Homer'sWorld

The new glasses.

Regular ones.


Reading glasses.

I decided to skip bifocals for now, I'm not that old yet,

Thanks to other people's shitty mortgages, my 401K is worth 89.71 percent of what it was a month ago, despite the profit sharing and my own contributions (currently I'm putting away 11 percent in that account). It's all magic money anyways and the likelihood that I'll ever be able to retire and take up painting nudes or becoming an opera queen is pretty minimal.

For my fifth birthday my Mama took me to the Ace Hardware on Front Street in Traverse City and I got to pick out a present with the five dollars that she gave me.

I remember walking down the aisle of toys they had there, past the Breyer horses, and there was a beautiful light blue house trailer.


Nylint house trailer.

You could lift off the white roof and look down into the two rooms. It was filled with furniture and pots and pans. I still have the piano and a frypan with tiny fried eggs inside.

My father thought it was terrible that I loved that toy. I had PeeWee dolls and I would place them inside and pull the house trailer around. Sometimes (often) there were tragic accidents and the trailer would roll over and the furniture would fly about. It was very exciting.

Mummy has the trailer at her house and I think next time I'm at home, I'll bring it back to Arizona. (the picture is from one selling on ebay, where it is over $200 at the moment)

I was going to have a pool party nipple identification quiz, but then the whole stress of figuring out which nipple to include and which ones to exclude was just too much. Plus I had too much sun yesterday and only just now am I recovered enough to enjoy life in the slightest.

So instead, why don't you watch this lovely Dirty Vegas video instead?

Pool Volleyball, part 1. As always, splashing around in Richard's pool was an excellent way to spend a hot Sunday afternoon. I made salsa and a cake and took them along.


Pico de Gallo Salsa.


Yellow cake with raspberry filling and bittersweet chocolate frosting.

Most of the pictures I took of people in the pool didn't turn out so well or had stray penises in them, so you'll have to look at these two.

Jeffrey.


Patrick.

I was so tired out afterwards I came home and went to bed early.

Post 1348. I broke two weed whackers trying to whack my weeds. My Ipod is defunct. I think I have a cavity. I broke a drinking glass recently. The mirror in my dining room fell suddenly from the wall and the fancy frame broke. My new glasses cost $700 when all was said and done.

I'm hoping this string of bad luck ends, like yesterday.

Totally unrelated: I had drink and dinner with Ray and Cobban last night.


Ray.


Cobban.

Middle Eastern food! The waiter was beautiful and a Jimbo-like butt.

Oh lord, Brian turned 29 today. Again. For the ninth time. I swear I don't know how he manages to remain so young and nubile. I suppose it is the "selling my soul to satan" thing.


Homer with the birthday man.

Why don't you go over to his blog and wish him "Happy Anniversary of his Departure from His Mama's Womb."

Conservative Christians spend an awful lot of time fretting about male sexuality. Back in the 19th century it was all about those damned polygamous Mormon men, fucking their multitude of wives. In the 20th century it was about controlling woman as a way to control men. The 21st century is about finding ways to demonize the gays. Yawn.

To me this is what the fuss about the San Diego firemen is all about. They are suing the City of San Diego because they were asked to drive a firetruck in the Pride Parade. Some spectators did inappropriate things, they say, like kiss each other, touch their niblets, or yell out phrases such as "give me mouth to mouth." I read through their affadavits of complaint filed to the Department of Fair Housing and Employment and several things struck me.

The first was that all four had been coached in their statements. Each statement is very similar, in the order of how they described the events and the exact wording of several offending phrases. Could the fact that they are being represented by a conservative Christian law firm have anything to do with this?

The second is that this is just the first of these sorts of complaints gay people will be seeing. Sexual harassment laws are very vague and broad. Basically, anyone can claim to be sexually harassed if one witnesses something one considers offensive. Know the route of the annual gay pride parade? If you are a fundamentalist Christian you could get yourself hired at a business along the route, and once the parade passed, you could claim harassment because you witnessed men kissing, dancing, groping, or doing anything that heterosexuals routinely do, but because gay people do them, they are somehow more lewd and disgusting. How soon before parade permits are denied because cities don't want the legal expenses involved.

Clever way to work the system. And those firemen, ask me if I believe they are telling the truth.

So many things to learn about. Every day I acquire many useless facts. This morning I spent precious moments watching music videos including several by a seemingly Charo-esque woman called La Tigresa, one of which had been watched over two million times. I'd never heard of her before, my loss.


La Tigresa del Oriente- "La Anaconda"

In my almost daily chats with Brian, I relate to him some of these obscure facts and observations. Yesterday it was the fact that not all gay men have superior grooming habits. At a recent pool party I was horrified to see someone with long, untrimmed toe nails. And I mean long.

Now Mollie, the elderly dog, freaks when I attempt to trim her toe nails. One time she pooped while I was doing so. I suspect there is some toe nail trauma in her past. But there is no reason, and less likelihood of a poop incident, for an adult gay male to not trim their toe nails. As Brian would say, "I'm just saying."

And as Mizzbird states in her blog (she's just moved to Tucson!), this is perhaps the best video of the mid-1980s. So full of energy and I always thought the guy with the moustache was hot (and he probably had trimmed toe nails):


Relax.

The pesto pizza went over well. So easy to make and everyone thinks it is hard. I know some bloggers like that.


Jigsaw.

Jigsaw was a littole doggie vacuum, looking for food everywhere.


Panchesco.

The pool was too cold for me, I have delicate parts.


Hot tub!

The hot tub was too hot for me, I have delicate parts.


Ken and Hiram.

The birthday boys blew their candles out twice for the camera. A good time had.

How I spent the rest of the day on Friday.

Nothing interesting happened to my penis in the last 24 hours. Or to my left eyeball or my right glenoid fossa. Did you know that the little bone between your nostrils rhymes with my name. It is called the vomer.

The computers at work have been down for three (count 'em!) three days. It is really hard to do anything at work when you can't do anything. So I'm sitting at home waiting to hear whether the computers get fixed and thinking about how humid it is (all of my kitchen cupboard doors have swollen shut).

I have a secret internet blog crush. If I told you who it was then you would know, so it is my little secret. I've seen a revealing picture. Damn!

Oops, the computers at work aren't working. Maybe I'll make a cake instead of working.

This weekend I'm attending a birthday party for someone named Hiram. That was my great-great-great grandfather's name. I'm very excited about meeting someone with that name. I'm taking along a pesto pizza, because I can.

Nothing exciting has happened to my penis since I started writing this post. That is probably for the best.

You can learn many important lessons while watching re-runs of America's Top Model while lazing about on the couch. Last night's episodes taught me to never sass handsome British fashion photographers because they are so important, serious, and full of themselves, that they can't understand something called a "joke." I also learned that modeling involved a lot of passion and hard work, and that sometimes one's body above the waist wants to model while the portion below doesn't. Who knew? I certainly didn't! I also learned that should I ever become decide to become a flamboyant runway walk coach, I could also get a job tearing young women apart because their cheekbones make them look some certain way that lots of computer manipulation can't fix.

This is the problem of not having fancy cable and it will only get worse once NBC drops Passions in September. My daily dose of trash tv will only get trashier. Goodness, whatever will I do. There are only so many hours you can stare at the hot guys on BMB or Seancody!

Happy Blogday to me.

Mother Nature decided to celebrate by dumping a huge amount of rain on Tucson. After the computers died at work from some electrical thingy, I got in the trusty Saturn and came home. That was a nightmare.

Tucson's streets are not engineered for rain, since it is rather rare here. When it does rain, some of the streets become mini rivers.


Driving down Tucson Blvd.

From work I had to go down several streets where the water was anywhere up to eight or nine inches deep, running downhill really fast.

Firetruck.

Close to home, I parked next to the Santa Cruz River and went out onto the bridge.

Santa Cruz flooding.

Normally this is a completely dry river bed. Today water roared down it, carrying trees, a couch, bottles, and who knows what else.

A five-ft-tall garbage can.

I could see huge waves on the other side of the bridge so I went across and watched as a snake climbed out of the water.

10.4 ft of water.

At one spot a concrete ridge runs across the river bottom and there a giant wave formed, splashing up five or six ft in the air. It was pretty awesome to watch.

Self portrait next to wave.

At home the electricty had gone out and the cats were a little freaked, the storm must have been really hard here because the stop lights weren't working.

Such a change from the usual, boring weather here.

Tomorrow is the beginning of the fifth year of Homer'sWorld. Someone asked me this weekend why I started this blog and the best answer I could come up with was that I had always meant to keep a diary. I like to write silly things and post pictures of my adventures. I've met quite a few fellow bloggers (something like 46 of the people on my links list) and made some really good friends.

The question I have is why do you read my blog?

I had dinner with Michael and Doug and their spouses David and Leon last night.


Michael, Doug, and Homer.

Small world moment- Michael and I lived in the same dorm the same year at the University of Michigan. I need to find my college yearbook for that year and see if he's in his hall's picture.

I hung out with Forrest yesterday, made spinakopita, and had breakfast with Jeff and Sean. Today I was a lazy bum, had dinner at Patrick and Brady's (and saw a horrible movie- The Fountain), and then went and hung out with Jeff and Sean at the pool at their hotel. A very young, very blonde, very hot guy distracted me slightly.

And now back to normalcy and work.

My head hurts from the heat and humidity. I spent the morning out at the ranch I'm working at, watching as they remove debris from around buildings and collecting interesting artifacts or architectural pieces.

The farm animals are curious and watch me- horses, a donkey, a baby mule, and some calves.


Longhorn calves.

My pictures of the roadrunner and the baby owl didn't turn out, I really need a camera with a better zoom option.

Jeff and his bf Sean are in town from Toledo. I hope the heat and humidity aren't giving them headaches.


Jeff.

We ate at La Indita and then visited a local homo bar. It was nice hanging out and chatting.


Sean.

A couple of bloggers are coming to Tucson this weekend- I'm planning on hanging out with them too. It is nice to meet people in person who I've been reading about for so long.

Blog entries about dreams are pretty dull. So I am shamed to mention that last night I dreamed I was on the Poseiden (of the Poseiden Adventure) and was in the kitchen, all turned upside down, when I realized it was an Australian ship and that the cooks had really cool cookie cutters (kangeroos!) and I was trying to slow down the people in my group attempting to escape so I could sort through the cookie cutters and grab the cute ones.

There must be a lot of symbolism involved. Or therapy. But when I woke up I was disappointed I didn't have, in real life, the super cute cookie cutters.

Brady asked me to make him a pesto pizza, so of course who can say no to Brady?


John and the three pizzas.

Frank, John, and Forrest came over too, and we played Clue (Mrs. peacock, the wrench, in the billiards room) and ate a fancy puff pastry, whipped cream-cream fraiche, and strawberry dessert.

I won't be cooking for a while, my house becomes an oven and is just nasty. It is already very humid from the monsoon rains (three days in a row now).

When Jimbo comes to visit he always wins when we fight with our vacuums. Damn, it's like a fricken arms race. First I get a DustDevil with a special upholstery brush end and he goes all out with the Dustinator2009 and I end up in the emergency room, again.


He smites you mightily.

I always wanted one of those ant farms toys when I was a kid.


Pretend that is me.

Years later, in my 40s, my dream has come true. My entire kitchen has become an art farm. They march in the back door and head for the dogfood dish, the table, the counters, the silverware drawer, and so on. They have walked across the floor so much they have left a visible trail.

I'm against using chemical poisons because, well, they contain poison. I've tried more natural, less nasty methods, like vinegar, but these ants have been intelligently designed to resist that method. So once or twice a day I freak out and sweep them out the back door and yell at them, "The power of Christ compells you!" but even that doesn't work.

Oh, it is monsoon season finally and thankfully the ground is absorbing water and my back wall has shifted back to where it is supposed to be. I can even lock my back door so I don't have to worry about that hot blogger who won't be named but who has perfect chest hair and enormous biceps and ummmm.... breaking into my house and terrorizing me.

Can you tell it is Monday?