Breakfast

Breakfast

I enjoy breakfast the most because it’s the meal of the day when I don’t feel like I’m eating as a chore.  More than that, it also has the best things to eat like ham and fried eggs and oatmeal and no one looks at you weird for eating fruit at breakfast like they do with pizza.

So lately I’ve had the weirdest run of interactions.  I slept with a dude a few times, told him I wasn’t into a long-distance monogamous relationship predicated on three hookups and a party, and his reaction to this was to go out buck wild and message me specifically to raise the subject of how much fun he was having fucking other people.  This person, who shall remain anonymous, reached out to me again regarding a minor STI he picked up along the way.

Following that rather tumultuous experience I decided on a focus on common interests.  Went well for a couple weeks, then he got invited to his ex’s grandmother’s funeral.  On the one hand I could be angry about “I am sufficiently close with my ex’s family that being a pall-bearer is a possibility” not having been said to me from the outset but I opted to be an adult and assume that I was dealing with an equally emotionally aware adult who could tell the difference between grief and romantic emotional connection.  Got dumped, reconnected with him friend-style last week, turns out gran didn’t take the old relationship problems to the grave with her.

Went on a couple dates lately, dude didn’t know what gentrification was when I mentioned the word on our first date.  “Okay” I thought “he’s from a rural community and has otherwise moved in white-collar gay circles so maybe he’s just not aware like that.”  I had a harder time justifying to myself how I was explaining to a 31 year old man what is bubble tea, and given that the shared interest was supposed to by lifting I was similarly scratching my head trying to figure out why things like volume vs. weight were alien to him.  I feel like in three encounters I should be on the other end of the learning at least once.  I’d also appreciate it if he made himself accessible in a predictable or at least transparent way.  He told me he wants another date, I don’t think he does and I don’t understand why those things are not consistent with one another.  I sense a pretty gay boy juggling dates with two or three dudes trying to decide which is the best investment of time.

I haven’t done as good a job as I ought to have done regarding holding others to standards.  On the one hand I’m cautious because I’m tired of being treated like a side dude or a plan B or an occasional sex partner.  On the other I’m adequately deliberative that I tend towards patience where I suspect it’s probably not deserved.  Certainly if we take my last three examples we can say that expecting adult behavior, being accommodating of strange circumstance, and giving the benefit of the doubt are not serving me well.

This is of course to say nothing of the yoga instructor who felt that not until after several sex encounters and two weeks of sexting was it appropriate to mention he already had a boyfriend.  This is of course horseshit.  If I have the time and courage to do an HIV disclosure the other dude can tell me honestly whether or not he’s single.

Then of course there was the man looking at the world through a wallet, who felt that telling me that he was an angry customer on the phone was a good way to open a date with a CSR.  Closing the date with an unsolicited ass-grab was also not the best choice, I laughed it off at the time but I was angry about it later on.  The laughing was the mistake I think.

I suppose the take-away here is that I’m tired.  I’m exhausted with first dates.  I’m worn out with introducing myself over and over and I’m completely burnt out on both analyzing behavior and guessing at intent.  I’m certainly over being the understanding and accommodating one in these affairs, and certainly I’m at the end of my patience with being the chaser.

I honestly have no clue about what I’m doing wrong.  I show up on time, I keep my commitments, I’m neither financially distressed or emotionally demanding I’m engaged in a diverse and active social life.  I’m skilled both at getting people out of the house to go be active and at showing up to offer some emotional nurture and fucking artisanal bread and I’m evidently pretty attractive.  I’m meeting and exceeding standards, and I don’t get why I’m still falling short in this dating game.

Meeting a guy tomorrow for a chest day, he’s actually pretty promising; immediately identified me as PC master race, was down with the star wars RPG books lying all over my house and he actually squats.  Also does social work for his studying, so he’s pretty exciting.  Or at least he should be.  I’m wiped out with all this to the point where I can only manage a wan smile and polite tilt of my head in response to the idea.  I should be excited about such a dude but I’m just exhausted with the idea of my 8th first date in 5 months.

Buuuut here’s to saturday lifting date #4, if the dude doesn’t work out then at least I’ll have a spot for bench presses ;)

Regarding Jeff Sessions

My letter to Senator Rob Portman- R. OH

Senator,

I’m deeply concerned about the conduct in your chamber.  I don’t care for Judge Sessions, but I expect that he will be confirmed.  That being said, the tactic employed by your colleagues to silence Senator Warren is unacceptable.

This process is intended to verify the character as well as the judiciary experience and credentials of a man who will spend the term defending the law of this land.

If we are to consider giving this man the power of membership in the highest department of legal defense authority in the land, whether a letter is condemning or praising cannot be considered as grounds to dismiss it.

It’s at once immaterial and highly pertinent that this letter was written thirty years ago.

On the one hand, you are, again, considering an appointment of great power.  If this man is to wield this power for possibly this entire presidency, then how he has wielded his power in the earlier part of his life must be considered.  It doesn’t matter if he persecuted the black community 5 years or 30 years or 50 years ago, it doesn’t matter if he was saying racially charged remarks in jest or in a court of law.  He’s being considered for a mighty appointment and the conduct of his entire lifetime should be open to scrutiny.

On the other hand, it is incredibly important that Mrs. King wrote this 30 years ago.  You and your colleagues by silencing Senator Warren have at once opened a discussion about the rights of women in the Senate compared with their male colleagues, but at the same time she has thrown into stark relief what it really is we are thinking about here.

Thirty years ago Mrs. King wrote these words and they evidently fell on deaf ears.  You and your colleagues are determining in these deliberations what progress has been made in that time.  

If you choose once again to turn a blind eye to these complaints, to indeed even forbid the suggestion that he behaved improperly, then you are not only failing to properly vet this man in the interests of the American people but you are also declaring that we have made no progress in these thirty years- that white people as a whole are still as rotten as ever, that if a white man obstructs the right of black people to vote it will go uninvestigated.

In the 80s he could still be nominated to a federal circuit with no serious questions asked about these matters.  Is that still true today?

I’m not telling you that you must reject this man, but I am telling you that you have no choice but to examine these allegations with the seriousness they call for.  It is absolutely unacceptable to once again sweep these charges under the rug.  This conversation needs to be had, and it is your duty to have it.  Indeed, even if you think that these matters were sufficiently addressed in 1986, it is time to re-examine them and see if he would pass muster under modern standards, to see if we really have become a better people.

Adam Locke

I’m glad you won’t be voting for Betsy Devos

My email to Rob Portman --------------------

Senator,

No wild-eyed rant today, so I apologize if you or the staffer reading this were looking for one of my philippics.  Well, okay it is a phillippic but I’m feeling in a more relaxed mood at the moment.

Let’s talk about Betsy Devos, for whom you will not be voting as secretary of education.

I really appreciate that you will not be voting for this woman because everything she says makes her a worse and worse candidate for this job.  Never mind of course that your colleagues grilled her to the point where she stammered out some nonsense about bear rifles, that’s window dressing.

I’m concerned more about how much money one of her organizations owes the State of Ohio.  I’m concerned about it because if I take her words at face value I come to two conclusions, neither of which is pretty.

In the one case, she chaired an organization that ripped off the tax payers by delivering poor education by the standards we put to them and therefor she would be a bad pick for Secretary because she’s incompetent.  If she cannot meet standards in Ohio, she is not fit to set standards for Ohio, or for the rest of the US for that matter.

If we then take her at her word, that she was on the board of that organization but that she had no day to day responsibilities there, and is therefore not liable to the taxpayers of Ohio, then instead of a bungling incompetent I begin to see a negligent, apathetic parasitic socialite getting herself jobs where she does no work in order to impress friends at the country club.

Given her inability to keep up with policy discussions about how the department of education works, what it does, and her complete unfamiliarity with it as even a private citizen either of these dispositions- as an incompetent or as a negligent- are unacceptable.

That’s why I’m so glad that you’ll not be voting in favor of this woman.  She’s not qualified, she’s not experienced in any meaningful way by her own words- a job where you do nothing does not belong on a resume- and she’s the wrong choice for this position, clearly chosen because of her views regarding voucher programs and other ideological approaches to education and devoid of any practical skills in administering it.

I hope you’ve found my arguments compelling regarding this rank amatuer for whom you will not be voting.  Send her back to wherever she came from and have the President select someone who knows what they’re doing as an administrator, not as an ideologue.

Adam Locke

In Which I Upbraid the New Years Naysayers

The simple turning of the year does not create some kind of clean slate that makes change or growth possible where it was not the day before.  There are some people who are interested in breaking out of patterns of stagnation and who take this to mean that they should begin immediately regardless of the hour and there are those who take this to mean that the magic of the new year is simply not for them and accept a continuation of the status quo.

Increasingly, I find myself disliking this second kind of person.  I understand full well that the new year creates a certain kind of unfair expectation, like a sort of annual high school reunion, especially now as we all see what one another are doing in the social media.  It’s the defeatist attitude that gets me, the notion that “new year same me” is simply the way that things are and if the magical new year cannot motivate one to grow then nothing can.

Truly, I have very seldom come upon a person who started with a new year’s resolution and followed it through entirely.  This doesn’t really surprise me because the kinds of fundamental things people try to change in their lives all at once demand some extremes in discipline that I have always found I had to sort of ease into, gradually.  If you cannot quit smoking cold-turkey, what leads you to conclude that getting suckered into the planet fitness bargain is going to stick?

I will touch on fitness goals (though not exclusively) in this discussion because it’s such a common pick that I have some experience with, but more because I feel that the Planet exploits this misled idea of the clean slate in order to profit from working people.  The average PF facility is designed to allow about 50 people to do cardio at once and has benches, ropes, dumbbells and so on to accommodate perhaps a further 30 or 40 to be training with the weights.  The average membership of a PF facility is expected to be between 800 and 1000 individuals.  If every one of you committed to lifting every day you’d be stumbling over each other and waiting 20 minutes for the lat pulldown.  Every gym has crowding problems at some time of day, but the PF solution is to set the membership fee so low that slacking off doesn’t feel like a wasted investment.  They hope you will forget about being slowly bled the same way you might forget about that recurring Spotify subscription you forgot to cancel.

Am I saying you ought to go invest 300 bucks a month at a crossfit gym to be successful in your resolution?  No, but if you make the investment in a proper gym you are going to be motivated to get your money’s worth even if all the right reasons to go to the gym fail you on some occasion.  If you want to succeed dear new years resolution devotee - and I want you to, I am rooting for you- take your time in choosing a facility that will provide you with all the things you need to get where you want to go.  Or, maybe you have no idea where to go but you know you want to start walking, in which case you should look for one that offers a knowledgeable staff that can introduce you to several disciplines or sports that catch your eye.  Another thing the Planet profits off is the idea that other gyms are not inviting or interested in your success, and this is filthy lie.

I reckon the new year where goals are concerned to start on the 1st of November, shortly after my birthday and after I have completed my offerings to the Halloween spirits. As the shadows grow and my birthday approaches in late October, my Hour approaches when I will look upon the goals I have set since last year and decide where next to go.  After a fashion, this is my new years resolution time.

These aren’t all necessarily fitness goals- I set out to become a homeowner in 2016 at roughly the same time I decided to miss no weeks at the gym, last year I made a decision to plan a salsa garden for the spring and pay off my car.  This past October I resolved to compete at bodybuilding next year, rearrange my finances to tighten up my spending, and go back to school to pick up some new job skills.

Which leads me to today, roughly two months after making those decisions.  Firstly, I have concluded that practicing the compulsory poses is the most boring work I have ever done in the gym, but I appreciate the precision of it.  Secondly, I have just made my first payment on my schooling for the spring term because the thirdly part of realigning my financial posture succeeded when my paycheck came through this morning and I paid down my credit balance, bringing an end to some 2 months of carefully moving money around and executing some deliberately planned transactions and payments instead of just mindlessly dumping money into the bank.  Reclaiming some 150 dollars a month.

Now the cash that I have reclaimed in this way is not disposable, it just is what is necessary to allow me to continue meeting with trainers and also pay for school at the same time.  The cash is not the end goal, it’s a tool to let me do the things I want, and it didn’t just miraculously happen on the first of January any more than did my school enrollment or my abs.  It was the result of meticulous planning and careful execution of that plan, with the guidance and input of many people in my support networks.  Proper investment of time, careful planning, and right guidance is needed to achieve the difficult things, so don’t be ashamed if you don’t see the fruits of your resolution until March.

Which brings me back to the “new year same me” crowd.  I could not accomplish all these things if I didn’t have a personal cheer squad in my friends and colleagues or without the guidance of my trainers and bosses.  Therefor, if you are looking to pursue some kind of transformation or change in your life (I refuse to use the very-quickly cliched concept of the fitness journey) there are two ways that these folks are hurting you that you need to take action about.

If you are one of these people but you long to change something, if you’ve decided that resolutions are too mainstream, that you’re too cool for the whole thing, or if you’re honest with yourself enough to say that these attitudes are just excuses for your fear of failure, then stop it.  Instead of focusing on how very far the distance is between where you are at 95 pounds squat or a shitty karaoke solo, think instead of what plan is going to get you to all the way to 225 in a few years, what singing opportunities you have to practice with.  You can do that thing you want, and you are not too old or whatever those other people say that has been holding you back.

You’re not just getting yourself down and robbing yourself of precious time to do something you are passionate about, you are affecting the people around you with that attitude of resigned passivity.  Your friends and colleagues who do want to make a change of some kind, even if you do not, aren’t looking down their nose at you, and you’d do well to stop looking down yours because it does have an impact when you try to impose on other people your excuses for why you aren’t trying that thing.  Don’t rob someone else of their chance to succeed at a personal commitment of some kind by infecting them with your tired, predictable and frankly quite gauche disdain for effort.

Merry X-Mas!