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ColumbusGuy

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  1. ColumbusGuy

    A Sad Day

    By ColumbusGuy,

    You may remember my Traditional Siamese Bortai from previous blogs...I got her and her brother Genghis when they were only a few months old back in 2001...Genghis was stolen in 2005, which left just me and Bortai until I got another stray Siamese, Chula, from my sister. Chula has been gone just over two years now from a resistant respiratory infection...she was eight years old.
     
    Two weeks ago, Bortai had small swellings around a couple of her mammary glands, so I was going to schedule a vet visit, then last Friday, she stopped eating much or drinking, so I got the appointment made for yesterday morning. The additional symptom of congested breathing which developed last Friday was not something to be cured with antibiotics as I'd thought: it, and the small swellings, were symptoms of something else. I knew it wasn't good when the vet asked to do x-rays...turned out her chest and lungs were full of cancer--the appetite loss was due to the fact that she couldn't eat and breathe at the same time.
     
    With no options, I had my beloved little girl put down at 12:06 yesterday. For over an hour I cried over her before, and then after the shot--and the vet gave me all the time I needed. When I could speak again, I asked her to arrange cremation. This is one of the pics she took of us before the injection.
     





     

    I want to thank all my friends here for their well-wishes and wonderful support...I hope you know what you mean to me!
  2. ColumbusGuy

    Yule Greetings

    By ColumbusGuy,

    A happy Yuletide Season to all my GA friends and fellow members! Dinner was great--ham, fresh bread, green beans and sweet potatoes...and sweet tea to drink.
    My little girl--okay, Siamese cat Bortai, is enjoying an inch-thick slice all of her own, suitably cut into small pieces. She is one happy 14 year old girl right now! Her birthday is around now also, from what I could calculate when I got her and her brother back in 2001 when they were 3 months old in March. Her brother was stolen six years ago, but I still have her--their mom was tossed out at my sister's farm, and I lost my 21 year old lilac point Siamese to kidney failure in February that year, so she gave these two cute little fuzzballs to me. They are traditional Siamese, who are much bigger than the skeletons on show today--Genghis was 14 pounds, and Bortai has topped out at 11.5--none of it fat!








    Genghis at 3 months, brand new to me:





  3. ColumbusGuy

    Lost Toys

    By ColumbusGuy,

    Very seldom I have much to say, but twice in one day? I do go on!
     
    Sending a note to AC Benus just now reminded me of some of the fun things from childhood--things which due to an over-protective government now, kids will no longer be able to experience. Our children are being robbed of adventurous times and attempts to learn confidence by a schizophrenic society: overly-permissive in some areas, overly-protective in things which should not concern them.
     
    For those who grew up before 1980, you may remember this:
     




     
     
    That could have so been me on the box cover in '65! Using intense heat to melt plastic sheets, then a vacuum to form it into toy cars, planes and any number of available molds--or any small object that would fit and withstand the heat long enough to form the shape!
     
    Not to mentionthe awesome Easy-Bake ovens then--not the lame light-bulb powered later versoins! By the way, the chocolate cakes those early ones made were great--I had one of those too! Maybe I'll check ebay for one, though the plastic sheets are probably illegal now too.
  4. ColumbusGuy

    A Tough Weekend

    By ColumbusGuy,

    Okay, first off, thanks for all the positive replies to my first entry! I must be getting sentimental in my old age, but it means a lot to me that those who are/have been perfect strangers can find something in my scribblings to comment on. I'm not the sort of person who stands out in a crowd, and don't want to. I let others be the centers of attention while I sit back and watch--not from detachment or lack of interest--but because it's who I am.
     
    Last year I found a copy of my high-school yearbook on ebay and bought it, thinking there might be a picture of me in there--there wasn't. For the life of me, I don't know how I never got a senior picture, or one in the only club I was in--Art Club for four years. I think the last school pictures I have copies of were from 8th grade...and some polaroids my sister took of graduation day with me, my best friend, and the German exchange student I got to be friends with. I won't even bother getting a copy of my college one, as I know there won't be any pictures in there.
     


     
    If there was a This Is Your Life episode on me, it would run about five minutes, tops. I have friends, yes--and they are very good ones, but not numerous: the adage 'quality over quantity' applies to me in that respect. I was surprised to find a homepage on Facebook about my home town, and one of the people there told me that my 1st Grade teacher still remembers me and speaks nicely of me! She was probably my favorite teacher of all time. Some other people there I knew also, and it was nice to find them again, but I won't go to a high-school reunion because the few I was close to won't be there due to distance or alas, being no longer with us.
     
    I guess this is just a melancholy weekend for me--inadvertantly started by a chapter I wrote in Jay & Miles, but then continued by stumbling across two other writers: rustle and jkeele, who both have written about losing partners, and a new friend--magicstate--who found me, but with the same emotions. Finally, pmdacey's latest chapter brought things to a head with his protagonist's coming to grips with the loss of his mother and finding a way out--or so I hope!
     
    With all this, I shed tears, thought about the things I read, and can take comfort in them, and deal a little better with my own losses. I still won't like my birthday since that is when I lost my mother in '07, and my oldest sister this year.
     
    But now, the good memories can outweigh the loss.
  5. ColumbusGuy
    I've been reading here for over a year, but only got the nerve to write anything in mid-July after getting out of the hospital. I've been an avid reader all my life, mostly sci-fi and history, but I hadn't written anything since college. In high-school I wrote science-fiction and fantasy since those were my favorite reading material, but in college my professors said I had a very good grip on writing more historical stuff, so I did that for assignments.
     
    It took twenty years for me to discover writing sites on the internet, and it took me a year to begin writing at an interactive historical role-play site. I've been doing that for the past ten years with a couple other people, and one of the stories has gay-themed scenarios, but GA is my very first attempt to really write gay fiction. My biggest hurdle is not the fact that it's gay fiction, but that it's sex fiction of any sort.
     
    I was not raised in a religious house--though we attended services most Sundays until I was 12--but I am hopelessly a product of my small-town mid-60s childhood! By small town, I mean small--2500 people, in the middle of farm country, everyone knew you by name if not by sight; to smoke or even swear was a big deal and done in secret by kids until high-school, drinking was only at a few parties if you could find someone of age to buy beer outside our dry town; and sex?--you heard about it generally in health class, otherwise you might find an older sibling's magazine...and no one spoke about it other than in whispers amongst your peers.
     
    As far as gay sex--an entirely unknown quantity. If you were lucky, you might experiment with a friend, but it was never acknowledged or pursued into older school years. In the days before computers or vcrs, or even cable tv, what was a kid who wasn't straight to do? I can answer that: nothing. Until college.
     
    Even in college, encounters were few and far between due to my social awkwardness...most kids came from larger, Eastern towns, so I felt like a local yokel with little to offer. It was only after graduation that I went to my first gay bar...with mostly straight friends with open minds! I'd have two drinks, dance a few times then go home.
     
    What's the point of all this, you may ask? Just this: I love to write, I love to try to express my feelings in a way others can relate to...but at heart, I'm still a shy country boy who values friends more than being a social giant...so if my prose seems a bit odd, or even a little self-conscious, I'm doing my best to fit into the 21st Century...I only have to drag myself forward another thirty years, so please be patient.
     
    Even the still small voice from the wilderness has something to say....
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