Homer'sWorld

Not as many Trick or Treaters this year, I have lots of candy left over. Not a good thing, I like chocolate too much.


Homer and Patrick carving.

Patrick and Brady joined me in carving pumpkins.


Patrick's pumpkin.

We sliced into their tender flesh, while the cats and Mollie stood nearby watching.


Brady's pumpkin.

Princesses and super heroes were the most common costume.


Homer's pumpkin.

I admired the hot Mexican dad, four kids under age seven, very fertile.

Have a very Republican Halloween.


Karl Rove or maybe Ken Mehlmann, I can never tell the evil dead apart.

Hmmm. Potatoes. Let me count the ways I love you. Baked with the skin crispy, butter and sour cream. Mashed with lots and lots of pepper and salt. French fries with catsup. Au gratin. Tater tots. Fried for breakfast. Hash browns. Potato chips (I can never buy a bag because I will eat them all up). Those little Pic-nic sticks- salty goodness. Sigh. My next boyfriend should be a big potato.

I spent hours sewing strips of cloth onto a long sleeved t-shirt and a pair of shorts for my costume. Patrick, Brady, and Jeffrey showed up and we all put on our Halloween party outfits. Patrick and Jeffrey had to help me into my costume, it was way too tight (and really, really warm).


Mummies: Patrick and Homer.

Patrick and I were hideous, untidy mummies. Brady was a disgusting zombie. I helped Jeffrey with his toga (I was in Latin club in high school). He didn't wear anything underneath.


Mummy Homer and Zombie Brady.

Ray's party was fun, as usual. I behaved myself and because I looked pretty hideous, no one offered to kiss me.


Matt and Mike from Nebraska.

These two guys were dressed up as corn-fed hotties from Nebraska. They were very convincing and Mike was also very friendly.


Wes and Jeffrey.

I got home at about 12:20, but decided to stay in instead of going out to the bars. Good thing, Patrick reported back to me that no one was out at the Denture dressed up.

Tuesday night Brady and I will be carving pumpkins and handing out candy. Won't you stop on by?

Is it wrong to watch a 40-year-old music video and think, "God, I'd do him!"? Denny Doherty of the Mamas and Papas is so fricken cute in this video, which was filmed as part of the 1966 variety show, Hullabaloo.


California Dreamin'.

Besides the cute/hot aspect of Doherty, there is also the bizarre go-go dancing of the Hullabaloo dancers. This dancing can also be seen in this even more bizarre production featuring the theme from the Batman television show.


Batman.

What were they thinking?

Archerr and I spent a half hour chatting on his podcast . If you listen in, you'll hear us discuss gay marriage and you can find out what I'm wearing for the big Halloween party tomorrow night.

Happy Birthday Patrick!


Patrick.

I made fancy macaroni and cheese for tomorrow night's birthday party.

Where are there lots of hot, hunky guys? Go to the Halloween costume shop here in town. They probably thought I was practicing to be a zombie because I was so distracted by all the of the furry, muscled, facial haired college-aged hotties there that I actually knocked stuff off racks twice. I found the green, white, and black makeup and fake blood for the costumes that Brady and I are assembling. As I walked out the door I swear I strained my neck muscles staring at the hot, beefalicious cop standing at the door. Oh my.

Gosh, it's Homer CrankyPants! I'm trying to eat my salad while reading the Amish newspaper columns my brother wrote (he was gored by a boar last week and has to have macroscopic surgery on his finger) and Mollie stands right next to me and lets loose a terribly stanky smell from her 15-year-old behind-end. "Mollie! Why can't you do that someplace else?" She is so deaf she ignores me and farts again.

I'm already cranky because I made the mistake of going to Tucson's main library to use their microfilm machine. Of course to print something out involves an incredibly tedious process. And of course the person next to me is an obviously mentally ill oldster who is reading comic pages from the 1940s while making very loud, very strange sounds. Finally I just had to leave. The library recently switched from being City-County to County only and annoying things have started, like new cumbersome microfilm readers, the closing of the periodical reference desk, and charging $2.00 an hour for parking. I just love how something that is supposed to be improved ends up exactly the opposite.

I'm going to go eat some leftover coconut frosting to make myself feel dandy.

Here's a link to the news story I was featured on yesterday.

I was on the news tonight. I'll post a link if the station puts it on the air.

When I came home in the afternoon I made an onion quiche. Yummmm, now I feel bloated.


Sunflower.

Brady and I watched Venture Brothers cartoons and later on we went to Antigone Books and I looked for a present for Patrick, who is having a birthday on Thursday. The gentleman behind the counter looked at me and asked if I had a blog. That is only the second or third time that has happened.


Brady and Homer.

A confession, I like buying presents for other people. I'm really good at it, I think. In contrast, people claim I'm difficult to buy for. If they would only ask I'd have a huge list of things I could use. Like new windshield wipers for my car. A big thing of paper napkins. Craft supplies. A new chair with fabric my cats won't claw up. See, I'm easy.

It has been too hot to sit in my backyard, but now it is rapidly cooling off. I sat in my yellow chair, exiled from the house because Puff and Joey scratched it too much, and chatted with Vince as he worked on his plants.


The back side of the house.

Vince has been gradually landscaping the area around the guest house, adding artwork and plants. It is amazing how changed the area has become in the last year.


Vince, gardening.

When he's not working, Vince sculpts futuristic mushrooms. They sit out on the patio he created from red slabs of stone.


Vince's mushroom and a pretty sunset.

As the sunset shaded the sky shades of pink, I wandered back inside to escape the mosquitos.

Two weeks until the election. Will the Democrats win control of the House and Senate? I was convinced that Kerry was going to win in 2004 (and maybe he did), so this year I'm not getting my hopes up. But I did vote and I did give some money to the Democrats and to the people trying to defeat Arizona's "Protect Marriage Stupidity Amendment."

I think gays and lesbians should be allowed to marry, so we can get our fair share of wedding presents and all the stress having a fancy wedding entails. I don't know how many presents I have given to straight couples getting hitched or to baby showers. And what have I gotten in return? That's a moment of honest greed, I guess.

I closed the back door last night- after being open since about May, it is finally cooling off here in Arizona. The yearly cycle commences- Halloween party at Ray's, my least favorite holiday- Thanksgiving, Holiday Party on December 11. However, this year, for the first time since 1996, my mother is not coming to Arizona. She has a new toy poodle, Darby, who isn't house trained and Mummy feels she needs to be there for the mutt. I am sad about that, I like having Mummy around.

I've been thinking about friends alot lately. Let's jump back to when I was a teenager. I had no close friends. I was a bookish nerd, not popular, my father refused to allow us to do anything but come home from school and work on the farm. When I went off to college I found it difficult to make friends, partly because I was in the closet. After I came out that changed, but to this day friends are extremely important to me. In some ways, living here in Arizona by myself, my friends are my family.

I'm going to be obtuse and not go into detail, but basically a friendship I was pursuing appears to have dissipated. I feel sad for what might have been, and wish it had been otherwise. It made me feel down at times, and at particular moments little things can bring feelings of sadness to the surface. But friendship goes both ways, and when one person decides not to push for it, what can you do?

And in other news, I've got to start thinking of a present for Patrick, whose birthday is coming up. And I've got to make a Halloween costume for Ray's party- I'm going to try something different this year.

Several bloggers have written on the outing of Senator Craig of Idaho, who is supposedly a tearoom, gloryhole, down on his knees cocksucker. Oh my! Comments on these entries run the gamut from "Yes, out him!" to "Oh, leave the poor, sorry cocksucker alone!"

So back in 1994 or 1995 I'm living here with in Tucson with my roommate "R." "R" tells me someone is coming over to visit. Ring! It's the doorbell. Who is it? Why, it's my Congressman, the Hon. Jim Kolbe (R). Coming over for a little kissy face man-on-man action with "R."

I was livid. Kolbe was a closeted homosexual at the time. He was well known in Tucson for chasing after younger men. He went on in 1996 to vote yes on the Defense of Marriage Act. His reasoning was that the majority of his constituents were in favor of it.

The Advocate told him they were outing him afterwards, so he stepped forward and came out himself. Since that time he has become an advocate for gay rights, despite the fact that the majority of his constituents don't agree with him on that issue.

Sometimes I wish I had outed him. He voted for DOMA, but doesn't have to worry about its provisions because he has a juicy congressional pension to support himself on after he retires from Congress in 2007 (something like 100,000+ a year).

So I say out the closet case Republican congressmen, out their staff members too. Ostracize them. People didn't make all nicey-nice with the people who collaborated with the Nazis during World War II did they? Closet case fags who work against homosexual civil rights are traitors and should be outed and shunned.

An interesting fact, if you search Kolbe's website for the word "homosexual" you get nada, nothing, negatory. I guess we don't exist.

I went to see The Science of Sleep last night.

One word review: Crappy.

What a waste of one hour and forty-five minutes of my life. I suspect the movie influenced the unsettling dreams I had this morning, one of which involved trying to carry a pair of penguins while following a wagon train. The other dream involved going to an ice cream store and realizing the two males behind the counter were not wearing pants, in a very unpleasant fashion. I should never fall asleep again in the morning, the dreams are too vivid and now I am actually anxious and jumpy.

Luckily, Jimbo alerted me to this video, which has a calming effect on me:

Thirty years ago a 21-year-old man named Richard Heakin was visiting Tucson. He went to a gay bar and as he was leaving four teenagers, aged 15 to 17, beat him to death. The judge reduced the case to manslaughter and gave the four probation. Injustice.

Heakin's death forced the City of Tucson to confront reality. There were homosexuals in the community and they needed help. The City enacted civil rights laws. The gay community organized and started a community newspaper and an annual pride celebration.

This year Richard Heakin's sister Lori Heakin Ryan was the Grand Marshall of our tiny Pride on Parade. After she gave a short talk about how much her brother had meant to her family, I stood a short distance from her and could see how happy, yet sad she was.


Lori Heakin Ryan.

Here it is 2006 and yesterday I filled in the little oval dot on my mail-in ballot for Proposition 107, which would prevent governments from granting rights to domestic partners. We still have a long ways to go.

Some pictures from Tucson's Pride Celebration.


Ray.


Cowboys.



John, Homer, and Frank.



James and Larry from Seattle.



Matt and Homer.



Gaysha.

I had a nice time seeing some people I hadn't seen for a while. At the very end something happened that is making me think some things over, I'll get back to you when I've figured them out.

Things to be ecstatic about:

- that coconut cake I made was awesome!
- Tucson's Gay Pride Parade is this Sunday. A whole block of fun!
- Someone told me I was hot recently.
- Tom Jones is still hot at age 66:


I'm glad everyone is happy today.

I love this song.

Effeminate straight men freak me out. I've been having to go to meetings with a man that you would assume was gay, except he apparently has a wife and kids. But his wrists flail about, he likes to write haikus, and (as someone said to me) he uses very florid language.

What's up with that? Very confusing. Effeminate gay men, don't bother me at all and, really, why should they? It is the straight guys that are nelly that weird me out. Are they closet cases? Are they just sympathetic? Do straight women dig that stuff?

Please enlighten me.

Maryann would probably be jealous, maybe Ginger too. Patrick mentioned that he wanted me to make him a coconut cake last time he was over, and Patrick's wish is my cooking command.


Coconut cake.

When someone like Chris comes to visit, you have to pose for the standard tourist pictures.


At the Mission of San Xavier.


I swear this kid was cute until I took his picture.



Yes, a saguaro.


Yes, the standard raise your arms picture.

Chris is in town for the weekend visiting with his friend Pete. We had fun hanging for a few hours. Next time I'm in New York City he gets to take some tourist shots of me.

A letter I wrote tonight to the local newspaper, after watching V is for Vendetta:

I am not afraid- of terrorists or immigrants or gay people. I am not afraid when the government raises the Terror Alert level and we are told to be very, very frightened. I stopped being afraid on September 12, 2001. I will not let the terrorists win. I will not let those governing this country frighten me. As FDR said, " All we have to fear is fear itself."

In this upcoming election we have the choice of voting for those who would like us to be afraid of people who are different, using that as a method for taking away the civil liberties earned by righteous men and women over the last 230 years. Or we can vote for a change and hope that the new people turn us away from this terrible path. Every election is important, but the 2006 election is especially so. It is a clear choice between fear or change.

Yes you are at Homer's World however your host can't be with you tonight. Instead it is I a carpet bagger from Buffalo, NY that will fill in for tonight's entry. Also known as Brady. Homer has asked me to write an entry for his blog tonight as he's busy reading. So you will forgive me for blabbing on as it's my first time. Thanks

Homer and I had a nice day around the house. We both got out of work early. We had dinner together and watched Venture Brothers online at adultswim. Had a nice time. I've been staying here with Homer since July more or less. Patrick's and my house is going through a remodel now and thankfully it's almost done. Homer was kind enough to put me up until it's completed. You couldn't ask for a better friend. I first met him at a horrible gay water park gathering last year. He came up to Patrick and of course my good friend Patrick never introduced us. He's like that. The next real meeting was when we went tubing on the Gila River. Homer rode with us and I started to get to know him. It ended up being quite the time though both of us were a bit afraid of that water. He and I swam together the last leg of the trip by ourselves. We talked and talked. Since then both last year and this year Homer has become a close friend. He's quite a bit of fun to hang out with too. Well that's about all I can think of at the moment. Homer will return tomorrow so look for him....Bye


Homer and Brady.

Some random thoughts.

- I thought 16-year-old guys were hot when I was 16-years-old. At 43, I find the idea of talking dirty to a 16-year-old to be really repulsive.

- My friend Dougie offered me some advice last weekend that I initially disagreed with, but later realized was completely correct. I'm glad that I'm not stubborn that way.

- I'll be spending some time doing archaeology up in Phoenix. For our worksite safety plan we are learning about what to do with recently used heroin needles. Who says archaeology isn't romantic and exciting?

My brother joined the Amish church and when I go see him I usually see a bunch of their kids. The children wear smaller version of the adult clothes. They talk to each other in a version of German and are very respectful. They stare a little, because I am "English" and I don't wear the right clothes or have the right facial hair.

Bub (that's what I call my brother) is the columnist for the national Amish paper and for a monthly magazine. His letters describe the weather, who attended church from outside his community, whether there has been an illness or a family death. The Amish live an 1800s life, each community setting their rules for which technology they can or cannot have. My brother's community allows gasoline engine powered fridges and washing machines, but no electricity. It is all about self sufficiency.

I'm stunned that some cretin would go to a school and shoot little girls. The Amish are known for their belief in non-violence. He picked an easy target. I feel so sad for those families, I don't know what else to say.

My friend Mike has moved back to Tucson from Chicago after a seven year absence. Tonight I introduced him to The Amazing Race- he now understands why I don't answer the phone when that show is on.

An apparently Amazing coincidence- Mike is living with a woman with nine cats. Back in 2000 I had to find a home for two of Mama Cat's kittens- Blackey and Gefiltefish (I know, I know, weird name for a cat, someone at work suggested it). I put an ad in the paper and this woman called and I took the kittens over and she wanted them. Apparently, six years later, this is the woman Mike is living with. How odd is that?

It is nice to have Mike back, the last year has seen a lot of my close friends move away. I'm not a very good person at being alone, I like to be around people. I get lonely real easy, and sometimes when it is quiet and the phone doesn't ring I get a bit sad. The last couple of months have been really good because Brady has been staying part time at my house while Patrick's place is remodeled. So I haven't been so lonely.

Jesus, if they wrote a country song about me right now it would be "Lonesome Homer and his Long Lost Pussies."