C2 is back in town for a week. It's good to see him, though he is not really happy to be here. His family always tires him out. And also, oddly enough, Iraq is now his home.

I think he likes the structure and services that he has in Iraq. He loves the money. The end result is that his day is fulled with an easy job. He doesn't have to cook or do laundry. And since he's very cut off from the world he doesn't have to dwell on dating or finding a boy friend.

RO and I are have having some friends over for a BBQ-- a few of the couples in the area. One of the couples are actually a threesome. S&D are usually a twosome, but they would rather be a threesome. Every now and then they will add a third to their relationship. After a few months, it stops working and they will dump the third.

This makes for weird conversation. "S&D are single again. Well, no, they are a couple again. Well, I mean the third guy moved out." Should you feel sad for a threesome that has become a twosome? Should you tell them to grow up?

There are threesomes where there is a core couple that adopts a third. Then, there are threesomes that end when the original couple splits up, one staying on with the third, the other getting the boot.

This raises the possibility of a "perpetual relationship" that lasts longer than any of its husbands. For example-- Alan, Bob and Colin are a threesome. Eventually Alan cheats on Bob and Colin and leaves the relationship. Distraught, Bob and Colin go out drinking. They meet Dave, shack up and get married. Bob eventually gets bored and dumps Colin and Dave. To comfort them selves for their loss, they shopping. At the mall Colin and Dave meet Ernie, fall in love and become a threesome. Colin dies a tragic death. At his funeral Dave and Ernie meet Frank. Frank is so caring and loving but also has no common sense. Within a month, Dave, Ernie and Frank are husbands.

At this point Dave, Ernie and Frank are in a relationship that was started by Alan, Bob and Colin. It's very strange. Could it happen?

This could also happen with a harem-style relationship that guys marry into or divorce out of over the years.

This makes marriage sound like a club with secret initiation rituals.

The whole concept of a romantic/emotional relationship with more than one guy is very difficult for me to grasp. When you start balancing someone's emotional needs against another's, when you put yourself in situation where your partner may put the emotional needs of a third ahead of yours, then it stops being a real romantic relationship-- at least in my eyes. A relationship between two people is a lot of work. Adding thirds and fourths just sounds like a recipe for disaster-- unless you take your heart out of the equation. At that point the relationship is really just a convenience. The sex may be nice, but you are really just hanging out with friends with benefits. You may think that your heart is open and loving of all. But really you are being selfish. You are being polite and friendly. But your heart isn't really in the relationship-- it's staying with you. You are neglecting every one equally and you aren't allow your heart to fully attach to any one person.

It is Kent Cornucopia Days. Cornucopia Days are basically the local fair. The store is very busy.

My problem with local fairs is that they are becomming very corporate-- many booths are for cellphone, cable, car or other such vendors. I'd like to see more of the little guy. There are a few, but the are the exception.

RO may have a milk alergy.

RO has had bad back pain for a long time. About a weeke ago, he had a day with very little pain. That night for dessert we had a creamy home made pudding. Within 30 minutes his back pain flaired up. The same thing happened the next day.

So, RO stopped drinking milk until this morning when he had a latte and a bowl of cereal. Again, within 30 minutes he was cramping up.

So, we are going to try soy milk and see if that makes a difference.

Sunday after 2pm, RO decided that since we can't slate the front lawn-- too expensive-- he wanted to grow grass again. We quickly got edging and a couple yards of soil. By 7pm, we had shoveled and leveled 6 bails of peat moss and 2 yards of topsoil. Monday night we added another yard of top soil.

Tonight we will double check that the grass is level. Then we will seed it.

There is enough of a border around the new, smaller, lawn that we can affordably add some slate.

I've been cleaning up the yard-- weed pulling and wacking. The house is starting to look good. I still have to clean off the roof.

RO and I need to figure out what to do with the front yard. We originally wanted to slate it, however the price goes up every time we call and get a quote. We may brick areas of it, put a bench in, and a bunch of smaller gardens.

RO and I are back from camping. It was a great break. The weather was sunny and warm every day.

We camped at Camp TRC in the Robe Valley. We hiked. We lay by the river. We ate and we drank.

It's amazing how much doing nothing tires you out.

The river was glacier fed-- very very cold. We did swim in it, but no one lasted more than two seconds.

So RO and I are going to a gay camp ground. We talked about going to a state camp ground, but with it being a holiday week, those camps will be full of partiers and children. Camp TRC should be much more quiet. We won't show up till Sunday afternoon, so that should make it extra quiet.

This is the first vacation RO and I have had sinde the store opened. I told RO that on Monday all I am going to do is listen to the babbling river.

Next week RO and I are going camping. This means I get to plan the trip.

I don't know why, but I like planing and preparing for camping. Actual camping is OK. Playing with camping gear and planning the trip-- that's my money shot.

Where should we camp? What can we do while we are there? I can spend hours researching camp grounds and going over maps.

And the gear. There is something comforting and fun about camping gear. Thanks to camping gear, I know that if worse comes to worse, if my home burns down and I loose my job, then all I need is a tent, a sleeping bag, a cooler of food and my crate of camping gear.

Even more comforting-- if worse comes to worse, if my home burns down and I loose my job, if I had the above plus an inflatable mattress, a rubber dinghy and great hiking boots, then I could camp in luxury, sleep great and have adventures!

We've also watch Heatstroke by the same director that made the Working Man Trilogy. The tape was a copy of a copy taped over something else. Every now and then the programs originally on the tape would break through the porn and make the situation surreal and silly.

Half of the final orgy scene was taped over by some drama that took place in a Church.

Right in the middle of an cum scene, a chewing gum comercial appeared. A happy women announced "Long Lasting Flavor!" and then the video cut back to the porn.

I've been reading more about 70's gay movies, both porn and non. The Boys in the Band for example. Going over cast lists, I see that the majority of the actors died of AIDS related complications. A few died of suicide, others of drug overdoses. One, Divine, died of a sleep apnea induced heart attack. It sounds like being gay in the 70s was a very hard and fast life. Depressing.

The appearance of AIDS in the 80s has greatly shaped gay culture-- for the better I think. AIDS has given gays a good short term reason to stay in a relationship. All relationships go through good times and bad times. In the 70's if your relationship was going through a bad time, it was easier to play around and find someone new. After AIDS, that someone new brought the risk of troubling disease and large health care costs.

AIDS indirectly encourages you to stay with your boyfriend for a little longer. And maybe that "little longer" is all you need to get back to the good times.

Our neighbors loaned us "The Working Man Trilogy" a set of three porno's from the 70's. "Kansas City Trucking Co." "El Paso Wrecking Co." and "LA Tool and Die." All three center on a man named Hank who moves from job to job and has lots of sex.

Our neighbor insist that these porono's are generation defining works of art. They were all made pre-HIV. He also says they were the first gay porn's that depicted gay men as men and not as effeminate.

The Trilogy is well filmed and directed-- which in many ways works against it. The mark of a good porno is that you pay attention to the sex. When I watched the trilogy, I kept looking at the director's style-- his use of low key lighting, fondness for saturated monotone colors his love of a JO crotch shot.

The director also extensivly shot on location and in the outdoors. There are many extras in the film which makes me wonder how many of them knew they were going to be in porn, and how many were filmed on the sly.

There are also women in the trilogy. Not for sex, but for ambiance. I think the directory was trying to create the impression that this porn was for straight men who played around on the side.

The trilogy contains much plot, at least for porno. For all the wrong reasons I will remember the plot more than the sex. The acting is bad. The actors speak unconvincing lines that serve no purpose than setting up the sex scenes. On top of that, the non-sex scenes are not small. It's not five seconds of chit-chat and then sex. Minutes will go by with dialog and establishing shots.

The sex scenes are homogeneous enough that they form a blurry back ground. Similar to an action flick that has too much action. To some extent, that's expected because, hey, it's porn and porn is full of sex. But, the non-sex scenes and dialog stick out relative to the sex, which is not a good thing for porno.

For example, what do I recall about these films? I remember the girl friend nagging her boy friend "Come on Joe! You'll be late for work Joe!" I don't fully remember who Joe was or how he was showing off his naked body at the time. I remember the music. It's fairly good. Some original tunes and much country. Very different from modern "Bad Porno Music" I remember Hank saying "Let's Eat." in an overly masculine tone. I don't remember the sex Hank had before or after he went to the restaurant. If parrot the line "Let's Eat." to RO. He breaks out gigling.

If you like gay porn, these films are worth watching. Even if you like old art-house film, they may be worth a peek. These aren't great, but they are fun to watch. They are pre-bad-porno-music, pre-video and pre-HIV. Seeing the differences between then and now is interesting. Gay culture has changed a lot since the 70's. The working man trilogy show cases the difference.

This morning I played UNO on Xbox live. UNO is a 'camera-enabled' game so you can see the other players.

One of the other players was a teenage girl who kept shaking her ass and breasts in front of the camera. I cheared her on. Then she looked at my camera. She asked "How old are you? Is that a cat in your lap? You're a slob!"

I felt bitter. Now I'm the old slob who plans with cats and watches girls on XBox live.

Our online store got it's first order today. It was made in Louisiana. When I heard the state, I expected the customer to be Tommy Boy. RO checked and it wasn't!

It feels good knowing that an actual customer is buying from us. Not that I would mind if Tommy used our store. It's just that we need more customers than our friends.

Last night before dinner RO said he was hungry-- to hungry to wait. He wanted to have a junk food snack. I told him "No. Have a banana instead." I gave him a banana. He threw it back at me and said he wanted junk food. I was firm, said "No." and went back to cooking

A few minutes later RO walked behind me and got a glass of water. When he walked out of the kitchen he had a big grin on his face. When he grins like that, I know something's up, so I kept watching him. He looked back at me and his grin got bigger and bigger.

Then he caved. He showed me that he smugged a box of crackers out of the kitchen while he got his water. He said that once he started grinning, he couldn't stop and he couldn't control it. I took the crackers away.

They have installed security cameras in the halls at work. They appeared very quietly

When they installed the wireless access points there were days of wiring and construction. You knew where the wireless access points were because contractors would spend hours outside of your office installing the cables and mounting the antenna.

The cameras are different. When you arrive in the morning there is a new camera on the ceiling. The next day-- another new camera in a different location. If you don't notice, you won't know.

In some ways I understand the need of the cameras. Our offices contain valuable computers and software that are occasionally stolen. When that happens security will have little evidence to go on and we bitch them out because they aren't doing their job.

At the same time, this feels like big brother.

I am reading "Mountains Beyound Mountains" It's the true story of Dr. Paul Farmer, a brilliant man who has dedicated his live to improving the conditions of the poor in Haiti.

It some way's it's inspiring-- here is a man who really is making a difference to the lives of thousands of people.

In some way's it's depressing-- much of what Dr. Farmer has accomplished has only happened because Dr. Farmer made it happen. When he dies, some one just as pasionate, caring and brilliant as he will need to take over. If that doesn't happen much of what Dr. Farmer has accomplished could come undone.

In all fairness Dr. Farmer is taking steps to make his projects sustainable.

I'm less than half way through the book, but I still recomend it.

A commentor wrote...

I'm eating oatmeal with fruit and coffee for breakfas, coffee. Lunch - a
deck of cards sized chicken breast, a measuring cup of vegatables and potatoes
with water Dinner- salmon salad and rice. For dessert, 1 slice of whole wheat
bread with a sliced strawberry and half a bannana, coffee. Total calories for
the day is 1600. Walk 4 miles every day. Bike ride 3 times a day. Weight lift 3
times a day.

WTF! Where do you find the time? You sound like a professional athelete. I need a program that fits with my career. Not a fitness program that the rest of my life revolves around.

Althought I admit that I could eat less.

A for effort though.

Our new roommate is a mixed blessing. She is a good and caring person. She is also a food broker who who brings home lots of food. Yes, I appreciate free food. But, it's mostly processed and prepared food, sauces and desserts. So, that's the mixed blessing.

To maintain weight, RO and I always try to eat lean. Our meals are cooked from ingredients and not pulled out of a box. It tastes better and makes it easy to eat more vegetables and to control the portions, fats and sugars.

Last night we ate pate, cheese, crackers, tuna salad and chocolate cheese cake. Very tasty. But...

I feel like I am slowly going crazy. Without planning it, or perhaps because I didn't, I somehow ended up with two stressful careers. By day I am a middle manager at a large software company. By night I own, with RO, my partner, a furniture, design and home decor store. I try to keep the store's paperwork and finances straight, but I don't always do a good job. When the money is tight I tend to close my eyes. The ostrich method of stress management, so to speak.

I've noticed that I have so many things to do, that I have no time to reward myself. This has put me in a bad situation where goofing off is my reward. I think RO is the same. We've taken on so much that the only way to relax is to ignore the store.

That's not sustainble. It burns you out. It makes you look at your responsiblities as the cause of your problems and not the source of future happiness.

I've got to turn that around-- for our own sanity.