This is the post that will make me seem insane, and who knows maybe I am.*

* It’s a well known fact that if you think you might be insane you are NOT but if you believe yourself to be wholly sane then you are indeed a nut job.

OK, I have a real hard time with this one but here it goes. I believe in past lives. The reason I say this is I have been getting smatterings of memories of them from when I was a kid. Most are really normal, no great kings or queens, no prophets or world conquerors, but there has always been that one… the one in water.

Long before I could read I remembered the name Atlantis. It may have been said to me at one point or it could be a memory from another time but I always knew there was a place with that resonance to me. When my family would go to the shore I would imagine the huge stone blocks, megaliths (not that I knew the word at the time) on the shore line and people in robes and short skirts milling about on the shore. Their skin was a coppery color but non-metallic, I knew I was one of them but I was always in the water for some reason. I didn’t breathe water if that’s what you’re thinking I was just more suited to it. This was my memories of a land before all of America and the culture I grew up in, but it was home to me more than my current home.

I also had from a child a strange attraction to the stars, especially those of the Constellation Orion; I have never understood this other than I have felt my “celestial father” comes from there. Even now as an adult I will seek out Rigel in the night sky and smile up at whoever is looking back at me with a confidence that there is indeed someone doing just that.

In my mid twenties when I was working at the Ren Faire I was doing a lot of psychic/mystical work, more than I had ever done in my life before and it was opening channels in me that I hadn’t known were there. One night as I lay on my bed I suddenly saw flaming letters appear in front of me. They spelled out a name and I instantly knew this was a sort of “soul-name” it burned itself into me and I started seeing more flashes of that past life. I mentioned this the next weekend to Annabelle and she said she didn’t trust it for some reason. I didn’t know what to think and so I put it out of my mind, but it wouldn’t stay there for long. I had been feeling a strange lump like a bubble of darkness in my stomach all week since the word appeared and on the way home it started to expand. I was driving and had a full carload of friends with me. Annabelle was in the back seta and said to me

“What are you doing? I can barely control my totem spirit. It wants to stop you from whatever you’re doing”

Sweating like prizefighter I could feel the Wolf spirit at my neck and said, “I’m not doing anything myself. It’s this ball of negativity. It wants out.”

I pulled the car over and got out, I pushed the darkness away from me into the night and I seemed to be better but we we’re all a bit upset after that. No one had any experience like it before, but that’s what seems to happen when I spend time with other mystical types, things get strange, but usually in a fun way.

I got home and meditated on what had occurred and made contact with my past life self in a way, I got to see myself in a reflection and learned I wasn’t like the others on the shore. I was a half-breed, part man, part other. I’ll spare you an in depth description but I had gray skin and long tendrils coming off my back my face and body were human enough but I had some extra appendages. But topping it all off I had POWER. My alien heritage allowed me to tap into the energy centers of the planet better than a human. It was in part my doing that destroyed my civilization, but I would learn later it was not entirely my fault.

Yes I know it sounds insane and I sometimes think I’m imagining it myself except for the corresponding experiences.

I asked many people who I trusted in the ways of the wise to help me make sense of this and the most often said thing was to accept this part of myself as a gift and not some curse. But the strangest this I found was when I would say the “name” I had received aloud there were some people who would react like I had punched them in the guts, people who had no knowledge of the events or concepts behind the word. There was even a woman who I met in Texas who refused to come anywhere near me because she “knew who I really was”.

Years pass and I lost touch with many people from that crowd, I had come to terms with these strange events and memories when I met Ken, I mentioned Ken before he was a roommate of John’s in college, He and I shared that lifetime. In fact Ken was my owner during that life. It seems for all my power I had almost no concept of humanity or right and wrong, but that may be because I was raised to not have interaction with anyone but my owner and my handler/sister? Who it turns out is Brenda in this lifetime. Brenda used hypnosis to help me remember the more detailed points of the lifetime. I can hear snatches of the language but don’t really understand it; I get the feeling that the actual location of the city I keep seeing is now located in our Andes Mountains. I even know there is a crystalline cavern underneath the main docks that is still there if we can find it.

This regression helped me to understand and forgive my past self, to allow the gifts he wanted to bestow on me that dark night driving home from the faire, and to know it’s a blessing to know we are not alone even though the type of alien I was a part of is supposedly from Sirius C.

Well that’s the Atlantis story in all its tiny fragmented glory; take from it what you will. I believe it’s true. Here’s to you Solandaries, may you find love in the aether that you never found alive.

Inspiration Monday 8/30/2010: It's not to late.

No song posting today. What I want to say need no gilding of the Lilly. When I get depressed it's usually the same trigger, The feeling that I've let my life slip by and accomplished nothing. It's really hard to look at myself and think "I'm just now admitting to myself that what I thought were pipe dreams when I was young is the ACTUAL direction my life is supposed to take". But that's what's happening.
I have always dreamed of living full time as a mystic, living in a place where i was surrounded by love and friends  breathing in the fresh air and dancing around bonfires in the night.
John and I are looking into starting up an Intentional Community (That's the new spin on the word Commune) and this will actually allow me to do exactly what I've wanted.
We're looking in the lovely state of Maine for a large piece of property off the beaten track where we will build at least 1 prefab hound house to start with more added as people start moving to join the community.
My only problem (and it's a big one) is that John doesn't want to start this for 10 years. He'll be 69 and I'' be 57, will that be too old? I don't know but the adventure itself is worth the journey.

Home Is Where The Heart Is (Lifelines LP Version) by Peter, Paul And Mary

Home Is Where The Heart Is (Lifelines LP Version) by Peter, Paul And Mary

A beautiful song about LGBT Acceptance. It makes me weep.

The Big post on My Spiritual Path, or...

The way of the Neo-Atlantian.

As my life changes, I’m finding myself needing to vocalize and set down my path. I’m a neo-pagan but I feel I’m a bit outside the mainstream pagan (try getting that to fit inside your brain). I’m a light worker, I practice Reiki, I’m an empath, and a Shaman.

I’m also something beyond all of those concepts. I’m an “out” Mage. I let people know I’m a will worker and have no qualms sitting and discussing the “occult” with non-believers and the general public. I feel it’s time to step outside our secretive ways and stand in the light.

But what IS a Neo-Atlantian? What makes me any different than any other pagan?  Maybe nothing but I’m still going to type this out.

Let’s start out with “What is my concept of Atlantis?”

Plato discusses Atlantis twice. First is In Timaeus http://www.sacred-texts.com/cla/plato/timaeus.htm and then again in Critias http://www.sacred-texts.com/cla/plato/critias.htm

In these we understand that there was a world before the ancient Greeks and Egyptians, so old that no one really knows its name, the name Atlantis is acknowledged as a Greek pseudonym.

From there we have Ignatius Donnelly’s Atlantis, The Antediluvian World. http://www.sacred-texts.com/atl/ataw/index.htm

I have my own past life memories of a land ancient and amazing to me. I will be going into that in my next posting on Spirituality.

The basic concept to me is a community passed on democracy and deep social justice. A place like America should be. Science and faith are one and the same thing, compassion and wisdom are key thoughts on everyone’s minds, a place where no one goes hungry or scared to be whom and what they are.

What is the “Ultimate Goal” of my path?

I’m trying to tie a lot of loose disparate concepts together and mold them into my spirituality. I believe in Psychic phenomena, Aliens, Angels, Magic, polytheism, new age philosophy and am very Universalist in my views of faith.

My main gods and goddesses are Ptah, Obatala, Odin, Hestia, The triple Goddess, Isis, Horus, and Thor. A disparate grouping to be sure but they all have a place in my soul. But I know they are all aspects of a greater power. I feel that the Angel Raziel is guiding me to a path that is all my own towards greater union with the divine in the universe. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raziel I feel we all have our own version of the “Book of Raziel” built into our souls, like it’s encoded into our DNA, and we all have the duty to ourselves and our greater selves (past and future lives) to walk the path our personal books direct us to. I’m finding that the longer I’m true to my path the stranger and more wonderful my life becomes.

Rules for living the Neo-Atlantian dream…

1. Speak the truth about all matters of importance. I believe there is room in my life for little white lies, common courtesies, but never if asked directly and never if answering a question of importance to the questioner.
2. Defend yourself and others. Compassion and caring are central tenants of my path, as is defending the weak and those less empowered than myself.
3. Reveal falsehoods. We all see them every day. People led to believe things are factual when they clearly are not.
4. Take care of yourself as well as you take care of others. We can’t forget to have compassion for ourselves. We are as important as the rest of the world. For me and many others this is an important lesson.
5. Get rid of the excess in your life. Material objects can be wonderful but they have a tendency to add to the stagnation in your life, they are also distractions that keep you from becoming your most perfect self.
6. Be especially thankful for all things, Life is an amazing thing. It really is what you make of it so be thankful for all things, good and bad, as they are all ‘mile markers’ along your path.
7. LOVE! I cannot express this enough. Love the people in your life. Let them KNOW what they mean to you. Never let a chance go by to tell them what you feel. Take no one for granted because it reduces both of you. I try to live this but life gets in my way quite a bit.
8. Study and Learn as much as you can. Knowledge and wisdom are important things. Try to be well rounded, learn what you need to survive and what you will need to help your community survive as well.

I’m sure I will be adding to this as I walk my path but this is the basics. I hope I have explained myself to some degree.

Love and Lightning,

Joe

WOW!

I'm up to 10 people subscribed to my blog!

thank you all so much, You have no idea how honored i am to have you reading my posts. Is there anything you want to hear from me? Some topics I should be writing more on? Please I honestly value your feedback.
I guess there may be people who read who aren't subscribers and I value your opinions too, please feel free to chime in.

Ideas I have for upcoming posts are I'm considering posting some things from my "Book of Shadows" and more personal observations about life as a man married to another man (as long as John says it's OK with him).

Rant 2: We need a moment of peace and compassion.

It seems that my fellow Americans are turning into Terrorists, not all of them but a good amount, the scary ones in particular are coming out of the woodwork. We have a constitutional right to freedom of Religion. When Americans start picketing houses of worship they are in the wrong. When They start sending death threats to holy people they are in the wrong.
What is happening?
It can't just be the Fox News/tea party/Koch Brothers' evil mechanizations, there is something fundamentally wrong here. The rise of true Evil seems to be taking hold over the nation, and there are many people attempting to stop it but we need a symbol to rally around. In some ways the Cordoba House could be a symbol of true interfaith cooperation. If the Christian Churches, Jewish Synagogues, Pagan groups, and such all came together to hold a prayer meeting or at least a press conference in brotherhood with the Muslim's in the area that would make a huge difference in the way the "common man" sees the community center.
Hell, if I could I would be up there now picketing the picketers. I'm not Muslim, I have some problems with their views on Homosexuality but i will not stand and allow other bigots to interfere in their constitutional rights. That makes me a bad person, a bad American.

With all of the hate and terror in the world today, why do we allow Fox News and their ilk stoke the flames of hatred and violence. There has to be some rules governing rabble rousing and warmongering.

Please if you can do what you're able to help your fellow Americans to understand that what they are doing is destroying the very fabric of America.

A very special Inspiration Monday: 8/23/2010

Life is a very strange and wonderful thing. While it can throw some amazingly bad things at you out of nowhere it also has a way of slapping you upside the head with something, or in my case someone, truly wonderful.

Not to long after John and I had started living together we were sitting in his office area of Phoenix Hi Fi. (His old stereo store) just talking about our pasts and he mentioned his old college roommate Ken. He said he actually missed speaking to him and wondered what ever had happened to him after college. I encouraged John to contact Villanova and see if he could get in touch with Ken so he called the University and lo-and-behold Ken had been tying to find John. So they gave John Ken’s number and he called.

John and Ken had a nice chat and when John mentioned he had recently gotten married Ken wanted to speak to me. Well there was an instant connection between us and our discussion turned to the metaphysical much tom John’s surprise.

Well long story short Ken and I shared a past live and He owed me big time. (I’ll get to that in a future tale I promise). I went to meet Ken on my own one weekend and He took me to see the most astounding woman named Brenda.

Brenda, Ken and I have a very strange past life connection and it has deep resonances with me even today. Ken had introduced me to Brenda so she could teach me Reiki http://www.reiki.org/faq/whatisreiki.html and get my healing gifts more under control.

What Ken didn’t tell me was that He had promised Brenda that I would teach her to read Tarot “by the book” something I do not do. Brenda and I had a whirlwind session of Reiki training and attunements that I will never forget. Brenda herself is one of the most compassionate and loving people I know and I kind of worship her as one of my great teachers. Well from those initial 2 meetings I have grown significantly as a healer and a man and I attribute some of that to Brenda even though we seem to keep loosing touch, mainly due to my being a terrible correspondent and friend.

In the past few weeks I have been getting the call to actually DO SOMETHING with my healing gifts and I really was feeling a bit outside my comfort zone (as I’m a bit of a chicken when it comes to expressing what I can do) and I really wanted to talk to Brenda about what and where and who to set myself up as a healer so I decided to search for her on-line for the thousandth time. Here she’s on Facebook, who knew!

So we’re getting back in touch and I’ve had 2 Reiki sessions in one weekend with at least one repeat customer and the potential for a referral from him to his family member. I’m feeling calm (strange for me) and like I’m starting to walk a path I had long forgotten was there.

Donna Summer's "Dim All The Lights"

Dedicated to my love John. You are the air I breath and the earth I walk on. Know that I would be nothing with out you in my life.

Love and Lightning,
Grimm

Sort of a Rant, but not really.

Firstly I want to apologize for my lack of posting. I just ran out of words there for a bit.

Ignorance is NOT bliss and the Ignorant are not blissful


I am full of pique at the people of America who are condemning the Muslim cultural center in Manhattan, and Mosques around the country. If they would only stop being led by Fox News and the right wing fuckwads who spread hate, they might realize that all Muslims are not the cause for the Terror attacks of 9/11 any more than all Catholics are responsible for Priests who molest children. The thought is ridiculous and honestly shows how far our fellow American's minds have degraded.
We have a constitution that states there is religious freedom in America. No one has the right to block or even fucking protest the erection of a place of worship, no matter who they are. My fellow pagans, mystics, spiritualists, etc. we need to stand up to the Christian power base on this and protest their protestations.
While my personal opinions of Islam are very strong I will not allow anyone to abuse a minority group who has done nothing to us. The majority of Muslims I know are good and loving people who don't deserve any of this crap.
If this were a Wiccan cultural center and this was happening I know just about everyone I know would be up in arms, writing letters, raising funds and protesting the people against the center. There is really no difference here. The Muslim people as a group did NOT cause 9/11 and deserve some peace from the constant persecution they are experiencing It's not right more than a little evil and definatly UNAMERICAN.

Love and Lightning,
Grimm

Protest Signs.mov

This is just amazingly Beautiful.

Inspiration Monday 8/09/2010

I have instituted a policy over on my Facebook page called 'Inspiration Mondays'. Too often I find my friends complaining about having the Monday blues and how horrible Mondays are but lets be honest, That's not how we should look at ANY day let alone the one day a week where we get to start the work week fresh. I offer to you a song that asks us to witness Strength, nobility and the struggles of all people to be free from oppression.

Commentary 2: Learning to shut up, stop expecting others to help and learning to listen.

One of the biggest waists of my time has been procrastination. I am the king of putting it off. It has created huge problems for me and my loved ones for years and I’m really deeply sorry, unfortunately the damage is done.

Now the question is “Can a man in his mid to late 40’s learn from his mistakes and still leave a positive mark on the lives of those he lives?”

I say yes, living to be an example is the way I choose to do it. In this moment of Truth I’ll attempt to explain how to do it and why you should learn from my mistakes.

I have a tendency to be a bit arrogant it seems. I never saw it in myself but I’ve had enough people tell me it that I had to take a serious look at my attitude. I had to first stop listening to the voices in my head that were telling me there was nothing wrong with the way I act and react to people. I have always had the ability to see the “just and correct” way of seeing any situation and have had trouble with the fact that others didn’t always see my way the “obvious” way, and just writing that is a big clue to what I stared to see.

I’m a very opinionated person but was always told to keep my opinions to myself by my family. I can understand as when I was a kid I would just walk up to people and tell them everything I saw about them and being an intuitive that was often far too much. So when I was old enough to express my opinions I would do so, not aggressively but pointedly. I wasn’t paying attention to how others reacted to me. That was my folly.

So without making myself go into an emotional downspin lets get on with what I’m doing. Procrastination is a terrible thing and so is arrogance, add the two together and you have a recipe for disaster. As bad as my troubles have been in the physical world they are mirrored by the lack of movement in the spiritual realms.

You see I was fully buying into the old adage “When you are ready a teacher will come”.  I rather impatiently waited for decades after Annabelle left my life thinking was unworthy of a teacher. It’s only recently that the vale has been lifted from my eyes. Our teachers are not typically a person or even one spirit, so I had to swallow my arrogance and pride and shut up. I had to listen to everything around me and learn how to learn all over again. The fact that this blog is happening is a part of that relearning process. I spent years wanting to forget my past, as a way of erasing my failures; I even considered changing my name a few times but never really had the balls to go through with it because deep down inside I knew it wouldn’t change anything. Now I’m relearning who I really was and I’m learning to integrate that person into who I am now. The process kind of sucks as I have to dredge up so much I would rather forget but growth and birth both require pain.

So here’s what I’ve learned so far:

1)      Shut up and listen to those around you. It’s important to know what everyone’s point of view is even if you know them to be wrong. It allows you to see every aspect of life and aids in your dealing with all kinds of people.

2)      There is no one person who will teach you all things and the process of learning can be a real bitch, but trying to relearn it all is even worse. Save yourselves the trouble. Open your mind and heart to everyone and everything. Learn as much as you can about every subject never being content to rest. Procrastination is a killer of life.

3)      Listen to those who you think are the most unworthy of your attention. They have some of the best insights, besides we are all one in the universal sense. We are all touched by the divine and you should respect everyone for that fact alone. 

First Commentary; The age of Truth and Compassion.

This will be the first in a long line of commentary from me as a part of my truth.

Two days ago, August 4^th 2010, the state of California’s Proposition 8 ban on Gay marriage was overturned and ruled unconstitutional. I’m still riding a high on it.

Of course there are all of the detractors claiming that it’s unconstitutional that the “Will of the People” has been overturned because the people of California had voted against gay marriage. What they are not looking at (Because the truth burns ignorance away) is that they never had the right to vote on anyone’s civil rights at all.

One of the great things about the United States of America is that our country was founded by people who understood that Religion has no place in government. They also understood that there are certain rights due to ALL PEOPLE and these rights are not up for vote, there is no popularity contest for other peoples’ rights.

It makes me very sad that there are still people in this modern world that feel it’s their right to interfere in others lives based on their own set of morals. I would never think to push my own agenda on anyone who I had no contact with. I don’t try to convince others that there are angels all around us, or that Psychics exist, I never force people to heal, Heck most of the time I don’t even talk about these things because I don’t want to intrude my views on others who are very happy with their lives. But I’m really tired of this way of life, and that’s why I started this blog.

Truth is the key to ignorance. Truth is the light that reveals falsehoods.

This song is my Mantra right now.

When the Moon is in the seventh house
and Jupiter aligns with mars
The peace will guide the planets and love will steer the stars

this is the dawning of the age of Aquarius
the age of Aquarius

Aquarius
Aquarius

harmony and understanding
sympathy and trust abounding
no more falsehoods or derisions
golden living dreams of visions
mystic crystals revelations
and the minds true liberation

Aquarius
Aquarius

when the Moon is in the seventh house
and Jupiter aligns with mars
then peace will guide the planets
and love will steer the stars

this is the dawning of the age of Aquarius
the age of Aquarius

Aquarius
Aquarius 

Love and Lightning,

Joe.

Wedding number 1 and our first pet.

Where do I even begin when talking about the man who has changed everything in my life? I am humbled and awed by the love I receive from this man. John is everything to me.

When we met I was at a real turning point in my life. I had just about given up on myself. Nothing I did ever seemed to work out the way I wanted or needed it to, and now I was living back at my sisters’ home. In a job I hated and with no car so I wasn’t going anywhere anytime soon. Meeting John changed much of that.

John has no idea of the impact he has on people. My sisters for example have hated EVERY person I ever brought home that was in anyway a love interest. With John they fell immediately in love. I remember Cathy asking me what my intentions were with John, as if she was protecting him from ME. I can laugh about it now but it stung a bit that my sisters had thought I was unworthy of my boyfriend. John’s Father and Brother were VERY hesitant around me and I could understand. My sisters, in fact my whole family, are very loving and accepting but his are a very different breed of people than I was used to. His father hated me like nothing else and Jim was not happy with my being in his brother’s life. He tried to hide it but it’s only recently that I have actually felt welcome and accepted by Jim and his family.

Only a few days after we had met John went away on vacation and I figured I would be fine with him gone, after all we had only just met, but I was a mess without being able to get in touch with him. I think the one point in the first few months that let me know for sure that I was deeply in love was the car accident.

I was driving a delivery truck for an auto-parts store and out on a delivery when an older man pulled into oncoming traffic and slammed into me head on. I almost went through the windshield but the only thought was to contact John, not my sisters, not Eric but John.

After some serious idiocy on the hospitals part I was released unharmed but a bit banged up. John drove the hour and a half to my sisters’ house just to spend a few minutes with me and make sure I was OK.

Eventually the driving got to us even though He bought me a car so I could drive up to him and save him the 3 hour round trip. I moved into his home above his stereo store in Shillington PA. It was a very strange experience at first as he had a water bed and I was unable to sleep on it, plus I would toss and turn all the time and literally flush John out of the bed. Eventually we got a regular mattress and solved some of that problem. I was working at Boscov’s in their auto department and looking at getting back into the Ren Faire game, when John asked me to marry him.

It was so nonchalant, that I almost missed it. He just started asking me what I wanted to do for the wedding and I asked him, “Are you asking me to marry you?” He smiled and said I thought that's where we were going with this.

So we decided we would get married one year from the day we met April 8^th 1994, but the Minister was busy that weekend so we got married on April 15^th 1995 yes we got married on Tax Day here in the USA. The wedding was wonderful and we went to Key West for our honeymoon. While we were there we picked up our first pet. While walking down a street we happened upon a little black ball of fur that had run out into the street and right up to me. I picked the puppy up and was fully enraptured by the puppy licks when John asked if we wanted one. There were 2 pups but only the brindled on was for sale. I turned to him and said I would have to think about it. John knew I had grown up in a small zoo. My sister Cathy rescued animals and nursed them back to health then kept them. We actually had well over a hundred animals at one point living inside and outside the house so he knew I was not inclined to have animals, but he also knew I missed having a dog.

Well we talked about it over dinner and decided that the puppy was ours. I named him Key Wester or Keyster for short. John instantly heard Keister and thought it was a butt joke. Let me tell you he was the best behaved puppy I ever saw. And I adored him from the first. He was a Chow/Akita mix and bright as a button. When the lady who was selling him found out we lived in PA she just gave him to us. She wanted him out of the heat of the Keys. Because we drove to Key West we didn’t have to worry about taking him on a plane and so we drove home stopping every few hours for walkies. Oh god I miss Keyster some times. He was such a great dog. He died from cancer only a year after we moved to Philly.

Yes Virginia there is such a thing as Love at First Sight.

I started to live again in my late 20’s I think I was 27 or 28 when I had my first visit to Hillside campground. I had met a few local gays through of all things bear in Canada. Hillside is a blast if very scary to someone who had had little exposure to other gay men let alone a bunch of horny half naked cruisey gay men in a place known for sex parties. I really was a novice at it all. Girl the things I saw in the first half hour there… Makes me um, nostalgic… Yeah that’s it Nostalgic.

I had been going to the Bikestop at least once a week for a few years by then and one of the great people I met was Ron, I had a crush on him because he was living the kind of life I wanted to live, Society for Creative Anachronisms, Bear club (Ron, me and a few others had started Buddy Bears which became the Delaware Valley Bears the first Bear club in Philly), and just living an open life. Well Ron didn’t feel the same for me so I moved on.

I met Jim when I was 29 and I was feeling really bad about my life, Mom was gone and my sisters and I were sharing the family house but Mom had written me out of her will when I was seeing Mary (Mom hated her with a fury unlike God had seen before) and so the house belonged to Jean and Cathy and I was feeling like a guest in the house I grew up in. Jim was living with an older lover and the situation was not good for either of them. Jim and I lied to each other about just about everything and thought the other didn’t catch on. We got an apartment in Philly and things just devolved in a few months to me feeling no KNOWING I was living a lie and Jim having such stress on him that he eventually snapped. He told me something that scared me enough that I took off and moved in with Eric’s girlfriend Stephanie. I had been working as a Psychic for the Psychic Friends Network but felt it was not going anywhere so I quit and Jim got me a job at Wawa. The Wawa job sucked rancid bat shit and after I left Jim it just got worse. I started to go to the Tom Cat cinema for cheep anonymous sex and really got into debasing myself (I did warn you I would be bearing my soul here). I eventually lost the job at Wawa when I got a terrible flu (The more I know about Congestive Heart Failure I think that’s when my condition started) and couldn’t get out of bed most days. Stephanie couldn’t afford to keep me as her housemate and eventually told me to leave. Devastated and sick I limped back to my sisters’ tail between my legs and a hole where my soul had been.

So there I was turning 30 and no one in my life, living at home and driving a delivery truck for a homophobic NAPA store. My life was complete!

But I’m nothing if not lucky. I’ve always found a way to fall into what I want even if it means going through hell first. Ron and I had remained friends, I still consider him one of my best friends even though we run in very different circles. Ron had called me up asked me if I could help with the Mr. Philadelphia Leather event at the Bikestop and I said yes because I could be at the ‘stop and not have to think about meeting anyone because I had decided that I would never find love so I might as well just drink and not get to involved with anyone but my friends. I was selling tickets to the Leather pageant when Ron came up to me and said there was this hot bear named John on the 3^rd floor asking about the Delaware valley Bears, I should answer his questions but not let anyone else near him because Ron wanted him. Ron was working a 3^rd shift job at the time and had to leave for work. I said I would and left the booth to the others. I went up to the “Top of the Stop” and saw who Ron was talking about. I looked at him and it appeared he saw me and was giving me the brush off so I left the floor and went to the basement bar called the “Pitstop”. It took me a while to get down there and I found that John had beaten me there. I had promised Ron that I would answer John’s questions and so I made my way over and introduced myself. John hadn’t seen me on the 3^rd floor after all and I felt more comfortable talking to him then. So comfortable that we eventually started kissing and I went home with him to his place in Reading PA.

I will tell you right now that there IS such a thing as “Love at first Sight”. John is everything I had been looking for, smarter than most people I had ever met, caring, compassionate, older than me, and had his head together. I still don’t understand what he sees in me, but I’m not going to over think love, that kind of thinking leads to madness. One of the funny things about our first days together is that I was monitoring a safe sex party the night after the Leather event and invited John to come along. He jumped at the chance as he had never been to one before. Before we left I said to him “Look I’m only chaperoning the first part and will want to play around myself the other half, If that’s a problem let me know and I’ll stop. I already feel something special her and don’t want to ruin it.” He made me promise the same thing even through my protestations that I “didn’t have a jealous bone in my body”. Thus our second ‘date’ was an orgy. Sure enough watching John have fun with a group of guys was a bit much for me but I kept my mouth shut because I wanted him to have fun, we weren’t a couple after all, we had only met the night before. Once my shift was over I just couldn’t bring myself to have any fun despite the attempts of the guys around me. I finally said to john that I was not interested in anyone but him and with a sigh of relief he admitted the same. We went up the stair into the ‘no sex area’ and lay down on the couch cuddling and kissing. I told him I thought I loved him right there and he said the same to me.

We talked about my moving in with him and open relationships, we decided that I couldn’t move in for 6 months and if after 1 year we felt the relationship could handle it we would open it up to others, like I said he was older and much more intelligent than anyone else I had met. 6 months to the day I had a job in Reading and I moved in and we decided to get married at the Unitarian Universalist Church of Reading on our 1 year anniversary.

Wow that’s a long post, More coming tomorrow.