25 and holding what?

Growing up, when asked how old she was, my Mimi would say, "I'm 29 and holding'." Well today, on the eve of my 25th B-Day, I have just returned from celebrating with my family and I am suddenly reinterpreting her infamous line as a question. I will be 25 and holding what? I am no longer at an age where being fruitless in one's labors is acceptable. I often have a skewed perception of myself, but recently when holidays or any major event rolls around, I begin to feel incredibly alone and...well lonely.

I've always been one who can stand on his own, and was quite comfortable doing so, but as all of my friends continue to grow up and get married, and have kids, I have begun to ask myself what am I holding? The answer, nothing really. I mean I have a job that I enjoy, for the most part, and I have a group of friends that are pretty bad-ass, but I have no one or nothing that I have to come home to. No REAL responsibility, not even a pet. I mean all of the plants in my apartment are succulents, so they in theory could live for months without me caring for them. Some may view this as the ultimate opportunity to do something truly magnificent, but is it?

It seems I find myself at a crossroads, and the lines from Frost's "Two Roads" keeps playing over and over in my head. Do I take the road less traveled or do I go the road more familiar? I have always been one to take the road less traveled, but lately all I can think about is someone/thing/place that I am completely comfortable with...

About a year ago, not long after I moved back to Texas, I was out at a bar, when I was approached by a man, a gypsy/hippie man of sorts and he said that he got a very strong "reading" from me when he walked in and saw me. He proceeded to tell me many things, but the thing that struck me the most was the fact that he told me that more than anything else, I wanted to be a "wife". At the time this struck me as odd, but very soon after, I discovered the song "Housewife" by Jay Branan and it really resonated with me and hit the nail on the head. Of all the lofty ambitions and shooting for the stars that I have done, is this all that I really want? Is that the secret to happiness and the achievement of success. As I've allowed myself to marinate on this gypsy-man's statement over the course of the last year, I wonder did he plant that seed inside me, which has been trying to germinate over the course of the last year, or did he really see in me a need for companionship.I can't help but believe that perhaps it's a bit of both...

As I prepare to ring in my 25th I am still mulling over my take on this. What am I holding at 25? What is in store for me? A move? A companion? A career change? or all of the above? I have always said that for me true happiness was Me in a location that I am content with, with a job I am content with, and with a person I am content with. So as I hold my breath and prepare to blow out the candles and jump into the 25th, I do so with great fervency, completely open to what the next year holds for me.

It takes a Village...a Department 56 Village that is...

So this all starts out innocently enough from me wanting to de-clutter my life. As a child (an incredibly gay one that is) I had collected the Department 56 Dickens Village, which for those of you who don't know are incredibly overpriced ceramic lighted villages(see the above photo), that one decorates their home with during the Christmas Holiday. The average piece sells for around $75. Which, in retrospect, for a child to collect is completely ridiculous. Nonetheless, my incredibly overbearing mother had encouraged it and alas, I followed her lead, spending what I can only assume was thousands of dollars of hard earned money that I had earned mowing yards and performing various other jobs. I am getting a bit off topic here; I decided that since I would be moving into a smaller apartment and since I had recently embraced minimalism, that it was finally time for me to part with the Christmas Village that I had spent years of my childhood and adolescents collecting.
I opted to place an ad in a local gay newspaper, because alas, who besides The Gays can appreciate a mint condition Department 56 Christmas Village. A few weeks go by and in this time I have sold the entire collection to a woman who was all sorts of crazy(this is another story for another time), when I get a call at work on my cell phone from a man, "I am interested in the village you have for sale," he says. At this point, I explain to him that I have already sold the collection at which point he switches gears and inquires about the area code of my telephone number. I have had the same number for years, since college, but it is the same area code as the far North Dallas Suburb, Denton. So he asks "how long have you lived in Denton?" I at this point begin to explain to him the circumstance, and that I now reside in the Oaklawn Area of Dallas, which is famously the gayborhood of Dallas.
As soon as he hears Oaklawn, he asks if I know of any good massage therapists. I, at this point tell him that I do indeed and I recommend the guy I get regular massages from, thinking he could probably use the extra business, given the state of the economy. Before my masseur's name even spills out of my already concerned and confused mouth, he immediately follows up with, "does he give happy endings?" No, I reply and he is quite adamantly opposed as a matter of interest. "What, don't you like happy endings" he says. I at this point am completely dumbfounded by the frank nature of the conversation, not to mention that this conversation is taking place, while I am at work in my cubicle, where I am positive that multiple staff members are overhearing. I at this point start stumbling over my words and acknowledge the fact that he is being quite forward. He then proceeds to offer me his massage services and says that he could give me a happy ending, to which I struggle to get off of the phone and end the conversation. I would love to know how I ended the call, but honestly I must have blocked it from my memory, along with a fair portion of my childhood, due to the traumatic nature of the exchange.
As soon as the call is over, I immediately google his phone number along with the name he gave me. It turns out, he is a Real Estate Agent in the Suburbs. It was the first site to pop up on my search. On the site, I also see a photo of him and his wife, who I can only assume for whom he was inquiring about the village. Again, it is pretty crazy what people will try and get away with when they think no one is watching. I think he must have been naive to the fact that that with as little as his phone number, I could find out all I needed to know. I even find out about his many accolades as a realtor, turns out he is one of the 2008 top 100 Realtors according to D Magazine. If this was a trashy tabloid, I would print his name, web address and even slap up a photo, but alas I am a lady...so instead, I will keep this info in my back pocket, ya know, should I ever need it...
Lesson to all, people are listening and watching, and they will Google you!!! So beware...

Lucy, You Got Some 'Splainin' To Do...

So, I suppose I should at some point explain the name of this blog. "Duh Papa" is an expression that grandmother (Mimi) uses for my grandfather(Papa: Pronounced Paw Paw.) She uses this this...lets call it a term of endearment , any time he is seemingly unaware of something usually, but not always relating to pop culture. She prides herself in keeping up with the latest Hollywood gossip. I have to sadly admit that she knew more about the Madonna/A-Rod hookup than I did. What can I say, she's a regular Perez Hilton.

I thought that "Duh Papa" would be the perfect tile because I'm all about being in the know, although sometimes I find myself not. That being said, I suppose the Blog Name also pays slight homage to Mimi, a muse for all time. The pic at left is of her in her younger days.

Hunting Men?

So I had always heard mention of the website manhunt.com, a website designed to facilitate casual hookups, but I hadn't fully explored it until recently. At a holiday event, a friend was rehashing a recent manhunt hookup and it began to peak my interest.  I initially created a profile to see if I could find my friend's profile, because one never knows when they are going to need naked pics for blackmail. But not 5 minutes had my profile been created, and I already had a guy wanting to chat with me. I, of course had only put up an ass shot and also used an alternate alias, so not to be detected by others who might wonder onto my profile. 

The part that really interests me is that he classified himself as Str8. To me, this concept is HILARIOUS! A true gem. I imagined him to be one of those Grade A Uptown Douches, who wears the Ed Hardey splatter tees and $300 jeans and is rockin' the perfectly coifed faux hawk, this was later confirmed and my assumption was spot on! He had only posted body pics, which given his Str8 status, I guess makes sense. That being said, I began to engage him in dialogue and began the inquisition, totally Barbara Walters Style. The next few steps turned out to be quasi-genius in retrospect, but given my lack of preparation for this scenario, I sort of fell ass backwards into it. He was apparently having difficulty viewing my pic and I had no idea how to even navigate the site at this point, but regardless he refused to continue dialogue without a pic, so I offered to email him a pic, of course from the email address of my secret alias, and I am assuming I was sending it to his secret alias as well. 

As a side note, I have noticed that these types of sites are all about the cock teasing. I of course had signed up with no intention to pay, and still have no intention to, but they are clever in that they play a seemingly never ending game of just the tip. This site specifically only lets you view something like 10 profiles a day, and of those 10, you only get to see thumbnails of the person's pics. Surprisingly enough, you are able to  chat and send/receive messages for free though, so Two Pumps for Manhunt. 

I've gotten a bit off topic...so I email the Str8 guy a couple of pics, by the way he tells me his name is Will. In the process he is inquiring if I am out and if I'm masculine or a fem, throwing around the term Bro, like it's going out of style. He is continuing to have technical difficulty, so he gives me an alternate email address. This point is when I realize that what he has given is probably his legitimate email address (a true diamond in the rough), so I immediately Facebook him and and find his profile and real name, which I will not reveal, because what can I say, I'm a regular Mother Teresa...

My concern is that had I been Glen Close in Fatal Attraction, this is all I would have needed to basically ruin his life and image in the 75204 of Dallas. The long and short of it was that "I wasn't his type" which was fine by me, because I was running late for a Holiday Party and had no intention of actually meeting him. I had only been slightly side tracked and mildly entertained by our exchange, plus I was needing to waste some time in order to be fashionably late the party.  

That being said, the real tragedy of the story is that in the year 2008 in a city of over a million people in the United States of America, that this guy is so scared of the social stigma of being gay that he must result to a digital game of cat and mouse in order to explore his sexuality... This topic definitely warrants further exploration, not to worry...more to come.

Testing 123

Hey Hey - Welcome to the latest greatest blog. This officially launches the beginning of my transition into the area of reporting and giving my perspective...watch out nah...