When asked to write a mission statement, what flowed from my pen (along the keystrokes, actually) is something that works just as great as an update. Consider this a nice little teaser and cross your fingers that I stick around a while. I'm only at my best when I'm writing.
Where the hell have I been for the past year and a half? As it turns out, literally in a kind of figurative hell. More on that later. For now:
Once upon a time, a southern writer and journalist came to the Pacific Northwest. For more than two years, he honed his craft in a faraway place where he cultivated a whole new family, along with the esteem and respect of the men and women in the Central Washington community.
Talent for his craft strengthened as his popularity began to soar. After accepting an offer not his pride nor his ego -- and especially not his newfound vanity -- would allow him to refuse, the southerner soon discovered most of all that glitters truly is entirely too good to be true. For the first time in his life, the writer forced himself to to answer the most important questions of his life: What happens when "artist," the descriptor is removed from the artist himself: What kind of man is he otherwise? And how does he endure criticism when each of his other marketable skills are held up for review by the whole world.
Talent, creativity, and a passion for language aside, I'm equally ambitious, driven, hard-working and intensely loyal to my leaders and every member of my team. I'm requesting permission to come aboard -- this is a vessel on which I'd like to set sail.
02 January 2020
10 June 2018
Lost in Central Washington
We've already established the fact that I'm a really bad blogger, right?
Right -- well, I hope so.
Whether you're following along and waiting with bated breath (if so, don't do that anymore -- this isn't "Along the Eastern Slopes") or just casually stopping by for a quick read, give up. Not only can I not guarantee I'll ever have another blog post after this, I can't even assure you that I'll finish the post I'm working on right now.
I have no doubt that I have some talent as a writer -- and as a voyeur to the world -- but I don't always think I'm all that great at bringing the updates.
Recently (like, within the past 36 to 48 hours), it's come to my attention that this is one way a particular fan/buddy/reader finds me; therefore, it's incumbent on me to recognize this in print and to write EMPHATICALLY that I'll definitely get better about fulfilling these updates.
Yes, you are that important. So, just breathe and enjoy yourself and know that the next few blog posts -- if they do, in fact, come -- are directly related to you.
25 November 2017
The one that started it all
Nearly an entire month wasn't the intentional time span between my last post and this one. The idea was to start a series of entries about all the dudes that got me here. Starting with a late entry on Halloween night -- remembering the Halloween night 20 years ago that got everything really going -- was just the hook. Now I've got to type a while here to get my groove back.
But it shouldn't be especially difficult. But let's get it going with a little recap of my current situation.
Finished the big Halloween project for SCENE and moved straight into a Thanksgiving idea that went surprisingly well.
I read Andy Cohen's first book and fell in love with the idea of meeting him in person and taking him out to dinner.
I read Augusten Burroughs' You Better Not Cry and fell in love with the idea of sitting down with him to write a story together.
I worked a ton more hours than necessary and spent a lot of time wasting time when I wasn't working.
I got a little more Yakima recovery and chaired a few meetings and hooked up with another guy that's way too young for me to have any hope for a relationship that's based in anything other than sexual compatibility.
I slept late on some of my off days and I got far too little sleep on the nights when I knew I needed to get up early.
I caught up on all the most recent episodes of "Dynasty" and "Riverdale" and "How to Get Away with Murder," and I watched a few more episodes of the third season of "Falcon Crest."
I started Judith Krantz's Princess Daisy and put it down for a few days. I picked back up All the President's Men, but I still couldn't get much deeper into the text. I started reading The Stranger Beside Me and got copies of a few books from the library that I fully intend to read, if only I'm able to stay focused on at least one of them for a while.
I realized that I'm overpaying for the North Front Street studio and toyed with the idea of finding another place when the lease runs out in January, but I don't see myself living anywhere else in Yakima.
I pitched a December idea -- non-SCENE this time -- to my executive editor and she liked it (now I've got another writing project to work on tomorrow and Monday).
I put off paying some bills and I really don't feel like devoting an entire day off to organizing and submitting payments for them Monday, but it needs to be done.
I wondered (more than a few times... but this is really nothing new) if moving to the Pacific Northwest was really such a great idea.
I spent Thanksgiving in the newsroom and I wrote a few articles, some of them I'm even a little proud to have my byline on.
And now I'm back at North Town Coffeehouse in downtown Yakima, another Saturday night sitting here at my laptop, contemplating the writing project and paying bills and what book I'm going to start or pick back up when I head back home and realizing that I didn't eat anything substantial all day and I probably need to stop putting off an hour or two of step work to get the fourth completed and yet again thinking: well, my time off only started a few hours ago and I've got the whole weekend to worry about all that.
So where were we? Oh, yeah! The dudes in my life. All those relationships -- whether they lasted minutes, months or never even really happened at all.
Who was the first...?
I write that question in total jest because I remember him.
Distinctly.
The way he talked and what he smelled like and how he tasted and the fact that he didn't want to kiss and he had this whole idea that he wasn't gay so it didn't count. And I kinda pursued him, but he kinda pursued me. And I really think we were both just looking for someone to belong with and someone to get intimate with and someone to explore with and we ended up finding each other.
I'll give you his last initial ("B"), but I'll let him have his anonymity -- ya know, just in case somebody ever actually reads this blog and knows who he is. The people who were around me back then -- all of us were 15 or 16 at the time -- certainly wouldn't let me forget it.
They mostly hated him, in fact. Especially Shannon and Bijal. I remember them running into the library when I was shelving books one Saturday afternoon, both of them out of breath and desperate to tell me there was no way they could see me with him. They'd been to one of Magnet's soccer games that morning and they saw him in action (not as one of the players, of course -- Chris was one of the cheerleaders) and they heard him cheer and talk and watched him move and they were absolutely terrified that their beloved Miles actually may end up hooking up with him because he definitely was gay -- there wasn't any doubt about that after seeing him in his natural habitat -- and I could do a whole lot better than what I'd told them I was interested in going for. But the truth was, Chris was the only other outwardly and apparently and potentially gay dude at school and he was decent looking and he had a kinda nice body and I was 16-years-old and all my friends were dating and dammit I wanted to hook up with somebody like everyone else.
I didn't listen to Shannon and Bijal. Nor did I listen to Whitney Burke, who hated him even more than the others but grudgingly helped facilitate matters.
I don't know how long after the day Shannon and Bijal came into the library to warn me that I ended up hooking up with Chris, but not terribly long.
And it happened three times.
The first time was at my place (one of the good things about being a struggling gay kid in the 90s was that you could have a dude sleep over and parents wouldn't assume any hanky-panky would be going on after the bedroom door closed for the night). So Chris spent the night and he'd brought a porno over and I ended up going down on him and it all happened pretty quickly and I don't remember feeling especially sexy or romantic or like I was creating an everlasting memory. But I do remember feeling vindicated and as if I'd gotten something that I earned, even though there was no reciprocity and I didn't ask for any because I figured I was lucky enough just to have had a few minutes of physical human contact -- naked -- with another person.
Chris and I hooked up twice more that I remember. Very similar scenario, but it played out in two different locations both times. Once, in his car in the parking lot of Captain Shreve High School. I don't remember the time of year, but I'm pretty sure it was close to Thanksgiving or Christmas because it was cold and I feel like we were on holiday from school at the time and both had curfews and had to be home because neither of us planned to spend the night with the other that night. The other time was at Whitney's dad's house out on the lake while he and her step-mom were out of town and we were all in the process of making that big, sprawling house one of our regular sanctuaries for high school and our first year of college (NOTE: this location will re-appear at least once that I remember).
After that third time, Chris dropped out of my life. We stayed in the same school, but we didn't ever have any classes together because we were each had different programs and curricula and we definitely moved in different circles.
In fact, now that I think about it, I don't remember ever running into Chris at any parties or other events, even as my social life began to get a little elevated and overtake my scholastic ambitions.
Our paths crossed only once more and only online.
We both had returned to Shreveport. Me, from Lafayette and him, from Houston or Dallas or wherever all the closeted gay boys went after Magnet. We were both in a chat room or on a dating website (gay.com or Adam4Adam or Manhunt or one of the other early incarnations that would eventually beget Grindr and Scruff and Hornet) and we talked for a while and may have had a few sexually-laced words in memory of the stuff we'd done a few times in high school. But nothing ever came of that.
Besides, I'm pretty sure Chris would've ended up being a bottom. And though I didn't know it at the time we hooked up my junior year in high school (in fact, I had absolutely no strong knowledge of the way gay sex worked other than the oral experimentation I'd done with him and what straight pornography allowed for comparison), my interest in Chris was soon to be eclipsed by the second guy on my list, the one who REALLY started it all and set in motion a pattern and disposition that I'm still struggling to get beyond.
More than Shannon or Bijal or Whitney or J.C. -- who I sat beside and confided in for the two-hour Humanities block our junior year -- of Karley or Brooke or any of their boyfriends, the second name on my list REALLY disliked Chris.
But it took me a while to figure out why that was. I mean, this other guy was dating another friend of mine. And though I thought he was cute, he was a grade below us and I didn't think to give him the time of day at first. And though I picked him up and drove him home from school every day, it never really occurred to me to wonder about some of the questions he asked and some of the frank dialogue we shared.
And by the time I did, it was too late.
By that time, I was already in love with him.
But it shouldn't be especially difficult. But let's get it going with a little recap of my current situation.
Finished the big Halloween project for SCENE and moved straight into a Thanksgiving idea that went surprisingly well.
I read Andy Cohen's first book and fell in love with the idea of meeting him in person and taking him out to dinner.
I read Augusten Burroughs' You Better Not Cry and fell in love with the idea of sitting down with him to write a story together.
I worked a ton more hours than necessary and spent a lot of time wasting time when I wasn't working.
I got a little more Yakima recovery and chaired a few meetings and hooked up with another guy that's way too young for me to have any hope for a relationship that's based in anything other than sexual compatibility.
I slept late on some of my off days and I got far too little sleep on the nights when I knew I needed to get up early.
I caught up on all the most recent episodes of "Dynasty" and "Riverdale" and "How to Get Away with Murder," and I watched a few more episodes of the third season of "Falcon Crest."
I started Judith Krantz's Princess Daisy and put it down for a few days. I picked back up All the President's Men, but I still couldn't get much deeper into the text. I started reading The Stranger Beside Me and got copies of a few books from the library that I fully intend to read, if only I'm able to stay focused on at least one of them for a while.
I realized that I'm overpaying for the North Front Street studio and toyed with the idea of finding another place when the lease runs out in January, but I don't see myself living anywhere else in Yakima.
I pitched a December idea -- non-SCENE this time -- to my executive editor and she liked it (now I've got another writing project to work on tomorrow and Monday).
I put off paying some bills and I really don't feel like devoting an entire day off to organizing and submitting payments for them Monday, but it needs to be done.
I wondered (more than a few times... but this is really nothing new) if moving to the Pacific Northwest was really such a great idea.
I spent Thanksgiving in the newsroom and I wrote a few articles, some of them I'm even a little proud to have my byline on.
And now I'm back at North Town Coffeehouse in downtown Yakima, another Saturday night sitting here at my laptop, contemplating the writing project and paying bills and what book I'm going to start or pick back up when I head back home and realizing that I didn't eat anything substantial all day and I probably need to stop putting off an hour or two of step work to get the fourth completed and yet again thinking: well, my time off only started a few hours ago and I've got the whole weekend to worry about all that.
So where were we? Oh, yeah! The dudes in my life. All those relationships -- whether they lasted minutes, months or never even really happened at all.
Who was the first...?
I write that question in total jest because I remember him.
Distinctly.
The way he talked and what he smelled like and how he tasted and the fact that he didn't want to kiss and he had this whole idea that he wasn't gay so it didn't count. And I kinda pursued him, but he kinda pursued me. And I really think we were both just looking for someone to belong with and someone to get intimate with and someone to explore with and we ended up finding each other.
1. Chris
They mostly hated him, in fact. Especially Shannon and Bijal. I remember them running into the library when I was shelving books one Saturday afternoon, both of them out of breath and desperate to tell me there was no way they could see me with him. They'd been to one of Magnet's soccer games that morning and they saw him in action (not as one of the players, of course -- Chris was one of the cheerleaders) and they heard him cheer and talk and watched him move and they were absolutely terrified that their beloved Miles actually may end up hooking up with him because he definitely was gay -- there wasn't any doubt about that after seeing him in his natural habitat -- and I could do a whole lot better than what I'd told them I was interested in going for. But the truth was, Chris was the only other outwardly and apparently and potentially gay dude at school and he was decent looking and he had a kinda nice body and I was 16-years-old and all my friends were dating and dammit I wanted to hook up with somebody like everyone else.
I didn't listen to Shannon and Bijal. Nor did I listen to Whitney Burke, who hated him even more than the others but grudgingly helped facilitate matters.
I don't know how long after the day Shannon and Bijal came into the library to warn me that I ended up hooking up with Chris, but not terribly long.
And it happened three times.
The first time was at my place (one of the good things about being a struggling gay kid in the 90s was that you could have a dude sleep over and parents wouldn't assume any hanky-panky would be going on after the bedroom door closed for the night). So Chris spent the night and he'd brought a porno over and I ended up going down on him and it all happened pretty quickly and I don't remember feeling especially sexy or romantic or like I was creating an everlasting memory. But I do remember feeling vindicated and as if I'd gotten something that I earned, even though there was no reciprocity and I didn't ask for any because I figured I was lucky enough just to have had a few minutes of physical human contact -- naked -- with another person.
Chris and I hooked up twice more that I remember. Very similar scenario, but it played out in two different locations both times. Once, in his car in the parking lot of Captain Shreve High School. I don't remember the time of year, but I'm pretty sure it was close to Thanksgiving or Christmas because it was cold and I feel like we were on holiday from school at the time and both had curfews and had to be home because neither of us planned to spend the night with the other that night. The other time was at Whitney's dad's house out on the lake while he and her step-mom were out of town and we were all in the process of making that big, sprawling house one of our regular sanctuaries for high school and our first year of college (NOTE: this location will re-appear at least once that I remember).
After that third time, Chris dropped out of my life. We stayed in the same school, but we didn't ever have any classes together because we were each had different programs and curricula and we definitely moved in different circles.
In fact, now that I think about it, I don't remember ever running into Chris at any parties or other events, even as my social life began to get a little elevated and overtake my scholastic ambitions.
Our paths crossed only once more and only online.
We both had returned to Shreveport. Me, from Lafayette and him, from Houston or Dallas or wherever all the closeted gay boys went after Magnet. We were both in a chat room or on a dating website (gay.com or Adam4Adam or Manhunt or one of the other early incarnations that would eventually beget Grindr and Scruff and Hornet) and we talked for a while and may have had a few sexually-laced words in memory of the stuff we'd done a few times in high school. But nothing ever came of that.
Besides, I'm pretty sure Chris would've ended up being a bottom. And though I didn't know it at the time we hooked up my junior year in high school (in fact, I had absolutely no strong knowledge of the way gay sex worked other than the oral experimentation I'd done with him and what straight pornography allowed for comparison), my interest in Chris was soon to be eclipsed by the second guy on my list, the one who REALLY started it all and set in motion a pattern and disposition that I'm still struggling to get beyond.
More than Shannon or Bijal or Whitney or J.C. -- who I sat beside and confided in for the two-hour Humanities block our junior year -- of Karley or Brooke or any of their boyfriends, the second name on my list REALLY disliked Chris.
But it took me a while to figure out why that was. I mean, this other guy was dating another friend of mine. And though I thought he was cute, he was a grade below us and I didn't think to give him the time of day at first. And though I picked him up and drove him home from school every day, it never really occurred to me to wonder about some of the questions he asked and some of the frank dialogue we shared.
And by the time I did, it was too late.
By that time, I was already in love with him.
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