Huh?

I'm having a lot of angst right now. I have switched my hours from 2nd shift to first shift and my sleeping has improved but the fact is I am still stuck in neutral. I really want to get my job with the fortune 500 IT distributor in Chicago back but it is in all likelihood gone,gone,gone. I could send a resume when the time is right but I think that is going backward. I keep asking myself what I really want to do when I grow up. I have no clue. Still.

I am begining to suspect that my being a writer fantasy is just that. I suspect that I create the fantasy because the reality of being an average gay joe in an average midwestern city is just a little too diffcult to face.

I have been reading a lot of other blogs and when I figure out how to set up links, I'll post them but I don't think I am destined to be a blog star as I am not all that witty or trendy and really don't keep up on that kind of stuff.

In fact, when I read my friend Brad's blog, The Bradlands.com, it makes me think of one my first experiences in a gay bar. I had just come out and was sneaking into The Bar as it was known then with my friend Dean as I was under age. I was talking to an aquaintance, Richard one of the nelliest people I have ever met. He was standing there in the all time classic stereotype pose of hand-on-hip and saying "that guy with the red izod really pees." First I was confused because I didn't have a clue what an izod shirt was and second because when I looked around the bar everyone was standing around talking and drinking. I mean no one was peeing ! Finally after several attempts to point out the hot guy in the red shirt, he exclaimed "what kind of faggot are you? That you don't know what an Izod shirt is ". Later on, I bought a book, The Queen's English, an explanation of the slang term gays used back in the bad old days when gay bars were pretty much underground. It really pees means it is really piss elegant as in really hot. That experience pretty much sums up my relationship to the gay bar community. I have nver been really been interested in fashion or club music or whatever most guys talk about in bars.

A Simple Twist of Fate

I had my first twist of fate a few months before I graduated high school in 1979. It was on a Sunday in late February or early March. There had been a big snow a few days earlier and mounds of old snow and ice were piled up near the alleyways. I was walking to the corner confectionary to get dog food for Sam, my peekapoo dachsund crossbeed. Someone's trash had been ripped apart and was perched on a mound of snow. I looked down and saw a picture of a nude man. I was incredibly excited and nervous. I mean here was a picture out of my innnermost fantasies.

Up until now, I had been creating little porn visons about the boys in high school in my mind and now here was something real that reflected my fantasies. Anyway, I hurriedly rushed to the store and got the dog food .When I came back to the alleyway with the trash, I looked around and grabbed the magazine, stashed it between me and the 5 lb bag of dog food and rushed home. Fortunately, my parents were out of the house and I ran upstairs to my room. My heart was racing. Here was a magazine about all my inner fantasies. I turned page after glorious page. Nude men in various poses just like the poses the women were in my uncle's Playboy's but they were men and there were articles. The words gay and homosexual kept popping up. It was then that I understood what I was. Until then, I had locked my fantasies away and did not have a name for them and now I knew. Later I was to learn how powerful a word could be.

So Far

Ok, I have decided to try this blogging thing. Who am I? I am a middle aged gay man in a midsized midwestern city who is trying to find purpose and direction in life hence the title of the Bemused Blogger as in how the @#!# did I get here and how do I get out and where to next?
Right now I am struggling to pay off debt and find a career goal/direction in life. My little inner voice keeps saying to write. I usually rollover and go back to sleep but eventually I have to get up and gosh darn it that little bugger is right back saying write! write! The thing is I grew up in the blue collar working class community of Granite City IL where mostly people followed in Dad's footsteps ( and Mom's if she worked which most didn't where I grew up but mine did. More on that later.) Forunately for me, my parents had the wisdsm to move into the neighborhood where the town professional types lived. Consequently, I attended a "good" elementary school where some bright eyed teacher decided I was college material without any input from me or my parents. The next thing I know I have gone througth 17 years of a mostly happy and uneventfull childhood until I graduated high school. Then it was off to the University of Illinois -UC and it is there that things really get interesting.
Anyway, I have decided to blog to develop my creative writing skills and to mull over the thoughts, ideas and feelings I have about my life, past and present. Although I expect there to be a lot of angst ridden kvetching, I hope you will bear with me. I think the ride and the destination will be enjoyable.