West of Mayberry

Ssssh.  He’s sleeping.

About the only sound is coming from the clickity-tap on the keyboard.

And occasionally from his breathing.

It’s almost three AM and I am sitting in bed with my lap top and The Attorney.

He’s staying over the long weekend.

And we’re breaking the rules.

The other day, out of courtesy, I asked Granny if she minded if The Attorney spent the weekend with us.

Even though I pay all the bills and take care of everything, it still is her house, after all.  Plus, in the last few years, she has gotten real fussy¹ about having people around.

Thankfully I caught her in good spirits and she was all about The Attorney being here.

But, she asked me which room I was going to put him in.

“I am happy to have him here, but I would prefer you two not be in the same room,” she said, matter of fact.

WTF?

“And it’s not because you’re that way,”² she explained. “It’s because you’re not married.  That wouldn’t be right.”

I’m still trying to decide whether she really was really having a contradiction in her old-fashioned values or if she was pulling my leg.

Either way, I didn’t put The Attorney in my room.

I put him in the bigger bedroom.

If we’re going to break the house rules, we may as well be comfortable.

{ fin }

1. and unpredictable [↩]
2. Old lady speak for ‘gay.’ [↩]

I’ve always had good stamina.  But I never expected to last this long.

Seven years.

That’s how long I have been blogging.

Seven years, as of today.

On September 1, 2004 I really didn’t even know what blogging was.

Seems like everybody was doing it back then.  It was the big thing online at the time.

So, I decided to do it, too.

That was my old blog, LARGETONY | Blog, of course.

I started it to sort of help promote my website (which is also now a thing of the past) but it then grew into more of an outlet for me to write and just talk about stuff that was on my mind. The tone was more NSFW in nature than this blog, what with naughty posts, recurring features like Half Naked Thursday, Hump Day pictures of hot guys, and my obsession with Jake Gyllenhaal.

But as I grew up  ((I was still in my 20′s when I started.)) so did the blog in some ways.  Even though there was still the superficial, surface-y stiff, the focus of a lot of the posts shifted to the growing of my relationship with The Attorney.  My favorite of which, I think, is the one when Granny clued in on it.

Even my obsessions grew up from the boyish Jake to the more mature Hugh Jackman.  ((Being with the Attorney gave me a greater appreciation for an older man.))

It felt like I had pretty said everything I had to say in regards to being a libidinous¹, semi-pornish goofball, so after exactly, as required by my OCD, four years on September 1, 2008, I decided to step away from blogging.

That lasted about four months.  By they start of the new year, I was missing the camaraderie of the blog-o-sphere and having a semi-regular writing outlet.  Held firmly in the grip of my order compulsions, on January 1, 2009 I opened up my world here west of Mayberry.

I had someone ask me a few days ago, in fact, why I call this blog what I do.  The title actually came froma post on the old blog about one of the simple pleasures of living in a small town in the Appalachians. A town like  Mayberry from the old Andy Griffith Show, which was inspired by a town east of here, over in North Carolina.

Therefore…West of Mayberry.

Although I have never been a prolific blogger², my frequency has certainly diminished.

I think that’s true for a lot of personal bloggers. The interwebs³ is more about Facebook-ing, Tumblr-ing, and tweeting now.

None of which was around seven years ago.

I am starting to embrace those new platforms, too.  Similar to my reasons for beginning to blog back in 2004, I am attempting to promote my efforts as a T-Shirt entrepreneur.

But, although it may not be as often, sometimes I have things more important to say than what I can in 140 characters or less.

So, I’m still here.

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1. one of my favorite words [↩]
2. In the four years of the old blog I only had 530-odd posts, and in 2 1/2 years of this one, about 125, while some fellow bloggers are in the thousands in less time. [↩]
3. Another favorite word [↩]

They say that couples start looking alike after a long time together.

I don’t know if that is so.  But I think they start to rub off on each other, and in some ways become more alike.

The Attorney and I started off with physical similarities, for sure.  We are both tall and slim and fairly broad in the shoulder.  Other than both of us having dark hair, that’s about where the physical sameness stops.

But after four and a half years together¹ I have noticed we are starting to meet a little in the middle on things that were quite different about us.

I’m not talking about compromise sort of things.  That’s stuff that everyone has to deal with if they are going to keep it going.  I mean more subtle subconscious kinds of things.  Stuff you don’t even notice until you look back on things.

Or stuff that someone else points out to you.

Like when a friend of mine said that he noticed a change in my manner of speech over the time I’ve been seeing the Attorney.

He said I sound less country.

But there is no question The Attorney is from Tennessee, too.  Maybe I sound less country because I’m picking up some of the Attorney’s vocabulary.

I think it probably has improved.  It’s pretty much had to if I was going to keep up in conversations.

Or beat him at Scrabble.

Which, in four and a half years, I have yet to do.

But, at least I don’t get my ass handed to me like I used to.

So, maybe if being around The Attorney has caused me to be more formal in the way I talk, it stands to reason that being around him is what has made him a little more casual in his appearance.

Casual for him.

Make no mistake, The Attorney is still very put together.  But he has loosened up his style bit.

I have to say I was a little caught off guard when he came up a few days ago wearing basketball shorts and a t-shirt.

He’s wears stuff like that around the house all the time.  But you would be very hard pressed to see him out in public like that unless he was actually playing basketball or something.

You’re still not going to find him running around in a wife-beater like I do.  But, it’s a step.

Sort of his double-letter score.

Maybe in another four and a half years, I can get him to skinny dip with me.

That would be a triple-word score.

Using all the tiles.

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1. which for a gay couple seems to be a looooong time. [↩]

It’s funny what your hands can teach that you thought your eyes already did.

A big storm came through Friday evening.

Sudden and intense.

I didn’t even realize clouds had rolled in.  It had been a really sunny day. I thought it was getting dark just because it was close to night fall.

There weren’t even warning winds that usually come with summer storms.

Just a big clap a thunder and the skies opened up with a gully-washer.

And the power went out.¹

Had it not been for all the lightning, I would have grabbed the Attorney and run with him out into the rain.

After about half  an hour of waiting it out in candle light, we got Granny to bed. But, the lighting was still a little crazy, so we went to watch it from one of the upstairs windows.

Eventually the rain subsided and the light show faded away, leaving us in darkness.

Pitch black darkness.

So dark that it seemed like it might have been a hair lighter outside.

Even though I have been walking through this house for more than 20 years, I still had to shuffle-stepped and feel our way to my room with The Attorney in tow, holding on to me.

It was way too dark to do anything else, so naturally we started fooling around.

It was like being at a middle-school aged party “Two Minutes In Heaven,” only we were on the bed instead of in a closet.

And for a lot more than two minutes.

And I didn’t have to try to fight my way into a bra.

Or anywhere, for that matter.

But there were probably just as many discoveries.

For example, somehow in four and a half years I never realized before how muscular The Attorney’s back is.

Or how long one of our noses really is because we touched faces sooner than expected when going in for a kiss.

We have certainly had lights-out sex before² but there was always at least ambient light from another room or a digital clock or the moon or something.

But in the murky pitch black, your other senses ramp up into bionic level. Every sound makes you taut; every smell males tingle; every taste make you tremble, every touch takes your breath away.

While the storm outside was intense, there aren’t words for the one that happened inside.

But maybe it’s time to see about getting the breaker box relocated to bedside.

{ fin }

1. For a more than three hours. [↩]
2. although I prefer to see a lot of the action [↩]

I did a re-do.

On the Myers-Briggs Personality Type Test.

I have taken the test before, but I did it again recently to see if the results were the same.

And they were.

ISFJ.

That’s me.

Introverted Sensing Feeling Judging.

Of the sixteen possible personality types, I was-and still am-an ISFJ.

I decided to take the test again mainly to test the test.

Because the ISFJ type, also known as The Guardian, Protector, or Nurturer, describes me pretty well.  I wanted to see if the Myers-Briggs had any validity or if the first time was just a fluke.

There’s lots of paragraphs describing the type in detail, but the key traits seem to be:¹

• Large, rich inner store of information which they gather about people
   I do enjoy being off on my own observing people. 
• Highly observant and aware of people’s feelings and reactions
  I try to be sensitive to other’s feelings. 
• Excellent memory for details which are important to them
  I definitely have some very vivid memories 
• Very in-tune with their surroundings – excellent sense of space and function
  Not real sure if this applies, but I am real particular about where things are in my surroundings.  Everything has a home.
• Can be depended on to follow things through to completion
  No doubt.  If something has to be done, I will do it. 
• Will work long and hard to see that jobs get done
  See above. 
• Stable, practical, down-to-earth – they dislike working with theory and abstract thought
  I’m a pretty regular, everyday sort.  I don’t know if it’s fair to say I dislike theory and the abstract.  But it’s true that I don’t think that way. 
• Dislike doing things which don’t make sense to them
  I don’t see much point in doing stuff that doesn’t have a purpose, for sure. 
• Value security, tradition, and peaceful living
  If I had to pic one thing out of the list, this would be the most me. 
• Service-oriented: focused on what people need and want
  While I want to help those who need it, I can be all about getting mine at times.
• Kind and considerate
  Just something I think we all need to strive to be. 
• Likely to put others’ needs above their own
  Again, I have my moments. 
• Learn best with hands-on training
  That is how I have learned most things I know.  By doing.
• Enjoy creating structure and order
  I’ve not hidden the fact I have a certain level of OCD. 
• Take their responsibilities seriously
  If someone else is counting on you, you gotta produce.
• Extremely uncomfortable with conflict and confrontation
  This one depends on the confrontation.  I will walk away from an argument, but if I’m threatened physically, I will open a big ol’ can of whoop-ass.

The results also offered some ideal careers for ISFJ.  There were some surprises like interior designer (!)²; some not-so-surprises like caregiver; and some disappointments: writer was not on the list.

But, on the relationship front, it was cool to find out that ENTJ³, which is what The Attorney is, can be a good match because the two type counteract each other’s personality strengths and weaknesses.

Especially since our astrological signs – Cancer (me) and Gemini (him) – are the worst possible matches for each other.

But, who believes in that shit?

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1. My comments in italics. [↩]
2. I can barely coordinate my clothes, let alone somebody’s living room. [↩]
3. Extroverted, INtuitive, Thinking, Judging – which has Lawyer for a career ideal. [↩]

30+ Day Challenge, Part 27 - A song that makes you cry (or nearly)

“Baby Mine,” from Disney’s Dumbo.

If I was a crier, this would definitely be the song to do it.

The song really gets me because it reminds me of my mama.

I long ago admitted to being a mama’s boy.  Even though it’s been 21 years since she passed, I don’t miss her any less.

“Baby Mine” was on a Disney record I got when I was a little thing and we both loved it so much.

One of my favorite memories is sitting in her lap and getting butterfly kisses while she sang it.

It never seemed like a sad song when I was a young because it was something special between me and Mama.

So, I always associated it with joy.

But, since she is gone, it’s different.

Just watching this video clip from the movie is making my eyes scratchy.

So, I’m going to cut this one short.

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30+ Day Challenge, Part 27 – A Photo That Makes You Angry or Sad

Back in the winter I decided to take on a multi-day challenge of writing on a specific list of topics in order to keep me writing even when I didn’t have anything I wanted to post otherwise.¹

I ended up sort of letting it stall.  Mainly because of this particular topic.

My OCD would not let me skip it and move on, so I had to find a photo that fit the bill.

I have a fair amount of photos on my computer: a good-sized collection of Hugh and Jake pics; football images; pix of fellow bloggers and twitter friends; and the like.  In other words, things that make me pretty damned happy.

But, finally, I ran across this photo on the internet.

You have to click to see it.  I don’t want something like that defacing my blog.  Plus I won’t say the name of the group pictured because I don’t want to be associated in web searches.

The photo angers me, of course, because of the message it promotes.  It would anger anyone who rational, feeling human.

But I am also angered at the use of children, who, only a few years earlier, were born with no instincts other than to eat, sleep, poop, and love.

That’s the way it was for all of us.  Truly born that way.

Like Gaga says: “God makes no mistakes.”

Any intolerance or hate we have (and we all suffer from it on some level) was learned.

Or even worse, taught to us.

That doesn’t make me angry.

That makes me sad.

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1. See sidebar. [↩]

This may fall under the heading of TMI¹, so if you are sensitive in that way, stop reading.

Still here?

I figured so.

Anyway, this weekend The Attorney and I were laying around, afterward, chit-chatting.

About different things.

Dinner, upcoming football season, my graying beard, his thinning hair, marriage², etc.

Then he just up and said, “You can be really dirty sometimes.”

He wasn’t talking about my hygiene or my character.

He was talking about my mouth.

When I’m down in the trenches³ and really get going, I can talk a downright filthy blue streak.

It’s nothing new.  I’ve been like that all the four and a half years we have been together⁴ but this is the first time he has ever really mentioned it.

Mentioned it in that way, I mean.  Like it might be something he didn’t like.

So, I asked him if it turned him off.

He said no.

Like an attorney, he only answers the question that was asked.   But, I knew that wasn’t the full answer.

“But it doesn’t turn you on,” I pressed.

“It makes your dick super rock hard,” he said.  ”THAT turns me on.  So, it’s all good.”

He’s right.

It is all good.

When you have a sweetheart of a man like that, how could it not be?

{ fin }

1. Too Much Information [↩]
2. in general, not specific [↩]
3. or trench, singlar, as the case may be. [↩]
4. as well as before I met him. [↩]