Today.

Hi.

That's all for tonight.

Hi, y'all.

Matterpics

Many pictures from the season that I haven't gotten around to posting ...

I hope you've all had good holidays, whatever and however you celebrate. Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to all of you!

Thanks, Mom and Dad.

*Tap Tap Tap* Is This Thing On?

Yes, it's on. Sorry - I've been lax at posting anything lately, haven't I?

And I'm only taking the time to post today because I'm at home sick. Bleah. Cold/flu thing - although I'm not really congested anymore, just fevery/achy/exhausted.

Things have been depressing at work, on a personal level - one co-worker had an operation for a brain tumor (which went incredibly well, and she's doing fine). Another was diagnosed with breast cancer - but is in remission after a lumpectomy and radiation. Another suffered a seizure at work (boy, was that scary!), but it seems to be a reaction to a medication, and she's doing fine now, too. And now, another just found out that his wife has pancreatic cancer that has spread to her liver, and there's nothing that can be done to save her life.

These are all people around my age or within ten years of being older than me. It's a scary reminder that we're all getting older and having to deal with things we never even imagined when we were young and invincible. I'm having a hard time accepting the fact that I'm not young anymore, and that I'm not immortal. I find myself thinking of ways to be more active, to get back in shape, to be healthier. There's a lot on my plate there.

And now it's fall. It came quick and hard this year (doesn't it always?). From a hot, hot, HOT dry summer to cloudy and cool and rainy in 24 hours. I feel like I'm waiting for it to be the pretty fall that I swear I remember always having as a child. I don't think I should be waiting.

So, I'm looking out the window and seeing that the sun is out. It's lower in the southern sky, and filtered, and not as bright as before - but it's there. The leaves are decaying and dropping - but the trees are alive, just winding down for the year. The sky is a fading pale blue, with wispy high clouds strung across it - but it's there. It's still above us, and the ground is still below us, and our 104-year-old house is still standing and solid and warm and it's all okay.

I do miss the anticipation I used to feel this time of year ... football games and marching band and homecoming and my birthday (which does still happen - October 22, start shopping!) and Thanksgiving. That still happens, too, doesn't it? I guess it is time to start inviting everyone we know to Thanksgiving dinner and planning my favorite holiday, where we get to share what we can with people we love and who love us back. I need that right now. Life keeps moving and days pass by and it's hard to see anything but a week or a day at a time. But I'm sensing that I need to breathe in deep and take in what's happening around me and embrace the days that I live in.

Thanks for letting me ramble and vent. I think I'll go pet the dogs now.

12 Years.

Happy Anniversary, sweetie.

Matterdays Is Alive And Well And Bringing You Pictures, If Nothing Else.

Sometimes lately, I think that I don't have any intelligible thoughts or opinions or news to post. That makes me sad. My head seems to be constantly pre-occupied with work issues ... and once I get home, I'm either in decompression time, or doing chores, or worrying about not getting chores done. When I started this blog, I was unemployed and taking a long break, and had time to breathe and eat and think and write. I miss that. I miss writing things that people would actually read and think about. I miss being able to express myself that way.

I have had to accept some of my shortcomings lately at work and adapt to them, and I'm doing that here, too. I haven't had the time or energy to write and post the way I would like to, so I guess keeping this blog as a purely egocentric album of the passage of my days is what it exists as for now. It'll have to do. It still does me good to have it, and it always does me good to know the friends that I know from this blog experiment. I'm not planning on going away ... but I have to accept the fact that this forum isn't the cathartic outlet I had hoped it would be back when I had the time and energy for it to BE cathartic. Does that make sense?

Anyway - Life is okay these days. Work is work, and takes more of my waking thoughts (and indeed, non-waking thoughts) than I would like, but I'm employed. In this day and age, and in the industry I work in, that alone is a gift. Weather's been good. Scott is a rock for me, as always. I'm a lucky guy.

The current state of acceptance/broken promises/irrationality of my particular minority (I'm a big fag, if you don't already know) is annoying and tiresome. But this column by Mark Morford, whom I truly believe is a superhero and definitely an idol of mine, gives me a little hope, as he always does. (If you're offended by the title of his column, please ignore it and keep reading - it's actually not as blasphemous as it appears at first glance). The hope wanes when I start reading the 800+ comments to his article, but what can you do.

One comment that really stuck with me, though, was one that echoes a thought that I've heard a lot (or paid a lot of attention to) recently. The comment was, "You gays keep 'procreating' your way and see how far it gets you". The gist of this sentiment seems to be that we gays are pushing to have homosexuality be the norm, the majority, and to take over the world.

Even though I don't know what "The Gay Agenda" is, I'm pretty sure this is a big part of the definition. So I'll give the tired, Matterdays-is-sighing response. We don't want to take over the world. We accept the fact that we are a minority. We're okay with that - kinda like it sometimes, quite actually. We just want all y'all to accept - not tolerate, but accept - that we exist, that we are normal and natural, even as a minority, that there's nothing wrong with us, that we are who we are, and let it go. Just let it go. Quit making such a huge ugly deal of it and just let it go.

Okay. Now for a slew of pictures from the past few weeks.