What a year it has been. I mentioned once that this was going to be a year of change. It has been… but as much as things change they remain the same. As some of you may have read in a recent posting I vented over some family issues which I am officially letting go of. As a foot note… I got a letter from my Dad which I immediately marked return to sender. I just don’t trust him anymore.

This years I started trying to meet some new people, but the one steady element has been John Mendoza. He is such a sweetheart. I love this guy, he is a really dear friend. He puts up with my shit… but there are times I can tell he gets frustrated by me. But… I think we have a lot of fun together. He is working his ass off this week. Hi days off were lost because they needed him… I think he loves his work anyway.

Yesterday went in a 6 mile hike (oh my hell!) and floated naked in a natural hot spring 3 miles out… then had to trudge 3 miles back.

Last weekend went to Tecopa hot springs and floated naked. Then camped out over night in the desert. Went camping with Burningman peeps (see previous entry) not long ago, but am going out again in a month.

If these fucking queens here can’t get their shit together and get out there and experience life and the world then I’ll have to do it on my own. Damn, I’d like to have a bf. Shit.

I am getting a lot off my chest today. I should get my ass back to work….

When I told my mom that I had fallen out with my ‘dad’ and that my idiot brother-in-law decided to berate me in front of some family through email I heard something in her voice. It was disappointment. She asked “why don’t you get along with family members?”

So let’s have a history lesson here…

My sister and I never got along since the day she crawled out of the egg. She and I are about as opposite as two people can get. About 20 years or more ago I told her off in a big way because she really was the baby of the family and so heavily favored by both parents that all this resentment came rushing out in a shouting match. This was probably the only time no one was there to rescue her and protect her and I made sure he heard every word of it. She then told the entire family that I beat her up and she will probably go to her grave saying it to. I guess words really do hurt, because that was all that bitch got!

My dad is another issue discussed in a separate entry. Selfish egocentric asshole.

My uncle on my mom’s side and his daughter live together up in Oregon. Both are fucked up meth addicts. I was on really good terms with them and moved to Oregon in June 07 and rented half of the house. Crack head cousin started telling stories how I was abusive to her and spinning some bullshit on my uncle then that freak started locking me out of portions of the house with a steel bar. He refused to even talk to me and literally was sitting in his room with one of those lamps people where when exploring caves on his head in his dark room. This went on for a month with this weirdness, all caused by my crackhead cousin. I bailed and came back to Las Vegas.

That’s it… well, my side of the story anyway. You can read more by looking at some of the past entries!

Look at some of the past entries:
This one from my return from Oregon!

Another note about old dad…

I found this entry… the guy I am talking about here named Noah died last week from cancer.

So, if you have known me in recent years then you also know that I have valued my family highly. I have enjoyed a good relationship with them for a few years and with a few bumps in the road here and there I have managed to continue to value the foundation.

I am a white kid with parents raised Christian (for all accounts)and the child to parent relationship is usually tenuous at best. In a Caucasian family the kid or parent is usually ready to boot the kid out by their 18th year and have nothing to do with them for a while… blah blah blah. It’s very non-nurturing in my opinion.

Well, the dynamic of my family is even more obscure and I grew up with parents as diametrically opposed to each other as one could imagine. My mom worked hard to make life for us kids while my dad did much the same, but he was mostly in it for himself.

Sounds like bitter grapes by now. Well, he never was my “dad” but he was my father. He was everything to his daughter though where I came a distant second; he told me so when I was 17. He also told me I was not worthy of his name or that I was worth being his son. Sucks that this shit can carry in your mind into adulthood and that voice can come back as frequently as it does.

I changed my last name to my mom’s maiden name for a while and when I realized that was a pain in the ass I just went back to what I had. Eventually we reconciled and the relationship seemed to be better than it ever was. In fact, I felt like I was getting to know a whole new man.

Suddenly that guy who had been calling me fat-ass through most of my teen years was a fat-ass himself and looked almost exactly like Santa Clause after 10 years of not talking. I was shocked. He actually seemed like a decent, more humble guy; no longer spouting racist terms at every turn.

He retired at 55 which was a great achievement. He met a woman who is one of the nicest people and was really good for him.

Without going into too much detail, I made a mistake this week. I looked to him for some help with a student loan I needed as I was getting ready for my last quarter of school and needed to get my ducks in a row. It was a loan in my name I was asking him to cosign, which is a big deal and no one wants that ‘could happen’ on their shoulders. I can’t hold it against him for being not willing to cosign for me. It was the response to the request that killed me.

Once again I ended up cutting my ties to him and shutting that door. He can drop dead for all I care now and I just have to put in my head the man is just dead. He was never a ‘dad’. He was an abusive, nasty asshole most of my life. I can barely recall a nurturing moment that ever came from him since I was a kid. I was never good enough and since he told me so, I guess it was just time to believe it.

So, this has been an interesting time and I may have mentioned on a previous entry about a perception that a lot of things in our universe are changing. Energies fluctuate and changes are made from that chaos. Sounds fluffy, huh? Not really if you look at it. There are one or two people who actually understand what I am saying… right Sam and Cheryl????

Since the last full moon cycle began I have had a lot of uncomfortable and negative things happen to me, some caused by me, that provoked some major changes in my life as it is today. 3 full moon cycles the same sorta ‘rough’ full moon phase kicked my ass as well, but not like this one. Now the moon is not particular fond of the male anyway, but I digress.

(If this sounds weird to some of you I really don’t think it is any weirder that the second coming of Christ or some guy speaking to his burning bush so shut it.)

So i was standing outside and in the south I could see the crescent full moon with Venus and Jupiter flanking it and all I could think of was – wow. It was a world of opposing forces in the air.

I am still babbling on spiritual stuff most people I know have no clue about – not that I am a genius myself!

Digressing again – keeping my head screwed on….

This has been a year of change for me. A year of new perceptions, ideas, exceptions, feelings, outlooks, and goals. With my upcoming graduation from school it is a time of planning as well. The last two years have been preparing me for some kind of transition and I still don;t know where it will all go.

I joined the local Burningman group (see the bm2009 link in the upper right corner) and started living life more in tune of the things I hope to have. I’ve gone camping my myself and slept in the middle of the desert and danced around a bonfire like some pagan fire worshiper loving every minute of it.

Recently I have been seeing relationship being tested and got some interesting results out of it. I will blog in more detail soon, but I basically cut off ties to my father and got the riot act from my sister for doing so. My mom was disappointed and I could hear her feelings in her voice… but she would have never had to be part of that nonsense if someone didn’t try and involve her.

Me… I am a man turning 44 this month with the soul of a man half my years and the expectations and outlook that is very naive to structure the world is trying to build around me. I have achieved so much in this life and will continue to that people can’t bring me down. I won’t let them. They wound me with their pure evil and their hate and their ignorance and I won’t fall.

I have an insight into this life and a grasp on life that only an insane man should ever know. Sounds so hippy-dippy, huh? Maybe I will start understanding my uncle better? not!

If a man is my friend he will be my friend and have patience and understand me; or try to. Except me for me is all I ask. If you don’t like it – lump it.

There is a meetup group that is definitely worth checking out for LV local burners. They have having monthly gatherings that are definitely worth checking out. The last one has some detail on a previous entry. The guy who setup this group is the DJ from the live show that I may have said was ABSOLUTELY FRIGGIN FANTASTIC… not to over state it at all.

This last week was wrought with anxiety. They laid off 2 people at work and my health benefits were taken away; all of this in order for me to keep my job. There is little doubt my head could have been on the chopping block with the cut backs going on. My company has a customer who are recruiters all across the United States and Canada. Recruiters are dealing with a glut of unemployed workers walking in their doors. Which means they don’t really need the software to find elusive candidates if they are walking in.

It’s logical from this side. The software answers a problem for a lot of recruiters, but on the other hand, if their problem is less of a problem then we have an issue. Besides that, a lot of the client base can barely turn their computers on let alone use a spidering tool to find them. ugh…

So, my job is web design and interactive media. I am an internet freak. Lock, stock, and barrel. I also have social networking profiles in so many places… but I am too spread out. ha ha ha…

Here are some links I want to share:
– my new group
– The Vegas Burners for the burning man stuff locally
– My Burningman Journal

Yeah.. as much as I try and build friendships and relationship I might be trying too hard. Uhm… yeah. This is how I deal with my midlife crisis. Order one box of crackers, please!

Stress factor Ultra Fucked
Yes, in the last week there are a lot of foundation elements that exist in my life that are on rocky soil. It started with a download from Mozilla for their browser. The update totally fucked my browser and it appears that it corrupted my Microsoft Money AND my Microsoft Visio.

I reinstalled the Browser, but I had to buy Microsoft Money again because I could not find the original software. I am screwed on Visio. So, after I thought I got it all back in shape turns out I cannot boot this stupid machine in Normal mode. Ugh! It is an old machine.

My job is frustrating me. They let 2 people go and my health benefits have been cut so with the way the economy is going the writing seems to be on the wall. Not sure. But want to feel better about where I am at here. God just get me through the holidays and through to another job if this one vanishes.

Beyond that… so much seems to be going pear shaped. I need to get my ducks in a row and I feel like I am climbing a sandy slope. I felt that way a little before all this stuff… but damn! Seriously… I could just snap at any minute. Ugh!

I sound so dramatic. Considering my anxiety level yesterday I am just dipping my 3 oars in the water. A web site I have been working on for 3 months is going live today. Now, a bunch of these doofs are making changes like you would not believe.

KILL ME!

11/15/08 The Las Vegas Burners got together in the desert for an awesome party. It was a pretty big one, because there must have been 500 people there. It did include some people from some other groups that joined the show. Hiker group, ravers, and some other one as well.

Apparently meetup.com is a good source where a lot of these people came from. The yahoo group is good too, but there is also meetup.

I got to Kingman Wash by 3pm and there were few people. Turns out a lot of the people were out on a boat trip. A few boats brought people to the show there. One of these boats was pretty amazing. Soon the crowd began getting larger and before long it was time to chow down for Chilistock. I was a little eager to please in this case. I spent way to much money to make a “Seafood Chili” which technically was a chowder. Hmph!

I had a lot of fun. Not many gay people there, but a few pretenders from what I saw.

This pic and others are on the burningman blog. See bm2009 in the top menu.

This is the other side of the story. I ended up going on my own because I had no idea what I was walking in to. I was going to the Burningman Chilistock party put on by the Las Vegas Burners. Little did I know until later that this included several other groups as well as a bunch of Ravers (aka Eye Candy).

There was a chili pot luck and I spent too much money trying to over impress. Sucks… I made a seafood chowder that got a luke warm reception. My fault.

Getting passed that… the music started soon with DJ Damien who was supreme! I wore a sarong instead of regular clothes because I wanted to be comfy. Basically naked from the waist down. Covered though!!! It did get cold so I wore a fleece jacket. I was comfy.

Yes I got felt up on the odd occasion and yes I may have flashed a person here and there, but I was cruising nicely! One guy that I somehow bonded with was a straight guy who was drunk off his ass playing on a stripper pole. At one point he caught the edge of his foot in the edge of the burn barrel and cut himself. He was too wacked to know what happen; none the less he was banned from the pole.

Well, because I was watching out for him one of the organizers put me in charge of his ass. He heard the conversation and thank god he respected me enough to be cool. He was into this drunk chick with a nice rack; she was someone who had a handful of my junk at one point. Well – straight guy – and I ended up in several lip locks. But he sent miss-nice-rack to heaven in his tent later that night.

The music lasted all night long. It was amazing. My sleep was less amazing though… ha ha ha ha. But all was well.

Later Sunday I ended up meeting John-John and some other guys for a movie and dinner. Perfecto! I wish I had more friends at the event, but I got to know a lot of people on their terms. Cool!

So, my social life is slowly improving and I am slowly making some connections outside of my tight little circle. It’s nice, but this city is so full of sick people it is hard to stay afloat…. or to keep from becoming one of them.

I have not been dating. I can’t even remember the last “date” I was on. I guess that says something unto itself. I stay open to meeting someone cool, but no one is willing to get to know me. last night was an interesting example…

There is this guy whom I have exchanged a couple messages with and he seemed to be cool. We were a non-stop missed connection. Given the way I run my life it is not a mystery why I never have time….

I digress…

So, he goes into this list of personal and extracting questions about me … asking when I hooked up last and this and that and I answered him… well he made all kinds of assumptions right away. Whatever. I told him how turned off I was, but I could see where it was coming from. He was putting his baggage on me because of a recent bad relationship he was in… whatever. I might give him one more chance, but we will see. He won;t last because he already has an agenda.

Fuck your agenda! If you come to me with a hidden agenda then we both lose. I am going to be single as long as I live here dammit… part of me wants someone pretty badly. But I am okay if not.

xo