Saturday, October 15, 2011

October 15th, 2011 - The Ups and Downs of Life

Happy weekend all! Boy oh boy, life is such a crazy ride, isn’t it? I don’t know about you folks, but the way my days go I sometimes feel like I’m on a roller coaster full of ups and downs. I guess that’s just how life is, huh? Your mood can change at the drop of a hat and sometimes the slightest things can either pick you up or bring you down…



Down in the Dumps!

I dunno, I guess I’ve been kind of depressed lately…no, not severely like I want to jump of a bridge or anything like that (except maybe when I listen to Adele, lol!). I’ve just been thinking a lot about my life situation a lot lately and I’m feeling that here I am a year after I’d made my decision to leave this house, leave Long Island and go into the city, and I’m still stuck with no light at the end of the tunnel in sight.

This house seems to be falling apart by the day, too. I’ve got a broken basement window ($), a garage that’s about to implode from age (well, it’s not impending, but it’s bad! $$$), electrical issues ($), structural issues ($)…the list goes on and on and on. It just makes me feel like giving up sometimes, like I’m doomed to live out the rest of my days in solitude as my debt grows and my house crumbles around me. But as I said in my intro, then life throws in some nice things to make me forget the bad things and elevate my mood.

Contact from readers

It’s always good to get a little positive feedback on the things you write. I think that my writing style has changed over the past four years and sometimes I’m not as confident in it as I used to be, as more of my pieces are geared towards what the websites want rather than the things I’d like to talk about.

Any who, I received two correspondences yesterday that gave me a little boost in confidence. The first was from the owner of the LI Eagle in Bay Shore, Brett Collins-Pellicone. From what he said, Brent’s been reading some of my stuff on my LI Gay Issues Examiner page and wondered why I hadn’t covered his place. He says it’s been hopping and I have heard the same from other people, so I don’t really know why I haven’t covered it. I promised him I would, so stay tuned for that. At least I know that the people these articles were geared for are checking me out, which is nice!

Another gentleman contacted me via an anonymous email last night. He wanted to know why I hadn’t covered this week’s death of gay civil rights activist Franklin Kameny. “JB” complemented my writing and said that he thought I’d probably do good to cover such a historical topic as opposed to all the pieces I do on “Lady Gaga or Fire Island bars.” I chuckled a bit, then thought about it and decided he was right, so I did a little research and found Franklin Kameny to be a very important and historical figure that needed to be talked about. I was almost ashamed that I’d never heard of him. So check out Franklin E. Kameny: A Lesson in Gay Civil Rights.


That's Franklin Kameny with President Obama in 2009
Image Source: CNN

I have to say thanks to both Brett and JB for unwittingly picking up my spirits when I needed them to be picked up, and for giving me a couple of articles to write.

Picking up steam from the bottom up

Today I carried the momentum from last night’s upswing, during which I penned three pieces (a rarity for one night!). I started off by earning some very much needed extra cash by proctoring a college exam at school and then I actually followed through on a goal I had made for today, something which I’ve been needing to do for a long, long time. Yes, today I was John the Electrician!

You see, I live in a really old house and for years I’d been having problems with my light switches in the two bedrooms upstairs. I’d been putting it off for all this time because I had no confidence that I could do it, but a recent visit to ACE Hardware helped me believe that I could, and I did! I actually changed two light switches and now I have problem-free lighting upstairs. Yay!

So with these few simple, positive things I am feeling much better today. I guess I’ve just got to keep focusing on the positives like these and try not to dwell on the negatives. Things have got to get better, don’t they? I think so...

Anyway, tonight is the second official night and first real competitive night of bowling and then I’m heading off to Splash with my friend Paul. My pal Rita has a new beau that hopefully will be coming to join us this evening so I can't wait for that, and Splash is Splash, ya know? Always good fun!

Here are some great photos I got in an email from my buddy Rich. The title of the email was "Guaranteed to make you smile!"





Finally, here's a little good advice from the Funky Divas of Soul, En Vogue....now get down!


Free Your Mind - The Very Best of en Vogue


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