Author Archives: johnozed

About johnozed

I'm 50+ years old, 210-ish#, 6'2", reddish blonde, blue eyes with glasses (and without) masculine, funny, relatively intelligent, enjoy the company of assorted friends and family especially sordid friends and family. I love music, reading, writing, conversing, laughing, going to films, shows, concerts and smoking cigars. And I also enjoy looking nice in a suit and tie. Looking more like Lewis Lapham than Tom Wolfe. I'm sure there is more, but we'll just have to find out when I write about it. In a lifetime relationship with partner Bill Vila.

I Never Learnt to Share

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Termination without cause is what they said and termination without cause is what happened. I suppose budgets should have been checked beforehand, and now this. It’s wasn’t that great an investment in time but I do have to confess my disappointment. I certainly do appreciate the time spent and still think highly of them, enough to not harbor any bad feelings. That’s the way things go I guess. I stopped by the morning and received the official news. There are still days left on the schedule and where they stand on this remains to be seen. I guess I’ll find out soon enough.

A beautiful day today though. I’m heading into the city in a few hours, Bill is taking part in a staged reading about the Proposition 8 trial in California, about same sex marriage. It was written by Dustin Lance Black and when first put on in Hollywood, had bold faced names in the roles. Bill is my bold faced name. It’s a few hours from now and I just have to figure out how to fill my time until then. I’ve already done laundry and ran a few errands. I could always watch my clothes dry I guess.

Bill and I have been taking a break from politics and the news, opting to watch comedies on TV. A few weeks ago when I was hanging out with Rand, he asked me what shows I watch on TV. I realized that I don’t watch programs, the channel has usually been set on MSNBC. And that has been stressing me out. So a conscious decision was made to laugh, or at least watch something amusing. So we watched The New Girl and The Mindy Project, both were actually funny. Then for old times’ sake, Lawn Hors d’œuvre SUV which was pretty good. Then we watched The Soup and Key & Peele on Comedy Central. Bill loved Key & Peele a lot.

That’s the TV roundup since Bill went to bed soon after that I followed a little while later. Quite boring isn’t it?

Today is also National Coming Out Day. That’s a way of showing support to people in the closet about their sexuality, showing them that there is nothing wrong with being gay and that life is better once you stop hiding yourself. Staying in the closet does not help anyone and in fact makes a lot of problems.

I was outed myself and once my sexuality was revealed, some people were fine with it and others dropped me as a friend. Nothing had changed really, something I had kept hidden was revealed. People who were friends on Friday were no longer my friend on Monday. Nothing I could do about that. There was a betrayal involved, the ‘friend’ I had come out to, told his girlfriend who had a big mouth. Luckily I did find new friends who were quite supportive.

It’s all about support you see. It is a necessary thing, considering that there are so many people against coming out. They seem to prefer a person living a lie.

I just got back from seeing Julio for a few minutes. It was good to see him. He is going to a wedding tonight and needed a pair of cufflinks. He knew I had a pair to loan him and it was good to get out in the sunshine and talk. He was disappointed with my turn of events and offered a few words of support. We had a few laughs, it’s rare that we see each other these days and he is hardly ever online, spending more time in the real world.

And now I just came home with Bill. Bill played the role of Paul, one of the plaintiffs in the Proposition 8 Trial reading. He was excellent and quite passionate, drawing tears from members of the audience, not just me. Well done, excellent cast, excellent reading of an excellent script by Dustin Lance Black. I am quite glad I made it, walking up to 80th Street and Lexington Avenue from 33rd St and Sixth Avenue. I was early and it was a good walk. With all that walking (in dress shoes no less), I wore a suit & tie for the occasion.

Kudos all around.




09 Feels So Good

I Never Enjoyed My Operation More

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Last night provided a rough night of sleep. I went to bed earlier than usual and actually fell asleep but at 2:30 I woke up very dehydrated and with a killer headache. I got out of bed and drank a lot of water and tried to go back to sleep but that proved to be difficult. So I took two Motrin, drank some more water and went back to bed, eventually falling back asleep. Today was the day that something had to be done and I was grateful for a few hours of sleep. Things just have not been going right for me lately.

Of course things were better last week, then the weekend revealed things that I had feared. Perhaps feared isn’t the right word, I should have written ‘wary about’. I had hope but hope proved to be damning. It hasn’t been easy and today after doing the right thing, I came home and fell asleep. I woke up and got myself together once again, heading off to the nearby supermarket since there was not enough to eat and I couldn’t wait for Bill to do grocery shopping. That was the high point of the day, made possible thanks to Isis at the register.

I hadn’t seen her in weeks, we kept missing each other. Some catching up ended with her sympathy for my situation. I came home with some groceries in my canvas bag and my head in my hands. I wasn’t expecting company today but there they were- my personal demons. All the things I think about, letting people down, letting Bill down, cursing myself for posting on Facebook something that I was excited about not realizing that it was a big mistake. Oh the demons were there to back me up with their name calling and general self-loathing.

Every step seems to be a misstep today. Just now, a little after 3:00 in the afternoon I walked down the four flights of steps to get the mail only to find when I got to the mail box, there was no mail. Yes, it is a day like that. So today I am a shut in, having gone out twice today with no desire to have anything to do with the rest for the world, just waiting for Bill to come home. He’s about the only person I can deal with right now. He was great and supportive last night.

Resumes went out again today and I find myself set up with an agency meeting next week. An agency I sent emails to in 2010 which went unanswered, today they answered. Tomorrow I have to go back to the other place and discuss my volunteering with them. I do enjoy them and don’t want to let them down, even though I have already. The brief meeting this morning went well enough I suppose but no one had any paperwork and all I had was an open heart and a lump in my throat. I couldn’t help but feel like a fool.

It’s been a day of despair, a day of self-loathing. It’s not always going to be like this, just today I find myself in the ditch.

That was a few hours ago. Not much has changed. Heard from an old friend I hadn’t heard from since I had last seen him at the party at Maxwells in 2010. It was an email congratulating me on leaving retail and making a joke about the ‘new’ gig. I had to set him straight as it were.

Sometimes my enthusiasm can be a curse, for me at least. And anyway, I am still feeling like a fool.


Fat Chance Hotel