Black eye & bloody knuckles

Today in the gym I was grappling with this guy we will call, “The Marine” from now on. I have been paired with him a lot ever since he first started training here a couple years back. He’s an arrogant asshole and I fucking hate this guy always talking about his “Semper Fi” bullshit and how he’s going easy on me! My uncle’s a fucking Drill Sergeant in the Marines and I can own his ass easy, so The Marine’s little rants didn’t really mean much to me. But he really challenges me physically and mentally so I tolerate him.

That was until this afternoon. Today we were grappling and ONLY grappling! Grappling is basically the art of fighting without hitting your opponent. You focus on locks, holds, throws and pinning. We were about 10 minutes into our practice and I was dominating The Marine which was really starting to piss him off! The more angry he got, the easier it was for me to control him. He came at me and knocked me off my feet, then got on top of me. I easily reversed our positions and got him in a chokehold expecting him to tap out. Instead he elbowed me in the ribs! 

Obviously I was stunned! I instantly let go and I sat there for a few moments trying to recover from a pretty hard strike. I guess he finally realized what he had done and he started to apologize and said it was a reflex and was very sorry. A couple of the guys watching hurled some of the standard swear words at him and threatened to kick his ass for pulling shit like that again. I foolishly excepted his apology and after taking a minute to shake it off we got into it again. I honestly forgave him after that first strike because I had to! I am one of those guys that isn’t a very effective fighter when I get angry. I stop thinking and I start making mistakes. So I let it go.

He gets me and I tap out. He releases me and he has the cockiest smile ever plastered across his face. I take a deep breath and clear my mind as best as I can and we go at it again. I get him pinned relatively fast, and then he elbows me in the face! I fall on my back stunned. He’s on all 4’s at my feet looking at me with a shocked expression on his face. There’s this little voice inside my head begging me to let it go, and for a second I almost listen to it, but then I don’t! I grab him by his neck with my legs and I just start punching him with all my strength. I got in a good 5 punches before the guys watching pulled us apart. As the guy holding me pulled me to my feet I remember screaming, “What now bitch!? You want some more!?”, as I struggled to break free, and then instantly being horrified with myself for being such a jackass! I calmed down immediately after that.

In the aftermath, The Marine got himself tossed out because this was apparently the last in a long line of bad behavior from him. Afterwards a bunch of the guys took me out for a few rounds of beer. Before we started to get our drink on the guy who owns the place we train at held up his drink and said, “I aint never seen RGB lose his shit like that and it was fucking awesome! To RGB!!”. There were simultaneous cheers and then we drank. A lot. 

My face hurts and my hands ache. It’s already 11pm and I can’t sleep even though I’ve been up since 5am. This is going to be one of those nights where I don’t sleep much. 

The elevator guy

So last Saturday I got on the elevator and this guy that lives a few floors above me was already inside and greeted me like he always does. He’s lived in the building as long as I have been there, and is pretty cool. Usually we just fill the time with standard small talk ie: How’s it going? How’ve you been? Where are you off to?. 

But on that day we deviated from the standard small talk when he mentioned that I haven’t spent this much time at my apartment in years. So I made some kind of remark about him noticing my absence. We both laughed and when the elevator doors opened we did something we had NEVER done before! We got out and continued our conversation in the lobby! We talked for about 5 minutes and then he asked me what my plans for lunch were. I told him I was going to go uptown wander around for awhile and then grab some eats at whatever caught my eye. He told me he had similar solo plans and we should go together. 

After 8 years we have accumulated enough information about each other from small talk to be a small step above strangers bordering on acquaintances.  Before last Saturday I knew his name was Kevin, he worked on Broadway (not as an actor), he’s in his mid to late 30’s, and he’s fucking gorgeous! There’s no doubt about it, I have a very specific type when it comes to my men; Smart, athletic, preppie, and tall. I know its crazy weird that prep makes me freak and break out in hives when applied to me, but with other guys it’s bordering on some kind of crazy fetish! Let’s not analyze this!

He had a very pleasant day and an extremely pleasant evening. Since Saturday we have actually had quite a few pleasant moments together. Kevin’s not my boyfriend or anything icky like that! I let him know from the very beginning that we are just having fun and he needs to do his best to not get all clingy and weird. I am not even close to being ready for another boyfriend, but I could settle for a friend that I enjoy sex with. Besides at 39 years of age he is exactly 2 weeks older than my father so that‘s totally a deal breaker on it‘s own! Speaking of age differences he probably thinks I am a little older than I actually am. I met him 8 years ago as a freshmen in college so he’s probably assuming I am 25 or 26. Kevin is seriously robbing the cradle and has no idea he‘s old enough to be my dad (and older than my dad!)…

The Train Debacle

In the summer of 2001 Tyler and I were in Europe with his parents when we had the idea to take an impromptu backpacking trip by ourselves. We decided that now since we had graduated from HS it was our God given right to see the world without supervision! So how this made it different from any other day of the last 4 years of our lives, I am not sure, but just go with it! From the moment we left Tyler’s parents we started to go crazy! Everybody we knew was in Europe at that very moment backpacking with a few of their friends and we were going to make it a point to track all of them down and see how crazy we could get things before the police showed up. London, Paris, Madrid, I barely remember anything from our first 2 weeks of travel because I was so very intoxicated and chemically enhanced that I am pretty sure my brain shut off for the majority of that adventure. 

However when we arrived in Lisbon I suddenly decided that I was sick of partying and I wanted to be an actual tourist for awhile! I had been to Portugal before because they have great surfable beaches! I mean I could spend my life driving down the coast finding all these crazy secluded spots with choice waves and perfect weather. Anyway I wanted to see the sites this time and Tyler wasn’t having it, so while he was having threesomes in our hotel room, I saw multi-colored palaces and the most awesome street performers. As we were heading onto our train to Barcelona, Tyler was beyond exhausted! Walking into the train was a pleasant surprise. We knew it was going to be a sleeper train but this was more like a hotel on wheels! We were even given keycards to get in and out of our room which of course had bunkbeds and its own sink, and a mirror (for a train this was royal treatment!).

Tyler passed out the second he got onto his bed and there I was full of energy BORED out of my mind! I decided to do some exploring on this crazy train and see what else it had to offer besides our kick ass room. I found a lounge area with big comfortable couches and great lighting for reading, a bar, and a restaurant! I decided to get something to eat and then maybe go back to my room and grab a book to read in the lounge. After my meal I pulled out my MD player and began walking back to my room. On my way there somebody had their door wide open and I just happened to look in right as she was pulling her MD player out of her backpack and I noticed it was the exact same one I was using! It stopped me dead in my tracks because I thought it was pretty cool that she had one too! So after a moment of debating whether I should say something, I decided that of course I had to go over and talk to her about it.

I stood in the doorway for 5 minutes before she invited me in. We spent the rest of the night talking about EVERYTHING! Her name was Stephanie and she has had a pretty interesting life so it was fun listening to her tell me about it. It was one of those strange moments in time where a stranger becomes your best friend, and you know that after the moment passes you are probably never going to see them again, and that’s probably 2/3 of what makes it so easy to share. That night I learned she was Japanese, born in Hong Kong, then sent to boarding school in America, and she spent most of her summers with her aunt and uncle in NYC (Which I would later realize explained her atrocious grasp on the metric system and her inability to drive on the other side of the road). And I told her all about me, which to me, really wasn’t as interesting of a story.

At some point we realized the sun was starting to come up and we decided to call it a night. Leaving her room I see a guy laying in the hallway with no shirt on. It took me a few seconds to register that it was Tyler, and as I walked towards him I was really confused to see him on the floor, but the more I thought about it the more I knew he was going to be EXTREMELY unhappy when he woke up. I couldn’t have been more right. The second he woke up he was yelling at me! It took me awhile to actually understand what happened, but it turns out that at some point during the night he’d gotten up to use the bathroom. He’d assumed that I was asleep above him and I would let him back in so he didn’t bother turning on the light to look for the room key. When he got back the room was locked and I was no where to be seen. He tried looking for an attendant but it was like 3am and he was S.O.L..

Looking back on this now we both laugh pretty hard about this. But at the time Tyler wanted to rip my throat out and I wasn’t about to apologize for something that I felt was complete and utter stupidity on his part! So we did what any pair of immature teenagers do, we got in a huge fight and decided split from each other. By the time I was finished packing my things I had already calmed down, but I wasn’t about to apologize because I NEVER SAY I’M SORRY! Especially when I didn’t do anything wrong! I told him I was going to take off to do my own thing for the next couple days but then I would meet him back at the hotel he was staying at and we could go from there. That’s when it hit him that he was being an asshole and he began to apologize and try to smooth things over, but I was already making all sorts of plans in my head and was actually looking forward to this time apart. So I gave him a hug and told him I’d see him in a couple of days.

I caught up with Stephanie as she was leaving the train and I asked her if she didn’t mind me tagging along with her for the next few days, she didn’t. We had an amazing time in Barcelona! We discovered that there’s an albino gorilla named Snowflake at the zoo, Gaudi architecture is kind of breath taking, and both of us would be attending NYC’s finest learning institutions that fall.

This whole scene played back in my head, as well as the 8 years of friendship that followed, when Stephanie asked me to be her “man of honor” at her wedding in June. My first thought after processing her request was, “That night on the train, I should have kept walking!”. Unfortunately I didn’t, and that night we became friends, and now I have to fucking hold her train as she walks down the isle or some shit! I mean seriously guys, I am not that kind of gay! But how in the hell could I say no!? This has been one of the most stressful weeks of my life. From what I hear, it’s only going to get worse.

Just a phase...

Sunday morning, pre-dawn taxi
Cigarette hair, whiskey breath
And one thought piercing:
These are not my pants…

I have been horny as fuck and ready to get laid since getting back from LA. It’s at the point where I don’t even trust my eyes anymore because every guy I see seems fuckable to me right about now. Guys that are clearly 4’s or 5’s at best were perfect 10’s just because I wanted to get off and my mind was willing to play all sorts of games with me to make my body happy. But it still didn’t matter because the couple of times I actually ventured out of my apartment with the goal of getting a BJ I couldn’t get myself in the mindset to actually close the deal!

Finally I had had enough self-imposed torture and I decided it was time to unleash the beast onto this quiet little unsuspecting town I affectionately refer to as NYC. I called my buddy Trevor and told him Friday night, I was getting laid and he was going to be my wingman! I am not really dialed into the gay scene but Trevor is, so I knew the second I decided that I wanted to get my penis touched, Trevor was the one who could make it happen. Luckily for me he would make it even easier than I assumed by throwing a massive house party Friday! Nothing like a place with it’s own bed to be conducive to me getting some.

Friday night I was nervous as hell! Walking into Trevor‘s party I was immediately struck with all sorts of doubts and second thoughts! But then my penis noticed where we were and took over all my general cognitive functions. I was hunting. Prey located! 6ft, slender, a mess of tight curly blond hair, and a thick Spanish accent. After 10 minutes he’s pleasantly surprised with my fluency in Spanish, and I have learned he’s from Salamanca and he’s finishing his last semester. Half hour later I am starting to get bored and annoyed! How long do I have to pretend to be interested in this guy before it’s okay to ask him to go upstairs with me? I wait 20 more minutes. He agrees, we hook up: Life is good!

When we finish, the party’s just about over. He takes my phone and adds his number telling me it’s in case I ever want to get together again. I can’t remember his name, but I am sure it’s going to be something Spanish, and I file it away in my brain as a possibility. It’s around 1am and I am still full of energy. Trevor tells me he knows a place where we can chill and get our drink on.

This is going to get really redundant, so I’ll summarize! 3 guys, 2 days, I am a slut. But it’s okay because that’s why god invented condoms. Right?

Is it getting annoying?

Chuck Klosterman in reference to the inability to be in mind-blowing, transcendent romantic relationships.

…And someone needs to take the fall for this. So instead of blaming no one (which is kind of cowardly) or blaming everyone (which is kind of meaningless), I’m going to blame John Cusack.

I keep getting asked what went wrong in my relationship that caused me to end things so abruptly. I was only partly being cryptic because I am a private person and I hate talking about things this personal. But the other part of me was just as confused and still trying to figure out what the hell was going on.
 
In relationships, there is usually a defining moment when your view of that person becomes irrevocably changed. Whether you like that person more, or less, is directly predicated on their behavior in that moment. It doesn’t even have to be something big; I find more often than not it’s something small, like a single sentence can change your whole view on a person. It’s usually nothing as petty as "I hate Kevin Smith movies", although seriously you might want to re-evaluate yourself as a person because Clerks was the bomb yo!
 
It’s more along the lines of saying what he actually said to me that changed my view of him! What he said didn’t really bother me after I took some time to absorb it. But what it did do was remind me of all my original worries and fears when I first became his boyfriend. I had fears about our maturity, our age, and our current stages in life and how none of it ever quite matched up. 

It’s been 2 years since he started college and he’s missed out on so much because of me. Stupid things like having to deal with crappy roommates, dorm food, and having sex with complete strangers and barely remembering any of it because of all the alcohol from the night before. In 2 more years he’s going to look back at his college career and I don’t want to be this huge regret he had because I robbed him of a real college experience. He has the rest of his life to play house but this is the time for him to be solo and live life selfishly. 

That time in his room was our defining moment. It changed us and after that we couldn't go back to being what we were before. 

The Veg in Vegging!

This was a lazy weekend for me and I took full advantage of it! I only left my apartment once for a few hours to see Watchmen and the rest of the weekend was spent with me in my underwear catching up on all my Tivo’d shows! Where do I begin? Ummm… How about with America’s Best Dance Crews!?

I have been obsessed with dance from a very young age, and ABDC is a great way to focus my obsession! I AM FUCKING infatuated with Victor of Quest Crew! The way he moves, his crazy tricks and did I mention the way he moves!? He’s hot! After that hip hop marathon epp. I KNEW Quest was going to win it! They were badass! I think after their piano performance I actually jumped up on my couch and started cheering! Wow I think I just ended every sentence in that paragraph with an exclamation point! That’s how awesome they were and how awesome it was to watch them win it!

I was impressed with Watchmen. I read it back in college and I thought it was epic and I never imagined they would ever turn it into a movie. They stayed relatively true to the script and I thought they did a pretty decent job retelling the story. I also have to say that I was super impressed with the CGI penis. It was very life like and it even moved a little from time to time. Whoever did the work on that needs a special kudos actually giving the penis life and not making it some crazy stiff (no pun intended) lifeless prop.

Dollhouse was a show that I had recorded all the epps so far, but hadn’t actually sat down and watched any of them. The first episode was actually really boring, but I guess I understood why it was necessary to have this as the pilot. But after that the show really picked up and it just got more and more awesome with each show. Eliza Dushku has always been just a little more awesome than Sarah Michelle Gellar in my book, so it goes without saying where I fall in the proverbial Betty or Veronica debate! What can I say? Brunettes are hotter!

Finally Battlestar Galactica! Come on how fucking awesome is this show!? I can’t believe it’s almost over. I feel like there’s no point in living after BSG ends. Every episode I watched had me completely enthralled. It’s literally the very end and I still have a million questions and if they aren’t answered by the last show I am seriously going to hunt down the writers and beat them until this whole thing makes some frakking sense to me!

There’s some drama happening in my life at the moment. I am doing my best to avoid it and pretend like everything is peachy, but that never works! Unfortunately my ability to deny reality never actually extends to reality itself… So soonish I am probably going to be in a relatively crappy mood, but until then, I found this video of Victor from Quest singing a death cab song! He can dance, play multiple instruments, he’s an artist and he can sing! If I were to ever see this guy in real life I would probably start screaming and jumping up and down like a fucking school girl!

Argh!

Bradley called. I feel like an ass. Probably because I am an ass. The reasons in my head for being single seemed so much more logical before speaking with him. I'm the bad guy here! Why can't he see that? It would hurt a lot less if he could...

A book review...

I just want to start this off by clarifying that my friend Jane is a total horse cunt! She replaced my copy of, Dexter in the Dark, with a copy of, eat pray love! Unfortunately I didn’t figure this out until I was on the plane and there was nothing I could do about it. So instead I picked up the book and thought to myself that it could be worse, maybe the plane might have to make an emergency landing in the Hudson! When I opened the book a note fell out. It was from Jane and it said something about how this was a good book for people getting out of relationships and she thought it might do me some good.

I guess I would first like to say that before I ever picked up this book I HATED it! I thought it was some kind of lame knock off of, How Stella got her Groove Back, mixed in with some lame attempt at modern day spirituality. Basically I assumed it was your modern day cougar tale but this time told through the eyes of a middle aged white woman. I am a big enough man to say I was wrong about my assumptions. The book was even worse than I had imagined and it was for completely different reasons than I had previously assumed.

Basically this is a story of a woman who divorces her husband because the son of a bitch wants her to be the mother of his children. So obviously the chauvinistic prick had it coming! Soon she deservedly gets dumped on her ass by her rebound guy and I guess this is where the REAL story begins. As I turned each page it became more and more apparent to me that this woman was the most self centered, egotistical, narcissists to ever walk the planet and her ex-husband fucking won the lottery when this winner decided to fly the coop! To get over the woes of such a traumatic marriage this awful woman decides to go on a 200k year long vacation.

I guess the hardest thing for me to reconcile was that I understood this woman’s pain and I respected her need to feel better about herself. BUT, I found this book seriously lacking in depth because she just didn't seem capable of any kind of empathy at all. I cannot understand how people have found this book inspiring. Every word that I read screamed how weak, fickle and self-righteous this woman was! Yeah she’s a talented writer who definitely has the ability to tell a good story, but like anything else as pretty as this story, all glamour no substance comes to mind. Her so called wonderful insights weren't anything special, and they just seemed vapid, and extremely dull and STUPID!

The only thing I took away from this book is that a year of self-anylization is enough time to make an already self-centered person just painfully annoying enough to warrant justifiable homicide. A year and she didn’t help anybody but herself. A year and all that she has to show for it is a nickname from a Texan and a sex buddy in Bali. It’s disgusting! I’m done.

Tyler turns OLD!

Friday morning I flew home to LA for the weekend. It was Tyler’s birthday and as always, we brought the fun! The weather was nice and warm (enough to spend about 90% of our time in our board shorts!) and just to throw a little variety into the mix Tyler rented a house on the beach in Malibu for the weekend. By noon on Friday I had already consumed a 6 pack and about 8 shots of Patrón, but I was still thinking pretty clear because I’m no lightweight! Friday was chill because it was family time. Mr. and Mrs. Tyler dropped by and took all of us (Me, Tyler, Jane, & Johnny) to a fancy dinner. Later they gave Tyler his present (and as tradition goes mine too!) this year we got these kick ass matching Omega watches!… and Tyler got a bunch of other junk that I didn’t really care about because I’d already gotten my present.

Saturday was the day which will live in infamy forever. It started off as any other birthday bash celebration with Jane making some kick ass omelettes and me making fresh hashbrowns. And you can’t have a birthday breakfast without alcohol! We’re classy, so of course we sipped (chugged?) a few bottles of champagne. After we finished, we hit the beach for a quick session and I let everybody admire my mad skills. By the time we got back to the house it was around 1pm and Tyler decided it was imperative we hit the store and get me some proper clothes for our super birthday bash (BTW what’s the deal with all my friends dressing me!? I am a grown ass man and am FULLY capable of dressing myself thank you very much!).

So we hit the stores and I will spare you guys the pain and anguish I had to suffer arguing over the finer details of my party outfit. After what I was put through last weekend I wasn’t going to let this turn into another crotch debacle! Jane was extremely aggressive and kind of mean though, so for the most part it was a losing battle… In the end I walked away with only a few minor cuts and bruises and only feeling like a 9 (out of 10 of course) on the tool bag scale. I got some black and white Samba Adidas, some ridiculously overpriced dark jeans, an obscenely expensive button up shirt, and a STUPID vest (there was a tie but I “accidentally” forgot it when we were getting ready later that evening). I guess the positive thing about the outfit was that I didn’t look like a hipster with the outline of my cock going down my left leg! The negative was, instead I looked like I wanted to be Justin Timberlake when I grew up.

By the time we got back to the house, it was time to start getting ready for the main event. The first part of the party would be taking place at this crazy high end “gentlemen’s club”, and then the people we actually liked were invited back to the house for the more intimate party (read heavy drinking, drug use and sex). I am just going to cut to the chase because I have danced around this for a few paragraphs already. I had sex with a woman I met at the strip club. And it was fucking HOT!

She served me my first 10 drinks of the night. The second she walked up to me, she caught my eye! I have a weakness for a very specific type of girl, and she was like a brick of kryptonite melting my gay away every time she smiled at me. When it was time to go I invited her to the REAL party back in Malibu. When she said she’d think about it, I KNEW she would be there! On the ride home EVERYBODY was making fun of me about the way I was all over the poor cocktail waitress and they totally flipped once I told them I’d invited her to the party. They asked me what I was doing, and I told them I was just having fun like them.

Two hours later she showed up at the front door with a couple of her friends. I learned she’s a Bio major at a local university and she has two really hot friends. An hour later we were making out on a lounge chair in the patio. She stopped me and put on her “I swear I never do this” act and did her best to pretend she was innocent, so I did my best to pretend I believed her. I asked her if she wanted to take this to the bedroom, she did. The first room was locked, so were the second and the third! On our fourth try we walked in on Tyler and two bro-hoes (complete with bleached blond hair, fake tits, and a butterfly tramp stamp) butt naked on the floor! I quickly extricated myself before I was asked to join in on the fun and we continued our search for an empty bedroom. Fifth time’s the charm. Then the heavens opened up and the angels sang, it took me about 1 minute to be 100% sure that this girl was the furthest thing from innocent. A couple hours after we got started her friends texted her letting her know they wanted to get going soon. It was just after 2 am so she decided we should finish up and she was going to head home. I was a little sad because I could have gone another 2 hours easy.

Don’t worry, I’M STILL GAY! But god damn I would be lying if I didn’t say that was in my top 3 one night stand list. As I went back to the party Jane found me (she tackled me if we’re being precise) and demanded to know where I had been and what I was doing. Sometimes she can be a nosy bitch! So I looked up at her and I said, ”Smell my finger.”. She gave me the dirtiest look EVER, then she punched me and we both spent the rest of the night laughing.

Last year I said something about I felt like the younger brother trying to hang out with all his older cooler siblings. I don't feel like that anymore. I now realize that after a certain age we stop maturing, and everything I saw in my friends is also in me. I just needed to become more confident in myself and my life choices, which I definitely am. I like how I can look back on all these entries and see exactly where I was a year ago and KNOW that I am different. It's a good feeling.

I am back in NYC since yesterday night. It started snowing on my ride back into the city. It snowed again this morning, and I think it might be snowing right now. I can't believe that yesterday I was running around outside in my underwear! It's currently 1 degree outside at this very moment. Somebody kill me now!