If it's Murder, you know She Wrote it.

On Friday morning, I stood up one stop earlier than usual to wait by the door . Usually everyone departs at Lake, but I don't get off until Monroe (or Jackson if I fell asleep). At Washington I'm leaning near the doors when the open. A man is sitting on the bench about five feet away. For some reason this reminds me to adust my shoulder bag, which causes the clip of my cheap walkman to slide off and the whole thing falls to the ground.

It flies forward and hits the floor of the train, bounces, rotates 180 degrees, lands again, attempts to bounce but only rattles back and forth. I started to reach out and grab it when it was falling, but feared I'd only bumble the operation, causing the apparatus to to drop into the 4 inch gap between the train and the platform, a dark abyss of no return. I pull my hand back and just observe while holding my breath. I watch it bounce and rattle. I hear the doors chime "Doors Closing". Through my peripheral vision I could sense the man on the bench watching to see the outcome.

The walkman stops. It teeters on the edge. The doors start to close and my hand shoots out and collects my prized possession. Not the 9 dollar Walgreens walkman, but the copy of Deathmatch Volume 3 mixtape that it contains. I could survive my walkman dying a fiery electrical death on the train tracks, but not my mixtape creation. Especially since I don't have the playlist written down so I couldn't easily recreate the 110 minute non-masterpiece. It's a flawed project, not the strongest of the five volumes, but I would still cry if it was lost.

But it survived. A brief moment where, despite the tragic possible outcome, I allowed myself to just observe the physics of fate and deal with the consequences. And I was rewarded.

( and then I did this, and then I did that, and then I did this..... )

I'm gay tall!!

Um, so as of last Thursday evening, my new personal ad appeared in the Reader. I of course invite local folks to give a glance and see if you can spot me (non-local people can look here). If you're so inclined and morbidly curious. I'm quite easy to spot, since I'm the only young guy in the category.

Saturday evening was spent with Damon also listening to all my messages. I've received 8 so far. Seriously. This is the first ad where I didn't say upfront that I'm trans -- I'm trying a different route, since most gay men need to see me first in order to wrap their brains around the whole concept. The youngest respondent has been 34, and I've gotten several guys in their 40s and 50s. Which, you know, isn't bad or anything, but it's just....unknown. I mean, I have tons of friends of all ages and I've dated/slept with women of various ages, but my experience with men beyond my peer group is limited. I.e. nil. And I also can't help but think that they're jumping all over me precisely because I'm under 30, which doesn't exactly make me feel good. Though not bad either -- it's all about how I frame it. And I suppose, also how cute they are.

So I"m having coffee with this guy tomorrow who just broke my heart on the message, not because he was trying to sound sad, but....I wasn't even going to call him, but Damon sort of guilted me into it. On Friday I have a more exciting prospect with a guy named Richard -- we're going to see a theater performance and then coffee/beer afterwards. He seems cute -- a little spastic and nervous, but in a nonthreatening way.

And so begins my not-so-secret life as a gay man. More TK.

Oh, and Shana, I reaffirmed that I'm gay!tall. All these guys leaving messages are 5'7" and 5'8"!! (I'm 5'9"-5'10" in boots.)

Saving the world before bedtime?

I'm really not much of an alarmist or believer in the nature of the apocalypse, and yet....lately more and more things are happening in the world where I find myself thinking more and more "wow, that's the type of fcked up shit I'd see in a movie!" But it's real. Excrutiatingly real. And sometimes I just wonder if it's another notch, another tick on the doomsday clock. If our world really is on the verge of imploding.