Show me your fangs
    Tell me something that’ll save me
    I need a man who makes me alright
    Tell me something that’ll change me
    I’m gonna love you with my hands tied
    Show me your teeth

    — Lady Gaga, “Teeth”

It was New Year’s Day of this year when I was first bitten. I remember the surge of pain in the side of my neck, immediately followed by a pleasure that shot through my whole body. I was shocked and pulled away in disbelief.

“Did you just bite me?” I asked, a bit angrily.

“Yes, did you like it?” he responded.

I thought about it, hesitant at first, but realized I really did like it. When I leaned back in for some more, I felt the warmth of his mouth encompassing my throat, followed by the stinging of his teeth as they dug into the flesh, and then a sense of satisfaction as goosebumps covered my body.

That’s about all I can say, as I’ve agreed to not make this person a subject on my blog. But biting is my newest obsession.

It’s a feeling that’s new and different each time I experience it. Sometimes the intensity is so strong that I have to make him stop, yet I want more and more, as if I’m testing the balance of pleasure and pain that I can endure.

My neck is often covered in red marks, but thankfully they fade quickly and never draw much attention. At worst, it looks like I have dry skin and have been itching it. Nobody would ever guess my secret fetish.

Surprisingly, neck biting is fairly safe. (Yep, I’ve researched it.) The skin on your neck is too thick to actually penetrate with teeth, and even if you did bite hard enough to make it bleed, you wouldn’t be able to go deep enough to do any damage. In fact, the biggest risk is infection from the bacteria of the teeth, rather than the actual act.

I think it’s so hot, and I love biting back too. Mmmm….

Well, not really a she-man, and not really in love, but I needed a catchy title…

Anyway, a random thought popped into my head today. I was thinking about a girl I liked in 5th grade named Erin. She was Cherokee Indian and already had a mustache you could weave a winter jacket out of. We played during recess and always shared a bag of Fritos Chili Cheese chips.

In retrospect, I probably just liked Erin because her facial hair made me think of boys. But I could really go for some chips right now. Mmmm…

Okay, not all of my love stories are epic, but that’s the story of when I fell in love with a she-man.

Or man-she. Whatever…

The text message caught me by surprise. I pulled out my phone to read:

    I just want you to know that you are an amazing man, and I deeply value you and your friendship. Thank you for all that you have done for me.

When I saw his words, I was overcome with emotion as I felt the tears rise to the surface. I tried to hold back and keep myself together as I sat in the restaurant.

My friend has been battling cancer for the second time in his life. I remember the phone call, just a little over 3 months ago, when he was feeling hopeless, faithless, and had decided he was going to die. He’d picked out a casket, made funeral arrangements, and admitted defeat.

But despite the understandable doom and gloom he was going through, he’s surviving. He isn’t dead. So what a shock it was to see him tell ME that I’m an amazing man, when I think he’s the amazing one. I can’t begin to imagine what he’s been through. All I’ve done is listen to him when he needed to talk. That’s not so incredible.

A lot of people in the world are dealing with their own personal hells. I have friends who are heartbroken, friends who are sick, friends who are unemployed, friends who are lonely… We survive because we have to, need to, or just reach a point where we don’t want to suffer anymore.

That’s the incredible thing about the human spirit. We can be reborn, renewed, relieved. We can start a new chapter. I’ve done it plenty of times myself.

I know someone, somewhere out there needs to hear this today. Find your warrior within and keep fighting.

Clearly I am in the minority with this boots craze.

Everywhere I go, women have on boots. Short boots, tall boots, furry boots, hooker boots. You’d think we live in Alaska. But I do believe in democracy, so I guess the people have spoken.

Nonetheless, I think this outfit has a whole lot of wrong.

I would like to say, for the record, that I detest the return of furry boots.

It’s mostly girls, mostly tweens, but I see you guys out there with them too.

The first question is… WHY?

What is it about implied dead animal carcass that is so fashionable? I realize that times have shifted and the fur is fake now, but I still don’t like it. It looks weird… It reminds me of the ’80s, and I’ve been there once, thank you very much.

Furry boots do not go with anything. I can’t think of one outfit in my closet that would make me pause and say, “Hmmm… this looks great, but it needs some furry boots to finish it off.”

No, no, no. I want to make you die a painful death and then bury your body in the backyard, similar to the way Chris buries his dead hookers.

I say this with love… I really do. You bitches that brought vests back in 2008 need to suck it too. You’re lucky they lasted through 2009.

Thin ice, my friends. Thin ice…

Negative equity is becoming all too common…

A house was bought several years ago for X amount, but now the value is cut in half. There is no way the owner can sell it to pay off the loan, unless he has substantial equity already built up, so his only option is to foreclose.

The damage it does to credit scores is immense. The prospect of getting another loan of any kind is shot for years to come. But more and more homeowners are weighing the options and deciding they’d rather get out of debt.

I’ve often thought about this myself. I love my home. I know that if I foreclosed, I wouldn’t be able to buy another one any time soon. But I also know that I will never be able to sell the house for what I bought it for. So unless I intend to stay here for the rest of my 30 year loan, I’m going to lose the money. It can be today, or it can be 5 years from now. It almost seems like it would make sense to do it now so I can start re-building my future.

I don’t plan on doing anything like that right now, but I am curious to hear what other people have done. It’s a problem that isn’t going away.

What are your thoughts? Have you foreclosed on your house? Do you regret it? What influenced your decision?

Okay, I can take a hint…

Over the last year, a couple of people have complained that my blog had become all about men and my pursuit of love. Well, I have bad news for you… It’s going to continue.

But if possible, I will try to throw in more posts about humor. The same people who complained told me they wished I wrote more posts that made them laugh, like I used to.

So here goes… You’ll either laugh or turn away in horror.

I haven’t shaved my ass in years. I do manscape, just because I think it’s important. I keep the hair on my head groomed, so why get lazy with the rest of my body, right?

But I have a furry butt, and to be quite honest, I like my furry butt. It isn’t overly furry, but seems to be just the right amount. Apparently I also have a black man’s butt. A friend recently told me that it’s larger than you’d expect from a “skinny white boy,” but also assured me that it’s “the right kind of big butt.” Hey, I’m just going to take it as a compliment and move on. When it comes to my ass, baby got back!

I was recently having a discussion about manscaping and the topic of shaved butts came up. According to the person I was talking to, shaved butts are hot. I guess I agree with that. I certainly enjoy it if other guys shave their butt. However, for me, it’s more work than I’d want to keep up with.

Still, I was feeling a bit inspired by the conversation. So yesterday, I crouched down over a hand-held mirror to inspect the task. Wow, I hadn’t been back there in years. I wasn’t even sure where to begin.

I took my manscaping clippers and mowed down what I could. Then I took a razor and gave everything a close shave. On a sidenote, what the hell is happening to my sex drive? When I was younger, the mere prospect of manscaping got me hard. In fact, I usually had to stop shaving my balls just to jack off. But not these days. I was more concerned with getting the job done.

Anyway, the feeling of having a shaved asshole, shaved balls, and everything in between, was quite nice for the first 3 hours… Then, the itching set in. I was walking through a parking lot and all I could feel were my cheeks rubbing together.

Probably won’t be happening again, but for now anyway, my ass is nice and smooth.

… to get some help.

That’s what my best friend said to me on the phone today. I think she’s right.

I am scared… wait… petrified of being cheated on again. 2 different men cheated on me last year, and it has really broken down my sense of trust for others.

The first partner who cheated on me did it because he felt we’d lost our emotional connection after so many years together. It was painful, but in retrospect, wasn’t that shocking. I should have seen it coming. I’ve heard that cheating sometimes has nothing to do with sex at all.

The second partner cheated because I wasn’t a bottom. That really did surprise me because he knew I was a top when we got together. He didn’t indicate that he was dissatisfied with being a bottom. But I learned a lot of things about him being promiscuous after the break-up, so I guess I just have to chalk it up to him being a bad person. I wish it were more profound, but I don’t think it is. Even if I had bottomed for him, I get the impression he still likes to play games.

It will take some time to build up my trust again. I realize that anyone can cheat at any time. I could be together with someone 20 years, and things could still fall apart. I wish I had an insurance policy to avoid being cheated on, but I guess that’s just the risk we take when we date others.

All I know is that fear consumes me. I have spells where I feel unlovable. This is going to require some time and work to regain my confidence. But I really do need some help.

Admitting it is the first step.

I used to write about random, stupid crap on my blog, and apparently people liked it. So here goes…

- One of the pipes that goes to my washing machine froze up, resulting in a flood. A cold, icy flood when I was barefoot. Love it.

- I wore a balloon hat on New Year’s Eve. Photographic evidence attached.

- My first attempt at baking a cake from scratch imploded, caught on fire, then crumbled. But it tastes damn delicious.

- I sleep more and try to do less. Energy is totally overrated.

- For 2010, I made a resolution to eat all the bad food I wanted and gain a bunch of weight. My mission so far has been successful.

- My BFF reminded me that I haven’t written about the progress with my foreskin restoration in awhile. I got lazy and haven’t worked on it lately, so I don’t have any new skin growth. But what I do have is awesome and so much fun to play with. Just sayin’.

Pardon me for a moment while I explore the intricacies of my own astrological sign, Scorpio.

Books always say that I’m a sign of transformation. It’s true that during many points in my life, I’ve abruptly and without warning changed my entire lifestyle. Many people find that to be a hard pill to swallow, as change usually requires gradual transition. But for me, I’ve found myself capable of completely jumping into a new routine, as if a switch were turned on.

When the new year began, I changed. It was completely intentional. All of the things that caused me trouble in my life were gone in an instant.

I spent Dec. 31 volunteering at church to feed the homeless. Every Thursday night, a group comes in for a hot meal and a place to sleep. It was humbling to witness what life is like for them. Sure, it makes us all feel better to do these kind deeds, but this isn’t about earning a pat on the back. This is real life. This is the world we live in. It can be scary and cold, and isolating.

Often times, I feel isolated myself. Trapped in the pain and suffering of my head. I have felt so lonely at times. I have felt empty and useless, as if nothing mattered.

But it does matter. It all matters. It all counts for something, and I’ve had to step outside of myself, my own selfishness, and understand that there are bigger things in this world.

I still lack direction. I still don’t know exactly where I’m going, but I felt the healthiest thing to do was immerse myself in helping others first. This is how I’ve transformed myself, starting with baby steps.

Another effort I’ve taken on is teaching a Sunday school class for children at this same church, which is a gay-friendly church. (The pastor is a lesbian.) Religion is a deeply complex issue that I am still working out. I don’t suppose we ever truly have it figured out. But nonetheless, I enjoy spending time with the children. They are little rays of sunshine with bright eyes and big dreams about the world. Thankfully, this type of religion focuses on embracing our diversity, not spreading hate and judgment, as so many do.

This is my transformation so far. I’ve had to completely break myself down and throw away all the pieces to build a new me. The old me just wasn’t working out.