It’s Okay To Be Gay
The fact that I’m gay is often not the center of attention on my blog, but instead background noise. I’m not defined by my sexuality and don’t feel the need to discuss it daily. There comes a point in life when you become comfortable with yourself and realize who you truly are, not what a label says you are.
But I do my best little by little to make change. I openly discuss my partner Rodney, I openly advertise my business in newspapers for the gay & lesbian community, and when I overhear something that I deem to be homophobic, I speak up and say that it’s unacceptable. I refuse to hide in a symbolic closet and live as a second class citizen when I know that I’m just as equally as important as heterosexual citizens.
These actions may be small in themselves, but as a whole, they can change the path of the future. It’s so important that we all speak up and defend ourselves in any way we can.
This touching and heartbreaking clip from Ellen Degeneres’ show demonstrates how society’s message that being gay is “wrong” ultimately influenced an 8th grader to murder a fellow student simply for being gay.
Where, oh where, did we get the idea that gay people should be murdered? Was it in church? Perhaps. Was it in the home? Very likely. Was it on TV? You bet. It’s everywhere. Homophobia is not acceptable.
Here’s the clip, which will be on Friday’s show:
Waxing Your Pubes: The Lost Post
I don’t know when I wrote this or why I didn’t publish it, because I personally think it’s hilarious. My best guess is that it’s from 2007…
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This is the story of how one bad mistake snowballed into another…
Last summer, I dropped my drawers over the toilet to do some manscaping around the ole sausage. I took my clippers and buzzed off a row, realizing I had forgotten the guard. Damn.
Without the guard, my hair was shaved right to the skin, which I hate. I don’t like the “infant” look, I just like a trimmed appearance. Well, the only way to make this look right was to shave it all off. So I did.
Fast forward to this week, when one of those shaved hairs had become a nasty ingrown hair, which was infected and very painful in my pubic area. I had been slacking off on the trimming, so it was a bit bushy and I didn’t immediately notice it.
In order to relieve the pain, I picked it open, releasing the pus and blood (I said “pus”, not “puss”). I tried to get it all cleaned up, but the blood was still spotting a little, and I was in a hurry.
Here’s where it gets stupid…
I grabbed a band-aid and placed it across the sore, attaching it firmly to my bushy pubes. As I did this and started to run off, I knew that removing it would probably hurt a little. But I figured I could just yank it off quickly and it wouldn’t be too bad. In fact, I thought it would be like my own homemade wax kit, so I actually looked forward to it since the hair needed a cut.
Fast forward to later this evening. I dropped my pants and started to pull on the band-aid, expecting my own personal wax job and a tolerable amount of pain. I knew I was going to do it quickly, so the pain would be short.
Oh, no… It wasn’t coming off. I tugged and tugged… the band-aid pulling hard enough to hurt, but apparently not hard enough to disconnect from the hair.
My wax job wasn’t sounding so good anymore. Pull, pull… burn, burn!
I finally got it off, complete with a patch of my pubic hair, right from the roots. It hurt a thousand times more than I expected, and refused to come off quickly, as planned. Forget wax jobs! I’ll stick to trimming. 
(Yes, I know, this was incredibly stupid…)
Good Doggie
Our dog Petey is finally back.
Rodney and I took him to our regular vet today and they kept him for testing. They did blood work and x-rays, which showed a build up of stones in his bladder. It was the build up that was causing him to act so miserable this past weekend. He was in a lot of pain and there was blood in his urine. Poor guy.
But he’s back to his bouncy, silly self again and we’re so glad. He barks at his reflection in the window, chases his farts, jumps all over you and gives you sloppy kisses. Yes, our Petey is back.
He’s on medication to ease the pain and help dissolve the stones so they leave peacefully. He’s also on a special food that you need a prescription for. It helps keep his bladder clean because apparently schnauzers are prone to these types of problems. So that’s going to be a life-long diet. He also can only have distilled water.
Thanks for the comments of care and concern. It’s amazing how much a sick dog can upset us. Can you even imagine how Rodney and I will be when we have kids? I pity the doctor who ends up on our speed dial.
But in all fairness… Petey really was sick, so it wasn’t as if we were over-reacting.
All is well in our household again.
Life Guide
I’m happy to announce that I’m now writing articles for the online edition of Out & About, which is Nashville’s local GLBT newspaper.
The column is for advice on life, and all aspects of it. The title is “Life Guide” and it’s a play on the name Nathan West (guide = compass = west), which some of you know is just my blogger last name, and not my real last name.
Today the first article went live, and can be viewed at http://www.outandaboutnewspaper.com/article.php?id=2422.
You can also find me featured on their Homepage, and on the left navigation sidebar under “Life Guide”.
The column is open to all readers, not just Nashville ones, so if you have a question, feel free to write into nwest@outandaboutnewspaper.com. You can rest assured that your true identity will be kept strictly confidential and if your question is published, your identity and e-mail address will be protected.
I hope to see you there!
For the Love of Little Ones
Nothing tears my heart apart like a small animal in pain.
The past 24 hours have been a rollercoaster. Last night I mentioned that our dog Petey seemed really sick, but when we took him to the after hours emergency vet, he seemed fine. They looked him over and sent us back home.
Later on last night, in the wee hours between 1AM – 3AM, he reverted back to his sick behavior. He couldn’t move and yelped when I tried to get him to stand. Things finally started to look optimistic this morning. He was a bit more playful and active. By late afternoon, he was pretty much back to normal, although there was still a noticeable solemness about him. He still wasn’t 100% back.
Things went downhill again tonight. He just seems so miserable, and it’s making Rodney and me so sad. Rodney’s just been crying continuously, and I’m pretty upset as well. All this, and the doc sent us home last night saying “He’s fine.”
Well he’s not fine. We have raised this boy since he was a baby pup, and I am with him all day every day since I work from home. I know every single aspect of his behavior, and I know when something’s wrong.
So I guess tomorrow we’re going to find another vet to get a second opinion. I hope they don’t gouge us, because I’ve been gouged by vets in the past and it’s an awful feeling. We’re worried and vulnerable, and they tack on $25 fees to take his temperature. Ridiculous.
I’ve been scouring the net looking for symptoms, and Petey actually meets all the symptoms of having arthritis. He’s only 2 years old, so that’s hard to believe. But if that’s what he has, at least we’ll have peace of mind knowing.
Does anyone reading have a dog with arthritis? How is it diagnosed? Does medication help them get back to their old selves? I just want my dog back so badly. I miss his energetic personality. I swear I’ll never yell at him for being hyper again.
2 Fools and A Dog
Rodney and I have been duped… by a four legged animal that barks at his own reflection.
First of all, did you know that dogs can get colds? Neither did we.
The drama all started Saturday night, when our dog Petey started acting strangely. He wouldn’t eat, wouldn’t drink, had a runny nose, a temperature, and seemed unusually weak. Oh, and he was also coughing and wheezing.
We called the 24-hour emergency vet to describe his symptoms. They advised us that he probably just had a cold, nothing to worry about. Dogs get colds?
We wanted to bring Petey in, but they told us they really think we shouldn’t. An after hours visit would be very expensive, and they said we should hold off until Monday to bring him in during regular business hours, unless he showed signs of truly being ill (vomiting, diarrhea, etc…)
Petey didn’t seem any better Sunday morning. He acted as if eating was too much work, so I finally crushed his food into tiny pieces so he could just lick it off a plate. That did the trick, but he still seemed sick. So I called the emergency vet again, and they said we could give him a baby aspirin. We did that and he seemed to be doing a little better.
The bottle said to give 1 aspirin every 4 hours, but we waited 5 just to be safe. So 5 hours later, Petey got another aspirin. Fast forward to that evening when I was reading up on things online, only to discover with dogs, you’re supposed to wait 12 hours!
I panicked, thinking he was poisoned. I tried to pick him up, and he shrieked like I’d never heard before. I tried to get him to walk, and he collapsed on his stomach, as if his legs no longer functioned.
Now we were really scared. We took him outside to walk, which he always loves. No movement. He acted paralyzed.
We hopped in the car and rushed to the emergency vet. Petey would not even stand up at all.
The doctor picked him up and took him in the other room. Suddenly we heard the jangle of his collar as he started running up and down the room!!!
She opened the door to show us what he was doing, and Petey was caught in the act.
We felt like total fools. We brought this dog in, worried and crying because we thought he was on his death bed. You give him one minute behind a closed door and he’s running around like he’s in a marathon.
That’s when we got served with a $91 after hours vet bill. Ouch.
But I can’t complain, because every time we called the vet, they told us not to bring Petey over unless we really had to, because it would be expensive. They were very upfront about the bill and encouraged us to try and wait until Monday to see our regular vet during business hours.
Bad doggie. Petey knows we’re his puppets, and really got us good this time.
Yes, I do believe he was sick. But as far as not being able to walk… I think we were tricked by a drama queen.
Pink Eye
Every once in awhile, someone comes along on my blog and leaves a comment that’s just too good to let slide under the radar. A reader by the name of Yutaka Takitani wrote:
“one of my coworkers told me that she bleached her asshole. she was like…â€you know since we’re asian, we dont have pink assholes like the white girls in the pornos? ours are more of a purple color?†and i was like…â€yeah†she said, i looked up some things on the internet and realized that i can go to the ethnic hair care isle at my local walmart and buy the Palmers Skin Success skin lightening cream and bleach my ass hole. so she did and she said in 3 days it was pink….so i tried it…i did it last night AND THAT SHIT IS PINK TODAY!!!!
its so much more aesthetically pleasing to the eye. Much better for the perpetrator of a rim job.”
Congratulations Yutaka. I am so happy for you and your pink asshole, and I’m really glad you shared your story with me. Let me know how that rim job works out.
[ Commented on post "Anal Bleaching"]
Noah Baby!
One of my favorite gay themed TV shows is coming back. I’m so happy!
Noah’s Arc, which was canceled abruptly after 2 successful seasons on Logo, is coming back in the form of a movie. It was announced on Thursday that shooting will begin in March and will pick up where the cliffhanger left off at the end of the last season.
Too bad it’s going to be a film, though. I still don’t understand why it was canceled. Everything I’ve heard suggests that the whole cast was ready and willing to do a third season, and it was a very popular show on Logo, so it wasn’t the ratings.
Hmmm… I suspect their was a princess tantrum somewhere behind the scenes. The question is: Who?
Whatever Happened to the Newspaper?
Last December, I announced on my blog that I was going to have a column in the online edition of Out & About, Nashville’s GLBT newspaper. Since I wrote that post, a lot of friends that I talk to outside of my blog have asked what became of that.
I haven’t posted a follow-up because quite honestly, I don’t know what to say.
Here’s what happened—
I’m friends with the publisher of Out & About, and he really liked my blog. He wanted to know if I’d write articles for the online edition of the newspaper. I was excited and jumped the gun, blabbering about it on my blog and announcing it to all you readers.
That was a mistake. I usually don’t announce anything prematurely. But that was a little flub. Since the publisher initiated this, I jumped to the conclusion that it was a done deal.
It turned out the decision would need to go through the editor first. That’s where things got stuck, and have been ever since. I sent the editor some samples of posts I’ve written, and he said he’d review them. I tried to follow-up several times after that and never got a response. I really don’t know what happened.
That’s the story, and I thought I should fill you in since people have been asking. But I want to emphasize that I never heard anything positive or negative. It would be bad journalism for me to insinuate the outcome, so I just want to remain neutral and say nothing came of it. Nothing good, nothing bad.
But thanks for all the kind words of support and excitement. It really meant a lot to have people cheering for me.
Dezign is tuff
Being a website designer is hard work. I’ll acknowledge that. But I think every designer’s worst nightmare is launching a major website for one of the best selling singers of our time… and not realizing you misspelled her name.
Look very closely at this graphic, taken from Mariah’s new promotional website, and let me know if you notice anything unusual about it.
Uh-huh.
How do you spell Mariah again?
I say this with friendly humor, of course, because I know that anyone can make a typo. I’ve made my share of them over the years. But I’m a guy working out of a spare bedroom in my house. I guess I just thought that major artists like Mariah Carey had a few more people working on their projects… maybe at least one of them would proof a design before showing it to millions of visitors?
Mariah… I’m available. I can design your website, and I’ll even proof-read it too. Call me. 
