Under the glossy veneer that is my big, gay exterior, I’m pure thug. Never mind that I’m so white, either. The mailman didn’t.

Mailman: Hey man, how’s it going?
Phil: Pretty good, thanks.
Mailman: That’s good, bro.
Phil: Um, so… did I miss the outgoing mail?
Mailman: No, man it’s still right here.
Phil: Sweet. Thanks.
Mailman: Have a good day, man.

I suppose now would be a good time to point out our respective attire. The mailman was bedecked in standard mailman drag, replete with the blue pants with the dark blue line down the seam. He was sporting a poorly trimmed beard and the usual mailman cap. Oh, and he was whiter than I am. Cut to me, styling it up in white shorts and a bright red polo shirt, going for the win with the high-tech sunglass covers for my glasses.

Because Mr. Mailman made sure to emphasize every single “man” by drawling it out a good three seconds, I’m left forming one of two conclusions. 1.) He thought I was gangsta. 2.) He wanted me to be gangsta. Either way, he was hoping to prove that he could keep up with the best of us, even if the “best” turned out to be white, gay, and the only gang he could make it in would be the Big Gay Mafia.

In the spirit of stream of consciousness, I offer a list of things that fall into no category in particular.

• I watched the final swimming events this evening, including the historic eighth gold medal event by swimming guru Michael Phelps. I’ve gotten so into the swimming events that I’ve made sure we’re home by 8 o’clock every night just so I could watch my swimming. I feel like I should state that, for my own record, I watched history happen. I watched a guy win the most gold medals in one week, ever. And I watched a 41-year-old woman race against teenagers and kick some serious ass. I was jumping up and down maniacally during several of the races tonight, though trying to be as quiet as possible so as not to wake my slumbering honey.

• I finally got to see The Dark Knight today. I enjoyed the heck out of it, but it did make me really sad because it reminded me how much it sucks that Heath Ledger is no longer with us. His performance was even better than I had imagined it would be.

• As my poor partner found out tonight, I have lousy vision in low light, and even when moving slowly, I can be a deadly weapon. Trying to be helpful, I was fixing the alarm clock as Robert arranged the pillows on the bed, and as I turned around, he was in the process of leaning over the bed to climb in when my moving elbow met his chest. While Chuck Norris or Steven Segal might have been proud, I didn’t have such sentiment. It was unfortunate timing, to be sure. But if I ever DO have to defend myself in a fight, I guess I have a good new karate move at my disposal.

The mountains stand out in the distance, a brilliant shade of deep blue. The sun tries to peek above the tip of the mountainous skyline. The air is cool, a dewy humidity competing with the dryness. Clouds that only hours ago lazily floated high in the air have lost altitude. The sky is a sheet of glass, glinting playfully with the rising sun.

The mountain range towers less than usual. Clouds have descended upon the peaks, covering the range from north to south. Having blocked the rising sun, they appear puffy, a light shade of blue. A light breeze passes through continuously, smoothing the surface of clouds. A wave crashing over rocks, moving in slow motion.

The sun persists. Shimmering rays appear, taunting the clouds and daring them to relent. A tiny crescent of the great star emerges. Though small, it reaches far and wide. In both directions, clouds are immediately lined a brilliant color palette, alternating gold and silver as the rays of the sun play off the clouds and misty air at the high altitude.

The air is crisp and still. Time slows down and falls away. Calm. Peaceful. Beautiful.

If you ever come across one of these delicious buildings, I highly recommend you bite, and go inside. Upon seeing the Toll House store whilst wandering Albuquerque Uptown with my friend Dr. Vina, it was all I could do to not lick the bricks of the building right then and there.

The overpowering smell of cookies was enough to make us decide to spoil our impending lunch a little bit by ordering what looked like harmless little snacks of mini chocolate chip cookies with white stuff and mini M&Ms surrounding them. And at a mere 99 cents each, said truffles seemed easily as harmless as a stick of celery. Maybe I’m exaggerating.

We probably really should have ordered celery, or at least that weird grass drink stuff some of those smoothie places sell. Despite my fairly sweet tooth, I bit into my little cookie sandwich and was met with a whipped cream that was so sugary it nearly killed all my taste buds upon contact. So while a ten-year-old might relish the intense feeling that is whipped cream instantly turning to butter in your mouth, it was way too much for me to handle. I think that spike in my glucose level should be my last such spike, preferably for the rest of my life.

The lesson to learn here: when you do go, don’t do what I did. Stick to a regular cookie or maybe some ice cream. You can thank me later.

I’ve always been something of a night owl. This generally isn’t too much of a problem, though, as I’ve somehow managed to finagle my schedule so that the earliest I ever have to be at work or school is 9am. Of course, I’ve been bitten by the Olympic bug this year, and while it hasn’t had me training like mad, I have been flopped down on the couch in front of the television every single night, unable to move from the screen.

This week, Robert has returned to work. My philosophy for work is that even if I’m tardy, at least I’m there. Read: mornings are my mortal enemy. Conversely, Robert likes to arrive to work nice and early. And, he likes to have plenty of time each morning to get ready. This is what my schedule has been like so far this week:

8pm: Watch Olympics
11:30pm: Finish watching Olympics and think about going to bed.
12-12:30am: Go to bed.

Sleep

5:30am: Feel a hand reach out and shake me around, and voice say “Phil, it’s time to get up.”

And then it takes me half an hour to drag my near-lifeless ass out of bed, staggering around and moving with Lego-man precision as I stumble through my morning routine.

After I dropped Robert off at work just before 7am, I headed home with an urgency that only the sheer desire to crawl back under the covers and sleep can muster. Naturally, it took me an hour to fall asleep again. I had to set my alarm, as I wanted to get up by 8:45 so I could get some things done at home and then meet some old work supervisors for lunch.

This is where cell phones come in handy: they have alarm clocks. I set my cell phone alarm, and opted for a random ringtone to wake me up. One I hadn’t yet listened to. One that started off with an odd little bass riff, followed by a few guitar notes and some drums. A tune that, even to my sleepy ears, struck me as more than a little suitable for a porno film. I didn’t realize this at first; it wasn’t until after I’d hit the snooze, five minutes had lapsed, and then it thumped again, that it hit me. Talk about a weird thought to wake up to. Oy vay.

During this election year, I’m finding that I’m learning a great deal about the rest of the world. Aside from traveling, I think one of the best ways in which to accomplish this is through stories. In my case, I’ve been hankering after memoirs.

A while back, I picked up a travel memoir by the inimitable J. Maarten Troost. His time spent in the South Pacific resulted in two books, The Sex Lives of Cannibals and Getting Stoned With Savages. I picked up the latter after randomly finding it in a bookstore and reading a few sentences.

Sometimes when I find odd books in stores, or books of which I’ve not yet heard, I forgo reading the back cover in favor of reading a few paragraphs or pages from the first chapter, in order to get a feel for it and see if it draws me in. Getting Stoned With Savages succeeded, big time, and as I’m now in the middle of it, I’m getting more cultured by the second.

Aside from the joys of reading how the residents of Vanuatu handle government coups and general political upheaval by getting stoned, there’s also the joy of the “savages” part of Vanuatu. In order to encourage you, dear reader, to drop everything immediately and go read this book, I offer a few favorite parts that had me in fits of laughter.

First, there’s the part where Troost tries to figure out exactly how cannibalism in the area was not out of spite or necessity, but out of custom, or enjoyment:

Typically, the men of a particular village ambushed the men of another village. The goal was to capture one man, who would then be triumphantly carried back to the attackers’ village, clubbed, and chopped into pieces. Good manners dictated that an arm or a leg be sent off to a friendly village. Again, here I sputter in disbelief. Imagine receiving such a package. “Oh, look, honey. Bob and Erma over in Brooklyn have sent us a thigh. So thoughtful.” Of course, now you are obliged to reciprocate, and so you gather your friends and off you go, hunting for a man, and when you capture one, you will thoughtfully hack an arm off and send it along to Bob and Erma, together with a note–Thinking of you.

As if that wasn’t enough, Troost expounds on some of the history of the islands:

When Westerners began to arrive in some numbers in the nineteenth century, they too found themselves participating in Vanuatu’s exciting culinary world. John Williams, the very first missionary to arrive in Vanuatu, landed on the island of Erromango on November 18, 1839. Sponsored by the London Missionary Society, which had considerable success in converting much of Polynesia to Christianity, Williams stepped ashore, no doubt confident that very soon he would be breaking bread with the islanders. Within minutes, he was dead, killed by a fusillade of arrows. And then he became lunch.

Perhaps it’s morbid fascination on my part, but with every page I turn, I become increasingly more fascinated. It’s certainly nice to read a book in which the author draws you in to the point that you may as well be living next door. So what are you waiting for? Get started on your vicarious trip out to the South Pacific. I’m going to keep enjoying mine.

My friend bFlat tagged me with a rather daunting challenge: to share seven weird and/or random facts about myself. Here goes nothing.

1. In the summer of 2004, I worked for the first time ever as a camp counselor in the grand state of Minnesota. While there, I came across a pair of suspenders in the costume shop that I decided would be fun to wear. I ended up keeping them. A few months later, I found some suspenders for sale at J.C. Penny and bought them. Even now, four years later, I wear suspenders nearly every day. Not out of necessity to hold up my pants, really. They’re just extremely comfortable, and feel like a part of me.

2. Upon first impression, I rarely come across as the type of guy who would be really into punk rock. Some high school buddies got me into the scene, and I’ve been into it ever since. But just because I don’t spike my hair, and I’m incompetent on a skateboard, doesn’t mean I can’t rock out with the best of them.

3. I’m one of the few people my age who’s never once taken a computer course. Somehow, I escaped ever taking even a basic class in middle school or high school. I didn’t even take a typing course. A very early Mavis Beacon taught me how to type when I was 14, and I gradually became a self-taught computer nerd. I never saw that one coming.

4. At one very misguided point in my life, I wanted to be a cartoonist. I say ‘misguided’ not because I lacked a sense of humor or at least some creative drawing talent, but because I had no direction other than I wanted to be a funny cartoonist. At the time, it took me two panels of nothingness to figure this out.

5. Most of the people I grew up with hated Albuquerque and hated New Mexico. I was born and raised here, went to college here, and only just recently moved away for grad school. It’s been so nice to be back for the summer, though, as I love it here. I love my desert, my mountains, and my green chile.

6. Bizarre as it sounds, one of the most liberating things I’ve done in my lifetime was going skinny dipping. It’s all Minnesota’s fault. It was a beautiful night, the lake was inviting, and I was in the company of friends and we’d all been, um, drinking. ‘Nuf said.

7. I started blogging completely by accident. At first, I was part of an online discussion group, and I later started a blog that ended up being an outlet to vent and to keep my thoughts organized. About a month after I started community blogging, I abandoned the discussion group. Then, almost two years later, I created this website. Oh, the things we end up doing without ever planning to. But boy, is it worth it.

What do a guy eating a lighted cigarette, a guy playing a piano with his butt, and a guy climbing to the second story of a theater before swinging across the rafters and then dropping two stories from that point have in common? They were all sights witnessed by yours truly at a concert Monday night.

The first two guys were both of Foxy Shazam fame. The former is the lead singer, who, besides singing, also danced, did push-ups, jumped on the guitarist’s shoulders, did handstands (see above photo), did The Worm and a number of other odd dance moves, and more. The latter was the keyboardist, who appeared to have a beard similar to Chasidic Jews, only with the hair on his chin trimmed much shorter than his chops. I could barely make sense of any of the band’s music, but they were quite the sight to see. Figures I’d love them, and highly recommend that if you ever have the chance to see them, GO. They’re one of a kind.

My primary reason to go to the show was to see Scary Kids Scaring Kids, one of my current favorite bands. As of last night, I’ve now seen them live three times, and they get better every time. The keyboardist is the third character mentioned above. Towards the end of their set, he climbed to the rafters, swung around a bit, then dropped two stores into the waiting crowd below. Yes, he’s insane. Yes, the band is crazy. And holy crap, do I love them.

The only downside to the show, as usual, is that it’s kind of a drag to love punk rock when you’re 24. That in itself isn’t bad; what sucks is that there’s 13-16 year olds EVERYWHERE. They like to stand around outside and smoke cigarettes and wear black and hate the world. And sometimes, you encounter kids who double-date and make out with their dates RIGHT IN FRONT OF YOU, for the entire duration of the last band’s hour-long set. Which is why I Twittered the following at 10:08pm, in the middle of the show:

“Very tempted to throw the people sucking face next to me into the mosh pit.”

Fortunately, shortly afterward, the mosh pit came our way and took care of that little problem for me. Who would have thought relief would come in the form of an angry circle of morons pushing each other around?

I have an interesting threshold for things I find terrifying or disgusting. For instance, when I arrived home Saturday night after being out for dinner, I noticed a grotesque-looking arachnid. It had a big black body and four giant, hairy-looking legs. The fact that it was hanging out right where I wanted to put my foot on the stairs made its menace that much more impressive.

While my first reaction upon seeing the beast was to sprint away as fast as possible, the fact that it wasn’t indoors somehow reduced the overall threat. Hence, I stood over it and stared, deer-in-headlights style, fascinated.

Since the camera on my phone proved useless to take a picture thanks to its lack of flash, I headed inside and snagged my digital camera. Bravely, I returned to the infamous stair in the hopes that a good clear picture would reveal the true nature of the creature. I was hoping it was a tarantula, or maybe a vinegaroon.

My incredible 8.1 megapixel camera, with the bonus of me standing directly above the monster, took a great picture. Only when I zoomed in on said picture, the face smiling back at me was not that of a toothy arthropod, but rather of a cricket. Next to a dead and curled up cockroach. What the fuck. All that adrenaline, over a stupid chirping insect? There I was, thinking that my life was hanging in the balance, and instead of it being a venomous and therefore dangerous thing, the worst it would do would to chew some upholstery.

Unfortunately, my pictures did not even begin to capture the initial sense of creepiness I felt. If you happen to be more savvy when it comes to digital photography than I am (and I suspect you are), tips will be much appreciated. I was so disappointed that it was a damn cricket that I didn’t even try to go for a cool shadow picture to try to capture it. Lame.

Today was my youngest brother’s birthday. As a consequence, I joined the family, as well as some of their cronies, for dinner. Every family visit is unique these days, and I never know what to expect when I’m in their presence.

Tonight was interesting, to say the least. Just for kicks, I decided to throw the word gay into as many conversations as possible.

Brother: I think I’m going to get fetuccini alfredo.
Phil: I went to a gay bar-slash-restaurant in LA that had great fetuccini.

Brother: That bar gives me the creeps.
Phil: That’s because it’s not a gay bar.

Because I was the last person to arrive, I had prime seating at the very end of the table. I say “prime” because I was lucky enough to sit next to the birthday boy’s friend’s girlfriend. At the tender age of 19, she was very sweet and very innocent. Which made me want to corrupt her as much as I could in the two hours I was there.

Corrupting her was much more difficult than I had expected, however, as Girlfriend lacked the mental capacity to take a compliment.

Girlfriend: It’s so hard to get out of this chair with the pillar behind me.
Phil: At least you can sit there. My figure isn’t nearly as good as yours, so I have to sit here at the end of the table.
Girlfriend: Stop it!
Phil: …
Girlfriend: Don’t say that.
Phil: …

I have to say I was somewhat disappointed. I thought for sure that this girl, who managed to drag her macho boyfriend into the new lingerie store next door to a local bowling alley shortly after it opened, would be a little more savvy. I’m wondering if she’ll talk up the others about what a total jerk I am. Here’s hoping!