Tyler Yoder's Blog, page 15

Post the Hundred and Eighth: A Misadventure In Deciphering Sexuality

Gentle Reader, K was visiting me at one of my recently-coined Sunday Salons, and in the course of conversation, this post came up – for, um, reasons. Let me present to you once more, for your reading pleasure, A Misadventure in Deciphering Sexuality.

Gentle Reader, I have something new and exciting for you today. I’m sure you all remember Miss K, who appears in numerous posts on this blog. I was asking her to remind me about an adventure we’ve had that I haven’t shared yet, and then I had the BEST IDEA. Miss K’s going to assist me in telling the story, because:

1. She remembers parts of it better than I do, and

2. She is hilarious.

I will be in red, and she will be in blue.

For several years, K and I – along with Ex-Husband – hung out with what we less-than-affectionately called the Jemilly Crew*. They weren’t our favorite people in the world, but they lived close, entertained a lot, and we had several friends in common – well, we did at first. Over time, more and more people that we would see at their functions would get driven away by Jem and Emilly’s atrocious behavior.

They were charming people, really, and in retrospect it’s just SHOCKING how many people they’ve driven away were jealous of their beauty and intelligence.

There came a time when we were essentially the only friends that they had left – well, except for my next-door neighbor, Mr. King,  who I’ve known since childhood. We’d been out of touch for years, though – until Emilly started bringing him around her place. 

It should be mentioned that Emilly had dated Mr. King several months prior. It didn’t last long, and they weren’t a great match – he enjoyed philosophical discussions, whereas intelligent conversation flew over the poor girl’s head, and after a month she just stopped returning his calls. He called her twice after that and she called him a stalker, but she was his first girlfriend and he was infatuated with her for a bit. When Emilly learned that Tyler thought Mr. King was attractive, she used this to get him to start coming around.

Over one of innumerable cups of coffee shared in that dingy, smoke-filled room, Emilly shared the latest word in gossip – Mr. King was questioning his sexuality, and found me kind of attractive. He was “very confused” by this, and “wasn’t sure of his feelings” about the matter; under no circumstances should I directly say anything to him. Everyone thought that I should subtly flirt, and see what developed.

Emilly continued to spend a lot of time with Mr. King alone, although I recall that she seemed to say that she spent more time with him than seemed probable, especially since I was over there often and she was never out with him or having him over during those times. I only saw him with her at social functions. I figured Emilly was probably exaggerating how often she spoke to him, but kept it to myself – Team Covenwolf* did not respond well to criticisms of any kind and tended to throw a fit whenever anything of the kind came up. 

This went on for a month or two. Mr. King spent more and more time in our little circle; people found pretexts to leave us alone together. We had some wonderfully stimulating conversations, I must say. I desperately tried to decipher the signals I was receiving.

Mr. King is a very intelligent young man but wasn’t great about picking up on other people’s social cues. He doesn’t have a lot of guile to him and prefers to ask people directly when he has trouble interpreting their actions. This is why Emilly’s mother, Jem, did not get on well with him, though she pretended to (badly), and led to her making the infamous remark after he left one evening, “He doesn’t have a lot of emotional intelligence. It’s like people who are too smart don’t have souls.” I should point out that this woman home-schooled her daughter, which is probably the reason why Emilly can’t grasp basic grammar or spelling, but can write runes (if she has a guide in front of her).

Things finally came to a head, the night of Emilly’s birthday. Mr. King’s behavior had been exactly as flirty as before, and after a bottle of champagne, I decided it was time to finally attack the matter directly. I was sick of being lovesick, and so, as the party started to break up, I took him outside to confront him, and ask him on a date.

Tyler notified me of his intentions and headed outside as Mr. King was leaving. Emilly was elsewhere in the house, probably redoing her make-up or changing outfits for the sixteenth time that evening. As I was gathering empty cups and other trash, she resurfaced and asked where Tyler was, so I told her that Tyler was asking King out. Her face dropped instantly and she began to panic and pace around exclaiming, “It’s too soon! He’s messing it up! It’s too soon!” I thought this was a strange reaction, but then again I prefer to deal with situations head on, as opposed to her method of dealing with people by talking to everyone else but the person involved (who needs their insight, anyway?). It was clear that she had didn’t think that Tyler would be successful – odd, considering the way she had gone on about King believing he was might be gay and found Tyler appealing. When Tyler came back in, he informed us that King told him that while gay people didn’t bother him, he found the idea of being with another man disgusting. Emilly immediately said, “That’s not what he told me! I’m mad because that means he was lying to me!”

I found her reaction rather off-putting – never once did she express regret for encouraging Tyler to believe that King was interested in him, nor any actual confusion over what he said. She simply reiterated her anger over King ‘lying to her’, as if that was the most important aspect. She claimed that she was going to call him later after we left to tell him off, although she had never shied away from making phone calls like that in our presence before. I would have thought the normal reaction would have been, “He told me he was interested in you, I’m so sorry. I had no idea.” But all we got was, “I’m mad that he lied to me!”

Because his lies are what were revealed here, Emilly. His machinations, and his two-faced scheming. Yup. For me, this is when I stopped considering the Jemilly Crew actual friends, and started considering their home a den of iniquity. 

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*The Jemilly Crew and Team Covenwolf are one and the same.

Tagged: drama, Full Disclosure, Guest Post, Jemilly Crew, LGBT, Liars, Miss K, ReRuns

Music Monday: Button Up Your Overcoat

I’m running behind today, Gentle Reader, so today’s video’s a little rougher than usual. Still, this is a really fun little number. Happy Monday!

 

Tagged: Boop Boop A Doop, Button Up Your Overcoat, Music Monday, Ukulele Vids

Poetic Interlude LXXVI

Gentle Reader, I can recite this week’s offering from memory; I declaim to general acclaim. It’s an old favorite, and the origin of the phrase “Not all that glitters is gold.” I present Thomas Gray’s

Ode on the Death of a Favorite Cat, Drowned In A Tub of Goldfishes*
 
‘Twas on a lofty vase’s side
Where China’s gayest art had dyed
The azure flowers that blow;
Demurest of the tabby kind,
The pensive Selima reclined, 
Gazed on the lake below. 
 
Her conscious tail her joy declared;
The fair round face, the snowy beard ,
The velvet of her paws,
The coat that with the tortoise vies,
The ears of jet, the emerald eyes,
She saw; and purred applause. 
 
Still had she gazed; but ‘midst the tide
Two angel forms were seen to glide,
The genii of the stream;
Their scaly armour’s Tyrian hue
Though richest purple to the view
Betrayed a golden gleam. 
 
The hapless nymph with wonder saw;
A whisker first, then a claw,
With many an ardent wish.
She stretched in vain to reach the prize.
What female heart can gold despise?
What cat’s averse to fish?
 
Presumptuous maid! With looks intent,
Again she stretch’d, again she bent,
Nor knew the gulf between.
(Malignant fate sat by, and smiled)
The slippery verge her feet beguiled,
She tumbled headlong in.
 
Eight times emerging from the flood,
She mew’d to every watery god,
Some speedy aid to send. 
No dolphin came, no Nereid stirred;
Nor cruel Tom, nor Susan heard;
A Favourite has no friend!
 
From hence, ye beauties, undeceived,
One false step is ne’er retrieved,
And be, with caution, bold.
Not all that tempts your wandering eyes
And heedless hearts is lawful prize;
Nor all that glisters, gold. 
 
 
 

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* I feel that I should note that it isn’t that Gray doesn’t know how to properly use semi-colons – it’s just that they were new and fashionable and their modern usage hadn’t been quite nailed down, yet. Really.

Tagged: Not all that glitters is gold, Ode On The Death Of A Favorite Cat Drowned In A Tub Of Goldfishes, Poetic Interludes, Poetry, Semicolon abuse, Thomas Gray

Post the Ninety-First: A Surprise Engagement

When Miss H invited me to her birthday function, I was a little trepidatious, Gentle Reader. Her brother and his girlfriend, Emilly – though once very dear friends of mine – are no longer on speaking terms with me; we haven’t seen one another for roughly two years. Further, Emilly’s mother Jem was due to attend; I thought that these people were out of my life, forever, and that my life was better for it.

So I deigned to attend; Miss H is rather dear to me, and so it was I found myself with Miss A, hurtling down the length of Highway 302, looking for a place known simply as “The Pasture”, apparently. It was sure to be a somewhat casual event, so we were dressed fairly simply – Miss A in a striped sundress with darling handkerchief pleats, myself in jeans and t-shirt with a summerweight blazer. We followed the vague directions, and were sure we were close, when we saw a field containing cows and a couple of those Reeves boys.

Now, the Reeves are a large family and I haven’t seen any of them in at least a decade, but I’ll be blessed if I didn’t recognize Michael right away. Miss A parked her car up the hill on the verge, and we were given a lift in the bed of a truck to where the party actually was, some miles back amongst the trees. Typical K. P. shenanigans – but what we didn’t know was that the whole party, a weekend-spanning-event, was dirtbike and muddin’ themed.

Miss A and I were appallingly overdressed – and I’d already dressed down! Alackaday.

We pull up; Miss A and I dismounted adroitly from the truckbed – naturally, I’d been riding side-saddle.  We find our hostess, bearing gifts, which were warmly accepted; not wanting to monopolize her attentions, we took up station near the bar. We stayed there for the bulk of the evening, having the most marvelous conversation – and avoiding those who were avoiding us, who were directly across the field, on their own side. People wandered by, and mingled with us, anyhow. That’s the advantage of staying near the bar, you see. Further, the bartender, Tia, was utterly charming and one of my favorite new acquaintances.

Another new acquaintance, Julia, murmured in my shell-like ear “It’s time.” Miss H and I had been discussing the mysterious surprise her beau, Paul, had in store for her; Paul had been planning this for at least six months – and he’s not much given to grand gestures. Thus it was that he and Heidi took off on their dirtbikes for a lap in around something called “the pit” and all the other guests started piling into two pickup trucks. I assumed we were going to follow them or something for the dénouement. I was wrong; instead, this happened:

what

Heidi and Paul came racing back around the bend -

And Heidi cunningly did NOT crash her bike on seeing the sign. Paul, who’d gotten back first, dropped to one knee -

And then there was crying and hugging and cheering and a surfeit of love.

Congratulations, you guys. I know you’ll be exceptionally happy together.

Tagged: Classy People At A Party In A Pasture [Not Pictured], Did I mention the cows?, Dirtbikes, Engagements, Jemilly Crew, Key Peninsula, Muddin', Pastures, The Boys, The K.P.

Post the Ninetieth: Beauty Secrets of the Reverend Doctor: Passing as Straight Edition

As much as I’m loathe to admit it, Gentle Reader, there are times when it behooves one to try to pass for straight. At work, for example, depending on one’s workplace, or in the rural wilds where I make my home, or Bremerton. The list of places where it’s not quite safe to appear anything other than heterosexual is depressingly long and dreary. However, if you absolutely must venture into such a space, darling, I’ve got a few handy beauty secrets waiting for you*.

Step One: Divest yourself of all jewelry.

It’s true, Gentle Reader, that many straight fellas wear jewelry regularly, but if you’re anything like me it’s an entirely different type of jewelry, and anyhow you’re attempting to blend in insofar as that’s possible. Any jewelry worth wearing is a bit conspicuous, and you don’t want that. Limit yourself to a pair of small stud earrings at most. No pearls.

Step Two: Get Dirty.

It’s a truth universally acknowledged that straight gentlemen are unconcerned with dirt. That doesn’t mean it’s true, Gentle Reader; it’s also a truth universally acknowledged that straight gentlemen are baffled by the existence of yogurt. For purposes of passing, though, we can make use of this ridiculous cultural myth. Rumple your clothes.  Spill something on your pants. Find some dirt, then run your fingernails through it until the underside of the tips are unevenly darkish. Roll around in something you found in a ditch – bonus points if it’s dead!

Step Three: Ignore your hair, or spike it, or shave it all off.

As near as I can tell, those are the only three options for straight boy hair. You also may or may not wish to invest in a baseball cap – the team logo really doesn’t matter, as long as you know what strangers are talking about when they bring up the team you’re advertising for. GO SPORTS!

Also, on the subject of hair, grow some stubble. No more than three day’s worth, mind, but it shouldn’t be terribly kempt.

Step Four:  Giant Sunglasses.

No, not like that, honey.

In my experience, last night’s eye-makeup is a dead giveaway, ruining the whole straight-boy disguise. Further, my eyes are pretty expressive; those treacherous orbs mean I can’t hide a single thing. The solution? Giant, opaque, sunglasses. Also? Try to look angry all the time. Like this:

And there you have it, Gentle Reader! Good luck out there passing as something you’re not!

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*By you, I very specifically mean gay men who have to live in rural areas. I’m sorry, Gentle Reader – this particular beauty guide doesn’t really apply well to anyone else. Bon chance, though, if you give it a shot!

 

Tagged: Beauty, Beauty Tips, Gay Boys, Homophobia, LGBT, LGBTQIA, Passing, Queer, QUILTBAG, Rolling Around In Dead Things, Straight Boys

Music Monday: Love Me Or Leave Me

This week, we attempt some good old Nina Simone, Gentle Reader. Also, I’m the sort of fella who lounges around the house in evening gowns – just to give you a bit of warning.

Tagged: Love Me Or Leave Me, Music Monday, Nina Simone, Ukulele Covers

Poetic Interlude LXXV

Richard Lovelace was a poet with a ridiculously apt name, Gentle Reader, given that he was a 17th century English nobleman. This poem holds sentimental value for me, and I thought you might enjoy it as well.

To Amarantha, That She Would Dishevel Her Hair
 
Amarantha sweet and fair
Ah braid no more that shining hair!

As my curious hand or eye
Hovering round thee let it fly.
 
Let it fly as unconfin’d
As its calm ravisher, the wind,
Who hath left his darling th’East,
To wanton o’er that spicy nest.
 
Ev’ry tress must be confest
But neatly tangled at the best;
Like a clue of golden thread,
Most excellently ravelled.
 
Do not then wind up that light
In ribands, and o’er-cloud in night;
Like the sun in’s early ray,
But shake your head and scatter day.
 
See ’tis broke! Within this grove
The bower, and the walks of love,
Weary lie we down and rest,
And fan each other’s panting breast.
 
Here we’ll strip and cool our fire
In cream below, in milk-baths higher:
 And when all wells are drawn dry,
I’ll drink a tear out of thine eye,
 
Which our very joys shall leave
That sorrows thus we can deceive;
Or our very sorrows weep,
That joys so ripe, so little keep.
Tagged: Poetic Interludes, Poetry, Richard Lovelace, To Amarantha That She Would Dishevel Her Hair

Post the Eighty-Ninth: The Spectacular Wedding, Part II

Gentle Reader, you’ll recall from Wednesday that Bernie, the Groom, had been handling every little crisis personally (very bravely, I might add) and that we essentially had to form a protective wall and usher him out. Or something along those lines.

Thus it was that Mr. Darling, Miss Taylor, and I stepped into the role of Wedding-Coordinators. It was going pretty smoothly as such things go – I mean, there were situations, but there weren’t situations – until it turned out that neither the mother of the bride nor the mother of the groom had been told they were participating in the ceremony itself, and that furthermore, the rings were missing.

The rings. Were missing.

We finally located them about six o’clock, an hour after curtain was due to rise, so to speak. The bride and groom were incommunicado across the lake, and we were all as sodden as creatures of the sea. I am very stressed and cross in this next photo, as we anxiously wait on the beach for some word of when we can begin herding the guests down towards the shore.

And then – Darling got a call. They were ready, they were about to leave, things were finally about to begin. I went to dash off to round up the guests – and promptly slipped on the wet rocks of the beach, splattering sand all over my official Officiant suit. I quickly got wiped down, and started quietly murmuring to little knots of congregated guests that the festivities were shortly to begin. That done, the wedding party marched smartly down the dock to greet the wedding barge, and I took up my post at the arch.

The bride and groom arrived, preceded by the flower girls. Did I mention the barge? They arrived by barge, and the wedding party joyfully helped them onto the dock.

The ceremony went smoothly, although I was a little cross with the DJ for twice shutting of the mike in the middle of me talking. No matter; he hadn’t been at the rehearsal, and he’d arrived late enough that we hadn’t had time to coordinate with one another. Despite my tearing up a little during the vows, after a few moments, my friends were wed. The bridal party formed an arch -

- and then it was done. The Spectaculars, honored guests!

They promptly took a victory lap around the lake, and I dashed off for a well-earned cigarette and a celebratory glass of champagne. The Caperes looked after me, after that – Laurence was kind enough to brave the buffet line on my behalf, for example – and I teared up at various times over the evening.

During the cake, for example:

And during the first dance:

But especially during the toasts. What can I say? I have a sentimental heart.

It was a good wedding, and I’m so very happy for my friends. Congratulations, you guys.

Tagged: Bridesmaids, Officiant Problems, Sarah Spectacular, Spectacular Wedding, Wedding Coordinators, Weddings

Post the Eighty-Eighth: The Spectacular Wedding: Part I

Gentle Reader, last weekend I was privileged to wed one of my best friends, Miss Spectacular. To her beau, Bernie. Obviously I didn’t get married to a lady; whatever would they say in the gossip columns? I merely performed the ceremony, signed the paperwork, helped them get hitched.

As with any wedding, a number of disasters befell us. The mother of the bride, a professional caterer, was to handle the, um, catering – despite the fact that it was finals week for her. Fate and her body intervened, when she had to be rushed to hospital – her gallbladder was very cross that she’d over-extended herself. Naturally, the bridesmaids* swooped in, cancelling the bachelorette party to come cook for the wedding instead, and we were happy to do it.

We cooked what amounted to four turkeys and exactly one thousand side dishes, and I learned a new word from Miss Greenfield – “Hangry” – a portmanteau of hungry and angry. I learned it, because that’s what we all were after cooking food all day and not eating any.

The day of the rehearsal dinner, we convened at Bernie’s sister’s place, where the wedding was to be held. Though there was some confusion with the choreography – which is exactly the reason rehearsal dinners exist – we managed to get things down to a science, and settled in to meet all the other people involved in this production.

We dispersed, and I went to stay at Mr. Darling’s for the night, so that he could fix my hair for the big day.

After Miss Greenfield picked Darling and I up, we had to stop for some last minute supplies – we were also running a little late. We arrived at the venue precisely in time to round up the Bride and her other attendants and head to the house across the lake that they’d rented to get ready in, and to spend their first married night in, later. We spent a number of hours getting ready – there was a veritable ocean of champagne, from good old Möet et Chandon to some delightful nonsense that came in pink cans with attached straws – and pampering the bride and ourselves. It was one of the least stressful bridal parties I’ve ever seen – and I’ve seen a good number of them.

Mr. Darling, Miss Taylor, and I left about forty-five minutes before showtime, leaving Ms. Capere, Miss Greenfield, and Miss Spectacular to tend to the finishing touches. The groom was due to arrive any second to adorn himself, and everything was surely going smoothly.

When we got back to the venue, everything was in chaos – as is normal, before a wedding – but Bernie, the groom, was personally attending to each little problem, putting out fires left and right all by himself. I was furious – not at him, of course, but because no one had stepped up to handle these things. Whether there’s a wedding planner or not, somebody ought to keep the bulk of the pressure of the details off of the happy couple. Certainly you ask them for their opinion on crucial things, but someone needs to be handling things like “Which are the boutonnieres and which are the corsages?”  and “The DJ is running late. What should we do?”  and “Where should we put the cake? The homeowner doesn’t want people inside but it’s raining!” and so on. Oh, had I mentioned it was raining? It had been pouring down furiously since five a.m. I helped Bernie sort out the flower crisis and told him he had to get across the lake; it was four-thirty, and the wedding was to due to begin at five.

I also told him confidentially that no wedding in history ever started on time, and shooed him towards his car. I think we’ll leave you here, Gentle Reader. After all, what could possibly go wrong?

Plenty. Plenty could go wrong. Tune in Friday to find out precisely what!

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* Strictly speaking, as Officiant, I was not a bridesmaid. But I spent all my time with them, have known them for years, and certainly was more at home/more at ease amongst them. Also? My shirt matched their dresses. I’m totally including myself as a bridesmaid for purposes of this entry.

Tagged: Bridal Parties, Bridal Showers, Bridesmaids, Officiant Problems, Wedding Disasters, Wedding Triumphs, Weddings

Battle For The Net

Gentle Reader, most of this post is just the standard kit going around blogs like mine and other small-fry, but it’s an issue that’s important to me, because without a free and open internet, most people wouldn’t bother reading anything but the top-tier blogs – and no one would reach those pinnacles of internet-rock-stardom we all dream of without a level playing field. Please carry on reading the official nonsense – it’s rather important. Cheers.

If you woke up tomorrow, and your internet looked like this-

-what would you do? Imagine all your favorite websites taking forever to load, while you get annoying notifications from your ISP suggesting you switch to one of their approved “Fast Lane” sites.Think about what we would lose: all the weird, alternative, interesting, and enlightening stuff that makes the Internet so much cooler than mainstream Cable TV. What if the only news sites you could reliably connect to were the ones that had deals with companies like Comcast and Verizon?

a few days before the FCC’s comment deadline, public interest organizations are issuing an open, international call for websites and internet users to unite for an “Internet Slowdown” to show the world what the web would be like if Team Cable gets their way and trashes net neutrality. Net neutrality is hard to explain, so our hope is that this action will help SHOW the world what’s really at stake if we lose the open Internet.If you’ve got a website, blog or tumblr, get the code to join the #InternetSlowdown here: https://battleforthenet.com/sept10thEveryone else, here’s a quick list of things you can do to help spread the word about the slowdown: http://tumblr.fightforthefuture.org/post/96020972118/be-a-part-of-the-great-internet-slowdown Get creative! Don’t let us tell you what to do. See you on the net September 10th!

via Battle For The Net.