The undocumented Brazilian

 My friend Fernando is married to a Brazilian guy.  His husband has a Brazilian friend living in San Diego who Fernando and his husband think might be a good match for me.  Let us call him Edwardo.   Edwardo is undocumented.  He came to the US with a valid visa, but that visa has expired.  From what Fernando is alluding, Edwardo will need to marry an American citizen to get a valid status.  I was not too keen with this arrangement.  If I marry, I want to marry for love and mutual respect and not for Green card.   I saw Edwardo's pictures and he was not unfortunate looking.  He was not exactly my type, but he appeared to have the same interests as me.  We both ski and like to travel.  That was a big plus.  So, despite my reservations, I agreed to meet him.  We first chatted online then progress that to video chat.  He was charming and had a nice body.  So, over a 2-month period of almost daily chats, I began to like him.  From what he was alluding to Fernando's husband, he seems to like me back.  The chats were encouraging to say the least.   Then we agreed to meet in person.  I drove to San Diego to meet him.  During our lunch, he was not very engaging.  I thought he might be nervous.  He did entertain me by bringing me to a museum and the seaside to watch the wildlife.  He seems friendly but not overly friendly.   Since I am a pragmatic person, I did not hesitate to test the sexual chemistry in bed while I was there.  That was when the problem showed up.  He was bad in bed.  Or perhaps he was just not that into me sexually.  Upon my return to LA, I spoke to Fernando about it.  Fernando thought that I should not give up yet and still give it a chance.  He might be nervous in bed.  I did agree with Fernando and agreed to continue the chats with Edwardo.  I invited him to come to LA so he can see my place as well.  He made several excuses about not wanting to go to LA because to the trouble with ICE raids and protests. I did not push him and gave him time, but it became apparent that he did not want to come to LA at all.  He then told me that things were moving too fast.  That he wanted to slow things down.  I did not beg or argued and I just told him, "que sera sera".  That was our last chat.  Months went by and I gave up on Edwardo.  I had some self-reflection and came to the conclusion that he was not really into me.  I was sad loosing that possibility of having a BF but the more I think about it, I was not really sad in losing him in particular.   I did not realize that I really wanted to have a BF and was willing to compromise that much with him.  Over time I thought of him less and less and life returned to normal for me.  Things were as if I never met him to begin with.  

Recently while having dinner with Fernando and other friends, Fernando told me that Edwardo met someone and was getting serious with this other guy.  That Edwardo was sad that his BF took back the offer to meet his family in Arizona.  That is all I know.   This latest news about Edwardo just reinforced my belief that he was just not that into me.   He was willing to meet his BF family but not willing to drive to LA.  So things were not moving too fast for us.  It was just his way of ending things.  It was a euphemism for "I want to end things" but just did not have a courage to say so.  

I am actually relieved that things did not work out between me and Edwardo.  Otherwise, I would have been worried about him getting caught by ICE on a daily basis.  And with the recent news that the Trump administration is suspending immigrant visa from 75 countries including Brazil, I got a bit of satisfaction.  If we got married, I would not be able to petition him as a spouse and give him a green card because of Trump.  So am I glad that we did not become a couple?  Am I just sour grapes for his rejection of me? Yes I admit that I was annoyed that he rejected me, but I recovered from it.  Indeed I am over him.  How do I know?  Well I do not have a desire to report him to ICE even though the thought crossed my mind.   If he gets deported, it will not be my doing.  If he gets deported, I might be little sad.  Or will I be indifferent about it?  Who knows....

More reasons why Marion got good looking guys.

I have blogged about my friend Marion and his good looking sexual conquests.  I tried to rationalize why he was able to get those men and I was not.  What I have not considered are the following possible scenarios.

1.  He could have been lying about his conquests.  Perhaps he had not met these good looking guys whose pictures are in his phones.  Perhaps he was exaggerating the facts.  I don't know really.

2. Perhaps Marion has been less discerning about chatting with guys who initially did not post a face pics or or any pic.  And they turned out to be good looking after these guys decided to share their pics to Marion.  Unlike me, I refuse to start a conversation or reply to anybody who does not post a clear face picture in their profile.  That is one rule of mine that I do not compromise.   And just perhaps, this may have led to me not meeting those potentially good looking guys.

3.  Lastly, perhaps Marion may have lied in his profile about his age.  For sure he can get away with it.  And this may have opened up doors to potentially chat with guys who have certain age requirements.  Unlike me, I never lie about my age in my profile.  This may have shut the door for me to potentially meet good looking guys who filtered their search to certain age group.

I don't know really...

Why can't I meet quality men like Marion?

When I hang out with my friend Marion several weeks ago, he showed me in his phone all the men he had "done" that he met via the gay social networking or hook up sites.  Honestly I was impress by the quality of these men.  This made me wonder how Marion could get those men and I couldn't.  Is Marion far better looking than me?  We are both about the same age.  So it must not be the age factor.  We are both Asians so race is prolly not at play.  Although he is tanned skinned and I am light skinned.  I wondered about that.  We are both height and weight proportioned.  What is it then?

I analyzed my situation compared to Marion's.  First, Marion lives alone in Weho.  Definitely more gay men in Weho that he can meet at his place.  I live in the valley and my mom stays with me.  It would be too complicated to invite men over.  So I figured geography and availability of a place must have played a role.  More gay men in Weho and often they themselves can't host.  So having your own private place to meet men is a plus.  Also Marion has a flexible work schedule so impromptu meetings with men are always an option.  While I have a 9-5 work so that means I can only meet men after work in the evenings or weekends if I want to.  Often these horny men are online looking to meet now and not later to be scheduled.   Then talking to Marion made me realized that he was not really looking for LTR.  He just wants sex.  Unlike me, I very very rarely meet up for just sex.  I am looking to meet guys for a casual non sexual encounter and if there is chemistry, another date can be arranged.  I am not a prude but I am just done with casual hook ups.  Many men online are just looking for sex.  Some even have BF and they just want NSA(no strings attached) sexual encounters.  I do not entertain those men cause we are not looking for the same thing.  That left me with men also looking for LTR as my pool of men to choose from.  bummer.

In summary, Marion has the advantage of geography, availability of place, flexibility of schedule and having more men to choose from.  I convinced myself that that must be it cause the other possibility that I am just uglier is so unpalatable.  :-)

Mortal enemy list.

I know it is un-Christian to have mortal enemies.  After all the Bible teaches us to forgive and forget.  Or did it?  Well I do not know really and I do not care.  I do not buy that Bible stuff anyways.  So here are my mortal enemy list in descending order.  These are people that I had dealings with.

1.  Seri Port*r.  She is my mentally and socially disturbed neighbor.  She yells at and alienates everybody in my building.  Nobody likes her.  I hope to witness her having a heart attack in our yard so I can ignore her while she plead for my help.

2.  Bozena "Bonnie" Cz*rska.  She is the Polish bitch who lives in Chicago.  She is dim witted, crazy, irritating and pernicious.  I hope she gets raped and sodomized by 5 hoodlums with me as a witness.  When she calls for my help, I can walk away with a smile in my face.

3.  Ginash G*orge, Bob Trip*cchio, Kristine Byk*rk.  They are 3 people in authority that uses their authority to save their own asses without regards to fairness and righteousness.  They are cowards and self serving.  I hope they all get pancreatic cancer and linger long before they die.

4.  Laurance J*ffries.  He is this fat know it all stinky man.  He is rude and condescending to everybody who is serving him.  I hope he gets loads of bed sores like he deserves.

5.  Romel Cab*zor.  He is this religious hypocrite teacher.   Nothing wrong with being a religious man per se.  He claims to be a pious Opus Dei man and yet he gives unjust favors to his male minions at school.  He cheats by changing grades and giving answers to his male favorites.   Clearly the action of a gay man who has no morals.  I hope he gets excommunicated by his beloved church and then get shingles.

Bad things happen to good people means what?

The notion of an Omnipotent good God that has control of all our lives and events here on Earth is just not logical.  If God is truly good, why does he allow bad things to happen even to good pious people?  Yeah yeah I have heard it many times that God is sending all these bad things to test us.  That is just BS as far as I am concern.  What I think really see happening is that all these bad things and good things that happen to good and bad people alike are a product of our actions and can sometimes be random.

Take my friend Jessica.  She is a good catholic girl who married this very devote catholic man.  They go to church and follows the teachings of the church.  The husband even teaches Sunday school at their local parish.  Very pious family indeed.  My friend and her husband has one son and so far unable to have more.  My friend have had several miscarriages.  What I find hard to understand logically is why would a good God not bless this family with more kids.  They are good parent and have the means to bring up good children.  Yet God chooses to let my friend miscarry 5 of the pregnancies she had since her son.  And yet God would allow other unfit mothers to have as many children that they can not care for properly.  All seems too random.  Well it is random cause there is likely no God that controls the events.

Friendship that improves on closer acquaintance

As some of my friendships went south, there are others that improved. I speak of one friend Martin. Martin and I have known each other for decades now and we have been always friendly to each other. Although I have considered Martin to be a friend, the friendship has mostly been in a group dynamics. The more I got to know Martin, the more I see a goodness in him. He is always generous with his friends. He would often invite us over when he made some fancy dessert or meal. And he is there too to help out when needed. Plus it helps that he is the carefree obliging type that gets along with most people.

One time, I went to deliver some documents needed for an errand I request of him to do. And since I was asking him a favor, I thought it would be nice for me to give him a small commemorative T-shirt from an event that we have attended 6 months ago. I actually ordered this T-shirt around the holidays and just did not get a chance to give it to him. So it was even more fitting that I give it to him now to show my appreciation for the favor he is to do for me. I happen to arrive at his place as he was preparing dinner. He then proceeds to invite me over for dinner. Not only was it very nice of him to invite me for dinner, he also reciprocated my gift with a nice sweater he bought that he thought was too big for him. That gesture was beyond what I have expected. He has shown again his goodness and generosity. Indeed I perceived him as a better friend on closer acquaintance.

Ernie told Mary

2 months ago, Ernie and I had a quarrel over the dropping of his camera. The way he blamed me completely for the incident without taking responsibility for his own fault to the incident did not sit well with me. It was his condescending manner of lecturing me that I am not refined and that I am a grabber, with a hint of superiority that he is better and more refined. Needless to say, I took a break from him. You need that sometimes.

One time I was with our mutual friend Mary and I had to borrow her camera cause I forgot mine. Mary jokingly said to be careful and not drop the camera cause I know the consequence. It became obvious to me that Ernie talked to Mary about our quarrel over the camera incident. So if he talked to Mary about it, God knows who else he talked to about it. If he can talk to our friends and acquaintances about me, then I feel much better blogging about it. At least in my blog I did not reveal his true identity so anybody who does not know about our quarrel won't even know it was him I am blogging about. So if he told others about it and they read my blog, then it is his fault for talking about it cause I did not drag anybody into our quarrel.

I just need to get my frustration out.

3 stories about friendship

Here are some connecting thoughts about friendship that I would like to share.

My first story is about Ed who has been friends with me and Joe here since the mid 90s. Ed moved to Tx 5 years and would on occasion keep in touch via facebook with us. Last month, Joe got an email from Ed that he is coming back to Chicago for his Grandma's birthday celebration. Unfortunately Joe was also going to be in Wi for his sister's wedding that weekend so Joe alerted me that Ed is coming and told Ed to contact me instead. Joe told me to call Ed so I did but unfortunately the number I have of him did appear to be a wrong number. I did not get an email from Ed either so I figure he was busy with his family or he just did not deem my company worth his time. I do not know cause I never did see Ed that weekend when he was here. Here is my take about this. A friend will find time to see his/her friend. If Ed made the effort to contact Joe that he is coming but yet did not bother to contact me just shows me that perhaps I am not really that kind of friend to him. So I left it as it is and did not make a big deal out of it. I figured life is too short to vex myself about how my "friends" behave.

Amy and I have been good friends for the past 15 years but lately I noticed that Amy is more preoccupied with her other new friends and have neglected me. As I mentioned above, friends will make time for another friend so I figure if Amy is too busy for me, then I will just leave it be. I slowly did not bother to contact Amy and pretend that we are still very good friends when in fact I was not that to her anymore. Somehow Amy may have sensed that I have been absent from her life for quite some time now that she decided to reach out more and start making efforts to hang out with me. Her efforts have not been met with rejection. My take on this is simply. A friend may neglect another friend but a true friend will make efforts to make up for neglecting his/her friend.

Sometimes when a friend moves away, there is a gradual decrease of contact as a result of geographic distance between the friends. This is very natural but neither distance or time can not separate true friends. This brings me to my third story about me and Gen. Gen and I were good friends in college but have not lived in the same place since then. So we rarely see each other. In fact the last I saw Lillibeth in person was 10 years ago when she visited Chicago. Despite of rarely seeing her, we have managed to keep in touch via phone call or text. I am happy to say that I have been good at keeping in touch with old friends without any ulterior motives to it. I am glad I am not one of those that are "user" friendly. I am not only keeping in touch with old friends cause I have something to get out of the friendship but for the sake of keeping in touch with a friend.

I hope to always remember these stories and hopefully it will continue to guide me to be a better friend to another.

Ask others to take your picture

One summer day at the beach has left me with a sour taste in my mouth. It started when my friend Ernie asked me to take our group picture that included him. I did not really care to take the picture and another friend volunteered to take it instead but Ernie insisted that I take the pic. As he approach to hand me the camera, it was still hooked on his wrist so that resulted to us dropping the camera on the sand as I was taking it from his hand. Sand got in the lens and the camera needed to be repaired/cleaned. On subsequent conversation with Ernie, he said that it was my fault cause I grab the camera from him hastily. From my point of view, he did not take the time to prepare the camera as often in the past before handing it to me. He was distracted as in the past. Often in the past when he asked someone (including me) to take his picture, the camera would still be close/off or the setting would still be in the preview setting. He does not prepare the camera properly for the taker of the picture so it will be ready to just point and shoot. Of course the camera was not ready again as he handed it to me this time. Hence this resulted to the camera falling on the sand. Ernie asked me to pay half of the cost to repair/clean the camera. I told him I will cause I felt it is not worth loosing a long friendship over this incident. I thought it is fair that I pay half of the repair cost cause I was involved in the dropping of the camera whether I was a willing participant or not. But this does not prevent me from feeling really very annoyed about the situation. It is a sour taste in my mouth that I know will linger. My reaction now is to just refuse altogether to take his picture using his camera but that seemed highly unrealistic if we are to remain as friends. Ugh!

Forgive but not forget?

Did we ever forgive if we did not forget? I wonder about that cause I feel I have forgiven my friend Romeo but I have not forgotten what he did. It was not that Romeo did anything malicious to me. He was just not thinking which resulted to some drama.

Romeo and I had a friend Justin who was visiting from Cali. Since Justin at one point was gracious enough to host us in Cali, I agreed to have him stay at my place cause Romeo can not host him. I do not particularly like anybody in my house without me being there unless they are a very good friends. Justin was an acquaintance kind of friend so as long as I am home with him, I do not mind having him stay with me. Romeo and I had an arrangement that Justin will hang with him till I get home. Then he can bring Justin to my place so I will be around to receive them. I did give Romeo a set of my house keys so they can drop off Justin's luggages while I am not yet home. Since I know Romeo and Justin will be in my home briefly while I am not there, I decided to lock my bedroom and office doors. Those are my private areas.

Upon coming home that day, I found Justin, without Romeo, in my office. Evidently, Romeo opened my office door since he knew where the keys were in the kitchen drawers. Romeo thought that I will have Justin stay in the office since I had a sofa bed in there but in reality, I was planning to have Justin stay in my living room where I have another sofa bed. He did not even think twice that I may have a good reason for locking that door. Romeo was just being stupid. So I was rightfully upset to see Justin in my office. I gave Romeo a call and had an argument about it. This argument was overheard by Justin which of course made him feel unwanted. The argument put me in a lousy mood and I did not even accept Justin's invitation to dine out. That night Justin did not return. He end up sleeping somewhere else cause he felt not welcomed. He just came the next day to pick up his luggages. So I tried to explain to Justin that I was not upset with him but with Romeo for not adhering to our arrangement and for not thinking twice before unlocking my office. My apologizes were in vain cause Justin did not talk to me again.

I felt this drama was all Romeo's fault. He should have stuck to our arrangement to have Justin hang out with him till I get home from work. And he should not have unlocked that office door to let Justin in. I have long forgiven Romeo's stupidity but to this day have not forgotten. So can I really say that I have forgiven him when I have not forgotten???

Do what is best for the patient and not just what the doctor says!

I come from an extended family of doctors/physicians and I have high respect for their profession and knowledge. But we all know that doctors are only human and they are not perfect. They may not necessarily know all the time what is best for the patient. Since I work with and see the patient more often than they have seen their doctor, I may be in the position to know what is better for the patient with regards to their Physical Therapy needs. I had a recent issue with my managers insisting that we physical therapist should follow the doctor's order regardless of what the circumstances are. That is simply idiotic and cowardice. Just because they are afraid for the doctor to yell at them is not reason enough not to do what is best for the patient.

The situation was regarding a 60 yo man with severe OA of both knees with flexion contractures and a pain level of 7/10. Doctor CP wrote "aggressive PROM" on his/her order. For the first 6 sessions of treatments, I modified the order to be mostly active stretches and home low load stretch so as to not cause more pain. No improvement on extension ROM was noted after the first 6 sessions. So my supervisor told me to do tibial pressure because Doctor CP insists on it. I complied and did 3minutes of grade III tibial AP oscillatory joint mobs instead because I believe this will be better tolerated and yet achieve the same effect as the sustained tibial pressure. Joint mobs also allow us to have more time to address the strength and pain issues of the patient. After the following additional 6 sessions of treatment with Tibial AP grade III, we achieved a 5 degrees improvement in extension. That is a very good result clinically considering is diagnosis and age. I firmly believe that if I did any more aggressive physical stretch on this patient, he would have more pain and I would have done more harm to him. My belief was confirmed during that one time when I did not put a bolster under his knees during his E-stim to have that sustained extension stretch with very low load force. The patient complained of more discomfort on the knee after the E-stim. And during that other PT session, after I was chastised for not following the doctor's order to the letter, I did the aggressive stretching (as adamantly instructed) and the sustained tibial pressure and sustained prone knee hang with weights. Patient complained of increase pain post treatment from 5/10 to 8/10. He also was not able to tolerate the full 10 mins of the sustained tibial pressure and prone knee hang so it was cut short to 8 mins.
These two instances clearly confimed my belief that the "aggressive PROM" order of the doctor was the best approach for this patient since it caused him more pain. My approach not only increased ROM, it also improved strength and decreased pain.

My treatment approach was clinically sound, ethically correct and better than the doctor's order since it treated the patient as a whole and not just his knee ROM. Since management has had run in with Doctor CP in the past, they have adopted the unspoken policy of doing what Doctor CP says regardless of it being the best for the patient or not. And what is worse, they choose to chastise me instead for using my better ethical judgement to modify the doctor's order to better manage the patient. That is just wrong!

Dr. CP strikes again

Dr. CP is a fucker! He complains to management that Physical Therapy do too much to his patients. And if you back down and do less aggressive treatment, he also complain that we did not do this and that. And yet he will not write to the letter in his prescription what he exactly wants done. It is like he wants us to read his minds. What an asshole! He epitomize that God complex that some physician have. I have zero confidence in his abilities as a doctor. I would rather die of cancer or AIDS or something than get treatment from him.

I found my own solution.

As a result to my friend Bruno who disappointed me this past holiday/birthday by making me feel so unimportant,I have searched for a solution on how to make me feel important. Yes I have a chip on my shoulder about my birthday since my family and friends have almost always failed to make me feel special that one day in a year when we all ought to feel special about ourselves. My solution would be to allow myself to do something expensive and frivolous during my birthday. I could either do the following:

1. Get a liposuction on my birthday. This is kinda hard to do since my actual birthday is January first and most surgeon will not probably do any elective surgery then. I could opt to do this on my lunar calendar birthday which will fall on December 5 this 2011.

2. Getting a botox also falls in the same predicament as liposuction. Nobody will probably do the actual procedure on New year day.

3. Hire a really hot hustler/escort on New Year day. Very tempting but if I want sex, I could just easily go to a bathhouse. Although nobody really hot will probably want to do it with me in a bathhouse.

4. And lastly, get a spa session at a 5 star hotel downtown. Spa treatment of massage, facial, manicure and pedicure. Total pampering! This is the most feasible option since I already researched and those spa in the high end hotels are open on New Year day. Woohoo! I could even add a nice dinning experience after the spa treatment at those 5 star restaurant of the hotels.

I am so happy at myself for finding a solution to my problem. Since nobody else will and can make me feel special, I will do it myself. Who says money can't buy happiness. As God is my witness, no birthday of mine will past ever again where I did not do anything nice and special to make me feel special.

BFF? Not...

BFF or Best Friends Forever is a very rare phenomenon. In many instances, friendship evolves. Many things can happen to a friendship that can dissolve or at least weaken the friendship. I have seen it happen to people I know and I have experienced it myself as well. For example, one party in a friendship may get married and change their priority that does not necessarily suite the other friend's priority anymore. A friend may find other new friends that he/she would rather spend time on. A friend may change religious views that could alienate the other friend. The list of possible circumstances goes on.

As for me and my good friend Bruno, it became apparent to me lately that our friendship is not what it was before. I suppose it was gradually changing but this past holiday gave me a wake up call that he obviously have other priorities in his life than me. For one, it was obvious that he would rather spend his time and effort to be with his other new friends celebrating New Year than to celebrate my birthday on January 1. Bruno does not go to facebook so he was not aware of my effort to celebrate my birthday on my Lunar calendar date rather than January 1. So as far as he is concern, my birthday is still January 1. What is the point of having a birthday on New Year's Day when your good friend even forget to greet you happy birthday? Why did Bruno forget? Because it was obvious his priority was celebrating new year with his new friends. That was very disappointing to me. To make matters worse, he blurted out on a January 2 gathering of friends at Kit Kat bar that it was my birthday yesterday. It was such an afterthought kind of announcement and made me feel so insignificant. And another sign that I am not so much in his mind anymore was the fact that he did not even get me a Christmas gift for the first time since we were friends for many years. (fyi, I got him and his BF a separate gift for Christmas). I grant that he has a chronic illness and a BF/partner that keeps him occupied mostly but he is obviously not sick or busy enough to party with his other friends. So I will just accept this fact that our friendship is not as close as it was. At least this way, I will not have any expectations from him and will not have disappointments should he fail to deliver. At least I know that I should not make efforts to celebrate his birthday or go around buying him christmas or birthday gift cause those acts are for close friends only. I am a very fair person and I give out what I receive. That applies to how I treat my friends. That is the only way to keep my sanity. That is how I cope with disappointing changes in friendship.

Not the best interest of the patients.

There is this one physician at work who I shall call Dr. CP for anonymity. Most of us Physical Therapist hate working with his patients. It is because his orders are so very specific and it negates our clinical judgment. We are to follow his order/protocol to the letter and I feel like I am just a technician devoid of any clinical decision making that is best for the patient. The State of Illinois seems to disagree with that since we are licensed by the State to make clinical decision making within the scope of our practice and education. And the patient are there with us to receive physical therapy and NOT medical/surgical care. But I digress.

So one day I asked my colleague why Dr. CP would not just have all his patients work with the Physical Therapist in his clinic so he can control their Physical Therapy care exactly the way he wants it? My colleague said that he only sends the Medicaid/Public Aid patients to our hospital clinic. And if some of you are not aware, Public Aid/Medicaid insurance are poor payer of Physical Therapy care compared to Medicare and Private Insurance. I know this because I once worked at a Doctor owned clinic who do not accept Medicaid/Public Aid insurance because they hardly or do not make money from them. So Doctor CP keeps the good paying patients and dumps the poor paying patients to us.

What Dr. CP is doing is so wrong. Patient, whatever the insurance, should have the free will to go anywhere for Physical Therapy care. And I do not even agree that it is the patient's best interest to follow the PT protocol of Dr. CP since I have seen his protocols and it is far from similar to the protocols of many other physicians with the same practice. And the protocols of these other physicians are so similar to each other. So does that mean that all those other physicians are wrong and Dr. CP is right? I dare say the reverse.

He did it on a post it!

There was this episode in Sex and the City where Carrie's boyfriend, Burger, broke up with her on a post it. The girls made a big fuss about it that he was being cowardly and that it was so inappropriate. Break up should be done in person was the message.

In the past month, I was undertaking the dilemma on how to break up with this guy Joe. I wanted to do the easiest route for me which was to email him. My friend Sam was a little disapproving about that and my friends Tom and Pinky thought I should do it in person. They added that since Joe was good to me, I ought it to him to do the break up properly in person.

So I emailed Joe asking if he was available the coming weekend to I can come to his place to talk. (Let me mention that Joe likes using the email to communicate instead of phone calls or text message.) He emailed me back asking what was so important to talk about. He added that if I was to break up with him, he wanted to know via email since he is a grown man. He continued that he won't allow anybody to be "controversial" under his roof coupled with the accusation that I was being controversial. So I emailed him back that I was just trying to do the right thing and that I was not being controversial. I got my wish and was able to do the break up via email just the way he wanted it too in the first place. All the worrying I went through with the anticipation of a face to face break up was not needed.

What I am trying to say here is, who says that break up ought to be done in person? I guess one has to take the situation and the other person into consideration. In my case, Joe obviously did not care to be broken up with in person. He just wanted to know via email so he can cope with it alone and in privacy. Also with the current age of technology, breaking up via email, voicemail or text message seems not so foreign sounding anymore.

Susan and Veronica

I once had a coworker named Susan and Veronica. They were not really friends at work but they were not enemies either. They just did not get the opportunity to know each other and bond as friends. And I can say the same for Veronica and me. Susan and I remained at work while Veronica moved to LA. Veronica and I kept in touch and I would see her whenever I was in LA. 6 years after Veronica's departure, Susan and I, along with other coworkers, decided to go to LA for a conference. When I suggested to Susan that we should meet up with Veronica, she gave me an exasperated sigh laced with disinterest. My impression was that she felt it was a waste of her time. Upon my encouragement that Veronica is kool and it would be fun, she went along with my suggestion. That reunion of Susan and Veronica led to a discovery that they really both have the same interest and expertise in practice. They started to keep in touch more and became really good friends.

This situation sometimes made me think about how we make friends and how we sometimes prejudge somebody without really knowing them. In my story above, Susan obviously prejudged Veronica as somebody she would not be friends with but she later changed her tune. While I on the other hand, had no preconceived idea on Veronica and just took her as she is. That led me to meet her every time I was in LA and got to know her as somebody kool. I will not say that I am always as open minded about people but I like to think that I should behave more like how I behaved with Veronica. This situation also made me think how user friendly Susan behaved. She seems only open to the idea of friendship if she has something in common with another. And that is not how I like to behave. That is limiting and friendship is something too good to limit ourselves.

The greedy pig

Some men have the tendency to be what I call a greedy pig. They want their cake and eat it too. I have two examples of these kind of men.

My friend had an ex Mike who is a perfect example. He has other faults but one that I will highlight here is his tendency to be a greedy pig. Mike like ethnic guys and he always surrounds himself with ethnic guys. He makes good money and he is generous to his ethnic "friends". That is probably how he maintains these so called "friends". When Mike met my friend he was chasing him. When they became an item, he gave my friend an ultimatum to move in with him or their relationship will fail. So my friend succumb to this and when Mike finally secured my friend, he was on to his next conquest. He can never be satisfied with one guy that he needs to be chasing after another one when he already has one living with him. From his dating history, he is always changing boyfriends like he changes clothes. He is a greedy pig. Always want something new.

I met a guy Paul online who was visiting from Toronto. He spent over a week in Chicago and has met other guys prior to meeting me. We met on his last full day in town and we agreed (3 days prior) to spend the afternoon with me and later that evening watch a concert at the Grant Park. After showing him Graceland Cemetery, gay Andersonville and the "gay" beach, we head back to my place to eat before heading to the concert. It was during our drive back to my place that he got this text from another guy he met online that he wanted to meet in person. Evidently this other guy was unable to prior commit a time to meet Paul that he only texted Paul last minute when he found himself suddenly available. So Paul changed his mind about watching the concert with me and instead wanted to meet this other guy. I understand that I can't control who he meets while he is here but to break his word on agreeing to watch the concert with me just to meet a guy last minute showed me how greedy he is. He wanted to meet as many guys as he can while here and keeping his word meant nothing. Very uncool and very greedy.

A greedy pig will always be waiting for someone better to come along. He has no qualms leaving what he already have in pursuit of another. Just like a true greedy swine. While it is already heartily eating in one bowl and when it sees you pouring another food in another bowl, it will transfer to that new bowl in a heartbeat.

Should I be more like Frank???

My friend Frank is currently dating Noel. Their relationship seems a healthy stable one and I am very pleased for them. Prior to meeting Noel, Frank was interested with this guy Andy. Andy did not return the interest so they just ended being friends. A few months later at Frank's Christmas party, Andy showed up with his new BF Mario. I have not met Mario before but Frank has. I was keen to observe that Mario looks just like Frank. They both have dark hair and eyes. Both olive skin and curly haired so common with people of Greek heritage. I could not comprehend how Frank can be Ok with this. I supposed that Frank have Noel so he is OK with Andy having Mario. But to my eyes, Andy's rejection of Frank and to date Mario who looks just like Frank is rather insulting. I would have avoided Andy if this happened to him. More like a self preservation instinct but Frank embraced Andy instead as a friend. Frank even invited Andy and his bf to go out of town for a weekend trip with him and Noel.

This situation I observed with my friend Frank made me rethink the way I deal with my own heartache. Am I being too proud that I am missing out on the bigger picture? Or am I being wise by avoiding things that reminded me of the cruel reality of life? I am inclined to be stubborn and do as I always do. But I knows that there will always be a voice in my head questioning my actions. Perhaps I need to be more like Frank. Or not...

Lady Jazmin is out of the woods

After spending a day with my friend Jazmin, I am confident to say that he is out of the woods. He had colon resection for a cancer on his transverse colon just 11 days ago. We went to see his surgeon at Northwestern Hospital and then walked around Andersonville. Had some cake at a pastry shop and went shopping a bit. Jazmin is walking about, and back to his old self. The HO, my HO sister, is back!