I Am Not Dead Yet!

Being sick is one of the most awful things in the world.  I have just started to recover from two weeks of coughing up green slime, a snot marathon and feeling like I bungee jumped off a bridge without a bungee cord.  When sick I am also one of the worst patients you will ever come across even when heavily medicated.  You see when I am ill and on a myriad of drugs I tend to become emotional.  My emotional range varying from self pity and believing that I am really dying and that nobody cares resulting in me having episodes of crying like an emotionally disturbed child who just broke his favorite toy, to being an angry and highly agitated bitch on steroids (with the  steroids actually being 2000mg of penicillin per day).  They say when men are sick they tend to behave like babies and looking back at my 14 day antibiotic haze I could not help but wonder – is this actually true?

In January hubby and I returned from our holiday on Paradise Island.  Unbeknown to me I returned from our holiday with a little gift; the gift being double pneumonia.  Long story short, when we landed back home I was directly taken to hospital with my pretty ocean view of 24 hour earlier replaced with a view of an old dying queen in front of me, my drip and an oxygen tank.

My stay in hospital was abruptly ended when I had a complete emotional melt down after one particular evil nurse popped one of my veins for the 3^rd time when she tried to fix my drip.  I did the ugly cry and my pulmonologist discharged me from hospital but not before giving me a very serious and stern warning: “Many people die of pneumonia every year, even young healthy men like you.  This is to be taken seriously.  Your lungs are damaged and for the next 12 months you will be vulnerable to respiratory ailments that could again result in pneumonia.  Take special care this winter, OK?”

This doctor died of a heart attack a couple of weeks ago and his heart attack is in no way related to me (just saying).  I heeded his warning and have been taking Vitamin C supplements ever since and everything was going well until after my birthday party.  You see we sat outside under a gas heater for most of the evening.  Drank way to many tequila and caramel vodka shooters and the next day I felt like Jose Cuervo and a Russian tried to kill me.  I was hung over and felt sick.  Monday morning I went to work feeling like death warmed up and believed it must be the aftermath of my hang over and me moving on in years, but it wasn’t.

You see I caught a bug the night of my party and the son of a bitch was inside my lungs making babies.  By Tuesday I could no longer ignore my symptoms (i.e. the pain when I was breathing) and consulted with my personal physician.  He did his normal examination and we ended up arguing; he said I had a fever and said I didn’t.  Eventually I went for X-rays and the final diagnosis was that I was developing pneumonia in my left lung.  I cursed, he scribbled a prescription and a sick note for work and I left coughing and wheezing all the way home.

The next couple of days I spent in the horizontal position with my earthly existence being restricted to antibiotics, cough syrup, anti-inflammatory medication, chicken soup and reruns of MacGyver and CSI New York.  By the following Monday I was convinced that I was fine to go back to work and that if I was ever in a pickle that I would be able to get myself out of it with a paperclip, tinfoil and a piece of string.  I was also confident that if I had to work a murder case that I would be able to solve the shit out of it in under 52 minutes.  I was wrong.

I arrived at work as high as a kite on antibiotics.  I floated through the day not being able to concentrate or focus.  The next day I realized I was still not fine and went back to my doctor only to learn that the pneumonia was cleared up but that I now had bronchitis.  “Mother. Fucking. Hell.” was my reaction and the doctor’s considered professional medical opinion of the cause was, and I quote “It is winter.”

By this time my tolerance level for being sick had reached critical mass and I found myself regressing back to being an emotionally needy and rather pissed off toddler.  With a second round of antibiotics, coughing up and secreting rather unearthly looking fluids from my nose and lungs I was not sure who were more irritated with me being sick – my cats watching me clearly wondering what their plan B was if I died or me wondering when I was going to die.

Poor hubby barely survived the 14 days having to deal with a sick, cranky and super emotional bitch.  But being the gentle soul that he is, he managed to control the situation and defuse the supernova that almost occurred roughly 30 times.  One evening I even ended up yelling “I AM DYING!  i am dying, don’t you love me?  Nobody loves me…” while wiping drool and snot from my fever flushed cheek.

Yes, in my personal experience, I can emphatically state that men when sick do not behave like babies.  Men behave like emotionally needy toddlers and it’s best to keep them heavily medicated and in an emotionally tranquil state for the duration of their recovery.  My main problem when I am starting to get sick is my categorical denial that I am sick and when I eventually accept that I am, is my firm suspicion that I am dying.  All the emotionally charged nuclear fallout after that I blame on the medication.  I am still not completely well yet but at least I am no longer lying in bed stewing in my own snot and self-pity.  I will survive *cough* I really will *sneeze*…

Till next time.

Religion: The Horrors, Ignorance & Homophobia

For The Bible Tells Me So (2007)

Grounded by the stories of five conservative Christian families this film explores how the religious right has used its interpretation of the Bible to support its agenda of stigmatizing the gay community and eroding the separation between church and state.

The Christian Exploitation of Homophobia for Cash

My commute to work has become rather (how to put it) dreadful.  You see The Light of the Nations “Church” has erected a huge billboard that I have to drive past twice a day five days a week.  This billboard suggests that Jesus can “save” people from homosexuality.  It depicts a man ripping open his shirt as words such as “drugs, lies, depression, porn and divorce” (amongst others) fly into the air.  Among the words is “homosexuality”.  This billboard then also suggests that the Church believes that a person’s ills, including homosexuality, can be cured by the Christian faith.  I say this is bullshit!

This advert is misleading, dishonest and offensive, to say the least, and I take great personal umbrage that this billboard was even allowed to be erected.  Homosexuality is neither a disease nor is it a choice and it most certainly cannot be “cured”.  This advert clearly uses discrimination against the LGBT community as a tool to bring people to their services and therefore perpetuates their Church's hate against the LGBT community.  Homosexuality should not be equated to things like using drugs, having an extramarital affair, viewing pornography and getting a divorce. These are choices people make. I find it offensive that they advertise their ignorance and intolerance next to a busy road and that I have to drive past it every fucking day.

Once again religion and a bunch of pastors with questionable motives are exploiting homophobia for financial gain.  But this is not the first time this “church” has been involved in less than Christian like behavior.  The “church” has also featured on Hello Peter for deducting donations of people’s accounts, one of whom had left the church well over two years ago.  It would seem that these Pastors are truly in the business of religion for the cash and not for saving souls, which in their case may be a secondary bonus.  Personally I am sick of people using religion to further their own bank accounts, spreading hatred and intolerance and using homophobia to get more asses into their seats at sermons.

Sure, faith can help some people get rid of a few of their vices but haven’t we learned by now that you cannot pray the gay away.  Why are certain religious groups and churches still perpetuating this myth?  Don’t they realize they are causing more harm?  Creating more fear and hatred towards the LGBT community?  Committing a sin according to their bibles?  Is it just me or does this seem like a trend.  Every time a congregation seems to dwindle in numbers the first place that congregation leaders go to is the old trusty LGBT community.  Condemn the gays and promise you can “cure” them and your church will be saved.

This is exactly why I don’t go to church and why I do not believe in organized religion.  The bible is open to interpretation and some people can twist and deform its content to suit whatever agenda they want to push.  What is sad is that there are some people sitting in the pews every Sunday who do not want to think for themselves and lap up untruths which they never question and place their trust and salvation in people who are not even qualified to preach.  People who call themselves pastors.  Pastors who need your money.

Don’t get me wrong, I have nothing against religion per se but I do have a big gripe when religion is being used to justify intolerance and hate.  Not so long ago religion was used to justify apartheid in South Africa.  In the Middle East religion is used to further terrorism.  And it is these people who are abusing their faith who are giving religion a bad name.  It is these people who use fear in a religious context for financial, political and social gain and it makes me sick.  Literally!

A complaint has been laid with the Advertising Standards Authority by a fellow queer who also drove past this billboard and I applaud Francios Joubert for taking the initiative.  Edmund Burke once said “All that is needed for the triumph of evil is that good men to do nothing”.  And believe me when I say the queers will not sit idly by and watch how certain “churches”, political parties, organizations and individuals try and strip away our long fought rights, dignity and respect.  That billboard will come down even if I have to rent a bulldozer.

Till next time.

Dear Constant Headache

A guest post by the FABULOUS GeeGee Curtained from the blog Two Fat Cows & A Bottle of Goose.

We started doing this fucked up little dance almost 5 years ago and I ignored you for months.  You obviously had no idea how good I am at sailing on that river called denial which is probably why you decided to drop me like a sack of shit when I was in the shower 4 years ago with that lovely shotgun headache.  Fine, so I lay there like a drowned rat for ages and finally dragged my wet ass to my bed, popped 6 Myprodol’s and went on with my day.  There was no way in hell I was going to be found with my nekkid ass out for all to see which is why you didn’t kill me, even though you were supposed to.  When they found the tumour it finally explained why my constant companion Irene was around, especially when I was having a few toots and we could entertain ourselves for hours on end.  She was a crazy bitch but I loved her.  Irene, rest her soul, ended her days in a medical incinerator and I was left with a very sexy titanium plate to remind me that she existed.

When you didn’t manage to kill me outright, you did your best to make me have a melt-down by having me diagnosed while Himself was away on a trip to the UK.  On the plus side, once I got over the shock I was quite relieved that I wasn’t losing my mind.  For months I’d felt like the song ‘Crazy’ by Gnarls Barkley was playing softly in the background while I went about my day.  Waking up spooning my Doberman in his bed with no idea how I got there, going shopping and coming home empty handed having left all the packages gawd only knows where... the list goes on and on.  People thought I was mad when I insisted on getting completely plastered with a few close friends before I went to hospital but the way I saw it I was about to iron my wings and wanted to have one for the road.  What a party that was!!  We had so many liquid cocaine shooters our pee was blue for 2 days... It’s also the only time I wore all my diamond and sapphire jewellery that I still haven’t been at a fancy enough occasion to wear.

So I was wearing jeans and a hoodie at the time, so fucken what.  Can’t see anything wrong with that...  Was I supposed to curl up in a little ball and have a pity party?  Sorry!!  That’s not in my nature...  Hell, I even got annoyed at other people feeling sorry for me.   If I’m going to buy the farm I’m going to do it with grace and I’ll be fucked if my son remembers me as a wet snivelling snot nosed heap of fear.   The hardest part was being wheeled into that elevator to surgery like a lamb to slaughter and being convinced it’s the last time I’d be laying eyes on my boys.  I felt like my heart was being ripped into pieces but there was no way in hell I was going to show it and I gave my husband and son a smile because that’s how I wanted them to remember me.  Nobody was more surprised than I was when I woke up in ICU – even the doctor couldn’t believe that I came out of a medically induced coma but I did.  Because I was being bed-bathed.  With a cake of Lux soap!  And a fucken blue kitchen cloth...  ‘Nuff said.

Ok, so I survived and I don’t think you liked that very much so you decided to make me a codeine addict.  Almost 9 months sitting on the sofa looking like a drooling Bride of Frankenstein with my shaved head and another 2 years of being lost in a lovely bubble of prescription drugs.  You knew I wouldn’t go to rehab but you didn’t count on me going cold turkey, did you?  4 months of wanting to crawl out of my own skin but I made it.  3 months ago you woke me up in the middle of the night and I thought the time had finally come.  What worried me the most was that I had Bridget Jones comfy knickers on (what? who sleeps in a bloody g-string??) and I hadn’t had a wax or a pedicure.  Death?  Nah, not so much. 

I’ve bumped my head so many times you can serve soup in the dent it’s created but what’s a spaz like me to do?  Walk around with a helmet on all day?  My neurosurgeon said I’m never allowed to do contact sports again and the look on his face when I asked him if rough sex counts was priceless!  I couldn’t resist, the poor man...  Serves him right really – I mean, do I look like the type of person who does Sport??  Oh, and that fugly snow hat I have to wear in bed in the winter to keep my plate from giving me brain freeze?  I’ve learnt to ROCK it you motherfucker!

I know the ‘kill shot’ can come any day, any time BUT I’ve made my peace, so do your worst...  Just make sure it’s fast.  I’m NOT going back for more surgery.  Never again.  That’s why I’m almost a year overdue on my annual MRI, I mean what’s the point?  I already got rid of everything I don’t want people to find when I’m dead, I’ve planned my memorial (my boys know who’s banned and that the pyramid of shot glasses on top of my ashes better reach the Rabbit Hole ceiling), I’ve learnt what’s important in life and I’m content.

You’ve taught me a lot Constant Headache, and I thank you for it.  I know the ‘pain scale’ better than I should.  A constant 3 out of 10?  Bitch puuuhleeze!  After experiencing the loveliness called bleeding on the brain that’s nothing!  You taught me that I’m tough, that I can feel like I’m bleeding from my eyeballs and still won’t give up but most importantly – you’ve put a built-in blood pressure monitor in my head which has helped me get rid of the dead weight in my life.  The assholes that drained me and never gave anything back, not even loyalty, and even though it’s been hard it’s been worth it!

A lot of people think I’ve become a complete bitch from hell but I couldn’t give a flying fuck through a rolling doughnut to be honest.  If I’m going to die tonight or tomorrow I’m sure as hell not wasting any more time on fucktards and users.  So what if I happen to be related to some of them?  I’ll explain myself when I get to the pearly gates.  And if I go downstairs instead?  They better have vodka there, and poker games, that’s all I’m saying....  And you know what?  Irene might have gone up in a ball of flames but GeeGee was born out of the ashes like a motherfucking Phoenix and she’s growing on me.  You’ve been getting quite bad again so I gave in and took the one kind of pill my doctor said I must never stop taking and boy, did I regret it!  I was as dumb as fuck for days and when I stopped I could’ve slit my wrists with a spoon.   So fuck you dear Constant Headache, you’re not getting the better of me, no matter how hard you try.  I’m done with pills and I’m done with you...

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New York City

It’s official.  The end of September hubby and I will be leaving on a jet plane bound for New York City.  I am more excited about this trip than a six year old child on Christmas morning.  I can almost loose bladder control – I am that thrilled!  The only part of the trip I am not looking forward too is spending 8 hours in economy class, then a 3 hour layover in Abu Dhabi and then another 13 hours again in Economy class until we finally touchdown at JFK in New York.  I have wanted to visit New York for a very long time and now it is finally going to happen.  The only thing that currently stands between me and New York is the Visa application.

As some of my regular readers know I have travelled for work and for pleasure to some interesting countries in the past.  Hubby and I have been to Egypt and Madagascar twice respectively, I have been to Kenya three times and a while back I travelled to Luxembourg for a meeting.  Some of these countries required visas with some visa applications being more labor intensive than others.  The procedure normally is simple.  You complete the plethora of forms; attach the supplementary documents, photos and your passport, all of which normally would take you less than an hour to complete.  You drop your application off, pay the fee and wait between 3 to 5 days and you are done.  So when I needed to apply for the US visa I assumed to process would be similar, but I was wrong.

You can apply for your US visa online and as such one would assume that the process is fast and simple, but it really isn’t.  You complete the DS-160 Nonimmigrant Visa Application online and it takes just over an hour (86 minutes to be exact).  The reason it takes so freaking long is because there are so many questions one need to answer.  Some questions are quite relevant but others are pretty odd.  While completing the forms, at one stage, I got so confused that I had to phone a friend.  I was searching a good twenty one minutes for a number in my passport that did not exist.  It was frustrating and nearly drove me nuts.  To add further pressure and frustration, if you take more than 20 minutes before answering a question (while for example you are searching for a fictitious number in your passport) and you did not write down your application ID number you have to start the whole process afresh.  I can guarantee you that you will only make this mistake once.

After completing your personal details, travel plans, education and work experience you get to the security related questions.  It is here were it gets a little bizarre.  “Are you planning on engaging in prostitution or have you in the last 10 years engaged in prostitution?  Are you the child of human traffickers?  Have you ever received any specialized training in weapons, chemical weapons or nuclear weapons?  Have you ever been involved in any Nazi activities?  Have you ever been involved in overthrowing a government or plotting to do so?  Are you a terrorist?  Are you associated with a terrorist group?  Do you fund terrorists?” These are just some of the questions that had me scratching my head.

Now don’t get me wrong, I do understand and have a full appreciation for why some of these questions are being asked.  The US is currently still involved in a war and after 9/11 the world has never been the same.  But with that said if a terrorist, a spy, human trafficker or former Nazi complete the visa application form what are the chances that they will answer yes to any of these questions?  It is not like human traffickers wear t-shirts that reads “I can sell your daughter, ask me how?” or drug traffickers will pitch up at the consulate with a t-shirt that reads “I can carry 22 condom wrapped heroin bullets in my intestines, can you?”

Sure some people at whom these questions are directed will lie when completing these forms and it is for this reason, I suppose, the US consulate schedule the personal interviews.  After you completed what feels like a thousand questions you submit your application and print out your application page with a barcode on it.  Then you are directed to another website and a good hour later you have paid for your visa (which is non-refundable of course) and have scheduled your personal interview.  Our interviews have been scheduled for July 13 at 8am.  I hope that this is not a bad omen.  It is Friday the 13^th and it is early and I am not a morning person.  I hope I will be more articulate and dazzling than what I expect I will be after having had to get up at 5:30am in order to drag my tired gay ass all the way to the US consulate in Johannesburg in peak hour traffic.

Look, I don’t see any good reason why our visa applications could be denied.  As far as I know we are not on any terror watch lists, don’t know how to assemble a nuclear weapon or are involved in drug smuggling or human trafficking.  And the only countries that I know off which definitely would deny me entry are Uganda and Zimbabwe only because I am gay and they despise my blog.  So in the mean time while we wait for our personal interviews hubby and I are busy researching and planning what we want to do while in New York.  There are so many places we want to visit, Broadway shows we want to watch and famous landmarks we want to see that for the short time we are going to be there I suspect we will not be getting a lot of sleep.

With me being a tad OCD and hubby being a typical Virgo and meticulous planner I know that we will have one hell of a detailed and tight itinerary.  Every second from the moment we land to the moment we leave will be accounted for with a comprehensive multimedia schedule uploaded to my iPad paired with a New York City app.  I am so looking forward to it.  I can barely contain myself.  Punch me in the gut and call me Betty.  We are going to New York!

Till next time.

When Beauty Equal Pain.

They say beauty is only skin deep and that beauty is pain.  This is especially true if you go for Erbium laser skin resurfacing.  You see for the last couple of years I have declared war on premature ageing.  I refuse to “age gracefully” and I have successfully managed to keep a seven year distance between my perceived age and my real age. My arsenal in this war includes my oils of delay, regular Botox treatments, the odd minor cosmetic surgery and most recently, laser skin resurfacing.  Consequently, I have no frown lines on my face, no wrinkles and no sun spots and I intend on keeping it that way.

For a couple of years now I have had Botox treatments and absolutely love how it works.  Emotional expressiveness on your face is highly over rated and who could not benefit from a brow lift and looking mildly surprised.  Botox is like having had a little vacation in your lunch break that lasts four to six months.  It is relatively painless, takes only a couple of days to start working and if your doctor knows what she is doing you will still be able to move some muscles in your face and look natural.  Besides the anti-ageing benefits of Botox and it also hides one of my tells.  You see whenever I am in a meeting and someone is boring me or talking bullshit I tend to frown.  It’s involuntary and now with Botox I no long can do it either involuntarily or voluntarily.

Recently I noticed sun spots developing on my face.  They were like freckles, but freckles on steroids.  They were scattered all over my forehead, cheeks and multiplying like sex starved bunnies.  So in my last consultation for my Botox maintenance the doctor recommended Erbium laser skin resurfacing.  It’s a procedure that takes roughly 30 minutes and only requires three days down time.  She promised that this will remove the sun spots, smooth out my complexion and fill in any frown lines and/or wrinkles that I may have.  It doesn’t take a lot of convincing to fix a problem on my face or body if it falls within my budget or price range, so I booked the appointment.

Three days prior to my appointment I started with my pre-procedure medications, purchased the skin numbing cream that I had to apply an hour before the procedure and pain medication for just in case.  Whenever any person in the medical profession uses the term or phrase “It may cause mild discomfort” it means it is going to fucking hurt.  Besides if your whole face is going to be penetrated with a laser for a half an hour you'd be silly if you do not expect some pain or "discomfort" as the professionals phrase it.

On the day of the appointment I was rather excited.  But as the time drew closer my excitement turned into a nervous tension.  “What if it doesn’t work and I am horribly disfigured?” I remember thinking when I washed my face at the office.  Just as I was about to leave the office and applied the numbing cream I thought “What if this is the last time I’ll ever be pretty because of some really bad reaction from the treatment or from some nasty infection?”  When I arrived at the consulting rooms I checked in at reception and made a dash to their restroom to apply another thick coat of numbing cream “Better safe than sorry” I tried to reassure myself.

I waited ten minutes and then I was ushered into the laser room by my doctor and her assistant.  I took off my coat, got onto the examination bed and shot up a little prayer “Please don’t let this hurt too much!” Then the treatment started.  Three short burst per area, a slight stinging sensation and the smell of burnt hair filled the room.  The doctor explained that it wasn’t my skin that was burning but rather the hair follicles in my beard that were being scorched.  Half way through I was asked if I wanted a ten minute break.  But being brave and believing that I had a high pain threshold I asked her to finish.  This was a mistake.

When the second part of my face was being treated it hurt like a motherfucker. But just as I thought I could no longer handle the pain it was over.  Like any self-respecting homosexual I asked if I can smoke a cigarette, for a ten minute break and a cappuccino before the second and last laser treatment was done and the repair lotion was applied.  At that stage my face was burning and I looked like a pale Brit who fell asleep on a South African beach and woke up just moments before his sunburn turned into blisters.  I looked and felt like a burn victim.  The burning sensation lasted about an hour and then completely went away.

The next morning I woke up to find my face red and some mild swelling around my eyes, mouth and cheeks.  I managed to wash my face which was rather sensitive and noticed that already pieces of skin were starting to peel off.  To my amazement my sun spots was being wiped away every time I used my cleansing lotion and it seemed like a miracle.  The treatment was working!  The worst part of the laser was not the actual procedure, the burning sensation directly after or the swelling.  The worst part was the not being able to shave for 7 days.  I hate facial hair on myself and I was starting to look like I had an emotional breakdown and was turning into a recluse whose greatest enemy was sunshine and people.

Needless to say, I didn’t venture into public for four days.  Unfortunately for me Sunday was father’s day and hubby and I were hosting it at our house.  Still red and peeling I thought "What the hell it is family after all".  Also, it’s not like I was keeping this a secret from anyone.  When the in-laws arrived they noticed something was amiss with my face but it took some time before the reason my face looked the way it did was discussed.  My sister-in-law (who can be a bitch sometimes) in her not so diplomatic way, said “I do have my opinion on your cosmetic procedures, but it is your money.  If you want to do it and can afford it who am I to judge you.”

On Monday, I didn’t go back to work.  Not because of my face but because I hurt my back.  I ventured into public for the first time for an injection and flurbiproven plasters and nobody noticed anything funny with my face.  My skin already started to clear up on Sunday night and returned to a semi normal color.  I still have three more days to go before I am allowed to shave my beard and it seems like an eternity.  As for the results?  Four days after the treatment and I can already see a 75% improvement and I believe the full effect will be visible in the next fourteen to sixty days.  Maybe now I can extend that seven year distance between my perceived age and my real age to ten years.

Till next time.

Gay Marriage: What's the Big Fckin' Deal?

Dwarf “Mr T” look alike with a short temper has a BIG F-bomb tantrum against gay marriage haters!  If you wish to support the FCKH8 campaign just click HERE.

Why I Love Hate Mail

As my regular readers know, I do get my fair share of hate mail.  In the 3 and a half years since I started this blog I have received hate mail from fanatical Christians, the Phelps family from the “God Hates Fags” fertility, charlatan therapists who claim to be able to cure homosexuality, pastors and most recently fellow homosexuals. In principle I do not mind hate mail.  After all if people are so offended by what you write that they will take the time to formulate their abhorrence for you in an email, you must be doing something right.  Right?  It wasn’t until recently that I realized that receiving hate mail isn’t necessarily a bad thing.  I came to realize that I actually love hate mail and this is why.

Admittedly when I started this blog I was rather naïve.  I believed that I would put my mind meanderings down on paper once a week and maybe a couple of friends would read it.  And that is exactly what happened, at first that is.  Soon, almost like it happened over night, it wasn’t only friends and a few family members who read my blog and, to my surprise, I realized that I actually had build up an international audience and that my audience was growing.  This is something that is quite flattering for most bloggers.  But building and growing an audience also comes with a dark side.

You see, when your blog starts to get discovered and your Google search rating goes up, chances are that your blog will also get the wrong kind of attention; the kind of attention that will see you getting hate mail.  I distinctively remember the first hate mail I received.  I was sitting in front of my computer minding my own business.  I had a fabulous hair day that day and it had great volume.  I was in a good mood and looked only slightly surprised at the time because my Botox was starting to wear off.  I downloaded my email and there it was.  The subject line both confused and intrigued me.

“Faggots burn and so shall you” the subject line read.  “Curious title for an email” I remember thinking.  So I opened the email and right from the first line I could tell this was not fan mail.  The gist of the mail was that I will burn in hell and it had a superfluity of Bible verses to substantiate this claim.  As time passed and my subsequent hate mail piled up I became very well acquainted with the Bible’s Leviticus chapters 18, 20 & 22, Romans 1, Genesis 2, Mathew 8 & 19 and Luke 7 (to mention but just a few).  Every hate mail I received from alleged “Christians” folk was like a little Bible study lesson in hatred and intolerance.  And I never did enjoy Sunday School to start with.  But one day one particular hate mail flattered me with my suggested infamy.

The hate mail was titled “The Abomination of Humanity”.  I have blogged about this before; I was that impressed with the new title I was bestowed.  I even considered putting it on my resume and it would have read: Pierre le Roux, Veracity Expert, Profiler, Forensic Investigator, Blogger and The Abomination of Humanity.  I could just see how I was going to be head hunted by Fortune 500 companies.  After all I was not just An Abomination and was THE Abomination, a feat and designation that I think only the dark lord has been honored to have.  I mean who wouldn’t want to hire me when it is eluded that hell hath no fury like a woman scorned, just imagine what fury The Abomination of Humanity could release if scorned.  I was considering walking up the people in meetings and going “BOO!!” before handing them my business card.  But it is not just misguided fanatical Christian who has sent me their diatribe, the gays has done so too.

You see, queer folk even though we are suppose to be the LBGT community; we tend to be a bitchy, jealous and spiteful bunch at the best of times.  Some call this our flare for the dramatic, others call it spirited flamboyance, but in it is what it is.  I guess some of the articles I have written perhaps hit a nerve or a few tiaras too many and it encouraged a few limp wristed pseudo intellectual queens to take to their laptops and write me a few hate mails.  Now, one thing you should know is that no one writes better hate mails than gay folks.  Gays are articulate, sarcastic and mean spirited in a way that would make the Nazis’ Hitler envious.

Recently, one of my articles was published on a certain website.  It dealt with all the fucked up people who uses Facebook as their personal sex hookup site or platform to air all their dirty laundry.  It was quite an innocent and only mildly offensive article.  Or at least I thought it was but clearly some queens took great umbrage at the article and decided to comment on it.  When some noticed that I was ignoring their negativity like I ignore a freshly passed bowl movement that I flush away without giving it a second glance, they took to their Gmail accounts and in total I received 14 hate mails.

The first couple of hate mails attacked my writing style because apparently they expect everything they read on the internet to be of Pulitzer Prize quality.  Curious, seeing as their own writing style is on the same standard of twelve year olds.  Just because you know how to use a thesaurus and use big words doesn’t demonstrate that you are intelligent or have the ability to write literature (Just saying).  Then there were the others who attacked me like they have known me for years.  Well, those hate mails were interesting to read but mostly as fiction.  I could only wish that I was as immoral and that even ten percent of the debauchery they suggested I am involved with were true.  However, they did give me some very interesting ideas.

Yes, hate mail can sometimes make for some riveting reading.  Sure if you get them they can be quite disconcerting the first couple of times.  In the beginning they did cause me to behave like an emotional disturbed monkey in a Hello Kitty slasher movie and I did finance a significant portion of Häagen-Dazs’ South African operations.  But as time goes by and you receive more hate mail, you learn to see it for what it is and you can find the humor in them.  If you are a blogger you need to accept that these things will happen and you need to put your big girl panties on and deal with it.  And if you can’t, then there is a lovely river in Egypt called de-nile, it’s best to get yourself a nice felucca and to sail down it blissfully.

Till next time.

The Psycho Who Friended Me

We live in a sick world.  Sure this is not breaking news, but sometimes I have a tendency to want to forget that this is true.  Last week I read an article about a certain washed up gay porn star called Luca Rocco Magnotta.  This sick puppy allegedly killed his boyfriend, videotaped the murder, then proceeded to cut the corpse into pieces and then mailed a hand and a foot to certain politicians in Canada.  You may think this is the worst of it but you’d be wrong.  The worst part of it is that, unbeknown to me, I actually was Facebook friends with this psycho, at least until I unfriended and block him.

Luca Rocco Magnotta also goes under the aliases of Vladimir Romanov or Mattia Del Santo, but his real name is Eric Clinton.  It is believed that he killed his boyfriend, Jun Lin, while videotaping it and then uploaded the video to a certain snuff and gore website.  The video shows a man with an ice pick stabbing another naked, bound man.  He dismembers the corpse and then performs sexual acts with it which can only be described as horrifying.

If you have never been exposed to dead bodies or images thereof I strongly recommend that you do not search for this video or its images online.  It is horrendous and you cannot unsee what you have seen.  There were earlier signs that Luca was not mentally well.  For nearly two years animal activists have been looking for a man who tortured and killed cats and then posted videos of this cruelty on YouTube.  It wasn’t until Lin’s murder that Montreal police released a photo from one such video that clearly shows that it is Luca in these appalling videos.

Luca would take kittens and place them in a clear plastic bag and have them suffocate while he filmed them.  He has drowned cats and kittens in videos and even fed a live kitten to a snake.  Clearly, he is one demented individual who is cruel and have no respect for life.  Lucas was a ticking time bomb whose natural progression would be from animals to humans and Lin tragically became his first human victim.  So how did I learn that I was Facebook friends with such a sick and dangerous person?

Well, after reading the news reports of this ghastly murder I decided to search for Luca on Facebook.  And lo and behold I found his profile and saw that we were friends.  I was flabbergasted!  I don’t ever recall accepting a friend request from him nor seeing any of his status updates.  Was this really him?  I wondered.  So I started reading his timeline and to my further horror discovered it was indeed him.  Even more interesting I saw that, even though he was the subject of a massive man hunt by Interpol, he updated his current location to Paris on Sunday at 18:39.

Not only is he a murderer he is stupid too.  You know the world is looking for you but you go into an internet Café and then tell the world where you are.  Maybe he wanted to get caught.  I was tempted not to unfriend him as my professional curiosity urged me to wait and see what he was going to do next.  But in the end I was overwhelmed with my utter disgust for this man and mortified that I was in any way connected to him.  So I decided to unfriend and block him just in case he felt like fleeing to South Africa and decided to look me and hubby up.  I will not look good dead and dismembered and I really never want to be featured on that disgusting snuff video website.

So in the absence of having sight of his status updates I followed the news closely.  On Monday afternoon Luca was finally apprehended in Berlin.  Naturally he was arrested at an internet Café reading news articles about himself.  An employee of the Café recognized Luca and luckily the police were close by and Luca was arrested without any resistance.  He will in all probability be extradited back to Canada where he will be charged with several offenses one of which will be first degree murder.

It is a pity Canada don’t carry out death penalties anymore.  Luca seem to be a good candidate for execution when he is found guilty.  Unless he can prove that he has a psychiatric disorder I don’t believe that he would be likely to be rehabilitated.  After all he did write on his wall “Once you have tasted human blood there is no going back”.  And I believe him.  He will kill again if he is allowed to remain as a member of society.

Whether I have any other homicidal friends on Facebook, I do not know.  It is just shocking when you read about a horrific crime and then later learn that you have the wanted murderer in your friendlist.  It just once again goes to show how small the world has become due to social media.  Now, not only can you reconnect with old school friends, you can be friends with Interpol's most wanted too.

Till next time.

Top reasons why homophobes are full of sh#!t

So Obama is getting some shit for supporting gay marriage. Homophobes really are full of it.  The good people of FCKH8 have made another over the top video declaring what we all know - homophobes are literally full of shit!

6 Reasons why you should be cool with gay marriage

Did you hear that Obama is now officially endorsing Gay Marriage? Bryan Safi has compiled a thorough list of reasons why you should get on the Obama train and be Pro Gay Marriage as well.  You van follow Bryan on Twitter by clicking HERE.

A Missing Jesus, Junk Mail & a Poor Russian

Admittedly, I have issues.  I will not pretend that it isn’t so.  Maybe it is my OCD or my occasional dyslexia but there are a few things in life that drives me absolutely nuts.  And no, not the kind of nuts where I am only mildly irritated. It drives me the kind of nuts where I want to take a baseball bat and pretend another human’s head is a piñata while humming the theme song from psycho.  I know it’s not normal to get this angry about junk mail, Jehovah’s Witnesses, Mormons and 419 scam or phising emails, but I do.  I can’t help it.  So this past weekend I decided to take a look at the intolerable cruelties I am troubled with, see if my anger was justified and whether there actually is something I can do about it.

Sunday mornings in my neighborhood seems to be the one day of the week when Jesus seems to be missing.  Every other Sunday morning our doorbell rings.  On the other side of the intercom I can usually see two people dressed in their Sunday’s best clothes asking if we have found Jesus.  “What is he missing?” doesn’t always yield the result one would expect and ninety present of the time it only seems to aggravate them.  I have found that there is nothing worse than an aggravated and determined Christian and “Can we come in and talk to you about Christ?” is then also always my cue to hang up.  Sometimes they will press the bell for up to ten minutes, sometimes they get the message and leave.

We live in South Africa and I don’t know any people who would allow total strangers, no matter how Christian like they look, into their homes.  It’s fucking dangerous!  Besides, I don’t allow any person into our property without them being vetted or, at the very least, having done a quick background check on them.  We live in a dangerous world and I have not upgraded our house’s security to that of a fortress only to let two roaming recruiters for Christ come into my house only to rob and molest me.  Call me paranoid but at least my paranoia have kept me alive for this long.  But a missing Jesus is but only one of my bothers.  There is also the junk mail.

There is a reason hubby and I get our mail delivered to a PO Box address.  Just the other day I demonstrated one of the reasons by accidentally opening up my neighbor’s bank statements.  It was lying on the floor in front of our front door.  Without thinking I picked it up, opened it and then with a shock realized it wasn’t ours.  Naturally, I found myself to be in a conundrum:  Do I try and glue it close again and drop in over their wall or do I shred it and pretend I never saw it.  I choose the latter.

Since we moved into our house we haven’t had a mailbox.  We had no need for one seeing as we have a post box, but this didn’t stop the junk mail distributers.  Every day for the last two years we had junk mail stuck in our aloe, glued to our front door, garage door and/or wall.  So in an effort to stop these suburban terrorist from defacing our property’s façade, hubby and I bought a mailbox and spray painted it a bright red and secured it prominently to our front wall.  You would have to be blind not to see it.  This, I thought, would solve all our junk mail problems.  I could not have been more wrong.

Our fabulous mailbox have been on our wall for less than 48 hours and already we have had junk mail taped to it, stuffed underneath our door and glued to our wall.  The fuckers seem to be making a conscious effort to stuff and stick their junk shit everywhere except in our fucking mailbox.  I swear they do this on purpose to drive me crazy, and it is working!

Junk mail and its aversion to mailboxes is one thing, but when I open my email and find that I have won the UK lottery for the infinite time, some princess needs help getting her fortune, my unexpected inheritance from a relative I didn’t know I had, the poor Russian who is stuck on the international space station because they can’t afford to bring him back or the unexpected deposit into my account at a bank I don’t even bank with, I want to scream.

We all know these emails are scams.  We all know to delete them and not open up the links that are contained in them.  We all know this, but yet everyday people all over the world fall for them and lately it feels like every 419 scammer got hold of my email address.  I have replied to a couple of them mostly using really fowl language that would make my mom blush, but when I heard of the poor Russian stuck on the international space station I was particularly amused, so I wrote them back.

In my response email I expressed my concern for the Russian, who had been on the space station for well over a year, and my concerns over his mental and physical health.  I offered to send him a care package whenever they launched another supply rocket up there.  I even suggested some possible ways to get him back which included stealing a spacesuit, thermal parachute, oxygen tanks and a fishing boat.  It wasn’t even a day before the Russian’s benefactor mailed me back saying that they need to raise $13 million to secure his save return, so I offered to give them $13.13 and some Farmville cash.  Needless to say they never mailed me back.

As for the people looking for Jesus, I have found a relatively easy solution.  Seeing as they pitch up only every other Sunday, I now switch off our intercom on those days.  They can ring the bell all they want and we are none the wiser.  The junk mail and the scam emails seem to be problems that will persist.  I have thought of beating the crap out of one of those guys who clearly don’t know what mailboxes are for but I can’t afford to get a criminal record for aggravated assault and/or attempted murder.

As for the 419 scams, I must give it to them some of their emails are quite creative and fantastical and you have to be an idiot to fall for them.  But the world has many idiots, and as long as they are there I guess I will keep on getting these damn emails.

Till next time.

The Crazy Lady from Nebraska & Gay Sex

There is a crazy lady who hates the gays.  Her name is Jane Svoboda and she lives in Lincoln, Nebraska.  Last week she testified at a non-discrimination ordinance meeting where she made some startling homophobic and inaccurately graphic statements.  Later in the week it was confirmed, by Jane’s family, that she really is crazy and suffering from schizophrenia.  That being said, I thought it appropriate to take a look at some of the statements she made about gays and gay sex and examine whether any of these statements are indeed true.

Jane said that during gay sex the penis goes into the anus, which is fairly accurate.   However, she also said that during anal intercourse the penis ruptures the intestines and the more gay men do this the greater our chances of becoming “a fatality or a homicider”.  Clearly Jane is a size queen and have come across some monster cocks in her life. I assume this because do you know how huge a guy’s dick would have to be to be able to rupture another guy’s intestines?  Besides KY (if used properly) can make anything fit without rupturing the rectum, intestines or an organ.  Besides I have never heard of a gay man that has ever been fucked to death or heard of a gay man being charged with homicide by large penis.  But then again, there is always a first time.  Isn’t there Jane?  But wait there’s more.  Jane also had some insights into paedophilia and AIDS.

Besides homicidal penises and fatal anuses, Jane went further and said that “a huge percentage of gay men in school grounds molest boys mainly because they don’t have AIDS yet”.  Why crazy people always automatically assume that all gay men are paedophiles boggles my mind; isn’t that solely reserved for Catholic Priests?

Sure, there are those gay men who prefer to date twinks but there’s one big difference – the twinks are of the legal age of consent.  As for the AIDS bit, these day there are many people, young and old, who are HIV+ and you cannot assume that just because a person is young that they are not HIV positive. Just as you cannot tell a person’s status just by looking at them.  That’s why there are condoms and a thing called save sex.  But sex with minors isn’t the only thing troubling poor Jane, it is the sex with corpses that really gets her blood boiling.

Jane mentioned something about the “Candida fungus that grows hugely on a corpse and that AIDS is a Candida fungus disease”.  It is true that Candida does grow on a corpse and one of its main functions is to help with decomposition.  But I don’t know any gay men, apart from Jeffrey Dahmer that is, who have sex with decomposed corpses.  Besides it being disgusting and morally wrong it is also illegal.

Here again Jane confused homosexuality with necrophilia.  Sure there are some gay men who suck in bed, just lie there and may as well be a corpse, but they still have a pulse and are alive and well.  Rigor mortis may be a turn on for Jane and Jeffrey, but as for the average homosexual the only body part that we prefer to be stiff during sex is a dick, not a limb.

According to Jane, Hillary Clinton went gay in college.  But don’t all straight folk do that in college anyway?  Personally, I have always thought that Hillary would have made a very respectable power lesbian; just look at the way she dresses and some of her hairstyles.  I am also sure that she is very handy with her tongue as it does get a lot of exercise not to mention that strong and nimble texting fingers.  But I digress…

Getting back to Jane, she said Hillary went lez because her college didn’t have single rooms and single gender dorms.  Well that doesn’t make any sense.  If you are lonely in your own room in a dorm filled with people of the same gender, wouldn’t that actually promote homosexual experiences instead of doing the opposite?  Clearly Jane has not thought this through or watched enough porn or been in enough dorms.  According to Jane dorms can make you go gay and if you are gay chances are, according to Jane, that you are also sadistic.

According to Jane all gays are sadistic and treasonous and she arrived at this conclusion by looking at the Romans.  When I heard this I was both flattered and annoyed at the same time.  But here again the voices in Jane’s head got it wrong.  There are gay men who are sadistic and in the gay world we call them “Masters” and they are the “S” in S&M.  This is a fetish practiced in darken basements, attics and dodgy night clubs and are by no means a mainstream “gay thing”.  There are plenty of straight folk who practices S&M as well; haven’t one of the voices in Jane’s head read “Shades of Gray” yet?

As for the treason part of her zany speech, in history it is true that there were some prolific homosexual spies who betrayed their countries through espionage.  In comparison to our heterosexual counterparts the instances of gay spies are but a drop in the proverbial bucket.  Jane also mentions Judas as another historic homosexual who betrayed Jesus.  It really is a pity that there were no tabloids back then, seeing as in the absence of a tabloid photo, leaked sex tape or the odd masseuse filing a law suit against Judas we have no way of verifying if he was indeed a homo.

Lastly, Jane claims that all bisexuals always become insane and she supports this statement by saying we must read the book of Nijinsky.  Who the fuck is Nijinsky, you may ask?  Well, I Googled him and she must be referring to Vaslav Nijinsky, a Russian ballet dancer and choreographer who were also bisexual, wrote a diary and went insane.  Now, I have never quite understood bisexuals and probably never will, but one can hardly generalize that a whole group of people will go insane just because one individual did.  That would be like saying that all bisexuals will automatically be straight again, just like Anne Heche, if they wait long enough for the mothership to come and fetch them.

I know I really should not be making fun of Jane Svoboda and that mental illness is no laughing matter.  But if mentally unstable people like Jane are allowed to vent their psychiatric delusions in a public forum.  If their caregivers don’t stop them and it is broadcasted over YouTube, well then you are just asking for it.  What makes this worse is that there are people on the internet that will come across her YouTube video, watch it and who will find some resonance with what she said.  In so doing, homophobia will spread and there will be people who believe these lies.  Let’s just hope that Jane gets the help that she so clearly needs and that there are people out there who are smart and psychologically stable enough to know the difference between truth and fiction.

Till next time.

Queers on Wheels

Exercise is something I view in the same light as tofu, diet coke and rice cakes.  It’s not natural.  It’s not appealing and it makes me want to vomit.  I don’t like to starve and I don’t like to sweat.  But when you have to bring a certain pair of cargo pants out of retirement from the closet and a sense of shame and guilt overwhelms you as you stare at the flab where your abs of steel once were, a certain rude awakening happens.  Yes people, my Chinese Diet Pills are not working and I have not lost some of my circumference.  I am the gay version of obese and I do not intend to celebrate a certain thirty something birthday (which is just over two months away) looking like the Michelin Man.  So, I did what any self-respecting gay man would do, I sobbed and then I went out and I bought myself a bike.

This month is our 14^th anniversary.  On 21 May hubby and I would have outlasted 40% of all straight marriages and what a better way to celebrate this anniversary month than for me to try to lose 8kg and get back into shape before my birthday.  After all it is as much a gift for hubby as it is a gift for me.  Both hubby and I deserve for my body to be close to the shape it was in when we first met.  Albeit that back then I looked semi anorexic.  I mean you could seriously see my hip bone back then. So this time around my aim will be for the healthier looking version of me 14 years ago, not anorexic looking me.

So on Monday hubby and I went shopping.  Initially I decided to buy a treadmill.  Sure, it’s nothing more than a hamster wheel but I do prefer sweating, heaving and being red faced in private while watching Chelsea Lately or listening to music.  The treadmill seemed like a much better option than jogging through the neighborhood or running on a treadmill all lined up like a Nazi concentration camp's fitness experiment in the gym. Then I saw how much treadmills cost.

Treadmills are fucking expensive.  A whole month’s salary expensive!  For a brief moment while standing in the fitness shop, with a dropped jaw, I thought maybe I wasn’t really that fat.  Love handles are just more of me to love, right?  Then I remembered the reflection of my flab in the mirror that morning.  Remembered that cellulite is not my friend.  Remembered that even though chubby people have great personalities, nobody wants to see them naked, people get nervous at the pool if it looks like they are going to dive in and realized that economy class seats (the class that I now have to fly due to the economy) are small and very narrow.  I realized that I am chubby and I needed a Plan B.

On the other side of the fitness shop I spotted my Plan B – mountain bikes!  Interesting, I thought.  The last time I was on a bike was when I was 13.  I have fond memories of my red BMX bike and I knew that a mountain bike was my salvation from my every growing circumference, as my Chinese pills so blatantly calls it.  Mountain bikes are expensive too, but not as expensive as hamster wheels.  Besides, at least with a bike we will save money on the power bill, as I think hamster wheels can be heavy on electricity.  And bikes are greener and it will give hubby and I something to do as a couple, let us get out of the house, get some fresh air and get me into shape.  So we went shopping for the right bikes for us.

In a specialty bike shop I spotted the most amazing tandem bike.  It exited me in my loins and as I was pointing it out to hubby all vivaciously, his expression was one of “Yea right.  As if we are not gay enough as it is.  Why don’t we just hang pink tassels on the handle bars, besides I would have to do all of the peddling anyway"  It may surprise you, but yes, my husband can convey all of this in just one look, it’s a skill.  With a tandem bike clearly not being a realistic option we eventually bought two bikes that we both liked, bought pumps, helmets and all the paraphernalia one would need to get started.

My brother-in-law graciously offered to pick the bikes up for us as the boxes they came in would not fit in either of our cars.  For some odd reason I thought that if you buy a bike it comes fully assembled, but they don’t.  You have to do it yourself and for that you need tools.  Fortunately for us, brother-in-law has tools, lots of them and in no time at all, both our bikes were assembled and ready to go.  For the first time in almost two decades I was about to get on a bike, and I did not know what to expect.

Not being in any kind of shape at all, hubby and I decided to ride around the block.  It’s not a massive distance, but we thought it would be a gentle way to ease us into things.  Little did we know, but our block has hills and no matter which way around you go you will have an uphill and downhill.  To make matters worse is the fact that my bike was squeaking and it sounded a lot like it was saying “you’re fat” when it squeaked.  As these Queers on Wheels made our way around the block, people stared and I was dripping with sweat, out of breath and praying that no one recognizes me from under the helmet and from behind my sunglasses.  But we made it!  Eventually. I survived and it wasn’t really a completely unpleasant experience.  So later in the afternoon, we did it again.

The squeaking was later discovered to be the rear brake pads and our hairstylist, who had to see the bikes for himself, quickly identified the problem and the bike now no longer squeaks and calls me fat.  Hubby and I decided to ride around the block every day, each day venturing a little further as our fitness levels increases.  There are a lot of bike trails in and around our town and when we feel ready and know that we will not risk a heart attack we will start exploring them too.  It’s something constructive to do on a Sunday and much healthier than lying on the couch in front of the television eating crisps.

Exercise is never fun, but in the absence of a miracle pill that burns fat and turns chocolate or Hägan-Dazs ice cream into cellulite burning treats, it is unfortunately something I will have to do.  I know many people buy bikes with the full intention of exercising and that many of these bikes either end up as clothing racks or dust collectors in their garages, and many people think this is exactly what’s going to happen to ours.  But I do like a challenge and I do like proving people wrong.  So take that flab, I will paddle my little gay legs off around my little neighborhood and by the 1^st of July, I will have shed those excess 8kgs and be able to retire those pair of cargo pants back to its spot of shame in the closet!

Till next time