me – Page 20 – Moby Files: Blog

Month

Lord, it has been almost a month since I’ve posted any updates. That’s just cray-cray. My how time flies.

I was assigned a trainee right after I finished my project. He is with me for 2 more weeks and then I’m finally on my own again. I could have refused but considering how few coworkers were proficient on the new software, I would have felt guilty not offering to help. The trainee is doing fine, he is where he should be. Some days I think he is worried I hate him. lol He’ll be a good employee when I’m done with him.

Beyond that, life is good. The Pup just celebrated his birthday and home life is wonderfully calm and happy. Cooper is having digestion issues ^[1]aka constipation which has led to some ‘mishaps’. I’m getting him a higher protein food this weekend and that will most definitely take care of the problem. lol Beyond that, he’s fit as a fiddle.

Tons of nonsense in the news lately. The internal fighting over slang vs slur in the Transgender community under our umbrella. The recent horrible article written by a new IML attendee. Celebrities using guy slurs and the on-going marriage battles. Drama, drama, drama. I mention it all because I have thoughts to share but being a busy bee, finding time can be rough.

More soon.

References[+]

References
↑1	aka constipation

Weird

I had a very bizarre nightmare the other day. It left me restless and agitated for the rest of the day. I’m not prone to nightmares but when I do get them, they are often very vivid and intense. It must have been a weird star alignment because Cooper had woken us up at one point with his barking. ^[1]He only barks when he sleeps and clearly his barks weren’t happy barks. Turns out, The Pup had also had bad dreams that night. I’m not overly superstitious but I’ll admit all three of us having bad dreams on the same night left me shaken the whole day. I kept waiting for something awful to happen as if it had been an omen.

I like to think I don’t have many hidden fears so I’m less prone to act them out in my sleep. I can’t say with any fact if that’s true but considering this particular dream, I am inclined to believe it. It involved The Pup leaving me. And while things are rock solid between us, and have been since we met, I guess I still have some lingering fear over it. I woke up and my face was wet so I’d obviously been crying in my sleep. It was weird because I could feel him next to me, even in sleep. We both tend to toss and turn so my body knew he was there. When I woke up, I guess we’d rolled away from each other at just the most inopportune moment as I no longer felt him touching me and since he left me in the dream, I had to physically make sure he was still in bed with me. It was a very surreal and scary feeling.

It was even more bizarre in that I was running for President. Yeah, you read it right. lolol I didn’t really want to run as I felt I had too many skeletons in my closet. But the more I tried not to run, the more popular I became and the more The Pup was unhappy with me. He didn’t want to have to share me with the world and the day I got elected president, he left me.

He and I laughed over it later when we had time to discuss it.

References[+]

References
↑1	He only barks when he sleeps and clearly his barks weren’t happy barks.

Rest

After three weeks of long drawn out teaching 5 – 6 days, sometimes 10 hour sessions, here I sit on the first day of my vacation. I spent the whole day sitting on the sofa watching TV, playing video games,and napping with the man of my dreams. I can’t think of a better way to start my vacation. My voice is a bit hoarse and I’m just flat out tired but I couldn’t be happier. Total contentment.

Sometimes when you aren’t looking, life sneaks up and gives you that one thing you thought you’d never have.

Engage

I’ve been MIA here as of late due to my work schedule. If you’re here via the web, you’ll notice the new template. This is the one I will most likely keep for awhile. But in other news and if you haven’t heard by now, I got engaged!

For the first time in my life I’m engaged to marry. The historical importance is not lost on me but that is a rant for another day. Today is about how happy I am to be eagerly awaiting such a big event. This is truly a life event for me and I couldn’t be more excited. Being with The Pup has taught me what it is like to be so in love and completely compatible with someone. He is my best friend and my lover and I have no hesitation tying the not with him.

Everyone keeps asking how I did it? The Pup and I are both gamers. I rent games thru GameFly, which is like Netflix for video games. The envelopes come pretty much the same as they do for regular dvds. On a tangent, we’d already decided a while back that we wanted to do two sets of rings. One set for the engagement and then a complimenting set for the actual event. Anyway, knowing he would kill me if I did anything big or hugely public, I settled on a more subtle surprise. If you’ve ever rented thru Netflix you know how the game sleeves work. I managed to get the cardboard cover and game out of the envelope without actually tearing it open. The disc comes inside with it’s own protective fiber sleeve that also has the game name and info. Well, I decided to apply my own sticker and made it look like the game sticker as a close as possible. Except where the name and description were I had my proposal instead. And instead of a game disc, there was the ring. With some effort I got it back into the envelope and put it back in the post box.

I contrived a small chain of events that led to The Pup opening the game and examining it. Of course, he saw the proposal and to my delight said yes. It was a very personal and shared moment for us. I don’t think anyone around knew what had just happened. I honestly thought it was perfect. I wanted to surprise him and still not embarrass him. And he really liked the way I went about it. He had no idea it was coming either. hehehe

We don’t have a date for the big event yet. It will most likely be another 3-4 months before we set a date. Both of us are content with where we are and don’t feel the need to rush it. And while I will invite friends to be present, it will not be an overly dramatic event. lol Neither of us are into the whole big-wedding sort of thing. Something simple and local will be more than sufficient to officialize what we already know and feel.

It’s an exhilarating feeling to be honest. Knowing that this will be my last LTR makes it seem even more right that this is the first time I wanted to and could legally marry my partner. If you’d told me a year ago I’d be proposing to someone, I’d have probably laughed or shrugged it off. It’s funny how you can meet someone and they totally change your world.

As I always say, ‘hope springs eternal..’

Here

I’m still here. It’s just been a busy few weeks.

The work project I’ve been working on for the last year is in its final stage and things are more than a little crazy. Beyond the deliberate delays introduced by a certain outside agency, things are moving right along. The build phase has ended and the training phase has begun.

Last week was the ‘train the trainer’ sessions and this coming Sunday night starts the mad push to get everyone trained on the new system. I’ll be a primary instructor along with several of my coworkers. Since the old and new systems cannot run side by side, it’s an all or nothing cut over. That means everyone has to be trained before we can go live. That translates into a mad dash to cram 24 hours of training into 3 sessions across 3 watches.

This next week I’m working 6 days. I’ll most likely end up doing a few 12-14 hour days as not only do we have an entire workforce to train but also a brand new cadet class. We didn’t plan it that way but due to schedules and delays it worked out that way.

So yeah, I’ll be a busy bee this next few weeks. lol Afterwards, I should be back on my regular shift doing my regular job. Well I say regular, I went to days so I’ll still be in early every day. Ugh

Beautiful

The outrage over the recent Coke commercial during the Super Bowl is quite the laugh. Didn’t hear it? It was a multi-language mash up America the Beautiful. It also featured a quick view of a gay-couple. While you might have issues with said company right now over it’s support of Sochi, ^[1]Greed will do that you cannot deny they have been a long time staunch supporter of gay rights. Anyway, the song sparked outrage from the far right and many of our less ‘edumucated’ folks spawning their nastiness on the web via social media.

The outrage was specifically over the song being in different languages, which had my laughing in fits. Seriously, the irony is overwhelming. For those of you who don’t know, the song was originally a poem written by a Lesbian. But wait, it gets better. It was set to music from a foreign song. Many have been pointing it out but the best quote so far has been,

Katharine Lee Bates, author of the poem “America the Beautiful” studied Greek in college and spent four years in foreign travel and study. Her life partner was Katharine Coman, a social activist and strong advocate for European-influenced Social Insurance and policies.

Her poem “America the Beautiful” was put to the tune of “Materna” by Samuel Ward, which was originally intended to be the accompaniment for “O Mother, Dear Jerusalem” written by David Dickson.

In short, a homosexual woman who studied Greek (and whose life partner advocated European Socialism) wrote a poem which was put to the tune of a song with a Spanish title, composed to accompany text written by a Scottish Minister about a Middle Eastern country

Folks, it doesn’t get much funnier than that.

Our country was founded by immigrants and the ideal of welcoming people from all walks of life to this land. ^[2]Not forgetting that we stole this land from it’s rightful owners, mind you. Blind ignorance and patriotism makes you a puppet. The Repugs are depending on the ‘dumbing down’ of America so they can use petty squabbles and base emotions to control the masses. Meanwhile, they keep screwing us over and over and over again.

/rant

References[+]

References
↑1	Greed will do that
↑2	Not forgetting that we stole this land from it’s rightful owners, mind you.

Awesome

I get a lot of questions about how The Pup and I are doing. In a word, we are doing ‘awesome.’ I’ve alluded to things being well in various posts as of late but yeah, we’re good. We’re better than good actually.

It is hard to put into words how great it has been. Having a best friend in a partner is certainly a new experience for me. I say that because I don’t think I’ve ever spent so much time with a partner before. It is odd in some ways because I am usually very self-contained and tend to like my ‘me’ time. It was a character trait that took me an unexplainable amount of time to figure out but once I did, I learned to appreciate it. I’ve yet to feel the loss of any me-too so far. The Pup and I spend a lot of our free time together, almost all of it. If anything, the day is just a distraction until I can get home to him. ^[1]yeah, I got it bad. I’m sure that will wane a bit over time but I’m not complaining one bit.

I guess having never felt like previous partners were my best friend too it makes sense. In the past, I usually planned my schedules and routines building in time just for me. In retrospect, I wonder if I built too much me time. I’m actually changing schedules at work soon so he and I can spend more time together vs apart. Don’t think that change was lost on me either. I wanted to and that is the important part. I didn’t feel like I had to or like it was some sort of obligation. The time we spend together is mutually agreeable to both of us. And, I know if either of us ever need some time alone, the other is perfectly OK with it. And I wonder if even knowing the latter makes it more bearable. I mean wanting something you can’t have sometimes makes it more desirable. Would the reverse not also be true? The more I think on it the more I believe that is at the heart of how different I am this time around. I know he won’t be upset, hurt, or feel left out if I needed time to myself. And I honestly believe he knows the same with me. So knowing it is readily available makes it less of a need.

I tell him everything and he is the first person I think of when I want to do anything. I honestly can’t think of a better way to be in a relationship.

References[+]

References
↑1	yeah, I got it bad.

Still

Someone commented the other day I haven’t been blogging as much lately. Tis true, I’ve been busy with life and other things so le blog has suffered a bit. Rest assured, I’m not quitting, I just have less free time. Having a new partner, a lazy dog, and a roommate does make for a busy home life.

Often times, I start a post but because I really like to articulate my thoughts and get my point across, I get distracted or interrupted. Then by the time I get back to the post, it is no longer relevant or out of date. I often delete whole columns of drafts because I simply don’t get to them in time.

Anyway, never fear, I is still hear. I’ll try a little harder to be more timely.

43

A big thank you to everyone for the wonderful birthday wishes. I’m always flattered by the outpouring of well-wishes. The birthday was pretty low-key. I was a bit under the weather this past weekend so ended up at home with The Pup for a couple extra days. By Sunday, I was feeling better, and yesterday an unrelated eye-irritation was my only complaint.

Sadly, I am no longer the answer to life, the everything. ^[1]Hitchiker’s Guide to The Galaxy hehehe I’ve mentioned before, I don’t regret getting older. I actually enjoy it. I don’t get depressed, sad, or even wistful ^[2]so far as I age. And even though I notice more changes to the body year after year, I’m ok with it. As Madam would say, ‘…you realize that life is marching by and it’s marching right over your face!’ lol But I don’t mind the greying hair (what’s left of it lol) or the not so subtle wrinkles. If anything I like to think I balance my age with my spirit.

Physically, I’m still in excellent shape for my age even though I’ve been a bit lax in the gym lately. Of course, having a new live in partner will do that. heehee I eat relatively well and *knock on wood* no apparent major health problems have presented themselves. I will have to break down and get some eye-glasses at some point. I am noticing that I’m becoming near-sighted. Things at a distance seem to loose focus more often these days. I guess I’m getting old eyes. lol

Anyway, thanks again for the well-wishes. I am looking forward to my 43rd year.

🙂

References[+]

References
↑1	Hitchiker’s Guide to The Galaxy
↑2	so far

2014

I don’t have any big resolutions this year. As always, I strive to be better than I am, to learn and grow from my mistakes. I will continue that approach in 2014. But that is more of a philosophy than a resolution. Tied into that is to spend less time on social media and more time on the things that matter. And by less time, I don’t mean avoiding as much as using it as the tool it was meant to be.

Having The Pup in my life has given me a somewhat new outlook on things. My love for him continues to grow. We are still in the fresh-new love, as I call it, phase. The kind where you can’t wait to spend every moment together. Your whole day is just a distraction till you get home to him. That sort of love. hehehe I’m confident we’ll reach the long-abiding love phase but I am really enjoying the now. I hope to hold onto it even as our love matures. I continue to look forward to our future together.

There will be some changes in my life in the coming year. As I finish up the project at work in <strike> late March </strike> early May, I’ll be moving back to normal operations. I’ve decided to stay on a day-shift. I had to give up my full weekend slot though. Seniority on day-shift is still high and getting a weekend slot on what we refer to as ‘straight days’ is not an easy task. Even as I move into 13 years on the job, getting a premium day slot is difficult. I do have a partial weekend so it’s fine and I’m switching so I can spend more time with The Pup.

The finances will continue to be a big focus. I want to cut my debt load in half this year, at the very least. It may mean forgoing some frivilous fun stuff but hey, that’s life right? Seriously though, I hate forking over so much money for debt every month. I know I’ve said in the past I’d never go into debt again and this wasn’t really shopping or wasteful spending, but it is a total pain. I’ve canceled two of my three cards. ^[1]I say canceled, one was in default. lol I will not be applying for a new one. Frankly, I just don’t need that much credit. I try to live within my means and having too much credit discourages that. Thankfully, I had it when I needed it but I hope to never be in such a situation again.

Having a partner and a roomie who pay rent is certainly helping on the finance front. hehehe The roomie will be with us for most of this year. Things are a little comfy but overall still easy and no strain to manage. Even with overlapping schedules it has worked out pretty decent so far. Home life is calm and happy, just how I like it. Whether we are bouncing to the Eagle for beer-bust, lounging on the sofa, or just hanging at Starbucks, the comfort is addicting.

My goals for the coming year are to get back into a solid gym routine. Having a new partner certainly distracts one from such things. lol But it is time to get serious again and start pushing myself. I still have that 210 goal to reach. Beyond that, there isn’t much I can ask for. Life is treating me good and I hope it lasts. I’m not greedy and many of the things I’ve always want in life I now have. I am truly grateful for that.

Of course, I’ll keep blathering away here. I’m always tinkering with the code and blog.

References[+]

References
↑1	I say canceled, one was in default. lol