Buffet of Things I've Been Thinking About

Hope everyone had a fine Christmas.  Mine was quiet and enjoyable with several get togethers in the bosom of my strange but loveable family.

Friends.  I'm a strange one.  Anyone who has read my blog already understands this, but for the benefit of the "dumb as a fence post" types like me, there you go.  One of my assorted strangenesses is the level of my neediness when it comes to friends.  When I get attached to someone, I get attached.  On the plus side, that makes me very loyal.  On the minus side, it can make me annoying.  Think leech like.  Do you love me?  Do you care about me?  

I think one of the hardest realities I had to accept is that even the very closest of friends will almost never rise to the level of family.  All of our evolution, tradition and biology links us to our families.  For good reason - the cohesive, strong, integrated family unit is what allowed us to survive and prosper.

My trouble is I want my friends to love me like family.  Caring for me like a friend never seems to be enough.  I developed an understanding of how unreasonable that was as I grew older.  My sister and I suffered the same fate, but I don't think she figured it out before she passed.  She was single and each time she made a move for her career, she would get really close to a new family.  Super close.  She would watch their kids, eat with them, and so on.  Inevitably though they would have some family event to which she was not invited.  And I think that hurt her.  Deeply. Every time.

I owe her because seeing it in her made me see it in myself.  So, while I still feel that desire, I have tried to make myself recognize and moderate it.  And thus I'm a better friend.  Somewhat better anyway, though more than one friend might sigh at that assertion.

Does this intersect in any way with me being gay?  Your guess is as good as mine.  I do know that it's one of the aspects of my high level of sensitivity and emotion.  So perhaps.

Something Less Than I Thought I Would Be.  One of the hardest things to accept in my life is that I'm not exceptional.  My siblings are extremely intelligent.  My sister was genius level, as was my oldest brother.  I'm fairly sure my other brother is too.  And I'm intelligent, don't get me wrong.  But I always thought I would be exceptional and now I know I'm just able, perhaps significantly above average, but nothing remarkable.  I know that sounds arrogant, but I've never acted in an arrogant way about it.

I'm even mediocre at being gay.  I'm not particularly social.  I have "dockers" taste in clothes.  My home is a hodge podge of decorating, if you can really call it that - Lego plays a prominent role.  I can't act.  I can't sing.  I am clueless when it comes to poetry.  I wouldn't have the first idea of how to be a queen.  The best I can do is say I drive a Volkswagen, like show tunes and musicals and am very emotional.

It's startling, and sobering, to have learned that I'm really nothing extra special.

No Longer the Most Important Person in the World.  I blame the above on the Church.  I was told as a youth that I was part of a "special" generation.  A "Saturday's Warrior".  That the Church had never known a generation like mine.  The whole world revolved around us.  I loved being the center of the Church's attention - provided of course my sexuality didn't get any of it.  We were going to do things, and go places and usher in the Second Coming.

But now I realize I was like the child whose mother took him aside and said that he was the favorite but don't tell his siblings because it's their secret, only to later learn that she took each of his siblings aside and said the same thing.  

Apparently now there's a new "rising generation" that has replaced my generation, which one can assume then is no longer rising.

 

This Whole Utah Gay Marriage Thing.  Plenty has been said.  Hooray for my friends in Utah and all that.  But where does the Church go from here?  I haven't been following it all super close, but the Church's response that I did see was VERY tepid in it's displeasure with the ruling - milquetoast even.  Here's what I'm thinking:  Burned by the backlash to Proposition 8, and with the Boyd Packer uptight crowd losing influence over time, the younger guns are going to pitch continued moderation.  And then the revelation will come in the  not as distant future as many thinkg and all my most excellent celibate faithful LDS MoHo friends will reach the promised land.  Or am I deluding myself?

Tales of Vicks Vapor Rub.  If you believe that masturbation is as sinful as partaking of the Sacrament with the wrong hand, stop here. If you are are girl, you probably won't get this.  It's funny story time.  At least funny now that it's 32 years later.

So, I'm 13 and a curious little dude.  I heard talk of this masturbation thing and found it tantalizing.  Forbidden it seemed, and we all know forbidden fun is the best kind right?  As I've mentioned before, my first exposures to porn were the scandalous entries on sexuality in the WorldBook Encyclopedia (1976 set to be precise).  

Eureka, so that's what it is!  Well, now, let's give it a spin and see what comes up, so to speak.  But something slippery is needful.  Yes some kind of lubricant or lotion or ...  I've got it.  Vick's Vapor Rub is slippery, and we have that around the house.  I'll just slide myself over to the medicine cabinet and lift the jar when no one is looking.  

As Gollum would say "it burns it my precious."  Agony at that moment and that stuff does not wash off - you just have to wait it out.  The years of guilt and self-condemnation follow actually figuring out how to do it properly. 

I'm laughing as I type this.  Tears in my eyes.  But then Vicks Vapor Rub does make one tear up no?

 And with that, until next time.  To all a good night.