TetRefine

PBS's Frontline is a treasure trove of awesome documentaries. They are some of the best around. YouTube is also a great source of documentaries of all kinds, and usually my go-to place. I am currently on a World War II binge, and have been watching a bunch of Nazi Hunter documentaries about the efforts to find the Nazis that escaped justice after the end of the war.

Man, I don't know how you do it and I hope there is a really good reason for that. I mean, 15 miles and the best thing is a Walmart? 40 miles to any actual shopping? I rarely venture outside a 4-5 mile radius in everyday life here. I really wish you the best, because the way you talk about it has even me feeling depressed for you. I'm really curious as to why you're doing this, because it doesn't sound like something you're doing because you necessarily want to, but rather have to.

This we can absolutely agree on. 👍🏻

People in my generation (20s and younger) often get accused of this, but it isn’t true. We may show it in different ways then generations past but to say we “don’t seem to have even the tiniest idea” is nonsense. But the way of celebrating Pride has shifted, like everything else, with the times and circumstances. It’s a sign of progress and be happy for that reason. 😏

Ah okay. It makes sense to not bake in June Florida weather or have to compete with other, bigger cities. Here on the East Coast, New York always claims right to the last weekend in June as the biggest and gayest Pride in the country. This past weekend, Philly, Boston, DC, and LA all had their Prides, and New York is the sole city around having theirs the last weekend (and rightfully so IMO). This will be my third year in a row going to New York. Saturday Night-Sunday Morning is MasterBeat, and Sunday Night to Monday Morning is Alegria. I'm lucky that my summer vacation starts at the end of next week so I can make both the Saturday and Sunday night events. It never fails to be a good time during Pride in New York. My boyfriend is lucky, as he'll be in Pattaya for their Pride this weekend. MasterBeat 2016:

The world MOST CERTAINLY needs more of this!

I always wondered why some cities would hold it outside of June, the traditional Pride month. Maybe so they don't have to compete with all the really big cities, who always have theirs in June? Or because the weather is so damn hot there during the summer? 😛

I never thought you could remix a Broadway musical into a thumping, club-power song, but apparently you can. Skip to 3:00 for it to actually really start.

I recommend you take a gaycation at one point. Whether it be for the day or the week, or the month. Some great gay meccas to go to are: P-Town, Fire Island, Asbury Park, Rehoboth Beach (it's called ReHomo for a reason, lol), Wilton Manors (very chill, older crowd close to Ft. Lauderdale, I had a lot of fun in this little gay enclave), Key West like BHopper mentioned, Palm Springs, Miami, NYC, LA, or any other big city. Atlantis Cruises are all-gay cruises that sail on the biggest cruise ships in the world with over 5,000 gay men aboard. I'm sure there's plenty of other options I'm just not thinking of at the moment. It all depends on what you like to do too. I personally am a partier so I like to take my little gaycations around clubs and circuit parties, but that is definitely not everyone's cup of tea, and I have a feeling that isn't what you are looking for. P-Town is a great little spot that has a little something for everyone where two dudes being gay is something that happens every day there, and especially during the summer months. Take a day trip or a weekend getaway just to enjoy the fact that you are surrounded by your own people for once where you don't have to monitor your every move to fit hetero standards.

I have been to both P-Town and Fire Island, but both times was with family and before I came out, so I didn’t get to enjoy the gayness of it all. It’s on my bucket list. And I think in P-Town you wouldn’t have as much of an issue because it is literally one giant, gay vacation spot.

I think this makes a difference too. People who live in the cities where you see anything and everything on a daily basis may not care because they have just learned to ignore it. But in tourist heavy places with a bunch of conservative Billies and Sues from flyover country who might not be so used to "scary city things" might consider it more of an issue.

I think it depends on where you are in public. I agree that French kissing in a restaurant isn't appropriate for anyone, gay or straight. Maybe it's just a dumb social taboo but it's something I would never do myself. Now if you were at a place like Folsom Street Fair, it would not be considered at all out of the ordinary, and even somewhat encouraged, to screw somebody against the wall on a street while 50 people watch and video it on their phones. Location, location, location.

Usually a prologue includes important backstories or foreshadows events to come. I can't really think of a prologue that wasn't necessary, or didn't at least add to, the story. So yes, I always read prologues and epilogues.

Oh baby yes! This song defines how I felt when I first moved to the city. 😛 Another great gay anthem remixed. "You could be so many people...if you take that breathe for freedom"

Since it's the beginning of Pride Month...

Gives you something to work towards and look forward to!

Part I Here Goodbye, My Love, Part I When I wrote part one, I was at a critical juncture in my life. I had just come back a two month vacation in China and Thailand, which was very indulgent, to say the least. I was just beginning graduate school, and I was studying for a pre-licensing exam. Both doing well in grad school and passing that pre-exam were going to be my ticket to career success. I was partied out from my vacation, and determined to do as well as I could in school. A close family member was also dying, so I was traveling back home a lot of weekends. It made staying away from the scene pretty easy. I buckled down, spent hours every night after work and every Saturday and Sunday grinding away, doing work and studying for the exam. I didn't go out once in September, October, and half of November. I thought I had finally broken the grip the scene had held over my life for the totality of my post-college life. All I needed was an intense distraction that commanded my entire attention, and I had found it. Then my pre-exam date was the next day, and even though I had been studying for two months, I was convinced I wouldn't pass. The morning of the test came, and after three and a half hours of exhausting mental gymnastics, I passed. Not only did I pass, I passed with flying colors. I was in such shocked elation that I couldn't even think. On the train ride home, I blasted music through my headphones and had the biggest smile on my face. As soon as I got back to my apartment, I went over to the Chinese takeout place and ordered enough food for three people, and ate it all. I was still riding the natural high of passing the test, and caught a train back downtown and went on a shopping spree of new clothes and shoes. I spent way too much money, but didn't care one bit. I called up some friends, and planned a little celebratory party at my apartment and then hitting the Gayborhood. We started around 5 in the afternoon and didn't stop till about 6 the next morning. It was like we were back to being the irresponsible, anything goes, who-gives-a-fuck group we were in our college days. It was all so over the top. It was as if all that pleasure I had been denying myself the last couple months came flooding out like a hurricane, and I had no desire to try and control it. After that night and coming to my senses when the mental high of freedom wore off, I realized how dangerous what I had been doing was. Since graduating college, my identity has been built around my "gayness", and the scene in particular. Growing up, I felt completely out of place and had zero sense of identity or belonging. In college, that transitioned into a sort of half-way in/half-way out mode. I had come out to close friends and started exploring some aspects of gay life, but the vast majority of my word was still lived in the sphere of 'straightness'. I felt comfortable enough, but still not entirely there yet. Then I moved to the city, and suddenly there was this huge, well-established gay community that one could live a pretty self-enclosed life in. I realized this was my chance to finally find that belonging and acceptance that I didn't get growing up. I dove head-first in, and for better or worse, became immersed in it. Clubbing and dancing became my outlet from working in a stressful job, and a way to connect and feel a part of the gay world. It was more to me then just something to do. It represented the ending of my coming out process and the completion of a search for belonging that began as a miserably depressed, fake-faced teenager. Simply quitting cold turkey as I did stripped me of something that had been such an identity marker. I tried telling myself through all those months that I was better off without it, but truth be told I craved it in the back of my mind. I've gotten to the point now that I realize that going to either extreme is just not a good way to live. I went from a full-time party boy to a workaholic basically overnight. Because I'm a person who tends to operate at extreme ends, I thought the best solution was to do a total 180. As the night after the pre-exam showed, I really failed to control those extremes. When 2018 rolled around, I knew I needed to try and find some kind of balance. I needed to reconnect with the part of me that needed that social outlet that going out provided, but also balance it with the massive amount of time that grad school demanded. Going out every Friday/Saturday night till 4 in the morning wasn't going to fly, but neither would working 12 hour days and every weekend either. Admittedly I'm still far from perfect in this. Whenever I do too much of one thing, I sometimes tend to chastise myself by swinging far the other way. Finding some kind of agreeable middle ground is tough, because the two things seem to be so much at odd with each other. I guess I'll keep trying until it reaches equilibrium or eats me, whichever comes first. Happy Pride!

Sweet Jesus yes! It is literally something unto itself, and the feeling cannot be described fully if you haven't been a part of it. To see our people shut down the heart of the world's most important city to celebrate our existence is an experience I will forever hold dear. I ❤️ New York.

I had a friend who went to that a few years ago, and if even half the stories he told me were true, yeah pretty much.

The purest celebration of homosexuality. 😛

Pride Weekend here in Philadelphia is next weekend. I'll go to the Friday night block party in the Gayborhood, and then probably club hop the rest of the night. The biggest night of the weekend is Saturday, and then the parade and festival on Sunday. But I plan on going to New York that night for one of their big parties that goes all night. Then I'll cap it off with spending the last weekend in New York for their Pride, which is overwhelmingly massive. I got tickets for Pier Dance, which is a huge outdoor circuit party that takes place on a peer that jets out into the Hudson River. They usually have a big celebrity performer, and it ends with a fireworks show. I can't wait!

Facial hair is kind of the standard now for 90% of the gay men who can grow it. It's about as common as dirt here in the Northeast.

While I don't post anything much on here, I really like to write short stories that capture the intensity of the moment over a short period of time. I take all my events in the story from real life things that have happened, and pick ones that could mash together. I wrote a blog "story" about a year ago on here that took place over the course of just a few hours. All the things that happened in the story are things that actually happened to me in real life, just not all in one night like how it is presented in the story. In fact, some of those events happened years apart, but they all meshed together really well for a short story. What really helped me get in the proper mood for reliving those moments in words was music. I can vividly remember some of the music that was playing at the time the events happened, and listening to those specific songs brought them back to life for me.

Crazy Rich Asians, by Kevin Kwan. It supposedly draws heavily on the author's experiences growing up a wealthy elite in Singapore and Asia's super-rich circles. An interesting piece of satire and a deliciously guilty pleasure.

I think we have fundamentally different views on the chance/purpose of life. Like I kind of said in my post above, I believe we simply ended up alive and here as we perceive it by total chance. Out of the infinite chances of things that could happen in the universe, we simply ended up "lucky" enough to have our dice rolled. I also don't believe their is a true purpose or meaning to life either. I full heartedly believe we create our own meaning as a way to cope with our inability to accept we are nothing but a random chance. It's not a bad thing either. The purpose I create for myself is intensely personal and reflects me and me only. Same for everyone else. The rules we mostly play by were again put in place so we could function past our most basic survival instincts. Just a thought.