Urban Insanity

Beijing Olympics or the Cover of a Gay Romance Novel?

I found this at Towle Road:  German gymnast Fabien Hambuechen and American Jonathan Horton share a moment during the horizontal bar apparatus finals. They won bronze and silver, respectively.

David Wright - NY Mets Hunk

Thank you to my friend Brian for sending me these photos.  I'm not a baseball fan, but may just have to tune in to watch a Mets game or two.  David Wright is an All Star Third Baseman for the team, and was born on December 20, 1982.  He is reported to be dating model Molly Beers. 

 

The Three Month Siesta - Part II

I took a super long time off from writing with good reason.  Earlier this month, I wrote about the relationship that I couldn't maintain, no matter how hard I tried.  Turns out that I like masculine guys, and no matter how amazing some of our more feminine brethren are, I just can't make a relationship happen with them.  Live and learn.

But regarding my siesta from writing, perhaps even more telling was my drama at work. 

Statistically, most young attorneys hate their jobs. 

They don't "dislike" it.  Oh, no.  They absolutely hate it.  It takes a few years to figure out what you're doing and realize that the stress of our job is nothing to jump off a building about - it's just part of the profession, and you have to leave work everyday with the right perspective. 

Unlike the statistical norm, I usually like my job. 

There are even days that I love it. 

For anonymity purposes, I'm not going to delve into the exact details of what I do besides saying that I consider myself on the good-guy side of the law. 

In past professions, I have always been a shining star at work, the golden boy (so to speak).  And at my current firm, I certainly started off that way; I took on an immense amount of responsibility for a first year associate and excelled with flying colors. 

But then I was assigned the project from hell. 

One thing that I should mention is that I work with very, very smart people, some of whom are even brilliant, in my opinion.  The attorney who assigned me the project from hell is one of those brilliant people.  In no way, shape, or form does my level of intellect even approach hers.  I will call her "Smartzilla."  Smartzilla is very pleasant on the service, but is a vicious trial attorney at heart.

Smartzilla assigned me the lengthy research project in June with no firm deadline - "Just work on it and complete it as soon as possible." 

Well, I got slammed in June with other projects, projects with hard deadlines.  Consequently, I pushed Smartzilla's project to the back burners. 

Four weeks later, right before I was going to leave to see my family for the Fourth of July, Smartzilla sent me an email with a "!" asking about the project. 

When I told her that I hadn't started, I got reamed and insulted. 

Then, trying to finish it before I left for home, I worked several super late nights.  Her response to my finished project was "this is terrible - if a summer intern did this, we wouldn't hire them."  I apparently hadn't understood what she was looking for.  With clarification, I set back to work, only to be insulted with every draft I submitted. 

After I spent my Fourth of July holiday working on the project, she finally accepted my work.   

Thrilled to be finished with the project, I went out and got drunk. 

But the drinking didn't wash away the bad impression I left on Smartzilla.  She now questions not only my intelligence, but also my work ethic and judgment. 

It takes a lifetime to build a good reputation, and only one bad project to ruin it.  However, I am committed to rising back to the top of the golden ladder.  It will just take some time. 

Atlanta or Bust!

I have not posted since last weekend because I've been on a whirlwind work trip interviewing potential witnesses for a trial set for March, 2009. 

For the next two days (Wed, Aug 20 through Fri, Aug 22), I'll be in Atlanta, Georgia.  This is my first trip here, and I have to say that I'm pumped!  Unfortunately, I can't get too crazy - I have way too much work stuff to do while I'm here. 

But I do plan to go out on Thursday night and hang out at my hotel bar and pool as much as possible over the next two days.  I wonder how much work I can get done by the pool? 

I'm staying in the W Hotel in Midtown.  Any suggestions?

I am working on my "Work Drama" post tonight until I grab dinner, so hopefully I'll have a substantive post by tomorrow.

2008 Olympics

My absolute favorite sporting event to watch is the Summer Olympic games. 

Unfortunately, I've never been (although I did attend the Winter Olympics in St. Lake City back in 2002). 

The Olympic games are so incredibly inspiring to me - everytime I sit down on my couch and crank up the Tivo, I get chills.  No, it's not the bulging muscles on the gymnasts or the lean torsos of the swimmers, although I'm certainly not complaining. 

It's the heart and determination of the competitors that really gets me.  Michael Phelps, for example, has trained six days a week for around six hours a day for the last four years.  He eats, sleeps, and breathes swimming.  Even more inspiring are the young gymnasts, many of whom left their families to move to Indianapolis (the U.S. team) or an obscure training facility (for many other countries).  The lead gymnast on the Chinese women's team was turned over to the trainers at age 3 to start training for her shot at the gold. 

If you watch the faces of the competitors before, during, and after their events, you'll see courage that's rare for someone so young.  In a world where school-age kids idolize clowns like Britney Spears and Paris Hilton, it's good to know that some real teen heros exist out there.  

There is not really a point to this post, other than to give props to all of the competitors out there, especially to the Americans, and to the Chinese, who has a solid group of athletes to recon with.  Also, I wanna give huge props to "out" Austrailian diver Matthew Mitcham.  Here is an article about him posted on Outsports.  

Is "W" Still the President?

I love this joke:

 

One sunny day in 2009 an old man approached the White House from across Pennsylvania Avenue, where he'd been sitting on a park bench.
 
 He spoke to the U.S. Marine standing guard and said, "I would like to go in and meet with President Bush."
 
 The Marine looked at the man and said, "Sir, Mr. Bush is no longer president and no longer resides here."

 
 The old man said, "Okay" and walked away.
 
 The following day, the same man approached the White House and said to the same Marine, "I would like to go in and meet with President Bush."
 
 The Marine again told the man, "Sir, as I said yesterday, Mr. Bush is no longer president and no longer resides here."
 
 The man thanked him and, again, just walked away.

 
 The third day, the same man approached the White House and spoke to the very same U.S. Marine, saying "I would like to go in and meet with President Bush."
 
 The Marine, understandably agitated at this point, looked at the man and said, "Sir, this is the third day in a row you have been here asking to speak to Mr. Bush. I've told you already that Mr. Bush is no longer the president and no longer resides here. Don't you understand? "
 
 The old man looked at the Marine and said, "Oh, I understand. I just love hearing it."
 
 The Marine snapped to attention, saluted, and said, "See you tomorrow, sir."

The Three Month Siesta - Part I

First off, thank you to all of the readers and fellow bloggers who wrote to me over the last three months encouraging me to write and making sure I was still alive and not buried under one of the bars on Cedar Springs in Dallas.

Much has happened in these last three months, and it's hard to even decide where to start. To make this easier for you to follow, I will break this story down into three posts: (1) The Last Boyfriend, (2) the Work Project from Hell, and (3) Drinking Drama.

PART 1: The Last Boyfriend

A post or two ago, I slyly inserted the words "my boyfriend" into a story. Most readers probably skimmed over it, but a few of you guys picked up on it and demanded further information, which I refused to relay. Now is the time to tell the story, because I learned a valuable lesson from the four months that "Church Boy" and I spent together.

We met, surprisingly, at church.

I was there with Heather preparing to listen to the sermon when Church Boy came up and introduced himself. At first he thought I was straight, and that Heather was my girlfriend, but I relayed my gayness at the end of our conversation.

I knew from the moment he'd approached that he was gay. His mannerisms and clothing gave it away.

A few days later, Church Boy emailed me. He'd tracked my email address down from someone else at church, and wanted to grab dinner.

I was flattered, and said yes after only a little hesitation.

I have never dated a guy before who wouldn't be described as "masculine." While Church Boy certainly wouldn't be described as a total queen, he was without a doubt much less concerned about appearing straight or "butch" than anyone I'd ever been with. I respected him for his comfortability, and told myself that I would look past my reservations to see what kind of guy he was inside.

For our first few dates, I was skeptical, but after getting to know him, and seeing how genuine his heart was, I fell for him. His sea blue eyes captivated me, and his caring, Christian nature was refreshing and engulfing. Surprisingly, Church Boy was a phenomenal athlete, and we had fun playing basketball together in addition to doing traditional gay stuff like shopping and fixing up my poor excuse for a house.

Everything was great for a while. My friends loved him, we had great conversations and a blast whenever we hung out, and I truly cared for him.

But there was one problem. I could never get over that physical attraction hurdle.

For the first time since the days that'd I'd been with girls, I had trouble performing. Yes, sexually performing.

I didn't know what to do. With girls, I'd just break up with them when my plumbing stopped working. But with guys, I'd never, never had an issue, and it terrified me.

Now, I'm definitely not the most sexually driven guy on the Strip, and I'm no where near the sexual animal that my friend BOB is, but I love sex, and performance hasn't been a problem in the past

If any of you guys have been in this situation, even just with girls, you understand where I'm coming from. If not, just know that it's terrifying. I didn't want to tell any of my friends, and I had no idea how to handle the situation.�I didn't know where to turn.

I was sooooo embarrassed whenever Church Boy and I were in bed together and I couldn't "get it up" that I eventually looked for excuses not to mess around with him.

Then, frustrated, I tried Cialis, a prescription drug that my doctor recommended - he even gave me some free samples. Unfortunately, I ended up getting sick, and never tried it again (although I hear it works for most people).

Eventually, the lack of physical attraction from my end drove me to end the relationship. I realized in the last few weeks that it wasn't fair to him - in addition to being a wonderful person with a great heart, Church Boy was hot as hell, and he deserved a guy who could look beyond simple mannerisms and want to rip his clothes off at every moment. Apparently, I'm not to that point in my gay development yet, and I may never be.

Although the relationship was short, Church Boy and I spent a lot of time together, and we grew close. All of that, coupled with the fact that the breakup wasn't caused by someone doing something wrong, made everything that much sadder.

Church Boy has now accepted a job in another Texas city, and I will probably not see him for a while. But he is in my thoughts every once and a while, and I will hold other love interests in my life to his high standard - he was a true gem of a guy.

Through television, Hollywood, and especially the billion dollar porn industry, we are often led to feel inferior if we're not having wild, uninhibited sex on a weekly or even daily basis. But the fact of the matter is that most people don't live the lives of Sean Cody stars, and probably wouldn't like it if they did. After my experience with Church Boy, I talked to several of my close friends, both straight and gay, and every single one of them has had sexual "dysfunction" problems at one point or another, and the older ones admitted that with increasing age comes increasing issues.

Since Church Boy and I broke up two months ago, I haven't had any more problems in the bedroom, but next time I do, I won't be so scared about it. It's not something to look forward to, but it's something that happens in life. Still, sex in a relationship is important, and it's essential to have strong physical attraction to the person to make it work. I won't make that mistake again.