I have this longstanding love/hate relationship with writing.
I love the articulation of thought, the solving of ideas, the expressing of inner qualities.
The trouble with readers is, what they see is what they get.
You people, you read my blog and you somehow think what I put up here is some finite guide to the divinity of Steff, or some such.
Unfortunately, it’s not. Continue reading
Category Archives: Lifestyle
In Vino Veritas: Turning Points
[One of those into-and-almost-done-a-bottle-of-wine postings. Bear with me here.]
So, Mission: Get a Life is underway.
Making friends, for me? Not very hard. Not if I am myself. If I’m relaxed, content, sociable, people warm to me quickly and easily. And why not? I’m a good person. Better yet, I’m funny. I even make the aesthete’s basic requirement of being “smart” in the broad yet defined “non-Wikipedia” kind of way.
Bonus: I’m brutally frank. This makes me unpredictable. I still regularly shock my best friends of 15+ years, because I’m unflinchingly honest — always. Fortunately, I’m often (definitely not always) tactful, so it’s a little more easily swallowed. Even my employer calls me “honest to a fault”, but she laughs when saying it, and I notice coworkers will actively eavesdrop when I speak, so it can’t be that offensive. Yet. Continue reading
Are You Askin' Or Tellin'?
I had a private chat with chick on Twitter recently, and we spoke of men who’ve made rather over-the-top “requests” before first meetings with us.
Well, with her. I’ve never actually followed through with plans with any of those guys. But that’s how I roll. My Spidey senses are on the job 24/7.
I’ve been “dating” for forever. But, now and then, I toy with the idea of trying to find some simple, convenient, mostly-for-sex thingie with some worthy fella. It’s always a big fail, but I keep the search open.
Recently it involved chatting with a fellow that would’ve been remarkably convenient in the just-a-shag capacity, as he lived five blocks from my home. Continue reading
a lament: to beg for a season's end
a bath, a book, a glass of wine. a fine end to a mostly long day.
the book? elizabeth smart’s By Grand Central Station I Sat Down and Wept. poetric prose. love tryst. “homewrecking”, said moralistic critics of the time. swirling romance, says i. fitting for a tub.1940s classic lost for a couple of decades, then found again.
she’s describing a stretch of northern californian coastline, up into oregon, that i know well and haven’t seen for seven years. inside, my heart’s breaking a little. i long for it, but i mostly long for summer.
honeysuckle-scented nights. warm salted breezes off the shore. the feeling of sweat on the small of your back. when air’s temperature matches the warmth of your breath. the heat of the sun on as much skin as you can bare. nights warm enough to lie under a tree or lay stargazing on the beach as conversation bleeds into dawn. jacketless at 2am.
i ache for summer. Continue reading
The Annual Anti-Valentine's Posting: 2009 Edition
Ahh, Valentine’s Day. Sigh. Swoon. Won’t you be mine? Won’t you be my lover?
[RECORD SCRATCHES]
Let’s back that shit up.
Every year, without fail, I’m forced to write yet another posting saying pretty much all the same things. Like, if you can’t be romantic all year, you don’t deserve a lover. If you can’t remember to live with passion daily, then you’re wasting oxygen.
Sure, you can say, “Yeah, well, Valentine’s Day is good for young couples who are too busy — ”
[RECORD SCRATCHES]
Too busy? What, for each other? For knocking each other’s socks of with a quaking orgasm or two here and there? Too busy for head? Too busy for a stolen kiss in the corner of the kitchen? Too busy for a random, well-timed grope? Too busy for a lusty note snuck into a work lunch? Continue reading
Doorknob Detours
I’m sitting here in my Chuck’s, with my suede carcoat on, my sunglasses, and even my courier bag slung around my shoulder, because I was literally turning my doorhandle and something hit me.
I realized my bike ride yesterday is literally one of maybe a half-dozen times I’ve really been able to just settle the fuck down and enjoy life in a physical-outdoors-active kind of way since early last September. Yes, five months. Continue reading
Recording a Moment(ish)
I had a moment tonight.
My best friend GayBoy (@mr_tits_pervert on Twitter) was over tonight and we were drinking, doing the Silly Thing, and I was off in the bathroom.
I looked in the mirror and I just remembered my mother and how I always thought she was so beautiful. You know, when she wasn’t wearing her black-&-hot pink industrially-thick socks with too-short pants on “lazy days”, that is. Continue reading
About My Dad, About Weight, About Change
My dad was moved from the emergency ward, where they were keeping him under intense care because there were no beds in the ICU available, to a “normal” ward because he’s now stabilizing.
The long and the short of what’s wrong is, he has a systemic diabetic infection. Bad shit’s going on inside him and they’re trying to flush it all out. He is sick because he is fat and because he eats shit and does no exercise. Plain and simple. I love him, but these are the facts.
Continue reading
Let Rick Warren Speak.
This will offend a lot of people’s sentiments, and I don’t care, I’m saying it anyhow.
I am absolutely pro-gay rights. I am completely for gay marriage and gay adoption rights. I loathe violence against gays, and think “hate crimes” prosecutions should be used not only more frequently, but more vehemently.
That said, it’s times like these when the gay rights movement really pisses me off. The childlike in-the-streets revolutions after the Prop 8 scandal were infuriating, but this outcry against Rick Warren being selected to speak at Obama’s inauguration just smacks of utter hypocrisy, and someone has to say it.
In a nutshell, gays want respect to live their lives as they see fit. They want to be respected for their differing viewpoints and lifestyle choices. They want inclusion. They want equality.
Yet they want to un-include a man who commands respect as one of America’s religious leaders who happens to oppose their viewpoint. They want him kicked out of the big flashy party, unable to speak, and they want him to lose validation in the eyes of the country’s leaders. Am I really the only one who doesn’t get it? Continue reading
Steff’s Easy-Start Guide to Changing Your Life: Part Two
I began this series last month, here’s part one. It’s pretty unstructured, but the early part of the series is focusing on the head game, because without the head game down, you’ll have no success. It’s all in the head game.
The most important thing you need to do if you want to effect serious change in your life is stop bullshitting yourself. No more excuses. Get it done.
What, you want to wait until everything’s perfect and momentum is good, the clouds are gone and the humidity is stable? Right. Come back here to Planet Earth, where rarely do you ever get what you want when you want it, even in restaurants where you’re paying for precisely that.
That’s why you gotta take what you want. Fuck happenstance and trials and tribulations. Shit happens, always will happen. That’s how life unfolds. I’m down 60 pounds this year, even though the last four months have been consumed with bouts of insomnia, several illnesses, debilitating back injuries, cockroaches infesting my home, and even overtime for the last three weeks steady while rehabbing my back injury, and yet I’ve lost 25 pounds in that time. Continue reading