Today’s Bisexual Thoughts: 17 January 26 @ 1319

I woke today in enough time to see it snowing and as I peered out the window, my mind flashed back to a January day a long time ago where and when I got “stranded” by a serious snowstorm and with a guy who sought to seek shelter from the storm as well.

I’d been out doing my paper route which covered the downtown stores, and it had snowed a little but as I made my way to the various stores, it went from light, dusty-like snow to snowing hard enough to hide a polar bear. By the time I got through just over half of my route, the snow was up to my ankles and I was becoming concerned. My route manager managed to find me and told me to suspend the rest of my route due to the weather, but I had two more places to serve, and I decided to finish the route and by the time I did, the weather had gone from heavy snow to near blizzard conditions and, fuck, I might not be able to make it home!

I ducked into a building’s entry way and into welcomed warmth. I’m looking around my surroundings and saw that it was an apartment foyer that was a part of the store that faced the main street – not all that unusual for the city at that time. It was warm, I was warming up and drying out and it ate at me to think that from where I was – and if it wasn’t snowing to beat the band – I could be home in about ten minutes but when I went back to the door and peeked out, shit: The snow and drifts would have made trying to walk difficult and the blowing snow, at least in the downtown area, was approaching whiteout conditions.

I thought about chancing it. As I thought about my chances, the door flew open and a guy who, at first glance, appeared to be my age rushed inside and struggled to get the door closed against the wind, so I came to help him – scared the shit out of him, too. After our respective heart rates returned to normal, we introduced ourselves and I found that he, too, was a paperboy and one who had the part of the downtown route that I didn’t have.

The shorter version is that we wound up having sex. Lots of it. We were safe from the storm; my mom had packed me a lunch to eat while on my route and I was willing to share it with him and there was even a bathroom that had a sink so we even had water to drink. We had “settled down” to listen to the wind howling outside and we laughed because neither of us had a newspaper left to read to keep ourselves occupied.

“Hey, um, can I ask you something?” he asked.

“Yeah, sure – what is it?” I asked.

“Have you, uh, have you, um, have you ever done it with a boy?” he asked.

The word “yes” flew out of my mouth before my brain processed the fact that it happened. He smiled. I smiled. Pants and underwear got pulled down and we settled in on the floor into a side-by-side 69 and sucked each other off. Then after a short rest, did it again. He asked if I would fuck him and I said that I would as long as he fucked me, so butts got washed and check for any “trains on the track” and since the “tracks” were clear, we fucked each other. Twice. Washed up really good and sucked each other off one last time and as we continued to bask in the afterglow of the unexpected – but much desired – sex, that was about the time we became aware of how quiet it was outside and when I went to look, it had stopped snowing and the sun was even out even though it was still pretty fucking cold.

We both said our goodbyes, expressed regret over not being able to suck each other off again “for the road” and that was because neither of us could get hard again and, yeah, we had tried for a few moments. I’m thinking that he and I were stranded in the storm for hours when, in fact, it had only been like two hours and had I bothered to consult my trusty Timex, I would have been aware of the time of day and how long I’d been sheltering… and how long the two of us had been having sex.

I never saw him again. I had tried to find him as I did my downtown route, but I guessed we were like two ships passing each other on a dark, foggy night. I had told my mom that I had to shelter downtown until it stopped snowing and that I’d found a place out of the storm that was warm and dry and that I had even met a guy who came in to get out of the storm and that I’d shared my lunch with him.

No way in hell I was going to tell her what else we shared. My walk home took about twenty minutes; the streets and sidewalks were almost impassable as everyone was slow to respond to clearing sidewalks and doing something about the cars blocking the street and looking like some giant kid just threw them all over the place. I even saw one car that had slid into the side of a building; the cops had to abandon their car down the street and walk to the scene of the accident and as I trudged through the drifted snow, the sky got that “it’s gonna snow” look again and just as I arrived back home, the big, fat, flakes had started to fall from the sky again.

My pants legs were soaked up to the middle of my thighs and my mom was fussing over me, ordering me out of my wet clothing; she told me to run a bath so I could warm up – but to not make the water hot or I would regret it and, yeah, I already knew that one after that one time I was out messing around in the snow, my gloves had gotten wet so I took them off. I went inside when my hands got cold and numb and I ran hot water on my hands, thinking this would warm them up.

You can believe that I never did that again. Anyway, I’m in the tub full of fairly lukewarm water and, um, washing away my sin while I was at it. Other than being a bit chilled from my walk home, I was feeling… good. I’d gotten to suck a guy’s dick, he sucked mine, and we took turns fucking each other. As I sat in the tub, it was like I could still feel him inside me…

In the here and now, it had stopped snowing. I was blinking and shaking my head like I’d just woke up and realized that I’d been standing at the window and remembering this moment for… a whole three minutes. I shook my head again because it has never failed to amaze me how our brains can “go back in time” and relive moments and then do it completely in just a few minutes.

Outside, the fallen snow barely coated the cars in the parking lot; looks like we got a bit more than a mere dusting – maybe an inch and if that much. I smiled and went to get dressed, get my cup of coffee made, and to sit down and write about this moment – and a moment I always seem to remember any and every time it snows.

Gaming: Xbox Series X: Borderlands 4

Kind of briefly, I finally finished off The Timekeeper and Arjay with Harlowe, then proceeded to elevate her to UVH1. I have now completed my goal of defeating the game using all of the available Vault Hunters.

When I finally took The Timekeeper down, I yelled, “Die, bitch!” and I’m almost sure that my lady thought I’d lost my mind but, then again, she’s probably used to me talking to and cussing at games I play. Before the transition to battle Arjay, I sat and wondered why it had taken me so long – and why I had difficulties – to do this and more so when Harlowe was “stuck” at Level 29 and with the same weapons loadout.

I had wanted to upgrade her “kick-ass shotgun” to a Level 29 version, but I didn’t have enough points, so I had the same Level 25 weapon that was proving to be not all that effective against The Timekeeper. I fired up the X, loaded the game, took a deep breath, and bye-bye Timekeeper and Arjay. I have no explanation why I was able to kick major ass to finish the game yesterday but couldn’t do it before yesterday.

I’d been employing the same tactics I came up with when I beat the game with Amon and, yes, with that same kick-ass shotgun that all of my VHs have. It’s just that yesterday, it all came together which is why I just sat there looking baffled for about five minutes before I went on to do the UVH1 tasks.

I still have to do this on my other Xbox profiles. Now I know what I have to do with each VH in order to duplicate yesterday’s success.

Gaming: Xbox Series X: Borderlands 4: The Vault

Since beating the game and reaching Ultimate Vault Hunter (1) status, I’ve just been roaming around the map, looking for any safehouses I haven’t claimed, stopping to fight bad guys hanging out by the side of the road and even wandering into areas that I’ve gone past and have wondered, “What’s in there?” but kept moving to complete the main story task.

I was on my way to a safehouse close to me and I was doing it on foot as to better explore the area and as I’d been doing once I turned the game on. I’m not far from the safehouse when I hear a “ping” and look up in the upper right-hand corner of my HUD and I see “Vault Entrance Detected!”

At first, I ignored it because, honestly, I misread it – I thought it was telling me about a vault symbol piece in the area. I was battling the giant bat moths when I noticed that, um, it’s telling me there a vault nearby. I dispatch the bat moths and now I’m looking for this entrance. The indicator bar is at three and I’m wandering around almost aimlessly until the bar is at four and I know what I’m looking for is very damned close and then, I get to the top of the hill and… there’s a broken vault entrance.

There’s a receptacle telling me to put my vault pieces in – I’d collected quite a few of them – and the vault reassembles itself and goes active with its expected purple glow. Now, a bit of a confession. I actually found this particular vault playing with Vex and I’d gone inside and was, stupidly, expecting the kind of interior the vaults in Borderlands 3 had but, nope: This is some kind of gauntlet. At that time, I wandered into the battle area just to see what was what and got massacred, said, “Oh, fuck this!” and left to get back to the main story thing I was tracking down before stumbling across the vault.

I’m playing with my Level 39 Amon; I am using all Legendary weapons; I know that this gauntlet isn’t going to be easy from that time I got my ass handed to me; let’s see what happens and what I have to do. Let the battle begin!

The baddies in the vault are no joke. Some are Level 39, some are Level 41 and, sadly, they got me and sent me back to the beginning, but I’d taken out all of them except four so when I went back, I took them out – and the bunch that showed up after I offed them. I sigh; I flex my fingers which were a little cramped from the way I’d been holding and using the controller; I run around collecting loot while looking for more ammo and having done that, I step onto the “launching pad” that flings me to another section.

Round two – fight!

I am immersed in the battle; my most effective weapon is still the Legendary shotgun that fires sticky rocket and plasma “shotgun ammo” and I’ve learned how to blast a bad guy with some sticky rockets then finish him off with plasma. I am so deep into the battle that it took me a moment to realize that I was the only one left standing in this second area. Good shit. Another sigh; a big sip of room temperature coffee, wiggle my fingers (that got the dog’s attention) and after collecting loot and ammo, I step onto the next launch pad. I land and see a much-needed ammo machine where I sell the junk loot I’d picked up and top off all of my ammo before stepping onto the field of battle.

Playing this game, I’ve learned not to sit back and let the bad guys come to me; I have to go after them, to be on the offensive because being defensive in this game, well, it can work but not all that much and my next battle in the vault is really not different from the fighting I’ve been doing outside of the vault. The baddies are a little tougher because I leveled up to Level 40 and I’m seeing bad guys that have that damned exclamation point instead of a level number, but I’m not really worried about them because I know I can whup that ass with some persistence and tactics along with quite a bit of luck because in this game, being good is very good but being lucky helps, too.

I finally get to the last part of the gauntlet. A mysterious voice has been talking to me since I got into the vault and, honestly, I stopped paying attention to it after the first battle area and in the final area, I’m still not paying attention to it but I’m wondering what I have to face. Then I find out what the boss is in here and… to the battle before us! I know that I’m probably going to get killed and that’s fine because before that happens, I will find out how this boss moves, what surprises it has, what little baddies it’ll throw at me that will serve to get me Second Winds when I need them.

It kills me – but I almost took it out. I think I could have finished it off, but it had disappeared from the battlespace; I check the radar, and I don’t see it’s “big red” icon and I’m kinda confused because I know some bad guy bosses disappear, only to reappear somewhere else. The boss kills me because… it’s hanging from the roof of the battlespace and as I “die,” I’m kicking myself because I’d been looking everywhere… but not looking up. I should know better but, okay, you got me.

I come back after reupping my ammo and proceed to whup that ass and with the help of quite a few Second Winds. The boss dies and I’m still shooting the shit out of it for a good minute before I realize that, oops, it’s dead and has been.

Sorry about that. I remember hearing the “ping” of a Legendary being dropped and it took me a moment to find it and, okay, it’s a sniper rifle and I take it along with the rest of the rather sparse loot lying scattered all over the place. The real reward is getting a piece of the Timekeeper’s power but I have no idea what that’s going to be and to make things interesting, I was running around the area I got transported to for a couple of minutes before I spotted something “unusual” not far from where I was standing. It’s glowing so, okay, let’s check it out… but I’m wary because, well, you just never really know how and when the game is going to surprise you in an unpleasant kind of way.

I pick up the glowing thingy and it’s that piece of the Timekeeper’s power I was told that I’d get for completing the gauntlet and that power is… a longer glide. You mean to tell me that I went through all of that to win the ability to glide a little farther? Are you fucking kidding me? I really sigh at this point, but I do feel that sense of accomplishment because I took on the gauntlet and defeated it but I’ve been getting shitty loot in the game and with very few Legendaries appearing although, collectively and across all four of my Vault Hunters, I’ve found 39 Legendaries that can be shared with the other three. But I had offed the Timekeeper and I got… one Legendary each time I did.

I’m seeing people in the Facebook group for the game farming the bosses and Legendaries are littering the ground and after they kill the shit out of the boss with stupid ease. It is to note that these people flaunting their largess in our faces are Level 50 and with weaponry that I haven’t seen yet but I’ve gone back to re-battle some bosses and… not a single Legendary.

Now, to be honest, I don’t really play Borderlands to load up on Legendaries and like a lot of players do but when I see them, I’m not ignoring them but it kinda gets my goat to see players posting how they wiped out the boss they’re farming, it dies, and Legendaries are, again, littering the ground and, okay, maybe that’s a Level 50 thing and likely has something to do with the game level they’re playing at: The higher the game difficulty, the more dangerous the bad guys are and the better the loot is.

Since I played the very first Borderlands game, I learned not to start playing on Hard since it could be so vicious that I wasn’t learning how to really play the game so I start every Borderlands game on Easy, then progress to Normal, then onto Hard and, as such, yeah, I complain about the crappy loot I’ve been seeing but that’s more my fault than the game’s. Now, when I change the difficulty to normal, I’ll see different levels of loot but that’s for later. I’ve beaten the game three times now and I’m still having a hard time beating it with Harlowe but I’m close and to make things even more interesting…

…I have two more Xbox profiles that I can – and am – playing the game on. You see, I long since figured out that with the games I love playing and replaying, I can play them on my other profiles and using all that I’ve learned about playing the game on my primary profile. I know that Amon isn’t the chump I first thought he was so I’ve started games in the other profiles with him and I’m working to defeat the game with him, and I don’t remember which one I started on Normal but I did that and I go from one profile to the next playing the game with increased knowledge – and knowledge I didn’t have when I started up Borderlands 4 for the first time.

Today I’ll be playing the game with my third profile and with the experience gained from the other instances I’ve been playing. One of the things I’ve loved about any of the Borderlands games is that I get to kill bad guys, blow shit up, and otherwise wreak devastation and destruction throughout the Borderlands and I’ve found that it’s a pretty good stress reliever. Like when I’m using a sniper rifle, I get… really chill; I’m so relaxed but focused that I could probably drop off to sleep as I line up a bad guy and get him with a head shot – then watch his gourd explode and his brain pop out of his skull and go bouncing away.

I’ve learned to never discount a good sniper rifle. Or a devastating shotgun. Borderlands 4 could be better, and Gearbox has been rolling out updates to the game kinda regularly with fixes and other improvements. Still, I’m disappointed that upon reaching UVH, starting a new game in UVH… doesn’t start the game from the beginning and like all the other Borderlands games can do. All it does is start a new game in the area that I’ve already done all of the mission tasks so, really, the only thing to do is to do what I’ve been doing with Amon – roaming around the game map looking for stuff to do.

Makes me glad that I have two more instances of the game where I have work to do…

Gaming: Xbox Series X: Borderlands 4 (One More Time)

Since the last time I scribbled about this, I’ve defeated The Timekeeper in both of his forms and Arjay, the guy who busted me out of The Timekeeper’s clutches, only to get killed before the two of us could get away but, um, he died but wasn’t dead. Anyway, I’ve beaten the game with three of the four Vault Hunter characters and the only one left is Harlowe.

Here’s something that kind of got my goat. I crank up the game and with the purpose of restarting my fight against The Timekeeper with Vex, something that kept leaving me feeling frustrated because his second form doesn’t have many opportunities for me to get a Second Wind when I needed one and I’d bite the big one and respawn… back at the beginning of this debacle.

Vex is loaded. I check her weapons and ammo loads; I check to see if there are better grenades, shields, enhancements but there’s nothing better than what I already have so, after a couple of deep breaths, I jump in to see how long it’s going to take before I get frustrated again.

I whupped The Timekeeper’s ass without coming close to dying. Using a Legendary shotgun that fires sticky rockets and a plasma-like shotgun ammo, I made quick work of his first form; he shouts, “Enough!” and while he’s prattling on about something I still don’t care about, I’m getting myself ready for his second form. I’ve battled it enough times that I know what to expect (if not exactly when). Timekeeper V2 says something about following orders (from who, I wonder) and it’s on.

Maybe five minutes later, Timekeeper V2 is lying on the deck in a smoldering heap while crappy loot sporadically sprinkles down and I am miffed because I took his ass out faster than I did when I battled him with Amon and defeated him. I’m actually not surprised at this because I’ve battled many a Borderlands boss and a few that have given me fits that has made me want to throw my controller – but then, one day (or, sometimes, the same day), I go back to battle the boss and wipe the landscape with the boss and in short order.

I’ve never figured out if the game says, “Okay, we’ve fucked with him enough – let’s let him win this time and keep it moving…” or if there was just something in my renewed approach that made a difference although, in some moments, I’d gotten a better weapon that turned the tide for me. I got to a point where I didn’t really care if the game was secretly helping me or not as long as I beat the troublesome boss and alleviate my frustration because genuine Xbox controllers aren’t cheap and I refuse to buy an aftermarket controller again.

It didn’t take long to kick Arjay’s ass and I kind of agree with one player who said that Arjay would have been a better final boss than The Timekeeper because even with Amon, defeating Arjay had me wondering – again – why he wasn’t the “mini-boss” to be battled before The Timekeeper but that’s just my thought. Arjay’s toast; I open the four weapon cases that, just like with Amon, only had crappy loot that was of lesser quality than the weapons I already had. I hook up with Lilith, we listen to a cryptic message from a voice that sounds like Lilith’s, and it’s back to Moxxi’s bar to take on the tasks that will, when finished, grant me Ultimate Vault Hunter status.

I already know what this is going to entail and it happens to involve the Unpaid Tab mission and it’s that one mission that I have a great deal of disdain for; I didn’t like it the first time I had to do it, and I know – thanks to doing it with Amon – that I’m not going to like it now… but I have a plan that, honestly, I failed to come up with the first time I did this mission.

Let’s just say that my plan worked, I completed the missions and Vex is now UVH1. Ta-da! Now, on to Rafa. Now, in my opinion, Rafa’s not that strong a character but, then again, I realized that I didn’t have him spec-ed out in a way that would make him better and I was thinking about respec-ing him again having seen little or no improvement – and I allowed for me not fighting him properly. I “flipped a coin” to determine if I was going to tackle The Timekeeper/Arjay with Rafa or Harlowe and Rafa won the toss.

All four Vault Hunters are equipped with that Legendary shotgun that I could get with Vault Card points; I do the weapons/ammo/enhancements check and… I take Timekeeper V1 out but even with Vex, I’m not that hyped about it because I’ve battled Timekeeper V1 so many times that I figured out how to fight him and compared to Timekeeper V2, V1 is ‘easy’. On to V2 and I’m not doing well with V2 and I needed to kill one of the “things” flying around to get a Second Wind, couldn’t find one, and… back to square one.

Blow through V1; back at V2 and I’m focused and determined to whup that ass and, as it turned out, I actually wasted some valuable ammo shooting V2 and… I had already killed him. Oops. I have zero ammo for the shotgun, and I look at my other weapons to see what might help me take out Arjay. I have a Legendary pistol that, actually, I’m not that fond of but I swap it into the slot occupied by the sniper rifle, which I know could work but, okay, that’ll be Plan C if needed. I didn’t need it; it was a prolonged battle with Arjay and longer than the other two times I battled him but I off him and go through the whole Vault thing with Lilith, back to the bar, on to the UVH1 tasks and… that’s three down, one to go.

One of the things I’m doing with Vex, Amon, and Rafa is going through the world to locate all of the safehouses and other side mission stuff strewn across the map (and marked with question marks) so I can level up, collect Vault Card points and, really, decompress from that damned second coming of the Unpaid Tab mission. I’m not only doing this for the reasons mentioned – but I’m also doing it to delay tackling The Timekeeper with Harlowe who, shit, man, she doesn’t have enough umph to get past V2 and I’m having a hard time figuring out an action plan for her skillset, but I know that I’ll figure it out.

Eventually. I thought that I had done the Christmas mission with all four Vault Hunters and found that, um, nope, I hadn’t done it with Vex – and that’s because she was stuck at the Timekeeper mission. I smashed the Christmas mission even though because Vex was at Level 44, I had Rippers and other bad guys who had that exclamation point in place of their level or some of them were at Level 45 or 46 but I’ve done this, um, twice already and the mini-boss at the end, who gave me fits when I battled him with Amon, got his ass kicked. More crappy loot and one Legendary that wasn’t as strong or powerful than the same ‘regular’ item in my backpack… but you never, ever, throw away a Legendary or leave it where you found it unless you know it’ll show up in your “lost loot” bin.

So, yesterday, I go to tackle The Timekeeper/Arjay with Harlowe. I got my head handed to me by V2 before the battle really got started but that was my fault because my health was low and I hadn’t given myself a “shot” to fix that issue. Mea culpa. I get back in to fight V2 and the one thing that I have hated with a passion playing this game: V2 killed me but I killed him and I think that because he got me ‘seconds’ before I got him, it was back to square one for me. I’m cursing up a blue streak because I lost the toss on this one; I’ve been in this “mutual annihilation” moment before, and I’ve been the victor and very likely in one of those split-second moments.

Not this time. I’m back at square one and… I quit the game. Went to do some stuff in Elite Dangerous on the Xbox and Steam Deck since I’ve neglected the game tussling with Borderlands 4. Even though there’s not much I can do with the Xbox version of the game (damn you, Frontier!) there are still things I can do, and I make a profitable freight run on the Xbox; I also think that because I can, I need to get to a billion credits and like I am on the Steam Deck version, but it can wait for a little bit.

I check the Steam Deck version – some of my ships have free paint jobs from Frontier so I collect those and apply them to the applicable ships. There are no ‘Transportation’ jobs that are worth the effort to do them and all seeing this does is to remind me of how frustrated I am trying to get Harlowe over the hump – and which I may or may not attempt today.

We’ll see.

Today’s Bisexual Thoughts: 01 January 26 @ 1224

A guy on the forum posts that he has always been about women and pussy and that he’s never entertained a single thought about having sex with a guy… and now, he’s been bitten by the bisexual bug and he’s asked where these feelings come from and a plea for ‘help’ because he doesn’t know what to do about these feelings he didn’t ask for.

He wrote that he had a couple chances to experience sex with a guy but flat out turned those chances down and, I thought, just like he was supposed to do. He says that he cannot get this out of his head and I commented that a lot of guys get hit with this and they, like himself, never entertained the thought of sex with a guy until this landed on them – and I let him know that because this… emergence isn’t unusual, he can rest assured that he’s not as alone in this as he might be feeling.

My ‘problem’ came in at the part where I did my best to tell him where these feelings come from in the first place and… it’s not the easiest explanation to explain but I offered my theory that this is a part of our genetic memory because the men and women who started engaging in homosexual sex just passed the ‘trait’ along from generation to generation.

I allowed that as such, these feelings can hit someone “right out of the gate” or they can show up when a guy hits middle age, or they can show up when a guy is between the ages of 50 and 70 or… they never show up at all. I didn’t write this but when I was considering this, I allowed that some guys get… triggered; that craving for sex with a man get awakened by some event in his life, sometimes traumatic like the death of a loved one or, yeah, they can blame it on the alcohol and they were in the right place at the right time and with the right person. Many men wind up in a sexless relationship and, for the life of me, I just do not know how and why “Now I need some cock!” pops into a guy’s mind or how this even makes sense when they’ve never had any prior experiences and never thought about it before now.

Some guys feel the “pull toward the middle of things” almost right out of the gate or, yeah, they get introduced to it and sometimes guys are able to jump right into the deep end of the pool because, really, who knew that having sex – and doing it like this – could feel wonderful and make one feel some kind of way about themselves that starts out to be confusing but, over time, many get it all sorted out.

But, again, some guys never get triggered into wakefulness; some guys can take the thoughts and feelings bury them in the back of their mind, and they will never bother him again but as I said to the forum member, I think these guys are more the exception than the rule. It’s not guys who get hit with this don’t try to banish the thoughts and feelings because they do try… and the next thing that hits them is what, if anything, do they want to do about this and if they can.

While I was responding to the forum member, my mind wandered off to think about how many guys like I had introduced to man-sex and, um, any time I start trying to put a number to a particular situation, my brain shuts down, and I get that “Error 404: Page not found” message. They managed to find me and one of the things I would hear first was that they never had any thoughts or feelings about doing anything with a guy, followed by a firm declaration of how much they love pussy but why is this happening to me and what am I supposed to do?

It’s not easy to answer as far as the “why” is concerned but I’ve asked guys, “What do you want to do about it?” and some say that they don’t know and some did some, ah, research – and read this as watching gay porn – and this or that resonated with them and… what do I think? And me trying to express to them that in this, it’s not about what I think they should do but if they don’t have an ‘idea’, okay, lemme tell you what two guys can do to, with, and for each other.

I would tell them about the many times a guy has gone down on me and sucked me off – with swallowing optional – and one of the things they say about what they just did was how normal and natural it felt to do it and from the very first time I heard this I wanted to know why it felt normal, natural and, with some guys, it felt right. While “a lot of guys” would say, “Eh, don’t overthink it and just do it!”, well, that might actually work for some guys but for others, being told – and understanding – what you’re trying to get yourself into is a damned good thing and more so when a guy pondering taking action has to make an informed decision… but you can never discount “shit happening” in a way that negates the informed decision and when the dust clears the guy is thinking, “How the fuck did that happen, why the fuck did I do (add something here) and why the fuck did I like it?”

There’s so much to this that I know about, but I don’t know why it exists the way it does – I just know it does and usually because I’ve done it more than a few times. Is it weird that guys can start having these thoughts and feelings? Nope. Do all guys who find themselves feeling like this go on to do something about it? Nope. A guy tells me that he’s had this strange and powerful hankering to suck cock and… do I think he should do it? Well, ahem, one part of me wants to tell him, “Yeah, I think you should so here’s my cock – have at it!” but, again, I’ve asked them, “What do you want to do about it? This isn’t about me; I’ve been doing this since 1964 so while this whole thing is so very new to you, this ain’t even my 100th rodeo.”

As far as I know, there’s no short version of “where did this come from” or “what do I do about it.” Whenever I hear or read about a guy having his button pushed, I always think about the guy I was sitting on my steps talking to one day and totally out of left field he turns, looks at me and asks, “Why do I have this urge to suck your dick?”

I couldn’t really answer him. Yes, he sucked my dick and got the favor returned. Went on to turn into a cocksucking fiend and it was my fault because I didn’t tell him how addictive sucking dick could be. I didn’t tell him because it never crossed my mind and I had been trying to tell him about the urge, but he had cut me off and asked, “Can we just do it?” and I said that we could – and we did. He, too, said that doing it felt normal, natural, and even right and… can we do it again?

Some guys need the details while others are like, “Fuck the details – let’s just do it!” and that’s fine but I’ve seen “just doing it” go badly with guys; they likely convinced themselves that they could handle it and found out that they couldn’t. Which made me learn how to effect damage control with them and that’s never a good thing nor does it feel good to have to do it.

I told the forum member that even if he manages to bury the thoughts and feelings in the back of his mind, once this genie is out of the bottle, there’s no putting it back and the feelings will always be there because they never go away. I’ve heard many men and women ask, “Where did this shit come from because I didn’t ask to have these feelings!” and the truth is that for a lot of people, nope, they didn’t ask for them and didn’t want them… and it doesn’t change the fact that they have them.

Why? It’s human nature. Religion says this is a sin and I can tell you that there are a lot of sinners out there (including yours truly). “How can something that everyone says is so bad feel so good?”

Because it’s supposed to feel good and that’s because it feels good to have sex. Your experiences will most definitely vary. The hypocrisy that says, on the one hand, sex is normal, natural, and even very healthy for you – except you cannot have homosexual sex because it’s evil and a sin. We’re all taught this, and we believe it right up to that moment when we can start to think that… having sex like this might not be a bad thing while pondering why you’re thinking like this at all.

Do I know exactly and precisely how and why this happens? Nope, I sure don’t – but I know that it happens because I’ve seen it happen to a lot of people and enough to know that this isn’t as abnormal as some might say it is because if this were true, there are a lot of very abnormal people in the world because they’re thinking and feeling things about having sex (and maybe more than that) in a way that is prohibited and taboo.

Living With… Stuff: The End of 2025

My thoughts began with this one: My brother has been dead and buried for over forty years. My father, older sister, and mother are dead and buried. What an odd thought when thinking about the end of 2025 except to mention that, true enough, I’ve been living with stuff that wants to keep hanging around.

And being grateful to be here to bitch and complain about it, too. The doctor appointments with my cancer team have been moved out to six months; my PCP wants to see me again in three months (if memory serves me… and it might not) and I know that I have my last appointment with the organization my health insurer hooked me up with regarding my kidneys – and I’m wondering if they’re going to assign a new organization for 2026 or not.

Doctor appointments to get a CAT scan to check on my twice-repaired abdominal aortic aneurysm (AAA) followed by seeing my vascular surgeon who’ll look at the scan report, tell me about the twin endografts inside of me and the state of the aneurysm body itself – did it shrink, stay the same, hopefully didn’t get bigger? I’ll spend maybe five minutes with him and… see ya in six months.

Then my nephrologist. It’s like the older I’ve gotten, the more doctors I’ve been collecting. He’ll look at my lab results, will likely say that I’m still stable, poke the shit out of me for a few moments and… see ya in six months. Then I think I rotate back to my PCP.

Whew. When I think, “Where did the year go?” I can say that I’ve spent a lot of it… at doctors’ appointments and the majority of them with my cancer team – they’re happy that there’s no sign of the cancer I had even though I don’t know the results of the special DNA test they did that is specifically designed to look for HPV-related cancers. Speaking of that test, the company performing the test had sent me a bill for a copay and when I saw how much it costs to perform this test, well, shit – it’s $1,715! As I seem to remember my routine lab work costs more than that.

My oncologist/hematologist said that it’ll take a while to do the test and get results but that’s been a while ago now and maybe I should check the portal to see if, in fact, the results are in. Then again, if my doctor got the results and she had an “Oh, shit!” moment upon seeing them, I would have found out about it because she’d want me back in the office to, I dunno, revise my treatment/post-treatment plan.

I almost have enough medications to start a small pharmacy. That doesn’t even count the bottles of pills in my bottom drawer from where I’ve had medication change mid-stream, discontinued, different dosages and… I gotta do something about them if I’m not going to be taking them… but who knows when I might have to? So, they’re in the bottom drawer of my dresser for now and I’d pretty much forgotten about them until I was looking for the shirt to my black thermal underwear.

Sigh. My doctors say that considering all I went through I’m doing just fine and dandy. My sense of taste is still messed up, the dry mouth is a constant that nothing seems to help a whole lot except for hot coffee; and I have no idea why it helps – but rinsing my mouth with warm water does nothing other than to dry my mouth out. I’ve read that I should sip on water to help with this but, nope, I can guzzle water until I slosh and my mouth feels like I have one of those dessicant pack in my mouth, you know, those little packs used to keep moisture away?

The neuropathy, fuck. I kind of saddens me to think that the chemo-induced neuropathy isn’t going to go away and still totally fucked up that it has settled in my toes. Like this shit knows to head for the lowest part of the body. I have a new palliative doctor, and he seems to be okay so far; we got to talking about the neuropathy and we’ve agreed that I should give Cymbalta a try since there are certain antidepressants that were cleared for use re neuropathy/fibromyalgia.

I told him that I didn’t think this was going to make a difference but, okay, I’ll give it a shot and let him know how it’s working… or if it’s working at all. I wear compression socks every cotton-picking day and they kinda make my feet and toes feel better… until I take them off. There are some days when I wish I could safely sleep in them.

Putting them on and taking them off is some pretty good exercise. My lady tends to laugh as I grunt and groan messing with them and especially trying to get them off. I have to admit that, yeah, me and the compression socks are pretty funny. I have some c-socks I got courtesy of my health insurance – they give me an “allowance” that I can use to get… stuff and one of the things I got quite a few of are compression socks in black and white. My other compression socks are… pretty to look at and I need to get more of them.

Those c-socks are like, holy shit – talk about compression? It takes me almost five minutes to put them on – and no amount of washing has diminished the compression and like I’m seeing with my other socks. They put the squeeze on my feet and from my knees down, they feel nice and I hate taking them off because it might take me ten minutes to take them off.

I get quite the workout fucking with compression socks. I would suppose that going into 2026, I’m in rather decent shape (all things considered). Here’s wishing all of you a happy and prosperous 2026!

Today’s Bisexual Thoughts: 23 December 25 @ 1318

So, referencing back to the scribble that was scribbled on 19 December, the question of whether or not oral sex is really sex.

First thought is, duh, if it wasn’t sex, they wouldn’t call it sex. Which evokes memories of such discussions back in the day and when men and women would get caught cheating but as far as they were concerned, if it was only cocksucking or pussy eating, then “eating ain’t cheating.” And men and women both would say, “Well, uh, okay, as long as y’all didn’t fuck!” – but some men and women would bring the fire and brimstone because cheating is still cheating.

Back in the day, a lot of peers were of a mind that oral sex wasn’t sex. My own experiences with it said that it was sex. Pie-in-the-sky and pseudo-intelligent discussions about what constitutes intercourse, which to everyone is, in fact, sex… and the only thing that can be called sex and then, the dick goes in the pussy and nowhere else.

Ah, but the dick can go in the ass; it can go in the mouth; if you’ve never tongue-fucked a pussy, whew, ya mon, thems some good eatin’, betcha by golly, wow! Religion, the bane of our sexual existence, decreed that masturbation, sodomy, fellatio, and cunnilingus were forbidden, not because they weren’t considered to be sex but because – wait for it – no babies are being conceived. Well, um, unless you fuck her after you eat the shit out of her but now, we’re talking about the “official” definition of intercourse and what sex is considered to be.

In almost every state in the US, and in the many cities and other locales, there are laws on the books that make masturbation, sodomy, fellatio, and cunnilingus illegal and when I found out that this was true in my home state and city, I was like, “How the fuck would they know?” and it came to pass that such laws were considered to be unenforceable since, usually, they took place behind closed doors but, ahem, if you got caught giving a blowjob in the back seat in the parking lot, yeah, you could be charged with a crime and one you probably didn’t know was still a crime since it’s still on the books as one.

I remember having this discussion with a guy and I had said, “Look, if your dick is in my mouth and I’m about to get you off, I’m having sex with you and especially when you start fucking my mouth!” He’s trying to tell me that it isn’t sex and… it hit me how… gullible we are to have believed something that some very dead people had to say about giving and getting head and we still tend to believe it today.

I said to that same guy, “You have an opinion about it; your opinion doesn’t mesh with the facts of the matter so, in essence, what you think is irrelevant to the issue at hand. You’re entitled to your opinion, of course, but oral sex is sex – and sex that isn’t intercourse. Masturbation is sex that you can do to and with someone else but definitely all by yourself.”

“Masturbation is a sin,” he said.

“No, it isn’t and it never was,” I said. “See, somebody who died a long time ago started this lie and people still want to believe it. Show me in the bible where they said that God said it’s a sin.” I went in the other room and grabbed a bible and handed it to him and I gotta give it to him: He really sat there and went through the Old Testament, and I could tell the moment when he realized that I was right because he got this look on his face and I just shrugged.

“Oral sex is a form of sex that religion and our social norms don’t want us to be doing – but can’t really stop us from doing it,” I said.

When a guy in 2025 says that as far as he’s concerned, oral sex isn’t sex, well, damn, how sad is this in reality? Many say, “Eh, it’s just foreplay so it’s not really sex…” and, yes, giving and getting head before intercourse is part of the service, but one can give and get head and no putting A into B is wanted or even needed but it remains true that just because you think it’s not sex does not mean that it isn’t sex… because it is.

This conversation on the forum kinda rolled into another one about virginity and whether or not one is still a virgin if they are, in fact, having oral sex which was the thing to do to preserve one’s virginity – and like we’re told to do – but to be able to do something about those raging hormones that can override common sense so if you got to give or get head instead of being able to fuck, well, y’all were still having sex so, technically, one can say that if you’re a girl and you give a guy a blowjob, virginity has gone out the window but we associate the loss of virginity with intercourse because according to the folks who defined sex for us, the only allowable sex is intercourse and intercourse is dick in pussy and nothing else.

The blowjob is the seriously major attraction for guys who like to have sex with other guys. We’ve come up with a slew of reasons why it makes all the sense in the world for guys to blow each other and to the point where we now question whether or not it’s a “gay thing” to do since, um, a lot of guys who are sucking cock aren’t gay… and they might even insist that they’re straight. Not that many of them that I know of will say that oral sex ain’t sex but, yeah, some will insist that, in their opinion, the only sex that really happens is when homey buries the bone deep in the other guy’s ass… but sodomy isn’t considered to be sex since the dick ain’t going into a vagina (and like it’s supposed to be done) and… my goodness, doesn’t this get a tiny bit complicated?

I thought so and after the very first time I participated in such a discussion, and I had to take a very big step away from the opinions of those in the conversation and to be able to understand that those four things I mentioned earlier in this scribble are, indeed, sex – and forbidden sex at that.

And really – if oral sex isn’t sex, what is it? Now, with those who have the opinion that oral sex isn’t sex? Ask them this question and see if they’re able to answer it and I’ve yet to meet someone who, after being asked this question, can answer it and it makes sense and it’s not their opinion. Intercourse, as it turns out, is only one form of having sex. You can use your hand, fingers and hell, yeah, your mouth, lips, and tongue to give someone pleasure and orgasmic release/ejaculation and A never gets to meet B or C.

Today’s Bisexual Thoughts: 19 December 25 @ 1446

There are actually two thoughts today but the one that prompted this scribble might wait until another day. What prompted this scribble was a response to a post about whether or not oral sex is actually sex and, for now, I’ll just say that the responses were… predictably traditional thinking.

Which got me thinking about whether or not sex between men is a matter of sexuality… or just plain old sex. One of the many questions asked is, “If a guy is straight but is having sex with other guys, can he still say that he’s straight?” and the answer usually is, “Nope. Well, okay, if he only does it once and never does it again, sure, he can still say that he’s straight. However, if he keeps doing it, hmm, um, he’s bisexual if he’s still having sex with women as well.”

Makes sense, right? It does until the guy in question starts hemming and hawing about “I don’t do it all of the time!” and conveniently overlooks the fact that frequency doesn’t mean a damned thing – but the fact that you do it when you can means everything.

Or does it? If “Mike” goes looking for guys to have sex with, is he really “going both ways” and just for the sex and nothing more than that? This is in the face of many men insisting that the romantic aspect of bisexuality is a must so as to avoid casual sex, which is still perceived as being dangerous even though, for as long as I’ve been around, the highlight of having sex with a guy was/is that you didn’t have to be bothered with getting into a relationship and more so when, even now, being in a relationship with a guy reeks of “true homosexuality” and as I’ve read it being said.

So many guys, when professing and confessing their bisexuality, usually start their dialog with, “I’m not attracted to men…” because it has long since been presumed that if you’re into having sex with men, that means that you’re attracted to men like homosexual men are attracted to men (and like you’re supposed to be attracted to women, by the way) so you must be a homosexual.

Which would be true if the guy in question was really gay, but this flawed bit of logic falls apart when the guy in question isn’t gay and bisexual men are not homosexual men – but the labels, and as I’ve said a few times, tend to get blurred because there are gay men who, on the Kinsey scale, could be a 4 or 5 and okay with being intimate with women but could legitimately say that they’re still quite gay. The myth that gay men hate pussy is just that – a myth and just like the one that says all lesbians are man-haters, but some lesbians don’t mind getting some dick every now and then.

When a guy opens with the declaration that he’s not attracted to men (like that which means like gay men are) and that he couldn’t be in a romantic relationship with a guy, I have been made to ask, “Who says you have to?” Followed by, “All you have to do is like him enough to want to have sex with him!” and a sentiment that those who have that aversion to casual sex do not agree with because they have it in their head that you have to have a same sex relationship to be truly bisexual and… that’s never been true.

This bit of clusterfucking aside for the moment, if “Mike” discovered that having oral sex with a guy was all that and a bag of chips, does it really change his sexuality from heterosexual to bisexual? Many say it would but this assertion wouldn’t stand up to “Mike” saying, “No, I’m not bi – I’m still straight!” Even by today’s whacked-out definition, “Mike” would not be considered to be straight if he’s been sucking cock with da fellas, but he could be “shunned” because our boy “Mike” isn’t of a mind to be in any kind of relationship with a guy other than a sexual one.

For decades now, I have said, “At the root of it all, it’s just sex…” which doesn’t really negate the relationship aspects of bisexuality and more so when throughout my sexual history, guys who are not gay want more of a fuck/suck buddy than they do a boyfriend and in the loving way of things. Finding oneself in a loving relationship with a guy isn’t really outside the realm of possibility but for, let’s say, “a majority of men,” that loving relationship is a major no-go item.

Really, if you can find a guy that you like having sex with, why not try to set it up so that when it’s convenient, you two can keep right on having sex and no one is the wiser? And bringing up the question of whether or not it truly is just sex or it’s really a sexuality thing. My thinking has always been that just because you look away from the possible romantic aspects of bisexuality doesn’t remove bisexuality from being a guest at the sexuality table. If you have sex with both men and women, you’re bisexual; if you’re romantic with women but only sexual with men, you’re still bisexual.

If you’re sexual and romantic with both men and women, you’re bisexual. If you’re just sexual with both, well, fucking duh – there isn’t a person on the planet who would say that you’re not bisexual… except yourself because a lot of this sex versus sexuality thing is about self-perception or what you say you are trumps whatever it is you’re really doing… and just another indication of how fucked up in the head we, as humans, can really be.

A guy says to me via that app, “I wanna suck your dick – but I ain’t into that gay shit, aight?” It took me a moment to figure out what “that gay shit” was he was talking about and, oh, okay – no hugging, kissing, and definitely no anal sex. I did ask him for clarification on this, and he said that I was right about it. We hook up and this guy, well, suffice it to say that this clearly isn’t his first – or one hundredth – rodeo. We’re in a side-by-side 69 and I’m thinking that, shit, this guy sucks dick better than I do. We get each other off and keep at it until we both get hard again and eventually nut again.

He tells me that he’d like to see me again and I’m thinking that this isn’t going to be a problem until he says, “Man, you made me feel some kind of way…” and, uh-oh, is he thinking about something more than just sex? And before I can say, “We can talk about this…” he says that next time, um, maybe we can do some of that gay shit because he’d really like it if I were to fuck him, you know, if I didn’t mind. I actually didn’t mind but it’s a yellow flag kind of thing because if I fuck him, I know that it could potentially awaken more… romantic feelings and feelings that I’m not afraid of but getting all romantic requires a commitment that, at the time, I didn’t have the time for.

And I’d long since been aware of the power of sex to unlock things inside of us that we’d rather not have unlocked and, hmm, I think he’s been unlocked. Then he says that we don’t have to see each other again because, after all, we just had sex and that’s all we had to do; he finishes dressing and leaves and I’m really shaking my head because was this about the sex for him or something more than sex? And, in the here and now, if it’s all and just about the sex, is sexuality really a factor or can you be straight, have sex like the horniest gay man, and still be straight because it’s sex without romance and, as such, you can’t be bisexual?

Every fiber of my being says that with or without romance, you’re bisexual. You fit the general description and the definition that I learned so very long ago… and one that doesn’t even remotely resemble how it’s being defined today. If we were to forego foreplay and get right to the cocksucking, does that take bisexuality off the table and “just sex” replaces it as a major menu item? Does one really have to bisexual to have sex with both? I think so but, then again, I don’t have a problem saying that I’m bisexual and neither the sex nor whatever other romantic feelings I may have felt for guys does not serve to validate my sexuality because I had learned to validate myself in these things.

I am bisexual. I “grew up” in a sexual environment that, grudgingly, allowed that it was okay to just have sex with guys as long as things didn’t get serious – read that as getting romantic feelings. That guys like me also had sex with girls was, well, a given because we’re supposed to have sex with girls, you know, when they deem us worthy. True enough some guys turn to other guys just for the sex and! staying true to the mantra that “Men are for sex only and women are for love, sex, and relationships!” and even in the face of people, back in the late 1960s (at this point in things) insisting that if you were bisexual, you had to be the same way with guys as you are with women and while some guys really were 50/50, nah, most of us weren’t.

As guys, we could suck and fuck each other silly as long as none of that “gay shit” happens and, um, like us having sex with each other isn’t gay to begin with. But you understood where the bisexual line was being drawn in the sand and that anything other than just sex meant you were really homosexual and in denial. Until it came to be that if you didn’t have emotional feelings for a guy that didn’t include lust, well, maybe you’re not really bisexual.

Having sex just for the sake of having sex (a) doesn’t seem to be allowable and (b) has been determined to be fatally dangerous and… what the hell. We have been mindfucking ourselves to believe that we can suck and fuck each other – while still having sex with women – and denying that we are, in fact, bisexual. The sex is… integral to sexuality even though it’s not all about doing but also a matter of being but this is something that I learned as I grew and had more experiences and absorbed lots and lots of info from a lot of sources.

Tell me that I’m not bisexual because I wouldn’t want to kiss a guy and I’ll laugh in your face; ditto for trying to insist that I’m not really bisexual because I don’t mandate or require romantic emotions as a main factor to have sex with you. Make no mistake: It’s not because I can’t do those things but because I don’t want to.

Are the sex and sexuality two different things that aren’t dependent upon each other? I… don’t think so. It could be possible but, right now, I can’t see how it is.

The Daily Prompt: 18 December 25

Daily writing prompt
Describe a man who has positively impacted your life.
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William Bowie was my junior high school music teacher. He had told us day one that he’s been a trumpeter since he was a very young man so for those of us who either already played trumpet or were just learning, he was going to be a little harder on us.

And, in reality, he was harder on all of us, both male and female. He taught music; he introduced me and my bandmates to music we’d never heard before – Bach, Beethoven, Mozart, Chopin – and the magic of live orchestral music so we could see others who played an instrument doing it at the highest level.

He also taught us lifestyle skills like always wear a belt if your pants have belt loops – and even if you don’t need one to hold your pants up. Always carry a handkerchief and if you didn’t have any handkerchiefs, let him know and he’d get them. He was teaching us guys to be gentlemen and the girls to be young ladies, and I can’t honestly say that his life lessons stuck with all of us, but they did with me.

As a musician and teacher of music, he had all of the skills and could play every instrument in the room. I remember spending some after class time with him regarding a piece of music I had to play at assembly, and I was having a hard time with it. He said, “Stop trying to just play the notes; feel the music. Let it come to you and stop chasing it all over the manuscript. Now, from the beginning, if you please…”

I performed the piece flawlessly. It went over well, and I remember seeing him standing backstage left smiling and nodding and he’d taught me something about music that I hadn’t really known: You can play what’s written but if you can’t feel it, the piece is mechanical, by rote, and lifeless. How he was able to tie music and ‘everyday life’ together was, to me, magical but, then again, he was one hell of a teacher and one of the best I’d ever had because he just didn’t teach: He cared about us.

He always wore a three-piece suit. Shoes so well-shined you could see your reflection if you looked at his shoes. Immaculately groomed. The man could have been a GQ model. I was at a relative’s home just outside of the city and me and my cousins were roaming the neighborhood when I happened to see a man sitting on his porch and, hey, he looks like Mr. Bowie! As we got closer, my jaw dropped because not only was it Mr. Bowie but he was sitting there in a shirt and jeans… and sneakers!

“Mr. Bowie?” I asked after I picked my jaw up.

“Robert! What are you doing here?” he asked.

“I have relatives who live here,” I said and introduced my cousins to him – and come to find out that they knew who he was but, that made sense since they lived there. “I’m used to seeing you in a suit!”

“On my days off, I don’t wear suits,” he said with a laugh. “The suit is part of my professional appearance but as you see me now? This is who I am when I’m not teaching you knuckleheads!”

I was so caught up in what he was saying that my cousins left me and went… somewhere. Mr. Bowie looked thoughtful for a moment and said that he’d be right back. He went inside and came back with two trumpet cases. He handed one to me and said, “Let’s play ‘Lo How a Rose’ together. We’ll take turn with the first and second trumpet parts, okay?”

I was about to get a private lesson. “Lo How a Rose” was a piece we’d been practicing for the school’s Christmas program, and he was always getting on us trumpeters about not playing our parts with feeling and here I was, about to get a lesson in how to really play trumpet and to not just blowing in the instrument and making noise. I hadn’t even noticed that some people were standing in front of his home listening to us play (and him instructing me).

I was a moment that I cherish to this day and just like I cherish his impact on my life and especially giving my love and talent for music a needed awakening. He just didn’t teach us how to play songs; he taught us about music, its roots in classical music and how all other genres of music arose from there and he had pointed out that while there are different genres and styles and other aspects of music, all of the notes were the same.

Every last one of them. Just arranged in different ways. He had said that life is like that, too, and our job is to arrange the music of our lives so that it has feeling.

The Daily Prompt: 12 December 25

Daily writing prompt
Have you ever performed on stage or given a speech?
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I’ve done both. I can still remember my first day as a trumpeter and we were to play for assembly, and I was so nervous that I almost peed my pants but some calming words from our music teacher worked for me and others and we went through the program she had put together for us.

Later, she let us all know that it’s normal to be nervous before a performance and in front of a lot of people and to take our mind off of the audience, just think about the music. I don’t know about anyone else but it worked for me and, much later being in local bands and performing at so many gigs – and not to forget being in high school band and having to perform at halftime or pregame and, oh, yeah, parades – I still got nervous but when I thought about the music to be played, it’d go away.

Indeed, a lot of fellow musician say that if you’re not nervous, something might be wrong with you; no one wants to get on stage, have all those people looking at you, you can hear them, oh my God what if I mess up or forget what I’m supposed to be playing or, like what happened at a club my band was playing at, I fell off the back of the platform I had my drums set up on.

Pretty embarrassing, huh?

I’d given a couple of speeches in both junior and senior high school; a whole slew of presentations in school, having to get up in front of the class and do something on the blackboard – stuff like that – and even in my career, having to give presentations or tell a room full of people why the server crashed and why it’s not going to take two minutes to fix it (and to leave me the fuck alone so I can go fix it).

The nervousness is still there but I’d just ignore it and focus on the task at hand. Learned some of the tricks of not letting all those people waiting for you to do or say something, like, staring at an object at the back of the room but envisioning them as being naked, um, whew, let’s not think about that lest something, um, comes up. Making eye contact with a friendly face but mainly take a moment to be calm, think about what has to be done or said, then go out there and do it and if shit happens, it just happens.

I’ve stepped up to give my presentation and totally forgotten what I was presenting. Being in the church choir either singing or playing piano/organ for a song and… how does the song go again? Oh, no! Fortunately, the only real disaster I had to deal with was getting up off the floor, putting my drummer’s throne back in place, and get back to playing and acting like (a) nothing happened or (b) I meant that. The funny part was that my bandmates hadn’t noticed that I’d fallen and didn’t notice that I wasn’t playing because I fell off the stage at a part of the song where I wasn’t supposed to play yet.

Sometimes it’s better to be lucky than good.

I think that once I got used to performing in front of a lot of people and in different settings, stuff like giving a speech or presentation was “easy” even though I’d be seriously nervous before the fact – just gotta set it aside and do what I had to do… then be nervous after it’s all over with.