Author: Paul

Happy Birthday, Dr. Seuss

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Today is Dr. Seuss’ birthday. He’d be 100 years old today if he were still alive. He wrote many wonderful children’s books that taught lessons and included morals. His simple rhyming books were a part of our youth and many of us still enjoy them today. There used to be talk of his being on drugs while writing the stories. If he was, so what. Great stories came from it. I’ll admit the ideas he has in terms of characters are really out there but they are entertaining to children. I ran across many quotes from Dr. Seuss that were very insightful. The one I love the best is:

Be who you are and say what you feel, because those who mind don’t matter and those who matter don’t mind. -Dr. Seuss

If you haven’t read a Dr. Seuss book lately, take some time today to read one. They make you think…even as adults. And today is Read Across America Day so what better way to celebrate both happenings by reading a Dr. Seuss book.

Gay Marriage and Me

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Interesting occurrence at work today that got me thinking. We had a baby shower for a fellow young colleague. I was standing around chatting with some older colleagues saying how I don’t care for these gatherings because of the time it takes away from all the other things I need to get done. One of the older colleagues said to me, “Someday you’ll get married and have kids. You’ll enjoy one of these celebrations too.” I assured her I would not be getting married or having kids anytime in the future. Now this brought up two issues in my mind.

First of all, I’m a single male approaching the age of 40. All of my colleagues know I don’t date. Surely this woman must have it figured out that I’m gay. Granted, I’m not a queen or swishy in any way but I am 40 and single and have never discussed my personal dating life in the work place. One of the other older colleagues who was standing there chatting with us must have it figured out because she didn’t say anything about my getting married. She also happens to know that I was very good friends with an out lesbian who used to work there years ago and has since retired. She must have figured I was gay by association. Since I used to spend so much time with the lesbian and I’m almost 40 and single, I must be gay and I wouldn’t get married. Are there still older clueless people out there who have no idea about who might be gay and who might not be gay? This woman who said I’d get married is close to retirement and does exhibit cluelessness from time to time, but I’ve worked with her for 17 years. I just assumed she had me figured out. I am not out at work because I don’t think my private life has anything to do with my work life. I make a point not to discuss what’s going on in my private life at work. It’s simply none of their business. I know some of you are saying to yourselves that I should come out at work, etc. but it’s not for me. I’ve come out to my family and friends. I way past the coming out stage.

The second issue that came to mind when that woman said I’d get married was the fact that right now I can’t get married (well except for San Francisco and a few other isolated places). If I was out at work, and if I was with someone for a significant amount of time and wanted to get married, I legally wouldn’t be able to marry. And would I want the people I work with to be at the wedding? Well, maybe a few of them. But right now, no one at work knows I’m gay. They may suspect that I might be gay but I haven’t come out to anyone. They can suspect all they want. But it’s really none of their business in the first place. What I do in my private life has nothing to do with my work life. Brad, my current boyfriend, lets me rant while we watch the news together. I get so mad when I see segments on the news about the gay marriage issue. I do get upset about the issue. I support gay marriage simply for the legal ramifications. Gay men and lesbians should have the same rights as breeders, period. I don’t think you should bring religion into the issue at all. Religion is a very personal thing. You can’t imprint your religious beliefs on anyone nor should you. That’s what Bush is doing here. He’s using religion to possibly change the constitution. There has always been a separation of church and state and religion should be the last thing used to write discrimination into the constitution. I think eventually this issue will be settled in the courts. With the amount of marriages that have already taken place, the courts would be back logged trying to settle cases about nullifying those marriage licenses. The only problem is that the supreme court may continue to throw the cases back to the states. It would be odd if each state came up with it’s own version of a bill for gay marriage or civil union. I think eventually there will have to be a national law for gay marriage. States would have to recognize them in that case, wouldn’t they? I don’t know all the details of it but I would think that it would eventually be settled in the courts and some day gays and lesbians would be able to have the same rights as breeders. I may not see it in my lifetime but I do think it will happen.

And who knows. If it does happen in my life time, and I’m with Brad for a long time and he’ll have me, I might marry him (Brad cringes as he reads this).

The Oscars

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So I stayed up until the very end of the Oscars last night. I paid for it all day today. I’ve been so tired. I’ll be going to bed early tonight! The show actually started at 8:00 but the awards part didn’t begin until 8:30. Billy Crystal did a great job as the host. I always enjoy seeing what he’ll do at the beginning. I love seeing his montage of the movies nominated with his image inserted in just the right spots. This was his 8th time hosting. I wonder if he’ll brake Bob Hopes record of 18 times. The only thing I didn’t care for seeing was Billy Crystal’s naked body (mostly) during several of the clips. I went to the Oscars web site and download the ballot to keep track of my predictions. Of the 24 Oscars handed out last night, I actually predicted 15 of them correctly. Here is a list of the Oscars I predicted correctly:

Best Picture
Best Director
Best Actor
Best Supporting Actress
Animated Feature
Cinematography
Costume Design
Documentary Short
Film Editing
Makeup
Short Film-Animated
Sound Editing
Sound Mixing
Screenplay-Original

The interesting thing here is that I only saw 2 of the nominated movies. So my picks were completly by random. I mean, I knew Lord of the Rings would get all the technical awards but I didn’t think they would sweep every category they were nominated in. That was quite a feat. I didn’t even see the movie. I’m not a big fan but it seems that many gay men are. Go figure. It must be all those hobit men.

The best acceptance speech was by Charlize Theron. I had seen her a few years ago in a movie called Sweet November with Keanu Reeves and I thought she was great then. I think her speech was the most moving. Other speeches were just okay. And if I remember correctly, there were only two little political statements. I think Sean Penn said some little something about WMDs. Good for him. I considered what Robin Williams said when he grabbed Billy Crystal and said something about being the wedding cake models for San Francisco to be a political statement. Maybe no one else did. I was thinking Tim Robbins might say something because he’s so political. But nothing of a political nature. I do want to see Mystic River sometime. It sounds like a good movie. Every year I say I’m going to see more movies and end up seeing so few. There were many that I wanted to see but never made the time to see them. The last movie I saw was Girl With A Pearl Earring. That was a great movie. It should have been up for more Oscars then it was. I’d recommend you see it.

While watching the morning news shows, they all had segments about the Oscar fashions. They always tear up some and glorify others. I thought the fashions were beautiful for the most part. You can expect Diane Keaton to dress the way she did. That’s her style. The younger women looked fabulous. To me, the dresses seemed like a throw back to the really glamorous days of Hollywood with big bows, long gowns, muted colors. I don’t get into the fashion side of the Oscars at all but I couldn’t create a post without at least mentioning what I thought even though I didn’t give it much thought. It’s been more of an after thought actually.

Now that the Lord of the Rings Trilogy is complete, what movies will dominate the Oscars next year? Any predictions? Maybe The Passion of the Christ? We’ll see. But one thing is for sure, whether or not I actually see more movies, I’ll definitely tune in to see the 77th Oscars.

On a completely unrelated note, March came in like a lamb here in Northern Virigina. The weather was beautiful! It got into the low 70’s. The sun was out and there was a slight breeze. It would have been a great day to go on a hike. I can’t wait for Spring!

Dog Sitting

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I’m such a good friend. My friend Michael was working at a Home and Garden show today so he asked me to watch his boyfriend’s dog so that he (the boyfriend) could go with him to the show. I said sure. So they dropped Flannon off at about 9:30 this morning and he’s been visiting with me ever since. As you can see from the pictures, he’s a very cute dog. He’s very well behaved and doesn’t shed much hair at all. For the first 20 minutes or so, Flannon sat at my front door waiting for his daddy to come and get him. He cried a little bit but nothing major. He got over it and came into my computer room and sat with me while I did work on the computer. I have floor to ceiling windows so I opened the blinds and he sat at the window looking out seven floors up. He has spent most of the day in that spot. It will be getting dark soon so he won’t be able to see much. I wonder if he’ll keep looking out in the dark. We’ll see. I’ve taken him out 3 times today for walks and bathroom breaks. He only ate a little bit this morning but twice he’s had little doggie poops. I was a very good dog walker and took my little plastic bags and picked up the poop when he was finished. I can’t say others who were there before me did the same. In our dog walk area there is poop all over the place. You have to be careful where you step! This afternoon I laid down on the couch to watch TV and to take a nap. Flannon jumped up on the couch and laid on my chest and licked my face before taking a little nap right on my chest. It was so cute. I wish I had someone here to take a picture of it. He stayed on my chest and I fell asleep for a good 20 minutes before the phone rang and woke us both up. It was very sweet. I’ll have him until about 9:00 tonight. I figured this was a good test to see if I could handle having a dog in a highrise. At this point in the adventure, I’m not sure I’d have a dog in a highrise. It’s kind of a pain to get him downstairs and out the door to do his business. And I’d hate to have to do it when it’s snowing or raining. That would really suck. So I’ve decided I won’t be getting a dog until I live in a house with a yard. I know I won’t get a cat either. I can’t stand the cat hair. I know lots of people who have cats and love them. I love them too. . . as long as they don’t live in my house. So Flannon has shown me that I’m not a “dog in a highrise” kinda guy.

On another note, the Oscars are on tonight! Yeah, I’m glad I took a nap so that I can stay up to the end of the show. I also downloaded my ballet so that I could guess the winners. I’ll keep track during the show to see how many predictions I get correct. I usually do pretty well. Each year though, I see less and less of the nominated movies. This year I’ve only seen two of the movies. I’ve got to get out more and see movies! I’ll let you know tomorrow how my predictions went.

Happy Leap Day!

Dinner With Sam and Mark

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I spent most of the day cleaning my house, running the dishwasher, doing laundry and generally picking up. I keep my place very neat and tidy but when I know someone’s coming over, I do an extra good job of getting the dust off the furniture. I have dark furniture and the dust always shows. I can dust my house at 10:00 in the morning and by 2:00 I can see dust again. Must be the dark furniture. Before cleaning the house I went ot Giant to get all the items I needed to create my usual pasta dinner. I got everything done and had time to take a little nap before the guests showed up.


Brad and I had Sam and Mark over for dinner. They decided to get their passports validated and come out to the suburbs. I cooked my usual pasta dinner with bread and salad. I had way too much salad. I made Brad take it home because he knows I won’t eat it since I don’t eat fruits or veggies. We had a nice dinner and some great conversation. Sam and Mark told us about their trip to Puerto Rico. They brought a CD full of pictures they had taken. I, of course, got out my 17″ PowerBook and quickly created a slide show for us to watch. In a matter of minutes, iPhoto was showing us the dazzling pictures of their trip. I was trying to convince Mark how great Apple is. After the slide show, I opened Safari and brought up my web page to show Mark the wireless ability of my laptop. I’m not sure it amazed him but I loved it. While watching the slideshow, I realized Puerto Rico is beautiful. I’ll have to make a mental note to go there sometime. After watching the slide show, we had Mark’s delicious pineapple upside down cake for dessert. We talked about movies. We shared what our favorites are and which oscar nominees we’ve seen. Then Brad shared an article from The Economist about the gay marriage debate. Sam and Mark told us they would be flying out to San Francisco next week to get married. I told them they’d have to take lots of pictures and tell us all about it when they get back. After more conversation, Sam and Mark decided it was time to go. Brad took them back to the Metro. We had a very nice visit. Sam and Mark are great guys and they are good friends to Brad. He’s a lucky guy to have them as friends.

Then Brad came back and stayed over with me. He was so tired. Poor thing has had a tough week at work and hasn’t been sleeping well. He probably should have gone home and tried to get a good night sleep at his place but he stayed and I enjoyed having him next to me while I slept.