I haven’t even thought about blogging in the last month, and I completely stopped reading blogs, too.

I was initially a little ashamed that I did a big redesign, then wrote just two posts in two months… but I’m over that now.

This is what’s working for my life, and that’s all that matters. I’ll post when I want to, if it happens again. Part of me thinks the freedom I’m granting myself by not feeling obligated will fuel me to write. And part of me thinks that’s bullshit. So we’ll see.

Really, I’ve been pretty absent from blogland, especially gay Utah blogland, for over a year, and dozens of new local blogs have popped up in that time. I’m less than impressed with what I’ve read so far, but I don’t think anybody’s out to impress me anyway.

I’m also saddened that two of my favorite [non-local] gay bloggers–you know who you are–have closed up shop in recent weeks. The future of blogging seems dismal to me right now, and for once I don’t think it has as much to do with my mood as the actual swear-to-God state of things. What is probably all about my mood is the poor taste left in my mouth after reading the suddenly-trendy, woe-is-me gay Mormon bloggers. But more on that some other time.

Since I last posted, Patrick’s and my life has changed quite a bit. Baxter has a sister, Abby, who is clumsy, loud, and super-friendly—in short, everything Baxter is not. But she’s good for him, and she really is a charmer.

Also, I have a broken thumb. I was a klutz and fell down a big flight of stairs. I tripped. Oops.

The good news is that after a fall like that, I expected a hurt back or a broken leg or something, but no. When I got up, I was relieved to note that a) I did not hurt, and b) no one saw it happen.

Then I looked down at my right hand and noticed that the end knuckle of my thumb was bent 90 degrees the wrong way. While I was still full of adrenaline and there would be no pain, I hurried and popped it back in the direction it was supposed to be. The knuckle made a satisfying *pop* when it was re-located, and I can only imagine how bad it would’ve hurt if I’d waited until I could feel something. Now, of course, it hurts like hell and is purple and swollen. The doc says 5 days in a brace thingy that keeps my wrist and thumb from moving.

Because it’s my right hand, I can’t really write, eat with utensils, or do up my own pants. (Hey, you try doing up buttons without a thumb!) Even typing and using a mouse are kinda tough. Thank god I can mostly still use my fingers.

And double thank god that I’m ambidexterous for certain other… hand-necessary activities.

Oh, stop. You knew I would be. And that eventually I’d go there.

Other changes… Patrick and I bought a house at the end of last month. It’s overwhelming and scary and all those adult things, but we’re really excited.

Our new house is a big, old 1896 Victorian in downtown Salt Lake City, in an area designated the Central City Historic District. It needs a LOT of work, so we’re not moving in immediately, but I’ve always wanted to live in central city, and I’ve always wanted a house just like this… and now it’s going to happen!

Our neighborhood is in the middle of a gentrification wave, so many of the homes on our block are undergoing renovation - and some of the renovators are other gay people. Like our realtor says, “Wanna know where the next hot housing area will be? Follow the gay boys!”

I’m working quite a bit–we’ve got a mortgage now, after all–but it’s good work and I’m reasonably satisfied. That is, I’ve temporarily stopped stressing over the million dollar question, “What am I going to DO with my life??” I don’t think that’s necessarily a good thing, because I need that push to keep growing and trying new things, but I do think it’s nice to take a short break from constantly trying to figure it out. It was getting to be too much.

In that vein, right now I’m reading The Renaissance Soul: Life Design for People with Too Many Passions to Pick Just One, and though it seems a little too proud of itself, most the ideas make sense and it’s helped me realize I really don’t have to settle on doing only ONE of the things I love and am good at. Which is nice, since I’ve all but given up on ever having a regular day job again. This varied freelance life, where I can write, edit, produce TV, consult, bartend, sleep all day… or whatever else I feel like that week, is much more my style.

Hey, as long as it pays all the bills, right?

From this morning’s cross-country conversation with my best friend, who is a lesbian currently engaged to her girlfriend:

BFF: I need to talk to you about something.
Me: Okay.
BFF: I have a crush. And I need help handling it.
Me: You always have crushes. It’ll pass.
BFF: This one’s different. It’s a big, big, BIG crush.
Me: Oh? Who is she?
BFF: Well… that’s the other thing. It’s… he.
Me: …
BFF: Hello?
Me: …
BFF: Stop it! I know, I know!
Me: Wow. Okay. Let’s think about this. Is it a big crush like, “That gay boy is so cute! I love him!”?
BFF: Well…
Me: Or a big crush like, “I want that straight man’s penis in my vagina RIGHT NOW!”?
BFF: …
Me: Well?
BFF: Eww! Gross!
Me: Alrighty then.
BFF: Wow… crush is over. I knew there was a reason I always called you with these things.
Me: My job is done.

I’m off this morning to middle-of-nowhere, Wyoming (read: all of Wyoming) for the state’s annual gay pride celebration, the Rendezvous campout.

I went last year and had a great time, so I expect nothing less this time around. Especially with the rise of the the gay cowboy this year!

Highlights from last year include a wet-underwear contest and my group of friends pretending to be dirty truckers so we could shower at the truckstop in Laramie. Good times, I say.

Yee haw…

Welcome to Zionide version 4.

In the last 3 weeks, I transferred from MovableType to WordPress, redesigned the “look” (it’s a modification of Brian Pinneo’s “New York New York” theme), and went through every past entry to redirect internal links, correct external links (when possible), and ensure every piece of code is valid XHTML 1.0 transitional.

And now I’m done.

The one thing I’ve been unable to do is find a way to collapse my monthly archive list as it was in MT. I hate the long list of months over there, but I don’t want just years, either.

In version 3, I had a Scriptygoddess hack that showed the most recent 12 months, with a JavaScript link to expand further. I tried porting that code to WP, but only got far enough for the list of months to show up expanded. Since I don’t know WordPress (or PHP) well enough to call each month’s archive (especially the ever-changing 12 most recent) rather than all of them, I couldn’t do anything more.

This plugin is the closest WordPress option I’ve found for what I’m looking to do. I asked its author about making it just like the Scriptygoddes hack; he was kind enough to reply, but said it’d be pretty complicated. So I don’t think it’s going to happen anytime soon - if at all. But if any of you coding geniuses want a challenge AND to make my day… I’d be forever grateful. That big list is making me crazy!

Other than that, I’m happy with this design, and with WordPress as compared to MovableType. We’ll see how it goes as I get more involved, but so far I have no major complaints. Most of my problems come from my own ignorance, and fortunately WP is very user friendly. The best thing about all this is that comment spam is less of a problem - at least so far - and that commenting is finally back.

So, please… use it!

Believe it or not, I’ve been really busy around here. It’s all been behind the scenes, of course, but I’m now more than halfway through a complete and total overhaul of Zionide.

I’ve finished installing the new content management software and I’m almost done with the redesign… though I still have a few tweaks in that area, mostly on archive pages and with streamlining sidebar plugins. Once that’s done, I’ll go back through archives and redirect internal links, clean up old code, and cross my fingers that all this work will inspire me to keep up the writing.

So keep an eye out for the changes; I hope to be done sometime next week.

Here’s to speedy coding…

I thought this was pretty clever; it’s only a minute or so long and really gets the point across.

Oh, and commenting is back, at least for now. I’m working on a long-term solution (and other changes), but that’ll be a few several more days yet.

Update: Okay, I lied. Commenting is not back. Sorry…

We’re back! Had a great time - more about that later.

Right now, just a note that comments here at Zionide are turned off until further notice. I came home to 1,319 spam comments, cleaned those out, then noticed that the frquency of attacks had grown as each day without moderation passed.

So by now I’m receiving nearly 200 an hour and can’t possibly keep up. Therefore… no comments at all. If you really have to say something, drop me an email.

More about the trip as soon as I catch up on post-vacation obligations (you know, like laundry, work, friends).

Patrick and I are leaving for San Francisco in a few hours - and we’ll be gone a whole week!

We’re going back for Pride since we had such an amazing time in 2004.

And yes, the North Caroline Boys, David & Chris, whom we met during that eventful trip two years ago, are meeting us there - this time for more than just the last night of the vacation.

So if you see the four of us during the big gay weekend, say howdy.

Even if we’re drunk.

Or naked.

And especially if we’re both.

I’m thinking it might be time for a redesign of this place. The thought of a redesign intrigues me, maybe even enough to start publishing and/or posting more frequently. The visual rejuvenation usually gets me interested in blogging again…

The problem is that I have no idea what I want things to look like now. I kind of want to kill the Mormon thing and take the temple off the top. I’d like some non-text representation of Zionide in that main banner though, but other than the Mormon thing, what is there identifiable about me in blogland? I need some other iconography to grab on to.

If I’m going to do this (and I may not, as I am quite fond of the current look and redesigning takes me a long time), it has to be more than a simple change of colors and font.

Just for shits and giggles… any ideas?

I’ve got a half-dozen posts here set to “draft” rather than “publish” because making my thoughts public doesn’t seem appealing right now. See, I’ve been posting, just nobody knows it…

Why am I not in the mood to publish? Most posts lately have gone in two distinct directions: either more personal than usual, or more… annoyed than usual - annoyed at local politics, society, religion, bloggers… and even the gay community. Pride day does that sometimes often.

Not posting the more personal stuff, I get. I don’t want to share every detail of my personal life with everyone out there reading - even if there’s nothing different going on. I want my status quo life to remain just MY status quo life. But the reason behind keeping the annoyed, angrier stuff under wraps is a little more complicated.

Ultimately, I don’t want to deal with the fallout of being a bitch publicly. I’m over it expending energy like that. I’d rather complain loudly to my 6 closest friends and have it stop there than tell y’all and have to hear about it later and defend my reasoning and blah blah blah. It’s the same reason why I don’t read conservative Utah bloggers anymore. If I read, I have to comment, and if I comment, I have to argue, and arguing isn’t worth the effort anymore. Or maybe I’m just lazy.

I’m burned out on explaining to conservative Mormons why gay marriage isn’t threatening. I’m at a point where if you aren’t smart enough to draw the logical conclusions yourself, well fuck you and get out of my way. I’m not wasting my precious time explaining it to those idiots.

So, bitching publicly about something isn’t worth the effort or energy necessary to defend my complaint, either. Because the local things and people (gay and not) I’d be complaining about, they do have enough time in their little lives to argue about shit like this.

Though, FYI, I reserve the right to change my mind and bitch publicly at any time. I doubt I’ll ever post the bitch-fests I’ve got saved now, but I’m sure something else will tick me off shortly, and I might be in a more generous (and less lazy) mood then.

We can all hope.