Belated Blog-versary!!

With all of the stuff going on, I realized that I missed my blog-versary! My official blog-versary is 1 November. Though I think I wrote it at a little after 1AM, so it's probably Halloween. Oh well. I'm now entering my 4th year of blogging.

And I'm still digging it. It's good for me to just rant some time, to take the time to think things outloud, or on the computer screen, or to just capture a moment in time. I've got a various and assorted group of blog daddies due to the Homo Blog Jam in 2004. And I've actually met a few of them. Introvert that I am, I usually don't say hello to them. That's just the way it is.

I am kind of depressed that some of my favorite bloggers have either officially shut down, like Eric, or only blog like once very three months (GeekSlut!). I think I can understand why at times.

But I do love the ability to peer into another world, to walk in someone's footsteps, to read & feel about experiences that may have been mine in another life, or if I had taken a different road. And the things I've learned! About the larger gay world, about politics, about my Church at large. It's all so fascinating and so fitting for my ADHD and introverted personality.

I haven't succumbed to Facebook or MySpace yet. Between work and the blog, my original web site is on life support. So I can't even imagine having to deal with one of the social networks. How much does one need to live on the internet anyways?

{Spinning the subject wheel}

So I did a movie marathon on Thursday and Friday. The Island. Not bad at all. And Ewan McGregor is as hot as always. Forumula 17. Very cute Taiwanese movie about coming out. Recommend it. Boy Culture. I was very surprised. I love this movie. Definitely a thumbs up. Unfortunately, I did pick up a stinker. "I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry". Ugh! Words cannot describe my hatred of this movie. It was so bad that I only watched the first 30 minutes of it. I get it, Adam Sandler's character (and him) are straight. But my ability to suspend my disbelief when Adam Sandler's character is apparently sleeping with all of the bar staff at the local Hooters? Um, no. Adam Sander falls into that kind of cute, sort of attractive space. Not the oh so hot that he's got not one, not two, but 6 women in bed with him. That I'm not believing. Not by a long shot. And I'm not a big fan of the word "faggot" that was hurled around quite frequently. Anyways, not good. Don't see it.

Ciao for now!

Blow Off, Poppy Seeds, and DCHB Update (or not)

So I did make it to Blow Off last night. I went with Stick Boy (sorry, I couldn't think of a better knickname, but I'm open to suggestions) and I think he had an okay time. He referred to it as the Man's Man crowd. Which I will have to agree with. Not quite so hard core as the Eagle crowd, though I did see a couple of harnesses. And not quite so twinky as the Apex crowd, though I did see quite a few of them. I personally liked it, and definitely got my groove on. So that was fun. Early on it was mainly a social type thing with people just talking and drinking. It was all good. Bob was spinning that there was this little lithe queen doing sort of a vogue-ing thing right up front. And Blow Off so isn't the vogue-ing scene. But she was working it for all it was worth. And I think she kep trying to get Bob's eye, and I'm not sure if Bob was just in the zone and not seeing anyone, or if he purposely trying to ignore her. But it was really quite funny. As the evening/morning got later, there was more drinking and more dancing. I don't remember everyone doing shots the last time I was at Blow Off, but maybe that was a St. Paddy's day thing. I was san alcohol and I think when I'm not drinking that I have a low tolerance for annoying drunk people. And I think there were a lot there last night. Anyways, we bailed around 130AM, kind of early, but maybe I'll make it later next time.

The reason for the early (ish) night was that I had church and then my volunteer stint at the House of Ruth. So after church, it was just our fearless leader and me as we made the trek into North East DC. And while it was probably less than 5 miles, the differences between my nice little safe corner of the ghood and their neighborhood was like night and day. Anyways, we usually help them cook a meal (and making carrot cake for 60 is a story I'll share another day), they had a leaking pipe in the kitchen, so we really couldn't cook. Instead, we helped out with chores and one of the chores was throwing food away! Apparently they had gotten inundated with bread, so we were throwing away all of these bagels. Specifically the bagels with poppy seeds. I guess there were concerns about some of the women with past substance abuse problems testing positive for drugs based on the poppy seeds. Of course that just reminded me of Elaine!

Well, I still want to pursue DCHB Night, but I think I need to wait a bit. Work is a pretty maddening vortex right now and I'm on the road to Omaha (ugh!) and Paris (yea!) in the next two weeks. So my new plan is to try to start spinning that back up in early April. So stand by for more on that!

In-Betweeners, Nellie's Sports Bar, and DCHB!

So I love the comment from Chris over at Jimbo's blog:

"Where are the in-betweeners in this town? We are looking for a place to hang out! I am too heavy for JR’s and not big enough for a lot of the bears at Woof. I like the guys at Woof and the Eagle but I am clean shaven so for a lot of those guys I may as well be wearing flip flops and a popped collar."

It's so true. As I've tiptoed through the various scenes here in DC and the only thing I've found in common is how I don't fit in. Too vanilla for the Eagle crowd. Took skinny for the WOOF crowd. Too heavy for the Halo crowd. Too old for the JR's crowd. Too young for the Window's crowd. I feel like goldilocks looking for the perfect bed.

However, I think Nellie's Sports Bar might be the place for in-betweeners!

So I got to go inside Nellie's Sports Bar this evening and check it out. And let me tell you, it's going to be great when it opens. It's actually a pretty large building that has three different rooms, including one with just an amazing antique long bar. Very cool. There's even more space in another room for bar tables, stools, etc that has a stage that might work for a Blog Jam. But that's still kind of TBD. Upstairs there is a small room that has some really amazing antique pub glass and then there is a deck. Like the Boat Slip in Ptown, they have a very big deck! I can see that becoming a late summer hang out! Very nice. Anyways it was kind of cool to get a sneak peak.

Thanks to those who've expressed interest in doing a blog jam type of thing. And thanks Jimbo for the suggestions. I'm going to continue to search out gay bloggers to see if we can get critical mass and then figure out a way forward. I'm definitely new to this type of thing, so suggestions are welcome.

Work, Craig's List, and DCHB!

So work is feast or famine for me I swear. At the beginning of the year I had to transfer some people to other departments since I didn't have the work to support them. The effect of that was I was kind of in a nice mellow sweet spot. I was busy, but not crazy, completely overwhelmed, must binge on Coke and M&Ms, busy. Ya know what I'm saying? Well, my little down cycle is over. I'm swamped. I need to hire and basically I need to double my staff. In the meantime, I'm pulling some crazy hours. So yes while the weather was awesome this weekend, I've spent most of it in my home office trying to make a dent in all of the work I've got. So not fun.

But in between rather productive work sessions, I've been checking out Craig's List and I really don't get some people. I've got no issue with all of the people who are into much more interesting things sexually than me. Hey, knock yourself out. If you're into that. But some of the listings just don't make sense. If you just want to watch some guy jerk off in a parking lot, then why does he need to be a top? Am I missing something? I guess it's no different than ManHunt, but still, it's odd.

DCHB! So I've been blog trawling telling people about DCHB and I'll keep doing that as I can. Thanks for the interest, comments, and support so far. I may be meeting with the owner of Nellies this week and get a sneak preview of the space. So once that happens, I'll be able to really put a plan together. So standby!

DC Homo Bloggerati Unite!

So I've been thinking that it would be really cool to get all of the DC gay bloggers together. There are a lot of smart, funny, sarcastic, introspective, personal, political you name it gay bloggers out there in those internet tubes and I think it would be great to have some sort of gay blogger event. When I first moved to DC, I attended the Homo Blogjam at DC9. It was really the tipping point that lead to my own little piece of the blogosphere and I was just amazed at all of the great speakers who read from their blogs. NYC has their own monthly event called WYSIWYG Talent Show and it sounds like it's amazing according to Joe. And I kept thinking that there should be something like that in DC. Maybe not monthly. But maybe every other month? Or something. And I waited. Because there are a lot of good bloggers out there, I was sure there would be a Homo Blogjam #2. But no so far.

So I've decided to try to organize a little something. I've been in email contact with the owner of the new sportsbar called Nellies to see if we could hold an event there. And seriously what better place to have a DC Homo Bloggerati Night than at a bar called Nellies! And I think that might work.

So anyways, I'm going to try to contact as many gay bloggers out there to see if there is interest in doing this. I'm probably going to be leaving some comments on some of my favorite 'mo bloggers and hopefully the word will get out. If anyone is interested, please contact me at DCHBlog@gmail.com. And if anyone wants to help me try to organize this, that would be cool also.

And if no one wants to do a blogjam type event, then we can always do a blarg hop. Or we could do both.

So what do you think?

(I'm not sure who first coined the term homo bloggerati, but hat tip to you!)