Wednesday, May 30, 2007

Season Finale

It’s the season for them, right? I’ve been putting this post off and wrestling with this over the holiday, but I’ve decided to take a break from blogging. I’m not leaving for good; just headed out for a while.

I’ve ran out of topics from which I can cannibalize old writings and, for a longwinded guy like me, it takes a good deal of time, time I would have if not for a couple new projects. Simply something has to give. I’ve hung a couple large professional projects over my head, and that will be taking up a lot of my break time. In my home time, which already belongs to others :-), I’ve just started my kid’s sand box and that’s turned into a slide/swing/playhouse project that I’m not moving on fast enough. I want to get that done before I find myself shoveling sand and mixing cement in triple digit temperatures. And I have to gloat; take a look at my sands box plans:

That’s right. It’s a three level sandbox with tunnels from each level down to the next (you know, for match box cars and transformers). Just wait until you see the playhouse. I’m sorry I made the kid in you cry with jealousy. (You may also notice it’s an elevated 3-level sandbox… yeah, if anyone wants to help shovel sand up a 5 foot retaining wall, after transporting it about 20 yards, let me know ;-))

AND, on top of that, and as the straw that broke the camel’s blog and caused me to quit procrastinating this post, we just found out Rob will need a hernia patched up. At first I thought he just didn't want to shovel sand, but a doctor confirmed his claim ;-). I’ll be a very busy guy while he’s down.

Anyway, I’ll miss blogging as frequently. Also, keeping a blog and knowing someone is reading it kind of makes it feel like an obligation, one I feel like I’m shirking. Perhaps “obligation” is too conceited a word, but, I mean, I am the unofficial and illegitimate leader of the anti-mohos, right ;-)?

I’ve probably said enough to get my main point across for now, and others can make the point better I’m sure. Though I’ve been fortunate, I’ve seen a lot of the type of trauma gay men go through in this culture, and, while I understand it’s a necessary struggle to many minds, it is, to me, quite a sad and avoidable mess. It’s probably because of my local culture, but I seem to meet a different man/father with a new (and yet old) story at each gay community event. I’d be happy to just have fewer gays experience those cliché and terrible pasts, not to mention the family hurt along with them, however such is avoided, in a gay or heterosexual relationship.

I’d stick by my manual; if it feels wrong, it will be (even if it isn’t :-)), and I’d imagine that goes for any relationship. Being gay is only a curse if you treat it as such. You can have a lasting marriage, security, monogamy, and according to your orientation, just as though you came with the conventional orientation for your sex, if you want it. You can be a father in addition, and find more joy there than most can imagine. On the flipside though, if you can’t get by the idea that it’s ethically wrong to be in a gay relationship, doing so can be very dangerous. I could get guff for saying it, but sometimes it is best to not follow your orientation. If you treat it like an addiction, it will treat you like an addict, and no one wants another self-destructive gay man in the world. It doesn’t matter if his culture made him think what he does about his orientation. It doesn’t ultimately matter what the intentions of his culture were. If the moral idea is still there, in the individual, the negative consequences of acting against his set of ethics seem inevitable.

Shoot, now I’m remembering all the other areas I’ve wanted to get into, more into questions of faith and the roots of morality, more into the research I’ve collected. I hope though to come back with a site as a place for such, and to make my blog a more journal-y sort of space as I said I would months ago. I’ll save the research for that hopeful new site, another project which this blog puts off (It’s taken a while for many reasons: for one, the trial version of the software I was using expired and I’ve not found an occasion to head to a store and haven’t remembered it when I’m there :-), and I’m, again, short on time).

To be clear, I anticipate I’ll be back when I get a couple projects off my plate; heck, I may post next week if the mood hits me. I’ll still be checking my email and chatting and such; I’ll still be socializing as much as time allows. I’ve plainly come to enjoy a lot of the people I’ve met here, and, blog or no, I don’t want to lose touch. I’ve learned from you, complained to you, swapped small-talked, and I have enjoyed it even when we couldn’t seem to avoid debate and touchy subjects. I’ve also come to care about many of the mohos in this ring of blogs, and though some days my mind has been, perhaps, overly occupied with the predicaments of people I don’t really know and have no business worrying about :-), I’m grateful to have been given an opportunity to give my 2 cents, for the old reasons. Again, if there’s any thing anyone could want from my point of view in the meantime, please send off an email.

Anyway, until next season.…

Will Scot build the sandbox in time?! Will Rob take the tainted “single” parent money?! Will Alan make another goal (for his team)?! Will Brian Optimusprime Graham finally master the Jedi Mind Trick on his parents?!

Stay tuned to find this out and more in the next exciting season of utahcog.blogspot.com.

13 comments:

Sean said...

Golly, everyone is going on summer hiatus. Heroes, Smallville, and you.

and the cliffhangers are great. i'll definately stay tuned.

have a great summer my friend. oh, and my son does the jedi mind tricks on me however i found that a tinfoil hat seems to deflect the "force" just as much as invading gov satcoms. =)

Craig said...

Some of my fondest childhood memories include playing in the ginormous sandbox my dad built for me and my younger brother.

It was supposed to be the underpart of the deck, but my parents decided to give us a sandbox instead. :)

My brother and I spent many, many hours there playing, building sand castles, moats and forts, and then gleefully destroying it all with the garden hose.

We also had a fort with a slide and swings that made for many an adventure for my the neighbours, my brother and I.

I think you're an awesome dad.

And I am extremely jealous. I would LOVE to spend hours playing with children in a huge sandbox/fortress.

Have fun!

B.G. Christensen said...

Looking forward to next season.

Kengo Biddles said...

I am heinously jealous, and I think it's wholly unfair that you didn't create this for me when I was a small child. Not that you could've since you were probably a teen as well, but, you know.

And for the record, it's a hisnia not a hernia. Rob's a him, after all...

Christian said...

Umm . . . I don't think you should get to go on break. True, my feed reader functions better than my DVR, so I know I won't miss an episode, but still . . .

I will say, even though we haven't non-internet met yet, there could be a slight possibility that I might not make up excuses to not come help you shovel sand. If you let me know when. Helping someone else with their yard is a good reason to procrastinate on your own, right? If you want help, you can find my e-mail on my profile.

playasinmar said...

Will there be mid-summer repeats?

Craig said...

I'm horribly embarassed.

The 4th paragraph should have read:

We also had a fort with a slide and swings that made for many an adventure for the neighbours, my brother and me. (not "I", and not "my the neighbours")

I hate it that one cannot edit one's comments after one has posted them.

And if there are any mistakes in this one, I'll die of embarrassment.

Sean said...

"Will there be mid-summer repeats?"

maybe viewers can vote on the top ten episodes.

Anonymous said...

just don't delete your blog for those of us who want to go back and read/re-read your posts.

-L- said...

Season finales always depress me. Where did the year go? Why do I have to wait for more? sigh.

Love the sandbox. That is very much something like what I want to do... and soon I'll have a yard to do it in. Ha! I'm excited.

Scot said...

Sean: “Golly, everyone is going on summer hiatus. Heroes, Smallville, and you.

That’s kind of why I thought it possible, but, for me, it was Heroes and Lost. Though I can see your point on Smallville ;-).

Iwonder: “Some of my fondest childhood memories include playing in the ginormous sandbox my dad built for me and my younger brother.

That sounds very familiar and your description brought back many good memories. I loved the sandbox my dad made for me too. There were days, before anyone cared about conservation, when the thing would look like a huge landscape of rivers and lakes. We’d put the hose at the top of the slide and just let it run. Though the serenity was often breached by a gi joe skirmish or transformer’s battle, here and there.

In fact the reason we moved last was to get our kids a bigger yard so they could have such a sandbox (though I had to one up my childhood with the levels :-)). Otherwise it’s just sad to see them dig in Rob’s garden; they’ve already uprooted the pumpkins.

Also, iwonder, it is official blog policy here to not care about grammatical slipups. Its a glass houses sort of thing ;-).

Scot said...

Kengo: Not that you could've since you were probably a teen as well, but, you know.

Look Kengo, you can play in our sand box. Just ask; you don’t have to resort to calling me an old man.

Edgy: “there could be a slight possibility that I might not make up excuses to not come help you shovel sand

LOL. You better watch it. By the 10th wheelbarrow of sand, and with Rob herniated and all, I may start going down the list of friends who’d do such work for nothing more than a bbq. Don’t bet all won’t come up with excuses before I get to the people I only know only through the internet :-).

It’s moving right along though. The first wall is already in.

Scot said...

Playasinmar: “Will there be mid-summer repeats?

Reruns will remain there on demand.

I was thinking though of replacing the regularly scheduled programs with a couple easy to produce pilots, like, say, “Alan and Brian’s Artist’s Corner.” I’ve scores of pictures they’ve made with the standard paint program; from the realist “Mouse Eating Cheese On a Beautiful Day,” to the impressionistic “Fireworks and Sprinklers,” to the avant garde “Yucky Meatball Thing”.

Maybe that show could be paired with the new breakout hit “Pictures of Sandbox Progress”. That’d make for some very interesting viewing, I’m sure.

Santorio: Thank you for saying one may want to reread them :-). I’ll not delete it.

L:“Season finales always depress me. Where did the year go? Why do I have to wait for more? sigh.

I know! You’re with me on Lost aren’t you, L? What a finale and now a wait until February.