Never in my wildest dreams did I imagine that I would have to become so butch in order to live in this new place. I suppose that’s just part of the package deal that comes with moving into a place that was built over 50 years ago. Basically, if this was 2003 instead of 2008, they would have added me as the sixth guy on Queer Eye for the Straight Guy. I would have been the guy telling the straight guys how little they actually knew about all their favorite macho hobbies.

For instance, I could help them out with simple maintenance things around the house. Like, say, any problems they have with a refrigerator. A refrigerator that’s leaking, in fact. And I’d be like, “Uh, Girlfriend, it’s simple, honey. There’s this tray, see, and it sits underneath the refrigerator and catches all the water. And normally, it catches the water, and eventually the water evaporates, so it’s really no big deal, nothing to worry about. Unless it leaks, honey, and then you’ve got some problems.” And when the guy would be totally flabbergasted by my wealth of straight knowledge (not to mention enthralled by how savvy and hip I am), I would brush it off. “Eh, it’s something I learned from a couple of my girlfriends.”

And I’d be able to identify different scents in the air that are natural to a home. “Oooh, you have an older gas stove. Well, that means that there will always be a flow of gas to it, especially since there’s no electric spark to light the burner. Your stove doesn’t use any electricity.” And then I’d go to town telling him about how much that saves electricity, especially considering the place is so old that there’s only four circuits throughout, two of which are in the kitchen. And you don’t want to share an outlet with that refrigerator of yours, unless of course you’d rather constantly blow out your circuits.

And, scene.

Last week, I noticed that the tile in my kitchen was wet. This is nothing unusual, as I’m frequently prone to spilling water from time to time, especially as I’m doing dishes or some kind of cooking. (This doesn’t have anything to do with this post, but I want to point out here just how nice it is to be able to splash the counter whilst in the throes of cooking or cleaning and not have to worry about some psycho bitch from hell confronting me and telling me “There’s water droplets in the kitchen sink, you need to wipe it clean every time you run the water in it.”)

It was the location of this wetness that confused me, though. It was concentrated around the front of the refrigerator, which initially lead me to believe that maybe I unknowingly purchased a container of juice that leaked, or maybe some ice slipped out and melted. Except there was no sign of leakage inside the refrigerator, and thus by a method of deductive reasoning that would impress Sherlock Holmes, I was able to determine that that was not, in fact, the source of the wetness.

I wiped down the floor and didn’t give it much thought afterward. That is, until I noticed another puddle of similar size the next day. Which I then cleaned up, only to find it replaced by still more liquid the following day. I wondered if perhaps I do have a leak, but it was of another variety. I noticed it had a light yellowish tinge to it, but thought that might have been due to the dirt or dust covering the floor.

This week, I’ve been keeping an eye on one of my favorite house-warming gifts I got from a new friend here the day I officially moved in. It’s a lucky bamboo plant. You know, one of those plants that’s pretty much lives through anything, no matter even if you forget to water it for a month, or something. I love it, and I like to put it in the kitchen windowsill so it can get sunlight and fresh air during the day.

Only it’s been struggling this week. A lot. An entire stalk of bamboo has been rapidly turning yellow. At first I thought it might not e getting enough water or sunlight, so I altered its location a bit to make things more optimal. Only it’s getting continually worse, and it suddenly occurred to me tonight that the air in my kitchen is probably what’s hurting it so much.

Which means, if I’m reasoning things correctly, precisely this: if the air is hurting my plant this much, it’s probably not being too friendly towards me, either. The same probably goes for my food, as well. I’m thinking it’ll be wise of me to talk to my landlord first thing in the morning, lest I breathe the gas-filled air too much and suddenly become one of those radioactive-induced superheroes. Though if it came to that, I’d definitely want to be The Tick.

I changed my mind. Whatever I thought was the single most annoying thing in the world is not, in fact, so terrible. I opted to wear a pair of nice shorts today, one that I hadn’t worn since May. And in the three months since I’d worn the fuckers, I’d completely forgotten why I wasn’t wearing them. That would be because the seam around the left leg suddenly and unexpectedly came unraveled. Which in turn caused the seam, a fancy invisible seam on the inside, to no longer hold the centimeter or so of fabric. Which in turn caused the shorts not only to look uneven, but to be rather awkward to wear.

Because I couldn’t sew the thing back together myself, I had simply opted to not wear the shorts until I figured out what to do about them. But oh no, I didn’t remember any of that this morning when, in my morning stupor, I decided brown shorts would be a nice change of pace from the usual lighter fabric I seem to end up wearing all the time.

All was well until, suddenly, I felt something light blow across my leg and flit away. I brushed it away. And it returned. And I brushed. Lather, rinse, repeat, for the rest of the day. I guess I never thought about how annoying it would be to constantly feel that light brushing sensation against my skin, and not for eleven hours, at that. And since you, dear reader, are probably dying to know what it feels like, I’ll tell you: it feels like something between a tickle and a windy sensation blowing across your skin, and instead of getting used to the feeling, it gets steadily more intense, until the point at which you suddenly snap and the next person who says “How’s your day?” to you will suddenly and unexpectedly be knocked backwards by your sucker punch, and you’ll be shouting “How does it feel, now, motherfucker!!!”, only instead of shouting this at said unwitting antagonist, you’ll be yelling at your nerve-shot left leg. And then when you find out that none of your actions actually alleviated the sensation on your leg, you seriously contemplate just ditching the shorts right there in public, feeling that walking around in your underwear beats walking around feeling like you want to saw your own leg off, public decency be damned.

Today, Thursday, marks six weeks that I’ve been in Albuquerque this second time around. It’s been a pretty awesome time, sort of to the point that I’ve started to take roots here. Doubtless, Robert considers this an understatement. This could be because I’ve taken over the dining table and converted it into my laptop desk, replete with pens, coins, receipts, and the like. And maybe the way I’ve unceremoniously tossed everything I have with me on the living room floor, in front of the television.

Of course, since it has been six weeks that I’ve been here, I’ve ended up accumulating a rather shocking amount of things. There was the initial purchase of more clothes in order to not offend my gay sensibilities, of course. But in addition to that, I’ve managed to acquire some six CDs, nine books, ten DVDs, and a pair of flip flops. All of which I could no longer live without, and therefore had to purchase.

The challenge, I suppose, will be packing everything into my single suitcase and shoulder bag. Because, as I just noted, I can’t live without any of this stuff, and so must bring it all back to California with me. Friday will be an interesting exercise of suitcase-packing mania. Probably I’ll start packing and then get completely distracted by all the cool stuff I got, since despite my 24 years on this planet, I’m still not quite ten. And yet, if I really was ten, I’d love getting up super early. Take my word for it, but my 5:30 am zombie face is anything but youthful. It’s more like 5,000-year-old rotted mummy.

If you ever come across one of these delicious buildings, I highly recommend you bite, and go inside. Upon seeing the Toll House store whilst wandering Albuquerque Uptown with my friend Dr. Vina, it was all I could do to not lick the bricks of the building right then and there.

The overpowering smell of cookies was enough to make us decide to spoil our impending lunch a little bit by ordering what looked like harmless little snacks of mini chocolate chip cookies with white stuff and mini M&Ms surrounding them. And at a mere 99 cents each, said truffles seemed easily as harmless as a stick of celery. Maybe I’m exaggerating.

We probably really should have ordered celery, or at least that weird grass drink stuff some of those smoothie places sell. Despite my fairly sweet tooth, I bit into my little cookie sandwich and was met with a whipped cream that was so sugary it nearly killed all my taste buds upon contact. So while a ten-year-old might relish the intense feeling that is whipped cream instantly turning to butter in your mouth, it was way too much for me to handle. I think that spike in my glucose level should be my last such spike, preferably for the rest of my life.

The lesson to learn here: when you do go, don’t do what I did. Stick to a regular cookie or maybe some ice cream. You can thank me later.

My friend bFlat tagged me with a rather daunting challenge: to share seven weird and/or random facts about myself. Here goes nothing.

1. In the summer of 2004, I worked for the first time ever as a camp counselor in the grand state of Minnesota. While there, I came across a pair of suspenders in the costume shop that I decided would be fun to wear. I ended up keeping them. A few months later, I found some suspenders for sale at J.C. Penny and bought them. Even now, four years later, I wear suspenders nearly every day. Not out of necessity to hold up my pants, really. They’re just extremely comfortable, and feel like a part of me.

2. Upon first impression, I rarely come across as the type of guy who would be really into punk rock. Some high school buddies got me into the scene, and I’ve been into it ever since. But just because I don’t spike my hair, and I’m incompetent on a skateboard, doesn’t mean I can’t rock out with the best of them.

3. I’m one of the few people my age who’s never once taken a computer course. Somehow, I escaped ever taking even a basic class in middle school or high school. I didn’t even take a typing course. A very early Mavis Beacon taught me how to type when I was 14, and I gradually became a self-taught computer nerd. I never saw that one coming.

4. At one very misguided point in my life, I wanted to be a cartoonist. I say ‘misguided’ not because I lacked a sense of humor or at least some creative drawing talent, but because I had no direction other than I wanted to be a funny cartoonist. At the time, it took me two panels of nothingness to figure this out.

5. Most of the people I grew up with hated Albuquerque and hated New Mexico. I was born and raised here, went to college here, and only just recently moved away for grad school. It’s been so nice to be back for the summer, though, as I love it here. I love my desert, my mountains, and my green chile.

6. Bizarre as it sounds, one of the most liberating things I’ve done in my lifetime was going skinny dipping. It’s all Minnesota’s fault. It was a beautiful night, the lake was inviting, and I was in the company of friends and we’d all been, um, drinking. ‘Nuf said.

7. I started blogging completely by accident. At first, I was part of an online discussion group, and I later started a blog that ended up being an outlet to vent and to keep my thoughts organized. About a month after I started community blogging, I abandoned the discussion group. Then, almost two years later, I created this website. Oh, the things we end up doing without ever planning to. But boy, is it worth it.

Today was my youngest brother’s birthday. As a consequence, I joined the family, as well as some of their cronies, for dinner. Every family visit is unique these days, and I never know what to expect when I’m in their presence.

Tonight was interesting, to say the least. Just for kicks, I decided to throw the word gay into as many conversations as possible.

Brother: I think I’m going to get fetuccini alfredo.
Phil: I went to a gay bar-slash-restaurant in LA that had great fetuccini.

Brother: That bar gives me the creeps.
Phil: That’s because it’s not a gay bar.

Because I was the last person to arrive, I had prime seating at the very end of the table. I say “prime” because I was lucky enough to sit next to the birthday boy’s friend’s girlfriend. At the tender age of 19, she was very sweet and very innocent. Which made me want to corrupt her as much as I could in the two hours I was there.

Corrupting her was much more difficult than I had expected, however, as Girlfriend lacked the mental capacity to take a compliment.

Girlfriend: It’s so hard to get out of this chair with the pillar behind me.
Phil: At least you can sit there. My figure isn’t nearly as good as yours, so I have to sit here at the end of the table.
Girlfriend: Stop it!
Phil: …
Girlfriend: Don’t say that.
Phil: …

I have to say I was somewhat disappointed. I thought for sure that this girl, who managed to drag her macho boyfriend into the new lingerie store next door to a local bowling alley shortly after it opened, would be a little more savvy. I’m wondering if she’ll talk up the others about what a total jerk I am. Here’s hoping!

Remember Arthur? He’s the sexually ambiguous aardvark who has all sorts of weird growing up experiences in the form of children’s books. The one that, as a young child, I had an impossibly difficult time relating to him as a character because, well, he doesn’t look all that much like a real aardvark. And maybe the fact that my diet does not include termites.

I blame Trader Joe’s for reminding me about Arthur because of this spicy character I noticed on the cereal shelves.

Her face sort of reminds me of the chimp-ish character Francine. Only since she’s made from coconuts and is sporting a fabulous lei and a polka dot bra, she’s like ten billion times more real to me. Seriously, this Kashi Coconut Babe is bringing sexy back.

I’ve so far spent six months in Los Angeles, taking in all the newness of the landscape. And I’ve ended up back home in Albuquerque for most of the summer. I was talking to my friend Heather yesterday and we had the following conversation:

Heather: I really love Albuquerque, but there’s no beach.
Phil: We may not have water, but we do have dirt.
Heather: There’s a lot that.
Phil: And dammit, when I’m away from it, I miss my dirt. Every time I fly home I get so excited to see the brown.

There’s a running joke that I fear only native Albuquerquians understand. It’s sort of a joke about our special desert vegetation, which in its most natural state lacks many popular flowering plants. The joke goes something like this, starting first with a surprisingly common, yet innocuous, question:

Outsider: Does New Mexico have a state flower?
Albuquerquian: Sure. It’s the Orange Barrel.

Being away from the city for as long as I’d been, I completely forgot just how much roadwork can hit this place. First, spring hits in early April, and trees start to bloom. Next comes the inevitable “unforeseen” winter storm that freezes all the buds on the trees and drops a few inches of snow. And then it jumps right into summer, which means that it’s prime time to work on the roads. Construction springs up, simultaneously, on every other major road in the city. Sort of to the point that whenever you discover new roadblocks, you can rest assured that whatever alternative route you find offers a 95% probability of road construction of its own.

I was out driving today and was fortunate enough to have my camera handy when I discovered a classic setup of construction materials. Given that it’s the height of summer, the orange and white beauties are in full bloom. See below.

I’m not entirely sure what the proper term is for these puppies, but they’re obviously a close cousin to the classic orange barrel New Mexico State Flower, and they’re all over the place here. Cheers to summer!

In order to be fabulously gay, you must, as a general rule, love shopping. Over the past week or so, I’ve noticed a pretty huge change in my shopping addictions. I realized the other day that my favorite shopping, at this very moment in time, is grocery shopping. And I was kinda taken by surprise.

Robert pointed out the other day, after we got home from the grocery, that the refrigerator was so full that we hardly had room for anything we had just bought. When I opened the refrigerator door just ten minutes ago, it was all I could do to keep things from falling out. There’s just no way for me to express how happy this makes me.

In part, I think our newfound love of shopping for food comes from our recent hospital visits. During those visits, we had to wander around and raid refrigerators in the hopes of finding something to snack on. There’s generally very little to choose from. There’s only so many times you can make a meal of a turkey sandwich and jello. And by so many times, I mean once. Other than that, there’s the hospital meals, which while not bad, are not exactly offered to you via an expansive menu. No, you get that chopped meatloaf and by golly you will love it!

Hence, I’ve felt compelled to make sure we have maximum variety in the house. And I’ve been cooking up a storm. Sort of to the point that as soon as we’re done with one meal, I’m already thinking about what to make for the next one. This is a domestic side of myself that I’ve only every before seen when it’s exam time in grad school, because avoiding studying is amazing motivation for cooking something massively complicated.

I’ve also taken to convincing Robert that a trip to the grocery is, among other things, good exercise, especially because it promotes healing via normal activity. And because we both love food, a trip to get milk usually turns into a trip to also get tortillas, Gatorade, green chile, hash browns, eggs, and maybe some cookies. If you’re New Mexican and just read that short list, you’ll probably note that I’ve totally been making my own breakfast burritos (a.k.a. the New Mexican version of heaven, in a tortilla). Seriously. Breakfast time is approximately eight hours away from this very moment, and I’m already salivating over the yumminess that awaits me.