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Hello I'm Rich Brown and this is my personal website and blog. I'm just your simple, average, down to earth, professional, out gay man and aspiring circuit boy, living in Phoenix, Arizona with a few things to say while trying to find my place among all the scary, conservative, religious nuts in this sick and twisted world.
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@WORK. I'm so tired today. I really don't feel like being in the office. I'm getting so tired of this job. I received a call from Bearingpoint yesterday, maybe I'll consider calling them back. It was quite an interesting weekend, but I just don't have the energy to write about it now. I'll write more later. I have to fix a problematic file feed right now. Cheers.
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Saturday, August 28, 2004 |
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@HOME. Ok this is actually a back dated post but I wanted to insert it into the correct time frame. So tonight was completely fucked up. First of all I wasn't tired because I took a really long nap earlier in the evening. This pretty much ruined my sleep schedule and Justin had to work in the morning so he decided to go to bed around 11 or so. Well that's where all this started. I decided to stay up for a while. I started off by watching some tv and then I decided to write a little bit in my journal. As I was writing I started talking to my friend Brandon online. Brandon was up as well as was also bored because his b/f Alan was already in bed as well. He kept trying to get me to come over to his place and hang out and chat. I told him that I couldn't leave because I didn't want to make a bunch of noise and wake Justin up. So he said that he really just wanted to hang out so he would come over here. I told him he can't come over because Berg would freak out and start barking and wake Justin up. So finally I agreed to meet him outside where we could sit and talk for a little bit. Ok, so now ... I walk out the sliding glass door in the back to go around outside and all of a sudden Berg starts barking. Next thing the light comes on and Justin is up and in the kitchen. I was kind of freaked out because I didn't want to wake him up and I didn't know what to say ... "Hey I'm meeting Brandon out front ... that was sort of wierd anyway" so I just went back inside. Next thing, Justin starts to go back to the bedroom and through the dining room window he sees Brandon standing out front. So he totally freaks out, things something is going on. LOL ... so at this point things couldn't get any more awkard or worse. So I go outside and get Brandon and tell him to just come in because now Justin is up and it dosen't matter anyway. So he comes in and we sit on the couch chatting for a bit. Justin decides to go back to bed since he has to work. So Brandon and I are sitting there on the couch watching Lord of the Rings and having a few beers. Brandon moved over next to me and we were chatting some more. It was a little awkard and then Justin comes walking out and stands behind the couch. All of a sudden he's like "Can I talk to you for a second ..." so I get up and go back into the room with him and by this time he's pissed. He's upset because he thinks something is going on with Brandon and I and he's feeling left out. I explained to him that nothing was going on and no I'm not seeing Brandon (don't know where that one came from). Anyway he says he saw Brandon sitting there playing with his dick. I'm like well I didn't see it and I wasn't intending or going to let anything happen because that would be just rude having Justin in the room. So anyway after all that we come out and Brandon just decides its best for him to just go home. He didn't know what was going on and didn't want to cause any grief with Justin and I. So by this time it's like 5am and the sun is coming up. Justin has to work in the morning and I'm tired as hell, so we both just go to bed. What a strange night.
I guess the moral of all this is that I should have just told Justin I was going to go out or meet up with Brandon to hang out. I guess I just didn't want to worry him by leaving while he was sleeping. Oh well ... we'll work these kinds of things out for the future.
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@HOME. MY LIFE.
Reality strikes me sometimes that I fucked up and now I have to suffer the consequences. Some days I think to myself that I feel as if I just want to curl up somewhere and cry. I want to feel sorry for myself, but I can't because I'm the cause of my own nightmare.
If only it were a nightmare. It really does seem like just a bad dream but then there is always the constant reminder letting me know it actually is reality. The reminders everyday. Noon, midnight, on the radio, on television, all so subtle but never cease.
I sometimes want to scream out. Lash out at someone. Hit something. Hit someone. Be Mad. I have such an anger inside of me that I just can't let go or let out. An anger that I know I have to contain for fear that if anyone really knew how bitter, cold and mad I am, it would scare them away from me. I force myself to maintain control.
I know this has led me to my current state of emotional unavailability for anyone in my life. I am consumed. I have to spend so much energy and all of my own emotions just to contain myself, my fear, my anger. I have nothing left to give after that.
I feel like if I give any part of me, I will fall apart. As if that one part, any part is the only thing holding me together at this point. My wall will break. The anger will come out. The fear will come out. The emotions that I have to suppress will be too overwhelming to deal with. It's easier to just contain.
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@HOME. Christ they are now adding Ad's to Blogs. Is nothing safe from corporate greed. I'm a little tired today even though I took a 3 hour nap after work. A group of us went out to the Elephant Bar last night for drinks and ended up staying out until 2 a.m. to celebrate the later bar hours law that went into effect on Tuesday. I woke up this morning with a nasty hangover. Another day of " ... I'm never drinking again ..."
I've been having so many thoughts about so many different things lately, I think my head is going to spin right off. I feel like I can't focus or concentrate on anything. Work, politics, family, friends, just life in general. I'll try not to be too ridiculously profound here as I can forsee me saying something stupid. I had a great conversation with my friend Dave today about relationships and just how fucked up we are in the gay community. In all honesty I think part of the reason we are so fucked up comes from our parents. Our whole lives we try so hard to mold ourselves and mirror our personal relationships after our parents. I think sometimes it works but more often then not it fails miserably. One person ends up cheating on the other or something else happens that forces a breakup and you're left wondering why it didn't work out again this time or what you did wrong yet again. I think the gay community is different and we cannot keep modeling ourselves after traditional heterosexual couples such as our parents. I believe it's more important to embrace life, experience it and go with your heart. In the end that can't be a bad way to live can it? We are our own people, we can make our own rules about life and relationships. Why does everything always have to be about social and moral values? From my perspective, a relationship is a union of two or more people for a matter of convenience. No more, no less. Now that convenience may be love, may be sex, may be business ... it may be anything. The bottom line is that there doesn't really have to be rules for the damn thing. You can make it up as you can and if it works then you're doing better then most. I'm always curious why do people find it necessary to impose judgment, rules and criticism upon others when they don't understand or agree. Everyone has their own right to make decisions in the best way they see fit for their own individual lives. I guess what I'm getting at is that as a gay community, we need to embrace life, love ourselves a whole lot more and create the relationships and friendships that help us grow and experience new things.
JUSTIN AND I.
Ok, I'll be the first to admit that sometimes I question our relationship. I know that sounds bad but it's not. When I say question, I don't mean question in the sense of why are we together. I mean it more in the sense of are we doing the right thing ... are we both happy and getting from each other what we need? Mind you I think that it's important to separate the difference between "what we need' and 'what we want' when it comes to a relationship. I know if you were to ask Justin, I'm sure he would say that he's happy but doesn't get everything he wants from me. But does he get everything he needs? I can't answer that for him, but from my eyes I would probably say yes. As for me I can say that I'm pretty content. That doesn't sound great and maybe even a little pathetic or lack luster, but that's pretty much how I feel. I spent so much time with my previous relationships always wondering what if and questioning the love and the relationship in general that I always had myself convinced I was not happy. I don't feel that way with Justin. I think I may have questioned things in the beginning, but we are going on 4 years now and I just don't have those concerns anymore. I know we have our issues, our fights and those things we really hate about each other, but I just can't see myself without Justin in my life. As much as I love Justin I do see our relationship sometimes heading the route of more companionship then anything else, but I'm starting to thing that is the inevitable course of all relationships over time. In the beginning there was passion, lust, all of the good things. Over the years we become content, happy and it takes on a different dynamic. I sometimes feel like we are best friends who share every aspect of our lives. I couldn't imagine starting over with someone new and I just couldn't imagine what my life would be like without Justin. I would like to think that I'm a very emotionally available person and that Justin knows how I feel, but I'm sure that he questions my love and my sincerity. I guess the truth of that matter is that I know I can be a total bitch and that I too often shut myself off emotionally from everyone, especially Justin. I feel like I've been through so much over the last 10 years and I've give out so much of myself that I have to just shut off or I won't have any more to give. I don't know ... that's probably not true but it's just the way I feel. The way I've been headed. I know Justin hates it and wants more. I just don't know how to give him more right now. That's really shitty for him, but I just can't, I feel like I have to spend so much energy keeping things in and just keeping myself together that if I loosen up just a little emotionally that I will completely fall apart. I don't know that's my deal and I don't know that I'll ever be able to change that.
Sometimes I feel guilty about the whole open relationship issue. Guilty in the sense that I know deep down Justin really doesn't want an open relationship but that I've forced him to accept it if he wants to be in a relationship with me. I've had people say "How have you forced him ... he can make up his own mind?" Which is true, but in our last discussion I pretty much made it clear that it was an open relationship or no relationship. I don't know if he really doesn't want it or is just afraid that I'm searching for someone to replace him. I think all that comes back to my emotional unavailability. I just don't want sex to be a reason or factor for us to break up. I think there are so many challenges to maintaining a relationship that any barriers you can remove that might possibly break it down is a good thing. In the past I don't think I would have never gone for it myself, but over the years I have come to realize that a relationship is not about just sex, it's about the life you make together. How you both define your happiness. Having sex with someone else is sort of an adventure and fulfills some carnal needs for some of us. It just doesn't feel natural to be monogamous for life. If that were the case why are there always so many heterosexual and homosexual people cheating on their spouse/partner. I think if monogamy was really the social norm instead of an imposed religious moral value, we would not have the growing problem of cheating and ultimately separation and divorce. Just my thought. So anyway that has let me to believe if you take away the cheating aspect out of the relationship and allow each other to explore any desires they may have, it leads to a stronger personal relationship in the end because you have one less issue to worry about.
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Wednesday, August 25, 2004 |
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@HOME. Alright I'm a little tired tonight and I think I need to go to bed soon. I haven't written lately because it seems like I've been overwhelmingly busy, but looking back I'm not really sure why. Mostly busy with work, and some other social events during the week. I think this is going to carry through the rest of the fall. The weather is finally starting to cool down here a little bit. When I say cool down, I mean it's starting to be in the low 100's instead of over 110 now. I just checked the pool temperature and it's only 80 degrees. Burrrrr! Oh so we are really spoiled here in AZ, I guess that's why I'm still here. Not really a whole lot else to report. One of my friends, Mark, just moved back to San Francisco. We didn't see him that much since he traveled quite a bit, but I'm still disappointed that he left. I was talking to my friend Philip the other day and he just moved from the Mission District in SF over to near the AMC 1000 on Van Ness. Hopefully he'll like it there. Justin and I were talking with some of our other friends about maybe going up to San Francisco for the weekend of Halloween. I don't know if that's actually going to happen or not. We both have vacation scheduled for early October and still have yet to decide where we want to go, if anywhere. I think we may try and go out to San Diego over Labor Day weekend but we're not sure yet.
Oh what an exciting life we are leading these days. I guess it's just not as exiciting as when we were living in San Francisco and following the adventure. I got a new spark plug for the lawn mower tonight and that's about as much excitement as goes on around here anymore. Hey what can I say, I really was excited over it because now I can cut my grass that I've been putting off for a month now. I guess that's domesticated life for you.
Justin seems really happy with his new job. I know he's not happy about having to work the overtime and some hours on the weekend, but I know it will be all worth it in the end. It's not going to be this way forever. I'm proud of him. He's doing really well.
Alright I think I'm going to wrap up for now. I have a busy day tomorrow at work. Cheers!
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Wednesday, August 04, 2004 |
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@WORK. I just finished reading SeanP7's blog. I have to say it's one of the more entertaining parts of my day which has pretty much turned into a daily routine for me. When I was living in San Francisco and was writing in my online journal (pre-Blog), I had a bunch of people that would religiously read my posts. I felt like a regular Ann Landers or something. I couldn't understand why people would be so interested ... now I know. It's addicting. I enjoy reading SeanP7's posts because what's going on with him is almost like a soap-opera. I can't wait to read a new post to find out what is going to happen next. I guess it also makes me realize how settled my life has become compared to the days when I was back in San Francisco going out every night and having all kinds of wicked stories to tell.
So yesterday my team ending up going up to Scottsdale for drinks as a "team building" event. We headed up the the Salty Oyster for several rounds of Margharitas. It was the first time all of us got together to go out. I'm a bit uncomfortable in going out to social situations with my team because I'm not out to them and sometimes the situation can become a little uncomfortable. It's funny because there are plenty of people here on campus who are aware that I'm gay, but no one on my team "offically" knows. I'm sure that some of them would probably suspect since I don't oogle over all the young waitresses and scantily claid female passerby's everywhere we go. Usually that and the fact that I'm not always talking about "bangin the bitches" is a pretty good giveaway for anyone who actually pays attention. I try to be suttle without being too obvious by having an HRC logo and a picture of Justin and I on my desk. I sometimes think people just don't pay attention to things they don't want to know. It's not that I'm actually afraid of coming out at work, it's just I hate the awkard part of it all and having to deal with the situation initially.
The whole "out at work" thing has always been a difficult issue for me. In the past, I never felt it an appropriate topic to bring into work. I usually just left people to believe whatever they wanted or outright lied about it, depending on my situation. I guess I was always afraid of my loosing job and my reputation. I wanted people to know me for me and not as "the gay guy..." Sometimes I think it would almost be easier if I were more of a "stereotypical" homo, as that way it would just be assumed and you wouldn't have to worry about telling anyone. Ok, on second thought, NO, BAD IDEA, I take that back. I admit I have always enjoy being one of the boys and being part of the "in" crowd both socially and at work (Which probably goes back to my fraternity days at University.) I just have to figure out how to let people know while still maintaining my integrity and the respect of my peers. It dosen't really matter to me anymore because Bank of America is such a gay-friendly company, I don't have to worry about my rights or loosing my job. Also my immediate manager knows and it dosn't matter to him, so it's not going to hinder my uppward mobility in the company if I decide to stay here. Like I said earlier, I just hate that initial awkardness with peers. They don't know what to say around you ... know how to act ... It's all just so uncomfortable at first, then it usually just works itself out. I guess I'm getting tired of hearing about everyone's girlfriends and dates and just sitting there in silence acting like I'm single.
I think this has been on my mind since I watched a documentary about Harvy Milk, the only openly gay San Francisco City Councilman, who was assisinated back in the 70's along with Mayor Moscone. Harvy Milk was openly out to everyone and said that the only way we are going to gain our rights and the respect of others is to be out to friends, family and at work. After watching the documentary, I began to think about it and I agree that the only way we are going to be truely free is to be completely open with everyone about who we are. My friends and family already know, but what I have yet to face is the out at work part. I just haven't been able to force myself to gather the courage to let loose and be open about it. I'm still even having a hard time convincing myself that it's even necessary (deep down I know it would take a big weight off my chest and be the right thing to do) I guess it realy boils down to the point that I still worry what people will think of me. It's difficult being in a professional role in a corporation, where you interact with many different people and levels of management. I really have to maintain my reputation and have everyone take me seriously, and I don't know how to do that as well as being out. I think you really have to be in this situation to understand and realize how hard it is to break out of the proverbial Corporate Closet. It really is like the good ole' boys club and if you're not a member, then you're not playing. Oh well ... I've rambled enough about all that for today. In the words of Forest Gump ... "That's all I have to say about that!"
So anyway, after drinks with the team I met up with Justin for a sneak preview of Colin Farrell's new movie "A Home at the End of the World." First of all, Justin was pissed at me because I thought the movie started at 8 not at 7, so I didn't leave the bar until 6:30 and started heading home. When I saw he tried to call my cell phone like 20 times (can you say psycho stalker :-P) and left a few messages, I checked them to find out he was already at the theatre waiting for me. So I turned around and headed back up to the theatre. When I got into the theatre, he was visibly irritated with me. Oh well ... shit happens he'll get over it. So the movie started out pretty good but then spiraled downhill pretty fast to the end. Overall the movie was pretty medocre. If it had been anyone else but Colin Farrell it would not have been worth seeing. I would probably watch it again if it came on tv, but not go and see it again in the theatre. That's my review at least. I think probably the most amusing part of the movie was the reaction of the audience at some of the gay scenes. It was a mixed crowd as part of a news radio ticket giveaway and I don't think many of the people in the theatre were aware of the subject matter. The first gay scene was accompanied by a girl yelling out ... "that's disgusting" ... and her comment followed with laughter by all the homos seated around her. People need to get over it. We have to watch straight sex in nearly every movie these days so I think it's about time we had our turn.
Wow this entry is getting to be rediculiously long and boring. I better get my ass back to work. Cheers.
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@HOME. Yet another day working from home. I was actually contimplating going into the office today but when I woke up at 8 am I just decided I would work from home again today. I started reading Queer View Mirror last night. As with much of my book collection, I've had this one for some time now but never got a chance to start it. I decided I would read a little before bed to help me sleep. I chose this one because it's a collection of short stories and I didn't want to commit to a full read at the moment.
This weekend overall was rather uneventful. Justin and I watched "The Last Samurai" on Friday night. Saturday was spent catching up on some cached shows in Tivo and then off to Mykle and Doug's for dinner. It was actually a nice evening hanging out with them and talking everything from politics and religion to family. On Sunday, Justin and I were up early and decided to go both house and car shopping. From the car perspective we weren't really shopping so much as wanting to look at the Toyota Prius and Scion Xa, Xb and Tc. Of course they didn't have a Prius since the waiting list is rediculious for it. They did have the Scion's and we were able to spend some time looking them over. They are pretty nice cars for the price. Although I think Justin likes the Tc, I wouldn't choose it because the gas rating isn't very high. I just wouldn't see the point of something with a low gas mileage.
As for the house part, well we've been considering the possibility of moving. Well at least looking around. This is sort of twofold though. We both would like to have a newer house, but we both would also like to be in Central Phoenix. Unfortunatly the two of those desires don't go very well together. We decided to go and look at some of the new communities on Baseline around Central. There are some really nice homes going in over there and it's pretty close to downtown, but for the most part the homesites are pretty close to being sold out. That area is also pretty close to sketchyville as well. I think I'd be afraid living just south of south central Phoenix. There are some new communities going in out in Lavine, which is around 40th Ave and Baseline. That's not a far as the far west or far east valley, but it still seems just as far away. I wouldn't want to move further away from downtown then we are now just to have a new house. I don't think it's worth it.
After the new house viewing, we decided to drive into Central Phoenix and take a look around some of the historical districts. We drove through the Willow and Encanto districts. There are some really cute turn of the century houses. There are a few house for sale in those neighborhoods but the prices just seem so high for such a small house. I guess it's all really a trade-off for location. I've never been back in the Encanto-Palmcroft district before. I couldn't believe that some of those homes were going for almost a million dollars. They are all large houses built in the early 1910's & 1920's. The houses are beautiful and very big for central Phoenix. Oh well ... one can dream. I'm still swayed towards living downtown in a loft or townhouse, but Justin is diehard against it. I told him he just was lazy and didn't want to have to take Berg for a walk, but I know it would be difficult to have to walk Berg outside everytime he needed to go out. It's just that loft living seems to be the only way you can get something new and reasonably priced with a good location in Phoenix. I do think that Central Phoenix / Downtown is going to grow substantially over the next 10 years. I think it would be a good move for the longterm.
Well anyway I guess I better get back to work. Another interesting day at the grind. We are supposed to have a team building exercise tomorrow afteranoon at Gameworks. I so don't feel like going there. I really don't enjoy playing video games that much anymore, and as per last time, it's not really a team building exercise since everyone goes off on their own. We'll see what happens. Cheers.
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