Category: General

no
is a necessary magic

no
draws a circle around you
with chalk
and says
i have given enough

boundaries

There’s something intensely gratifying about wearing a garment you make yourself. Knitting a sweater can best be compared to a brief romance, 2-3 months in duration. There’s the excitement of finding that special pattern one wants to knit. Next is finding the right fiber. Should it be a fine virgin Merino wool? Perhaps, an alpaca/wool blend. Should the yarn be a solid, natural hue, or slightly varigated, or maybe even a tweed? When one considers the hundreds of hours they’ll invest in knitting this garment, these decisions will make the endeavor a joy, or an obligation.

I came across this pattern, Herringweave, and knew I was in love. I seldom ever knit anything for myself. I’ve knitted hats, scarves, socks, even sweaters for others, and I think it’s long overdue that I knit something just for me, and when I’m in Seattle this weekend, I’ll drop in on some of my favorite yarn stores, like Acorn Street Shop in Ravenna, to see if any DK weight yarn catches my eye.

… My head is bloody, but unbowed. 

William Earnest Henley “Invictus”

I think one of my enemies has a voodoo doll of me and has been dunking it’s head in green goo.

Today is day 6 of having this cold from hell. I decided to risk being a pariah to my co-workers and come into work this morning, but after being here for half an hour I’m beginning to reconsider that choice. A good friend told me, “Hunter, you have six months of sick leave…duh.” I may follow her sage advice and call it a week.

Time stops for no man and this weekend is no exception. I plan on spending Friday-Monday in Seattle with a good friend and he’s already got my dance card so full and I have nothing to wear. 🙂 We’ve got a rooftop party Saturday morning, a boat cruise on Puget Sound in the afternoon, Diesel that evening, and the next morning is Pride, followed by the Cuff Block Party afterwards. I haven’t been to a Seattle Pride Parade since 2002 – that’s almost 50 gay years!

Leave it to me to order my gay bear t-shirt for Pride back in May and I got notice that it shipped yesterday and isn’t expected to arrive here in Moses Lake until this Saturday when I’ll already be gone. I wonder if I should go onto Amazon and order something queer-appropriate for the day or just go sans t-shirt. I’m pretty white and if it’s sunny I’ll crisp. I know my friend will be shirtless the entire time, but he’s got the body to pull it off. Me? I might frighten the children.

It’s good to be putting myself back out there. A lot of people from my past are coming back into the foreground, while a lot of people that were in me and my ex’s orbit are now moving to my periphery.

I called in sick today. This cold has moved from my throat into my chest and sinuses and I’m one hurting unit today, but I still got up at 5:00 AM.

I should not have pushed myself so hard over the weekend; I think I may have overdone it and made myself sicker. Bed rest it is for me today…and possibly tomorrow.

Being sick and taking a day off isn’t all what it’s cracked up to be. I’m too sick to study, but very stir crazy so I decided to pick-up a sock I started knitting a couple weeks ago and start at it; I had only completed the ribbed cuff.

It’s slow work, but rewarding at the same time. Knitting has a rhythm that can entrance oneself and before you know it you’ve gone from the cuff to knitting the gusset heel.

This pattern is an oldie, called monkey. You can find the pattern on knitty.com, it’s free and here’s the link. Over the years, I’ve probably knitted 20 pairs of these socks. Sometimes it’s good to do something familiar.

I’m learning to find my joy again in the simple pleasures. Life goes on and I with it.

Expecting to do lots of manual labor this weekend, of course I would come down with the mother of all colds on Friday and completely lose my voice all weekend long.

I tried to get as much of my belonging packed and moved to the garage, but after two days of effort, I was only able to get moved out of my office downstairs. I still haven’t packed up my kitchen belongings or cleared out my belonging in the guest bedroom closet, or in the attic, or at the storage unit. I had to stop about every 10 minutes to rest because I had no energy and ended up taking two naps along the way. Being sick sucks!

Mom and dad came over this afternoon to drop off my fur kids and dad helped me move some of the bigger items from downstairs to the garage.

Now I’m back down at my place in Moses Lake seriously contemplating calling in sick tomorrow so I can get some rest and let my body heal. I think the stress of everything that’s gone on the last couple of weeks has really compromised my immune system. I need to get away from this toxic environment and get my new life on track.

My friends have been absolutely amazing. I don’t know what I would have done without their support.

It’s amazing what can happen over 10 years. This day back in 2009, I was in San Jose, CA, with my ex, Ryan, going to see Nine Inch Nails/Jane’s Addiction “Waving Goodbye” tour. Ryan had gotten us access backstage to the concert and we got to meet Trent Reznor and other members of NIN and we had one of the best times of our lives.

That was about a month before we broke up. Looking back, I can’t even remember why we broke up, but I do know that neither one of us was emotionally mature enough to do what was needed to repair our relationship. That was too bad because I believe he was my soulmate. After we broke up, I ended up rebounding with someone I should never have gotten together with and spent 10 years of my life with an individual who didn’t love me.

Fast forward to today. I spent all day packing my belongings in the house that my ex and I bought 5 years ago. I plan on getting the rest of my items packed tomorrow and I’ll get a moving truck in a couple of weeks to move my entire life out of the Methow Valley.

Overall, I feel good, albeit I have a cold; the first one I’ve had in almost three years. I met with the realtor my ex chose to list our house on July 1, and I’m hoping that we’ll be able to walk away from this fiasco with some money in our pockets.

I no longer listen to what people say, I just watch what they do. Behavior never lies.

Winston Churchill

And it’s done! I filed for divorce today. It was a mixed bag of emotions; there was a lingering sentiment and wistful reminiscing about the life I had, but those feelings were buttressed up against the excitement and anticipation about the life I’m going to have.

There’s not much more I have to say about today.

… When their bones are picked clean and the clean bones gone,
They shall have stars at elbow and foot

Dylan Thomas “And Death Shall Have No Dominion”

One year ago today was one of the hardest days of my life. June 20, 2018, was the day I had to say goodbye to a little black Pug that my ex and I had rescued back in 2010. Looking back, I had no idea how this little girl, weighing in at around 24 lbs., who constantly wheezed, snorted, and farted because the Pug breed is brachycephalic, a fancy word for saying they have short snouts, would come steal my heart.

Ms. Pickles was going in for a routine teeth cleaning, but the intubation tube irritated her trachea causing it to swell and not allowing Pickles to breath when the tube was removed. I was in Moses Lake when I got the call that Pickles was unable to breath without being intubated. I dropped everything and left work and drove the 2 1/2 hours to Winthrop to the veterinary clinic where I was able to say my goodbyes and hold my little girl while she was put to sleep. Me ex and I took her home and buried her in our back yard.

Fast forward to today. So much has changed over the last 365 days, but my love for my little girl has not waned and the hole her passing has left in my heart is still there and will probably always be there. There are times in our lives that we have dogs and then are times when we have a “dog”. Ms. Pickles was definitely the latter. She had so much personality and character; it was like having a two-year old around. She was also a stinker and moody, again just like a two-year old, but I loved her to bits.

To my little Miss Pickles, you passed over the rainbow bridge a year ago today, but there are those still here on this mortal coil that love and miss you. It was a blessing to have you in my life and it is my hope that one day we will be reunited and you’ll take your place on the left armrest.

So…yeah…I bought a new car, a 2019 Subaru Crosstrek Limited. I had been working with a couple of dealerships here in Washington State, but ended up buying my car from a dealership in Coeur d’Alene, Idaho, and took delivery last night around 7:00 PM. The GM was good enough to meet me halfway in Davenport, cutting my drive time down by half since I was coming from an all day training in Wenatchee.

I hadn’t planned on buying a new car, but circumstances made it more attractive to buy a new car rather than pony up $10K for the car I had been driving – not to mention having the additional privilege of paying another $1K to have the title transfered to my name.

In lucem aeternitatis.

In the light of eternity.

I’ll be 50 in less than two months and in less than two weeks I’ll be completely moved out of what has been my home for the past five years.

I never conceived that my 10-year relationship would end essentially via stream-of-consciousness, rambling text messages two months ago, or that the person who meant more to me than anyone else in the world would sit across from me at our dining table, and tell me on a late Saturday morning a couple of weeks ago that he hadn’t been in love with me for years.

My question is, “why did he stay with me?” We both know the reasons why; he needed me to gain legal entry into this country and once he got his 10-year Green Card, he couldn’t even wait a month to break-up with me. I know that this was a blessing in disguise; I am so much better off not having a person like him in my life. A friend of mine told me that all you need to know about a person’s character is by what they do when they have the means and the mode to do something to another person and they do it. That was exactly what happened to me.

I’m not going to dwell on this person, or the life we shared; suffice it to say this has been a learning experience for me and I will spend this time focusing on myself and fashioning the life I want to live.

This coming Friday I will file for divorce. I’ll spend this weekend packing up and staging my belongings for the moving truck in July, and hopefully, I’ll be able to close this chapter on my life soon.