Well, for lack of any other way to do it, I’ll just get started this way:

Fat Boy
In an effort to curb my ever increasing waist band, I joined a gym. It’s not a regular for profit gym. It’s part of a church ministry to the community, so there are no contracts to sign, and their mission is to help people change their over all health.

I’m at 289 pounds, closing in fast on 300. While in my mind, and to my fella, I’m very handsome, I am realistic enough to know that I haven’t seen my feet or my penis in quite a while. So, the phone woke me up ringing at about 7:45 this morning, and I used that as impetus to go on to the gym and at least do a 20 minute walk. I can handle 20 minutes, but I haven’t pushed it much further. I did an assessment class to outline some different cardio and strength training exercises, but I haven’t started them yet. No reason why, no excuses, just haven’t.

As I was leaving from the walk, I saw they were about to have a class in their class kitchen, and the board said it was “whole grains.” So I just decided to stay, and took a seat at one of the islands. The class ended up being a recipe for reduced fat, reduced sugar homemade blueberry muffins with some whole wheat. So me and 3 ladies made it together. One took to stirring stuff, and another was adding things in, and then they asked me if I wanted to take part, so I was the sifter guy. I took the bowl of part all purpose flour and part whole wheat flour and sifted it good into the mix, then I added me some vanilla and skim milk. I got to tell you, those muffins are yummy.

So I’m gonna get up tomorrow and go to a goal setting class, and then to a menu planning class. And then I’ll do my 20 minute walk. It didn’t all come on over night, it won’t all go off over night. But I’ll get it off.

Red
My fag hag, we’ll just call her “Red” for short, breezed through town today. She was making a quick run close to her home for a personal matter, and she called to tell me when she’d hit town on her way back. I had to run to her best friend slash hair dresser slash fag and pick up some of her hair color for her. She just doesn’t trust another beauty operator to get the right shade of red, so she makes him mix up the powders and stuff for her. She’s crazy like that. I told him, only that girl could be driving through town on a personal matter in her hometown, and have two queers running all over this city to meet each other for her hair care products.

But it was good to see Red again. She’s been moved away a while now, but it does me good to see her, to hear that raspy voice of hers, smell those menthol cigarettes. I truly believe I was only half the gay guy I could have been until I met her. Heck, I’m about half convinced she’s a gay guy living in drag.

Death
A pillar of small town life is death and marriage. Within minutes of a man being found this morning in his own home, my brother called to tell me. Small town style, he heard it on the scanner, knew the codes, and looked up the address. He knew it was the father of a friend of mine from high school, and called to tell me. The mother died a few months ago. I think the consensus will be that he “grieved himself to death.” You know, we like that in the South – the idea that someone so loved another, that they simply die without them.

I’ve said that about a grandmother of mine, that she grieved herself to death. She took about 10 years, and untold packs of cigarettes and half gallon jugs of Old Charter to do it. But still, I think she never got over losing him.

Anyway, I’ll probably make a quick journey home for the visitation. It’s the polite thing to do. I went for his mother’s death a few months ago. She was a fun, fun lady. Ever so proud of her son, always talking about him.

Unfortunate Period of Under Employment
Will this ever end? I’ve been unemployed now since mid-December. So far, I’ve focused my job search only on areas similar to what I’ve done in the past. I’m looking for another relatively decent job in my career, though I know I’ll probably have to take a step back in title and cash flow. But still, geeze, you’d think I’d find something. Soon I’ll take to looking for part time work of some kind. A fellas got to have groceries and such.

My Handsome, Handsome Man
I don’t think that’ll be his nick name on all future postings. I’ll probably condense it to “my fella.” He’s learnin’ me to ride horses. He and his family have some farm horses, a few are pure bred this and that, some are just stock. But I’m enjoying learning to ride them. It’s quite a lesson, as so many things are between he and I, in really “being country” and really not being country, and about compromises and learning and stuff.

In Closing
It’s raining outside. Not as much as it looked like it would, and probably not enough to wash the bird poop off my car. But rain just the same. Tonight’s episodes of A.I., House & Boston Legal were . . good. Well, actually A.I.’s about the same every week. “There can be only one.” And I’m not sure it should really be any of them up there. Really though, don’t shows become fairly routine? As much as I enjoyed House, it’s not really different from any other week’s episode. Someone’s sick, no one knows what it is, and they spend an hour running tests and arguing with each other until they find the easy cure.

All right, enough’s enough. It’s just a blog.