Yes, That Is A Pig Above Your Head Soaring Through The Clouds

So I finally gave in to some friends and have a new Facebook account. I figure if I keep my friend count low and check it once a day, the drama will be kept to a minimum. But I do know this: if at any time it starts being less than fun I will delete my account again and never look back. Hell, I lasted a good three years I think without one.

I am really not a fan of social networking, but I get the draw of it. It's kind of like having a really unpopular blog *points to self* but on a much larger scale. You can see what friends and family are up to. You can remember birthdays. You can see when your friend Patrick is having a show. You can make your friends Lauren and Josh laugh (you are welcome guys). You can keep in better contact with your homo husband that you don't get to see nearly enough.

So I am not telling my family or many of my acquaintances I have one. I added who I want to add and will accept friend requests very choosily. I am hoping to get to laugh a lot as just being back active the two days has already cracked me up more than once. One of my friends posted, "Don Draper might be a horrible person but at least he has the decency to punch a minister." I live for that kind of ridiculous and offensive stuff!

Anyways, wish me luck in to my new foray in to the darkness. Hopefully, Facebook will die before I have a chance to want to kill it again.

Happy picture of the day: I won't say where Alfred's other hand was, I will however, say that he did the singular of geese me. Also, if a bunch of people goose you at once, is it okay to yell out, "Well good god y'all, I just done got geesed!" 'Cause I think that should start happening immediately.

Couch Surfing

I used to couch surf a ton when I was younger. I'd pack a bag and go to the East Coast to catch some punk shows, and just find a person to stay with who was at the show. People always acted like I was nuts but I can read people pretty well and only got in to one creepy situation. I have always stayed with random people, and let random people stay with me.

A few years back I put up a profile on a site called Couchsurfing. I was never really active on it until recently, when I decided that next year I may want to use it to travel to New York. Not having to pay for a hotel would save me a bundle. So I started actively seeking out people to host, so I could have some good references and people would be more likely to host me. I had three people I contacted. One said he was coming but then I never heard from him again. A young girl from Germany needed a place but then at the last minute it turned out her friend was going to be able to get her from the airport.

Finally, a young kid (and by young I mean 30 'cause I'm an old ass 38 year old) from Austin answered one of my emails to host. He had tattoos in his pics, and a picture of him at Burning Man. He seemed harmless enough and had a bunch of positive reviews. He showed up on the 10th and left the 15th. It was awesome because he was here to get skydiving certified, so I only saw him a few hours a day, and he wasn't looking for someone to show him around town. I work full time and have a pretty full schedule so I tend not to respond to folks who are looking for a guide. He brought his dog Panda, which my kitties were none too thrilled about. But I LOVED that damn dog and she was nice to the kitties so I let her hang out in the house with us. I would say my first experience with the site was a great one.

The night he showed up I gave him a house key and told him there were leftovers in the fridge if he was hungry, then went on a date with Sean. It's not that I trusted this stranger per se. It's just that I figure what is meant to happen is going to happen. If I came back to half my stuff gone I'd deal with that later. But the fact that he had used the site often and had great feedback led me to believe I was fine leaving him alone in my home. And I was right. He was really nice, and super respectful, and I am really glad I let him stay. For the next few months I'm going to invite more folks. I look forward to the adventure of it all. Then hopefully next year I can find a free place to stay in Brooklyn for a week. That would be the best.

Happy picture of the day: a dijon crusted pork tenderloin. 'Cause I'm eating leftovers of one I made right this minute, and it is effing delicious.

Source

A Sense Of Awe

It's something people rarely have anymore. I get it when I see a magnificent piece of architecture, or a great old tree, or a beautiful sunset. I sometimes get it when I see a baby looking up at me. But I got it way more than I thought I would last week when the shuttle flew over our building at work.

At 9:15 everyone started talking about how the shuttle would be flying over the capitol at 9:30 and where in the building would be the best place to see it. I wasn't even sure if I cared. I was trying to concentrate on work. Then I realized if I didn't at least make an attempt to see it I was a jerk. So I decided to join some others on the roof.

I kept laughing because our roof is covered in this soft material. I was wondering who was going to fall through first. I was talking about how many safety violations we were breaking in our union contract at that moment. I stopped joking when I shut my mouth long enough to look around. Atop every building downtown were groups of people. It may just be the coolest thing I have ever seen. Miles around, crowds of tiny heads on top of the city buildings. It was very cool.

On a rooftop directly adjacent stood one lone man. I kept talking about how lonely he must be looking around at the cityscape littered with heads. He had no one to talk to. I yelled out, "Shoot the Burt Reynolds!!" and was disappointed that no one got it. I mean, when I quote some obscure Korean film I understand, but the new Dawn of the Dead? C'mon people!!

Someone asked me to tune my iPhone to a radio station and I started to. Then I realized that at least one of these people was going to point and yell out as soon as they saw it. And sure enough, a commotion began. I looked off in to the distance and there it was, flying what appeared to be right at us. I made sure not to put my phone up right away to take pictures. I wanted to not only view this thing through a screen as I was sure so many other people were doing. I wanted to see it with my eyes first. It was awesome. Then it came so close I felt like I could reach out and grab it. Apparently after I went back in it flew by again so close that people thought it was going to hit them in the head.

I'm glad I wasn't a curmudgeon and that I went up on that rooftop. I still think seeing the crowds of the city on top of the buildings may have been as cool as seeing the shuttle itself. And I laughed when later that day a friend sent me a quote: "What kind of a third world country are we living in? I just saw a plane fly by with a beat up ass camper strapped to the top of it." It reminded me of Spaceballs.

Here's a great picture my friend Tricia sent me of it flying over the Golden Gate Bridge. Pretty phenomenal.



Sexuality

It has come up in conversation a lot lately in my world. People asking questions about boundaries, rules, preferences and whatnot. It has made me delve in to my brain to verbalize things that you don't usually have to think or talk about in very much detail. You know you like men, or women, or both. You know the things you like when you are being intimate with someone and you talk about them as they come up. But in this new world they come up far more quickly and you really have to try and wonder why you have certain rules and boundaries, or why you identify one certain way.

Most if not all of my metamours (the wives/other girlfriends of the men I'm seeing) identify as bisexual while I do not. I have slept with women, but it has only been where there was a man involved. I do not see a woman and get all twitterpated the way I do when I am attracted to a man. I have never dated a woman. I've never been in love with one. And I've never been in bed with JUST a woman. Therefore I have considered the contact I've had in bed with women, to be more of a by-product. In fact, the reason I stopped having sex with multiple partners is I almost felt as if I was using women or doing them a disservice by sleeping with them to get to the better product in bed next to them. 'Cause that's how I see it. Oh, you're a woman, and you are there, and I'll make out with you, but only as the means to an end.

I believe that sexuality, along with most other things in your life, is a fluid spectrum. I don't think that anyone on the planet is 100% anything. I think everyone falls along a line from very hetero, to very gay, and it's not really so much a line as something that branches out in a ton of directions. No one is really at either end. Everyone is somewhere in the middle. I have always tried to be a person to realize that while I prefer certain things, I am not going to say never about anything. I believe you can't say you dislike something if you've never done it. You can ASSUME you wouldn't like it, but you can't truly know. There are things I know I do not enjoy where intimacy is involved. I rarely say, "No, I will never do that again." Sometimes I do. But it's a rarity.

I know that in order to feel like I'm experiencing the most I can out of life, I am willing to do a lot of things that most people see as perverse. I am willing to say, "I have tried that before and didn't like it, but maybe with you it'll be different." I am okay with, "Nope, never even thought of that. Let's check it out." As with most other things in my life, I want my intimate encounters with people to make me happy and feel complete. I want to feel like I can look in the mirror and know I didn't miss out on something just because society says it's not normal. I have never been one to attach to the normal. But I also don't want to do things just because they are different. I want to say no to things that I know would make me feel uncomfortable. And I do. I have two things that will NEVER happen while I'm naked with someone. And I'm okay expressing those boundaries.

I think in our society we have SO MANY things that people think are wrong, just because they are not their preference. As I have stated in many of my blog posts before, the "my way is the only right way" mentality is really a stifling and ugly one. It's something I don't ever want to express or feel. I want to respect that my way is the right way for me, and someone else is free to be the exact opposite. If you're not hurting anyone, and everyone is being honest and positive, there is no such thing as gross or wrong. People should do what makes them happy. But more important than that, people should want other people to do whatever makes them happy.

Happy picture of the day: me and Suzie taking a super attractive picture on our girl date.

This Just In: Melanie Is No Longer a Loser!

That's right emm effers, I just won a Liebster Award thanks to CLR over at The Slow-Dripped Life. 1000 thanks to her for such an honor, along with a hit on the head for being dumb enough to think I deserve this shite. (Did I just negate a compliment? Shucky darns).You are awesome! The rules of receiving this are as follows:

1. Thank your Liebster award presenter on your blog. Done!
2. Link back to the blogger who awarded you. Done!
3. Copy and paste the blog award on your blog. Done. Kind of poorly, but done nonetheless.
4. Reveal your five picks. Do I have to choose five? I suck at that kind of stuff and I love so many blogs. Damn you Labiaster. Shut up, that's what I'm calling the award. It's mine, and I'll do what I want.
5. Let them know by leaving a comment on their blog. Will do, shmegfaces.

Again, thanks so much for this award. Here are my picks:

Ash-Matic Does Things. I love Ash. I love his blog. I love that when he went on a blog hiatus for school he said that even if I didn't want to be his friend, he would make me be his friend. I look forward to being tied up in a closet somewhere in the UK, being fed only bangers, mash, and occasionally being sang a silly song. No, he doesn't sing silly songs on the blog. But he should. Like this one: The Pirates Who Don't Do Anything.

The Undercover Caterer. I love Sarah, and I love food. I would love Sarah if she were made out of food. I especially love her Nana Wednesday posts. I have no idea if she has under 200 followers. If she does it's because people are stupid, and they hate unicorns. Seriously, they probably cut the arms off of newborns. They're jerks.

That's Just Stupid What You Said. I feel like Trixie is my friend who lives far away. Plus, at least 100 times a day I think, "That's just stupid what you said." I am an ass. She is an ass. We are asses, but you love us. You just don't know it yet. Or you do know it. In that case, you are super smart.

Abby Has Issues. Can't see her followers, and I'm almost certain she has way more than 200 followers. If she doesn't, there is something wrong with the world. More wrong than the fact that there are still people out there who think forcing their beliefs on others is totally okay. I'm looking at YOU homophobes. No, that has nothing to do with Abby. Abby is one of my favorite bloggers, and you should be reading her every day. I don't care if you have a life. That's no excuse. Stop making excuses. Go read about Abby's issues.

Stretching My Wings. She's awesome. She's a mommy. She's awesmommy. Does that sound like assmommy? I think so. At any rate, this is definitely a last but not least sort of dealiemajigger. I heart Heather. I heart Heather so much I sent her daughter a wallet with a dick on it. Okay, I lie, it was a Wienershnitzel wallet. But I wanted to sound way more perverse than I actually am. Which is pretty perverse, so I had to go there with the child...dick...wallet thing. It's like a dick in a box, only not at all.

So there you go kids. If any of those folks have more than 200 followers and get offended 'cause I sent them an award, they can totally suck it. And by suck it I mean I'm sorry and I love you guys. And by I'm sorry and I love you guys, I mean you can totally suck it.

Also, if you are one of my five feel free to break the rules and not thank me, link to me, and all of that stuff on your blog. I did this because I appreciate you. I don't need any sort of recognition on your site, and I most certainly didn't do this to get my name on your blog to get more readers. So carry on as you wish. 

Also, you need to go look at this immediately. You're welcome.

Lucky!

So a friend of mine just contacted me and asked if I would like to volunteer to help with an upcoming event. It's an event I have been looking forward to for MONTHS and now I get to go and help out, and totally avoid the ticket fee. I know, I'm a horrible helper. Anyways, if you are anywhere near the Sacramento area, and like MCM (mid-century modern) architecture, I suggest you come check this out.

Roush Residence Tour. I think this home is one of the most interesting in the area, and I am really excited to get to go and check it out and help with the event. Have I talked yet about how much I love architecture? I believe I have. The architect of this home was a colleague of John Lautner who is one of my all time favorite architects. Am I gushing? 'Cause I feel like I may be gushing.

Anyways, the point of this post was just to put out in to the universe how truly blessed I feel to have friends in the area who do such great work. I am really lucky to know people who work on preservation, and care about the city we live in. Whenever I get in a boohooey mood I need to remember that I get to be a part of lovely things like this, and these are the things that make life worthwhile.

I am going to keep this post nice and short. Because I want to, that's why.

Happy picture of the day: I FINALLY made the perfect burger. I made this truffle oil infused cheeseburger with caramelized onions and saffron mayo Friday night for my friend Marcella and I. It is seriously the best burger I've ever had. Hope I can replicate it next time.