Sharing some leaked government documents

This is the inter-military survey given to over 400,000 service member to assess the potential impact of repealing the don't ask don't tell policy. I don't have a history of being political here, however I need to mention that the DADT repeal was one of the Obama campaign platforms, and the repeal may be as far as 5 years off. Let's hope his administration lasts long enough for the platform to reach its promise.

It's a long survey, but you'll get through it quickly. Notice the skew/agenda imbedded in the language of the survey. So, I guess we'll wait and see. If you know service members who may have received this survey, please ask them to evaluate the language used or disregard the survey.

Sharing some thoughts about Night Work

The new Scissor Sisters album has landed. I'm, to say the least enamored. I guess I really liked them already, but these tracks are blowing my mind. "We're running out of drugs and patience." That's all I need to hear, and I'm hooked. Me too. Anyway, listen, I'll be happy to burn a few tracks for you. I was getting locked into an MGMT spiral leading nowhere, since the new Tegan & Sara let me down.

The video for Fire with Fire is a revelation, and the mixes for Invisible light make me want to dance again for the first time since 2007. That's how much this album has changed my life. Listen and live the change with me.

Sharing a book.

I started and never finished a book between 2004 and 2006. I'm going to start a new ambitious project, and excerpts will be posted here. Please comment.

Sharing more crazy sex ideas.

Also: sharing ideas about a contract with a sketchy craigslist guy who wants a live-in sub.

But that was too many words to fit into a post title.

I've been corresponding with a man I've been talking to since encountering his 6/15 post:

Dominant Looking For Live-in Sub - 49 (Walla Walla)

Experienced Dom looking for a live-in sub to serve, please, and worship Me. Experience not important, I will train. Age, race, doesn't matter.

So I responded. I was thinking initially, Hey! I could be a live-in servant. But, wouldn't you think this person would let me live here for free? So in his response, he says:

"...you must be willing to live in W.W. and be able

to share rent and living expenses"

Anyway, I responded with my desire to cut my rent in half (along with my cat allergy, my requirement for clean environs, etc., etc., etc.,) and a myriad of requirements. I might have closed that chapter, but I think I've acted as the perfect future potential sub. I'm not giving in until I make up a contract and it is signed. You'll know.

Sharing a debate: Hookers or Craigslist?

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Sharing an e-mail I just sent to the smut-producers who cut me off from smut.

To the editor:

I am a gourmet, a fashionista, I understand culture and appreciate a great drink, I am a trendsetter, I live among art and beauty, I am, to be so bold, the culmination of your target audience: a gay twenty-something who achieves (or aspires to achieve) wealth, beauty, great sex and perfect fashion. I was, to say the least, disappointed to receive this publication in lieu of my usual subscription to Unzipped. I understand the fate of other publications (i.e. Inches, Honcho, Seattle P.I.), and know that the age of print media must change or perish. My concern is twofold. First I believe that OUT, a stellar publication (as evidence, the interview with John Waters), does not have any content which I would classify as smut. Secondly, something about being gay is the appreciation of smut (i.e. the now online-only Unzipped). The Internet has made it easy to enjoy smut for a low cost, or for free. This is also the reason I've lost a treasured magazine. I only lament because I've lost an important part of myself: something I can put on my coffee table for shock value or something I can put away when my family visits. I am riding the wave of the future, but I want to have my creature comforts, too. Thanks for all the memories, Unzipped, I'll find you online or wherever you pop up (like under my bed).

Michael Espinoza

Walla Walla, WA

(As a postscript, please send this response to John Waters if you don't print it. We may have the same taste levels, although with different contexts.)

Sharing a story or two about being gay-bashed

Maybe it's the leg warmers. I was wearing them both times.

But fuck that! It's a tired and ugly cliché, "What were you wearing?" they asked the rape victim. The onus of the victim is immediately shifted toward the victim, and the crime falls to the wayside. I won't have it. I wear what I choose.

The first time was, in the most optimistic spin, a compliment. I was at Alder and Park around 11:30 pm walking. The drive by has plenty of time to evaluate my look and, passing by, yells, "Princess, you're looking good!" (Relevant caveot, I had survived Walla Walla hate-bash free until I was called faggot at the same intersection in 2005. I wished I'd had a bat at that moment, I still see that truck driving around.) This was uninvited, but banal. I gave it little thought.

This time, I was threatened.

If you did no know, I go to Golden Horse for karaoke, 1-3 times a week. I've gotten to know a few of the people there. Relevant to this story is Keith, a fuck-up living with (mooching off) his dad gay dude who'd taken a fancy to me. He took his dad there often. Anyway, Keith introduces me to his brother Mark, who shakes my hand genially. Flash forward to March of '10. Keith has moved to Seattle. I'm taking a fresh breath of air by myself, outside the GoHo. Mark is there with his wife calling Keith a faggot, and it's faggot this, faggot that, and I don't bat an eye. I'm saying nothing, pretending not to be interested, just the guy in the corner not engaging.

He says, "that faggot over there."

My heart starts racing. I'm here, dumbass. Say it to my face.

Still having said nothing, he comes over to me. I believe in eye contact when people speak to me. It could have been my first mistake. My only mistake.

(Only the best transcription I have)

"Hey. Hey! I'm talking to you. You have a lot to know. I'm talking to you. Hey. We're just talking. Yeah. You know? Just talking. You're a faggot, right? I can say it 'cause my brother Keith is a faggot, too."

(Just then, a Man named R•••••• walks by, and he yells out, "R••••••, you're a faggot, right?")

"I seen you with Keith. You're friends. He's a motherfucker. I can't stand the way he's fucked with us. Fuck him. Do you know that the bible says about people like you?"

(no answer)

"Well, do you?"

(start looking in the eyes)

So, I know I have no choice at this point, I either have to engage and try to avoid violence, or certainly invite violence by not engaging. So I took my chances with a defensive move.

"I didn't talk to you. I never talked to you. Why are you starting a conversation?"

He was angry. To my MF saving grace, some people showed up.

He says, "I don't want to start shit, no. I am asking you a question. Do you know what the bible says about you?"

(having slept with his brother, I have inside information about Mark and some latin chick he'd rather keep quiet, and I think God has a similar trajectory for the two of us)

I kept my cool. As best as I could. All the time I'm looking in this man's eyes. I keep saying, "You don't talk to me, I never talk to you."

And still he persists. "You are a no good faggot brother!"

"I'm not your brother. Talk to him."

"Fuck you, faggot, you talked to him!"

This is where it gets unreasonable. He wanted to gay-bash his brother, but all there was was me. His friends tried to persuade him, but he kept right on, faggot this, faggot that. They finally persuaded him to go in, but he was promptly kicked out. I stayed in, was respectful, and was escorted to where I had to be.

No punches. I sang a song, shortly after, and dropped a lot of F bombs. It was well-received. I mentioned over the mic that "if you want to call me a faggot, say it to my face."

So don't call me a Faggot. Unless you mean it in the loving way.

This post is dedicated to Kaj-anne Pepper, and all men serving it to the legendary children and the legends upcoming.

Sharing about going places

Writing is a refuge. I come here whenever I need some time away to process and decompress. I come here when there's a problem I need to solve.

My life alarm clock is about to go off, but I'm already awake, dreading the baleful sound of the buzzer. Anticipating the sound, I can already hear it, but there doesn't seem to be an effective snooze. I'll go make coffee and try to get ready. Ready for what, however, is unknown.

I'm approaching six months of perpetual four-day weekends with one goal: marathon season. I need a few more goals and one big goal. I could fail at a new pursuit or feel sorry for myself. I could do some research, or read a lot, or find out new ways to be cheap. I am coming to terms with not knowing, freeing and scary at the same time, coming to terms with the inescapable pressures of my own responsibility. For the time being, though, a list will suffice:

Save money

Run, run, run

Keep it clean

Plan for five years

Get rid of car

Be more loving than ever

Catch up on reading

So far, it's a scratch at the surface, but it's a start. I've already proven that I can do anything. It's time to hit the ground running.

Wa-mbulence alert: I'm coming to remember/understand/dislike that I was constantly encouraged to be average and succeed at anything un-extraordinary, not to draw attention, to have reasonable dreams. This has been a major impediment, and for as easy as it would be to hide behind it, it will be quite difficult to overcome it. This is a challenge I'm willing to confront.

When in the world did I become the sort of person who goes to Vegas?

No, really. I want to know.

The story goes, my sister asked our parents for a bunch of money so that she could take a trip to Vegas, the same year I went to Costa Rica to learn Spanish. As a result of their refusal to her and their allowance to me, she stayed in Farmville, CO, and I had the first (of many) drunken months of my life.

I stayed in Sta. Ana, Costa Rica with a great family who never questioned my comings and goings. I learned enough Spanish to get me from here or there, as long as the next drink was at its end. Also, it was my first foray out of the country, so it was opening my eyes, left and right. It was, as an aside, also a great place to escape my own escalating faggotry (however there was nothing faggoty about Central America). I remember only parts of my last night there. It was the fourth of July, we were celebrating. I took us home with my great skill for direction. They say I was hitting the bottle and ended up naked in a bath tub. I saw it the next morning. The mirror and toilet seat were busted. And so was I. The only thing I remember is putting a bottle to my mouth, and then I woke up with this tight-bodied straight guy against my face between Dallas and Colorado Springs. Suffice it to say it was a long twelve hours of flying.

But my sister wanted to go to Vegas. She had been before. She likes to think I am the favored one, but I have news for you:

I am!

She will never know.

Also, I will never tell her I went to Vegas. That Is my secret.

It hasn't happened yet, which means it might not! But with God as my witness, I will prevail!

But my fucking sister...

Sharing a narrative about how I will fool my parents this Christmas

The plan is simple, but let's go back a year.

A year ago, I called my mother to tell her I had enough time and money to visit home for Christmas. She was Very excited, but I told her to can it, because I was going to surprise the family. So, to her dismay, she lied to my aunt and uncle, my cousins, and her own father, saying I couldn't make it and that I would be completely alone for Christmas. Well, I did make it, and my parents picked me up on the way to Ft. Collins via DIA. I waited at the bottom of a mountain until all had settled, the walked up to the front door, and, SURPRISE!, was the best Christmas gift anyone had gotten that year. Then this happened:

No, those are not shiny things on her sweatshirt, her tits really are that big. Really!

Anyway, I'm not that fat this year (although I could be by Christmas), but I can still surprise a bitch. My biggest (forgive the pun) regret was not having a white elephant gift. This year, I have the PERFECT one! For my house-warming, I promised a fireplace, but netflix didn't deliver as promised, so I had to PURCHASE a DVD full of nothing but continuous video of fires. As a matter of consequence, it was perfect for the party, but it is nothing I would like to own. RE-GIFT! The funny thing about this particular gift is that I'm pretty sure every member of my family, I being the only exception, has a real fireplace. However, I'm probably the only member who doesn't have a TV in multiple rooms, unless you factor in how I could roll my AV cart into a doorway for the technicality.

I booked a flight today to arrive the morning of Christmas eve, told my sister (and as a consequence, her husband), and plan to be the surprisorist again! I have a perfect funny gift and will even shop around for a bad sweater. I have dropped this bad ensemble:

FOR which, I will add, I won a bad sweater contest. I'll do it again, chest hair and all. I had the very best bad Christmas sweater of all for a couple of years, but never used it in a contest:

It's small, but basically it's mice carrying christmas packages across an ugly red sweatshirt. Embroidered. I should never have given it away! Blast!

Well, anyway, Je and I devised a plan to "spend Christmas together in Levenworth." Levenworth, besides seeming like a nice place to spend a life sentence, is Washington's North Pole, a veritable winter playground that takes Germanic Christmas fables very seriously. Christmas is to Levenworth as Wine is to Walla Walla: street cred. So anyway, we are making "plans" to stay there for Christmas, but "something" will happen which will leave us "mad at each other" or "displaced without a way out" or "stranded." We'll share this tale on Thanksgiving, when we video chat with the family. If we're not contingent on the plan, it will all go down hill. My sister needs to know right away.