Back? Maybe?

Hi all,

So I'd be suprised if anyone is still visiting here.  My apologies to anyone who was attached that felt abandoned.  It was not my intention to ditch this project, it just sort of happened.  I think perhaps as things changed in life, this blog was no longer serving the purpose it started with.  In any case, I'm feeling some need to come back to it now.  I can't quite explain why, but here I am.  I'm lucky I even remember the password as it's apparently been well over a year...

If anyone has found themselves back here who might have been reading in the past, I'll give you some updates.

The job: I'm now in a high level management position at my agency.  Not sure how that happened, but hey, if they offer to pay you more to do something, it's hard to say no, even if you're not quite sure (or at all sure) you're qualified.

School: I'm now halfway done with my masters degree.  It's a very credity heavy counseling program, but a good program and I am largely enjoying it, though not always the work that come with it.

Love life: Dating a guy since early this past summer.

Gay life: Still mostly in the closet here.  Out to good friends and one member of my EMS agency and one co-worker.  Unfortuantely I am not out at work or in general within the EMS world.  At school, it seems to be a bit of a mixed bag.  I don't really talk about it but I don't exactly hide it either.  I think perhaps this is the reason I'm back.  I would really like to change this and am slowly making plans to do so.  Do I smell a 2010 New Year's resolution...?  Time will tell...

And now a link to something you might all enjoy at one of my favorite blogs...
http://gayguystraightguy.blogspot.com/2009/12/straight-guy-this-is-great-get-people.html

Summer!

So I just got back from a nice weekend at the family beach house. I've always been a beach bum and I'm always a happier and more relaxed person when I'm there. An added bonus of course, is that there tend to be plenty of hot guys with an excuse to walk around with no shirt (as well as a few who should never be excused from wearing a shirt, but hey, can't win 'em all). It was a really nice weekend spent with various immediate and extended family members and on a beach that was 10-20 degrees cooler than my home just an hour and a half away.

Work continues to go pretty well. I had a decently successful week this past week and hope it continues this coming week. Grad school is just about 5-6 weeks away, which is going to creep up really quickly.

It feels like the one part of my life that just won't get it's act together like the rest...the love life. Unfortunately, I'm not seeing that turning around anytime soon, but hey, I can hope right?

I Got In!!

So it's official, I'm going to grad school. I found out over the weekend that I was accepted to the Masters program I applied to. I start in September. It's going to be a few years of hell since I will still be working and doing everything else I do, but it will be worth it.

In other news, in case anyone hasn't seen, Australian diver Matthew Mitcham, who will be in the upcoming summer Olympics has just recently come out. The great part, is that he looks like this...

The even better part is that we'll be seeing a lot of him wearing only that...

Sketchy?

So what do folks think? Is it sketchy to make introductions to someone you've never met via social networking sites, particularly those that cater to those looking to find significant others, hookups, etc.? I have communicated with a few of my readers here via AIM. For some reason, I don't find that odd. They have read all about my life, and contacting me on AIM seems a perfectly logical connection. I'm not sure why that seems so perfectly normal to me. What I'm wondering about are sites like MySpace, Gay.com, etc. If you see a guy on a site like that and you think they'd be interesting based on their profile, is it OK to contact them? I think even more than that, would you consider it a "normal" thing to do? Would it be sketchy? I suppose that if they have put this information on the site and indicate that they are looking for something in particular, ie. relationship, hookup, friends, etc. that they must be ok with hearing from people? For some reason, I've never found it something I'm terribly comfortable with. I just feel like there's such room for misrepresentation. Perhaps, for better or worse, I just don't trust people, especially folks I have not met through someone I know or that I have never met personally. For those of you now wondering, no need to go back to former posts. My AIM screen name is traumajunkie1046.

In other news, life is so busy at work and I have so much going on with my clients, that my boss has basically given me access to two of my co-workers since I haven't quite mastered being in three or four places at once. It's mostly good stuff, but man, I never pictured being this busy.

Calculating Risk...

But first a little history...
A little over two years ago I came out to my immediate (and some extended) family as well as all of my good friends. Over a period of months, I gradually came out on my campus. Overall, with very rare exception, I found folks to be extremely accepting and to be happy for me. I found a boyfriend and was in many ways living the life I had long thought was impossible.

After graduation last year, I moved back to the town I grew up in. I currently have my own apartment in that town. The big problem? I'm not out to anyone here except my family. One of the reasons for this is my volunteer work as an EMT. The police/fire/EMS community is like a frat or a football team in many ways. And to be honest, neither frats nor football teams are groups high on my list of those I'd like to have to come out to. Homophobic language is something I face on a daily basis. The word "gay" is the most frequent "insult" used by these groups.

So on to calculating risk...
One of my interests aside from actual emergency response as an EMT is emergency management and planning. I've been finding myself, for better or worse, applying principles from this field to the significantly more personal matter of coming out. One of the interesting topics in planning for disasters is that of probabilistic versus possibilistic planning. Probabilistic planning is planning for those things most statistically likely to occur. Given where I live in the northeast, preparing for thunderstorms, snow events, and hurricanes off the coast makes good sense statistically. Preparing for tornadoes and earthquakes would not. Possibilistic planning involves, to the extent that one is able, preparing in such a way that you can respond to any kind of event and realizing that relying on a handful of specific scenarios is not the safest bet. I personally advocate for using both. It makes good sense to prepare for the events most likely to occur but to have a plan that can be adapted for the things you never could have thought of or wouldn't expect.

So that's enough of that. Applying that to my current situation. I have, and continue to, toy with the idea of coming out here. The probabilistic part of my brain tells me that this will likely be OK. It went well for me at school. Most people I know will react well. The probability is that I will survive and will likely be better off for it in the future. Then the possibilistic part of my brain jumps in and starts coming up with horrible potentialities. My life could become hell as an EMT. People might stop respecting me as a lieutenant. People might verbally harass me. People could physically harass me. I might suddenly stop getting promotions or not be recommended for renewal of my current officer position. All of these things are possibilities.

So I don't know what the answer is. I do have a question for both both my gay and straight readers. Part of what scares me is that a lot of the people I associate with on a regular basis make frequent comments in which they call others gay, or fags, and any other number of things that aren't particularly pleasant for me to listen to. Do people do this out of ignorance or because they actually intend it to be mean to a certain population? I've always hated phrases like, "That's so gay" or "That's retarded." I have a hunch that these things aren't necessarily intended by most folks who use them to be anything more than expressions they've adopted. But still, I'm never quite sure. What do you folks think? If you're someone who has come out, did you have folks around you who would (or continue) to say things like that? What has your experience been?
If you're a straight individual, do you use phrases like that? What do you actually mean by them?

So for those who are interested, I think the interview went well but you never do know. I should find out this week if I'll be called back for a second one. This is a job I'd be pretty excited to have and it has some great benefits including some serious help paying for grad school so I'm keeping my fingers crossed. In the meantime, I'm continuing to look elsewhere too.

On the religion front, I again attended mass at the same Episcopal church today. The service was a nice tradtional service once again but I overall found everyone there, particularly the greeters and leadership to be too friendly. They were very in your face with insisting on knowing your name and engaging you in conversation. Right now, I'm still trying to figure out where I stand with things. I really sort of want to just sit by myself, do my own thing, and leave. When it comes to religion, I believe in meeting people where they are. I think you should let people move at their own speed. I'm sure these people had nothing but the best intentions, but it rubbed me the wrong way. Aside from that, I did once again enjoy the mass. What I really want to know, and am deciding whether to ask, is what their position is regarding blessing gay unions in the church. I know there is another Episcopal church nearby that does it, but I'm fairly confident this one does not. In light of that, I'm not sure I want to get too close to a church that wouldn't do it. It is one of the things that drove me away from the Roman Catholic church after all.

As one final note, I wrote the other day that I was listening to Jupiter from Holst's The Planets. Ironically, a day or two after that, I saw a new Reese's commerical that uses Jupiter. I have to say, that's a combination almost as good as peanut butter and chocolate.

Monday Morning

So time for updates on a few different fronts...

Job search: The interview I went on was for a position at a very underhanded company that has some serious issues in terms of how it represents employment opportunities.  I told them I had no interest in working for them.  I am currently trying to get in touch with someone for a job I just noticed advertised in my own town.  I'm not sure I want to be that close to home, but if they were interested in me, it might not be a bad place to start.

EMS: I was woken up by my pager in the middle of the night for a diabetic emergency which led to the usual refusal of transportation.  At least I only lost about an hour of sleep.

Love Life: My boyfriend currently resides in a southern state about a two day drive from me.  It sucks.  Neither of us know how long we're going to be in our current locations as I look for a job and he looks at grad schools.  While we talk every night, I had no idea just how much I'd miss some of the really simple things.  A goodnight hug or him playing with my hair while we watch a little TV really were important parts of my day when we were both at school.

Hi There!

What you need to know about me in order to read this blog.

1. I'm new to this.  I hope this will be a fun little project but please be patient as I figure things out.

2. I just graduated college with a degree in psychology (which it turns out is good for everything and nothing all at the same time).

3. I'm a volunteer Emergency Medical Technician (EMT).  Some of what I write about might only be fun or funny to others in EMS but I will try not to go overboard.  As an EMT, by default, I have a sense of humor that's a little "off."

4. I'm a half out of the closet gay guy.

5. I want to hear from people who read this and would love links to other blogs.