on your way to start your new life in one of those awesome states that allows to gays to marry.”

Unfortunately, no. I’m writing this post from the laundromat – currently booless (but soon to be heavily stocked on clean underwear).

And why? Because instead of getting some nerve and walking a few feet over to the other side of the bar to initiate conversation, I stayed on my end and continued socializing with my friends. And when it was time to leave, I left.  And my leaving without talking to the guy was very much intentional. Not just because I was a little too chicken-shit. Not just because I smelled like a mixture of coffee and dirt after having worked all night.

No, I mostly withdrew with the conscious hope that the mystery guy would be so enamored with me that — as I’m sure you figured out by now — he’d leave me a Missed Connection.

Needless to say, but the time I got on the subway I felt like a right idiot.

That’s right, my obsession with Missed Connections runs so deep that I passed up the possibility of romance just for the snowball’s chance in hell that the hunk would leave me a message on a public website about…the possibility of romance.

And there’s my moment of honesty. Because, as you now see, I can bitch about being single on my blog as often as I’d like, but it’s eye-opening moments like this that demonstrate that, more often than not, I’m the orchestrator of my own loveless circumstances. And my path to forced solitude can take various avenues (self-absorption at the forefront here). And maybe that’s why I’m so obsessed with Missed Connections. Taking control and taking charge with guys in a public setting has always been an issue of mine. With the Missed Connection, a semi-anonymous declaration of affection put out for the world  to see, you don’t really have to worry about all that.

Maybe I should start looking for more romantic fulfillment in real life, instead of hoping for a non-committal Missed Connection…

Fuckity-Fuck-Fuck

Another week, another overblown piece of Lady Gaga “performance art.”

I should admit that, contrary to the tone of this post, I do like Lady Gaga. She’s got some catchy songs, and for better or worse, she’s gotten people talking about Pop music as a serious genre again, so that’s nice of her.

But, as I sat for eight minutes and forty-four seconds taking in her latest video for ‘Alejandro’ — that strange second track from The Fame Monster that sounds like a mix of Madonna’s ‘La Isla Bonita’ and pretty much everything Ace of Base ever recorded – I couldn’t help but think of how tired it all looked. How tired Lady Gaga looked.

I’ve mostly been a fan of Lady Gaga’s 9-minute videos; I appreciate the style, the tongue-in-cheek, and the Tarantino references. But with the ‘Alejandro’ video, it seems as though Gaga is using the power of her own inflated ego to propel her level of creativity into the realm of philosophical and, worse, important. And oh, how she falls flat.

Let’s see, we have obvious lifts from various works of Madonna (‘Like a Payer’ and ‘Vogue,’ specifically), shock-value defilement of religious symbols, men in various states of crossdress, and your typical full-of-poses dance choreography. Oh, and don’t forget a few references to Nazi Germany and the Holocaust. In short, it’s nothing we haven’t seen before — done previously and more genuinely by artists that have come before her. The video for ‘Alejandro’ seems like nothing more than Gaga attempting to demonstrate how “deep” and “important to our generation” she thinks she is. She describes the video as a tribute to the gay men she’s developed “pure friendships” with, the kind that she feels she’ll never find with straight men, or something like that. I guess the best way for her to do that is to hump a bunch of men in heels and swallow a crucifix. I’m surprised it didn’t occur to her to incorporate a scene where she’s swimming in a giant replica of Piss Christ and then claim it was commentary on the oil spill in the Gulf.

In short, it was nothing more than “KEEP TALKING ABOUT ME!” shock-fodder disguised as something worth taking seriously. Maybe it would be easier for me to take her visuals seriously if the underlying message wasn’t something so insipid and overdone as “I love my gay besties!”

The weakest part about the video to me is that it follows the trend of overblown Gaga videos that have absolutely shit to do with the song they’re set to. It was forgivable at first, as the videos for ‘Paparazzi’ and ‘Telephone’ were fun and told interesting stories of their own. But now, after ‘Alejandro,’ I have to wonder if her absolute refusal to connect her “performance art” to her music is less of a conscious decision and more because she just…can’t. I think it’s getting a little lazy. Gaga’s building her cred on being a new kind of “intellectual” pop star, well, it’s hard to believe that when she takes average electro-dance-pop/RedONE music and pairs it with absolutely unrelated and ankle-deep video concepts. When I watch a Gaga video these days, I find myself having to either separate myself from the visuals to enjoy the song, or vise versa.  Does she just not have what it takes to expand on the ideas she introduces in her music with corresponding visuals, or does she feel it isn’t important? I used to believe it was the latter, now I’m leaning toward the former.

And, through all the debating of whether or not Alejandro is deserving of the slack it’s getting, I’m reminded of a particular artist. A most perfect artist who had absolutely no problem marrying the creativity and point-of-view of her music with equally compelling music videos. The glorious Kate Bush. I can’t think of a single Kate Bush video that didn’t leave me with a better understanding or at least a different perspective of its corresponding song. Kate Bush was simply the queen of using music and visual to tell a story. No pandering, no unnecessary shock-value. Just pure storytelling. Gaga should take more than a few pages from her book.

Really, all this dissing of Lady Gaga is just a setup for me to post my favorite Kate Bush videos. After all, what better way to introduce Kate Bush than by placing her triumphantly on top of a pile of artists who’ll never be as good as her?

So I was at work the other day, sweeping the floor or some shit and looking out the windows at the park across the street that was filled with people doing a ton of not-at-work-hahaha shit that I wished I was doing, when one of my coworkers snapped me out of my daydream of lounging on plush grass underneath the shade of a tree and said, “Hey, I read your blog today.”

“Oh? What did you read?”

“The one about the gay things straight guys should do. It was pretty funny, I thought it was an article at first.”

“…oh,” I was surprised and flattered, though I didn’t know why – my blog is linked to my facebook account and I’ve never really kept it a secret. Still, I got an odd feeling from knowing my coworker had read my blog. Not a bad feeling, just odd. I stored it away as a singular incident.

Then later that evening, as I was having a drink with another group of coworkers at a block party, I was in the middle of subtly checking out one of the few men that I work with when another coworker confessed that she had read my blog. Well, one post from it.

“Which one did you read?”

“I don’t know, something about a Pussy Rest or something. I didn’t finish it.”

Again that odd feeling.

And, just now, as I was logging out of facebook, I noticed that my last blog entry had been “liked” by two people: my best friend from Pittsburgh, and one of my cousins. My favorite cousin, but still a family member that I hadn’t really spoken to at length in a while. And at first it didn’t really bother me that she had read (and liked) my blog entry about the gay things straight men should do…

…until I remembered that it had a vague reference to me getting pubic hair stuck in my teeth.

And I’m not so sure about how I feel about that. That odd feeling came roaring back, and I wondered if it was this feeling that keeps a lot of bloggers I follow from tying their blogs to their real identities:  the odd, exposed, almost embarrassed twinge in the back of your mind when something you usually keep separated from your real life is then reflected back at you by your real life.

My blog is definitely a place where I can be a lot more honest about and explorative of my emotions. It’s a place where I can not only be forthcoming with the things I’ve done, but where I can get feedback from people who don’t know me and who I’ll most likely never meet. Having a blog is a lot like having a livejournal, only to have a blog is to more overtly push for an audience. Specifically, an anonymous audience. It’s a more exhibitionist thing to blog, I feel, than it is to livejournal – which is why I never minded when friends and family visited my livejournal, and why I’m now having this feeling at the thought of real world figures of my life encountering this part of me.

I would have never written about a hot guy’s pubic hair getting anywhere near my teeth on my livejournal.

But I think, as odd as this feeling is, that it’s necessary. I don’t think I’m going to change the way I blog, what I blog about, and how openly I present it for anyone to read. I made a promise to myself a while back that I would become a more open person, that I wouldn’t be so borderline ashamed about some of the things I’ve done, my talents, or things that I’m into (sexual, dorky or otherwise).  Maybe I luck out in the sense that there’s nothing in my life right now that is truly keeping me from tying my identity to a website where I blog about things that aren’t exactly PC (I’m in no danger of losing my job over YoBrando), but as of now I see my blog as an exercise in honesty. A avenue by which I can present myself to the world – friends, family, and coworkers included.

Ok, I know – a popular stereotype for us gay men is that we generally take care of ourselves to a degree that most straight men would associate with women. A lot of us trim, cut, pluck, shave, scrub, comb, brush and relax within an inch of our lives, all for the sake of looking good.

(Of course, not all gay men are like this, but again, popular stereotype.)

Straight men like to refer to these behaviors when other men do them as gay or, my personal favorite, metrosexual, which of course is just the more PC way to blatantly call someone a flaming fag. That is, typical straight men are just as unlikely to indulge in behaviors that are labeled as “metrosexual” as they are in things labeled “gay.”

(Of course, not all straight men are like this, but again, popular stereotype.)

This post is inspired by a conversation I had with a straight co-worker who, when he noticed me applying moisturizer to my hands, yelled out “You moisturize? I thought only women moisturized!” in bug-eyed disbelief.

My response was a doe-eyed look and a confused-sounding, “but but…dry skin is gender neutral…why wouldn’t guys moisturize?”

“Men don’t moisturize. We don’t have to,” was his reply. This left me confused for the remainder of the day.

Why don’t men have to moisturize? Despite popular belief I’m a man, and I have to moisturize. If I don’t moisturize my skin will turn into a dry, dull, ashy shadow of its usually perfectly glowy and soft self. Do straight men not do it because, in this male dominated world, perfectly healthy skin is not needed to attract desired females? And clearly, I could tell by the way he was looking at me as I continued to apply lotion to my hands, he was storing that very lotion away in his mind as reason #567,909 why Brandon is gayer than Christmas.

And I couldn’t find the sense in it, and it goes beyond moisturizing. There are so many things that are stereotypically labeled as gay by straight men for no good reason other than they don’t want to do it. Things that, if they embraced them, would not only enrich their lives and appearances, but increase their chances of getting laid by exactly 45.8 percent.

That’s science, folks.

So, in an effort to do my part in contributing to the betterment of the world, I took it upon myself to compose a list of the top 5 things straight men should stop labeling as gay.

1) Moisturizing: because dry skin looks bad…on everyone.
Of course, this would be the very first thing. Now, I understand that I come from a somewhat biased position. As a black person, dry, ashy skin is a little more visible against our ebony complexions. So because of this, moisturizing isn’t quite as taboo for black people, or anyone with dark-toned skin where dry skin is a more visible issue. That said, several fair-skinned guys I have spoken to decry moisturizing as a pointless, expensive habit. They also say that since lotion is made up of unnatural chemicals not produced by your body, you don’t need it.

Well, guess what? Deodorant is also made up of unnatural chemicals. Are you going to walk around smelling like a locker room after training camp?

Don’t answer that question.

The truth is, dry skin keeps your skin soft, healthy-looking and, in a lot of cases, protects you from the outside elements. And you know what? That chick you’re checking out at the bar? What’s the first thing she’s going to notice about you? Hint: not your bank account.

That right: your skin. So keep it moist and smooth-looking. Or do you want her to subconsciously think of vaginal rug burns at the mention of sex?

2) Trimming: not all treasures should be hidden in a dark forest.

Along with moisturizing, trimming should also be standard amongst my straight brethren. And I’m not just talking about quick trim of the old mustache or sideburns.

I’m talking about taking the occasional weed whacker to that mass of fuzz surrounding your junk.

Don’t get me wrong, I don’t think it’s necessary for a guy to shave it all off (I don’t know about you, but I personally don’t like feeling like I’m doing naughty things to a prepubescent boy), but the occasional trim with a pair of scissors goes a long way.

Here, let me put it to you another way:  have you ever had pasta florentine with shrimp? One of my favorite dishes – the delicate sauce, the pasta cooked perfectly al dente, the succulent shrimp – there’s nothing not to love about it…except for when certain people prepare the shrimp without removing the shells. And do you know why that’s annoying? Because instead of being able to enjoy forkful after uninterrupted forkful of this delicious dish, every so often I have to pause, pick at the shrimp with my fingers and remove the sticky shells. There is no classy way to do this.  And occasionally I’ll miss a bit of shell, and it’ll end up caught between my teeth.

Gents, your dick’s the pasta florentine, and your messy pubes are the shelled shrimp. When not kept under control, your pubes take what could (and should) be an enjoyable oral experience and make it unnecessarily messy. No girl likes getting pieces of shell caught between her teeth and the same goes for your man-forest.

Don’t let the sight of your junk make a girl wonder if she remembered to put floss in her purse. Trim that shit, yo.

3) Gay Bars: not just a haven for penis.

This one rings a little personal for me, because I have been in the position, more than once, where I’ve invited good straight male friends to come out to a gay club with me, only to get this response: “Dude, that’s a little too much for me.”

Guys, you are seriously missing out. I mean, the opportunities here should be dead obvious. Most gay guys have friendships that are composed of a) other gay guys, and B) straight girls. When we go out to gay bars, we don’t go alone; we bring those other gay guys and straight girls.

So follow along, you have a club full of straight females drinking, and watching us beautiful gay men dance and hump each other inappropriately while immersed in a bright but tastefully done lighting concept. The girls are getting slightly aroused by all the guy-on-guy impropriety, but aren’t getting any action because we’re all gay.  You get that? It’s a smorgasbord of aroused females. What a perfect opportunity for you, the straight man, the swoop onto the scene with your straight and perfectly accessible penis.

Maybe this is a secret I shouldn’t have given away. But I’m surprised more straight men haven’t caught on to this one yet.

4) Modest Farting: because farting in public stopped being cool in middle school, and even then it was questionable.

Picture this scenario, because it’s happened more than once. I’m in a room full of my (mostly) straight friends. Without warning, I excuse myself to the restroom only to come back less than a minute later.

“Dude, what was that about?” one of my friends would say, noticing I wasn’t gone long enough to have done one of the three things men usually excuse themselves to go to the restroom to do.

(Not going into detail on what that third thing is…)

I usually respond with a cryptic, “I…uh…had to take care of something.”

Without missing a beat, because I’m known for this, my friend understands, “did you just leave the room to fart?”

“So what if I did?”

“Dude, just let it rip!” and without warning I’m greeted with laughter and a symphony of farts that usually sends me running from the room and looking for the number to a local hazmat squad.

Guys, everything about farting in public is gross. The sound, the smell, the way you laugh at it like it’s something to be proud of. Look, I understand that it’s a normal function of the human body and nothing to be ashamed of, but that doesn’t mean anyone wants to then sit in a room that smells like a bowl of egg salad that’s been left out in the sun too long.

Guys, you have an opportunity to impress the ladies by being the only guy in your group that doesn’t smell like ass. Seize it.

5) Bitch Drinks: because liquor is just a whole lot classier.

I get it guys: you like beer. You know what? Every full moon or so even I enjoy beer.  But there’s no need to label classy cocktails as “bitch drinks.” I may be the minority opinion on this well, but cocktails beat beer for the following reasons:

a)      It can be mixed into a wider variety of flavors.

b)      A cocktail can go from being “I’ll need six of these to feel buzzed” weak, to “I can drink one of these before I’m  trying to make out with the doorman” strong.

c)       They come in pretty glasses. Hell, that matters!

Yeah, you might not look as masculine holding a cocktail glass full of a pastel-colored liquid that’s got fruit floating on top of it as you would holding a frothy pint glass, but there’s no harm in switching it up a bit. Show a girl you can be impulsive by ordering something sweet and rum-based. Show her you’re capable of trying new things by ordering something that’s got the word “breeze” in the name.

Show a girl you’re thoughtful by ordering something that will reassure her that you won’t be a mess of farts and belching by the time she’s tipsy enough to consider taking you home.

Yeah, beer does that to you.

To the ladies and gays out there, got anything that you think straight men should quit labeling as gay?

The café where I work closed almost an hour ago, but I’m still here. I sent the other person I was working with home when we were done cleaning, made up some excuse about waiting for a ride, and now I’m sitting in the office, feet kicked up on the desk, just taking a breather, and blogging on my netbook. It’s quiet here now.

(Roommies, this has nothing to do with you guys. I’ll be home soon )

So, you know how when you leave your computer on for too long without a reset, eventually the RAM gets bogged down with stray bits of memory and the computer starts to become increasingly slow? It chugs along, things take longer to load, and you hear that constant gear-churning that sounds like your computer is going to die any second, or is constipated, or both? Your computer just doesn’t have the space in its RAM to continue doing what you want it to do efficiently.

Well, that’s how my body and mind are feeling right about now. And just like a computer that has been left on for too long, my body needs a reset…a pussy reset.

…

Ok, I know what you’re thinking:

“Ugh! Brando WHY do you have to ruin a positive, possibly uplifting blog post with yet ANOTHER one of your childish and poorly-timed sexual references? And you don’t even HAVE a pussy to reset…unless that’s what you boys are calling it these days…”

Well, to you I say, this is my blog and I’ll pollute it with plenty of penis and pussy puns until you puke (alliteration, bitches). And no, I don’t ACTUALLY have a pussy, so to any future sexual partners who might be reading this, know that the quickest way to get kicked out of my bed is to refer to any part of my body with a name usually associated with a female body part. Boy-pussy, man-gina, va-genis, all of these are a no-go.

(Anyway, back on track.)

No, silly, I’m referring to the pussy in your mind.

Yeah, it gets that deep…

…that’s what she said.

Damnit! Focus Brando!

Although I hate it when anything on my body gets referred to as a pussy, I have nevertheless come to the realization that each and every one of us human beings possesses one deep inside. A psychological pussy. A mental muff. A cerebral cunt.

Really, I could go on all day with this.

And, every so often, you have to pay your mental punani some attention…or it could grow cobwebs.

I came to this realization one night while I was out getting maybe-plastered with my roommates @katieblogs (awesome) and @cdcbrian (follow him immediately, he LOVES twitter) in the gayborhood, and I was describing to them this overloaded RAM, bogged-down feeling I’ve been fighting off lately. And @cdcbrian, with all that sense of tact that he’s famous for, blurted out something along the lines of “Well, maybe you just need to get some DICK.”

Straight to the point, that one.

What then proceeded was a hilarious conversation about dick and sexual relief in which I coined the term “pussy reset.” Basically, when you experience the relief and change in perspective that comes from good sex after a long dry spell. Like restarting a computer, but with penis.

Feel free to wear the term out.

But, through all the joking around, I had to entertain the validity of his suggestion. I mean, as I write this it has been about 378 years since I’ve had sex, and even longer than that since I’ve had good sex.  And, as any lover of sex will attest, good sex is particularly effective at alleviating certain tensions and mental stresses. Good sex after a long dry-spell can make you feel psychically lighter and more optimistic. Good sex changes perspectives. Don’t just take my word for it, studies have been done one this shit.

But the answer couldn’t just be physical sex. This pent-up feeling I’ve been fighting off stems from more than just an unsatisfied sex drive. Afterall, it’s not just pent up sexual frustration that I’m feeling, but a general lack of direction. As I described to my friends, I’m feeling pulled in so many different directions and being presented with so many different options as to where this new chapter of my life could go that I’m ultimately going nowhere. That’s a little more than good sex can handle (believe it or not).

But as I continued to think about my various issues over the following days, I couldn’t shake my roommate’s comment. I thought about calling my safe bet* just to get a taste of sweet sexual relief, but I knew that wouldn’t really solve the problem. I’d get some sweet sexual relief, possibly be a little more optimistic and upbeat for the next few days, but when that sex wore off I’d still be faced with the same issues I had before: bogged-down uncertainty.

And then the more that I thought about it, the more I realized my roommate was more on track than I originally gave him credit for. That relief that you get from good sex, I just had to find a way to apply it to my life situation. On my plate right now I have keeping up with my bills, the possibility of going back to school, new money-making opportunities, the various aspects of maintaining a social life, and a litany of other things. If I feel like I’m being pulled into too many different places, maybe I need to stop what I’m doing, just for a little bit. Try something drastically different.

Maybe not with actual sex, but much in the same way that you’re reinvigorated after breaking a long dry spell with a good screw, maybe I need to give my life and priorities a sudden jolt of something different in order to gain a new perspective and regain the sense of optimism about where my life is going. I need a mental pussy reset.

I’ve been chugging along with accomplishing my long list of short-term goals and assessing my long-term priorities, but I’m starting to feel that I may be losing sight of what I’m doing all this for. What the big picture is. I need give my goals and priorities a good fucking to remind myself of what I need to focus on, and maybe what I need to let fall by the wayside.

A week ago my boss asked me if I would be interested in occasionally rowing with her. I think I just might take her up on her offer.

So I have this regular at work.

He’s tall, broad-shouldered (we’re talking Hugh Jackman OH MY GOD I WANT TO WORSHIP EVERY – AND I DO MEAN EVERY – INCH OF YOU build here), outrageously handsome, and one of the sweetest guys I have ever met. Every time he comes into the store he addresses me by name, although I haven’t officially given it to him — he’s picked it up from other people. Every time he places his order (large coffee and a slice of blueberry pie, to start) he looks me directly in the eye and he lingers. When I give him his order he smiles, genuinely and wide, and still he is looking at me.  He shakes my hand and it’s a comfortable grip, not forceful and full of some need to prove that he has a dick and it may be bigger than mine.

(Though I wouldn’t mind him proving that.)

Whenever he looks at me and smiles I look at him and smile right back, and whenever I’m on my way to go clean a bathroom made messy by spoiled, baby-booming Rittenhouse residents who’ve never had to wipe their own asses before (and thus can’t be blamed when they miss the toilet by several feet), the chore is made more bearable by the fact that when I walk by his table, he always looks up and acknowledges me with a grin. Not to mention, he tips generously.

So by now I know that you, my faithful reader[s], are wondering what the hell the catch is. After all, when it comes to Brando and men, there’s always a catch.

Well, I’m not going to disappoint.

The problem with this latest guy — this handsome, more charming than should be legal Adonis among men — is that he’s straight.

Perfectly 100% straight.

I know what you’re thinking now, or at least I know what I was thinking when I learned that he was more than definitely straight: “Then what’s with all the flirting? The eye contact? Straight men don’t do that.”

Well, you’d only be partly right. American straight men don’t do that. This man, however, is Irish.

Perfectly 100% Irish.

(And let me just say, slap an authentic Irish accent on top of all those other attractive qualities I mentioned earlier, and you have a recipe for moist panty a la mode. Makes work a little awkward, to say the least.)

And suddenly it makes sense. At least it should. European men, when seen in an American light, are almost comically gay-acting. Hell, the one slightly-redeeming number in the nausiating musical “Legally Blonde” pokes fun at this very fact:

Now I’m no cultural anthropologist, but it has been my experience that European men, while stuck up in their own ways, just weren’t born with the same sexual stick up their asses that was afforded to us American men – courtesy of living in a country with a relatively young cultural history steeped in puritanical prudence and shame.

Straight American men, when interacting with other males, do so in a way that ’s obviously separate from how they would interact with females. They look you in the eye, but they’ll never let their gaze linger. They’ll smile at you, but there’s always the tiniest bit of restraint. No less genuine than the smile they’d give to a woman, but not quite as vulnerable. Maintaining a definitive air of masculinity is a staple here. When an straight American man doesn’t do these things, they become red flags. Any gay man will tell you, when it comes to “feeling-out” a potential homosexual, more so than any obscene or obviously gay gesture, it’s the eyes that give it away. If your eyes linger for even a split second longer than average, if your smile is just a bit too wide, you become suspect.

(And rarely are we wrong.)

This sexual barometer just doesn’t work with straight European men. They’re not as uptight (only their pants are). A European man will look you right in the eye, smile broadly, and be as emotionally genuine with you as they would any skirt walking by, and be vagina-licking straight.

And I just don’t like it.

So for now I think I’ll pass on European men. I like good ol’ American sexual/moral/social hang-ups. Makes us a bit easier to read.

It took a little over a week, but with much blood, sweat and tears I finally got my blog from looking like this:

to looking like what you see now. Purty right?

right?

right??

…well fuck you. I’m kinda proud of it.

Regularly scheduled blogging will now commence.

…who the woman in my header image is, she’s Josephine Baker — Dancer, singer, actress, and all-around entertainer most popular in France in the 20s and 30s. One of the most electrifying women in history and one of my all-time idols. She was smart, funny, charming, and unapologetically sexy. To put it simply, if I were given the chance to be a woman, I’d want to be her.

But don’t worry, I quite like being a boy.

(and I’d still look just as good in the banana skirt.)

Oh, and this short clip of her dancing sums up pretty much every aspect of my personality. Cheers.