1. I am not afraid of turning 40
2. I am not really excited about it, either.

I’m dismayed that it’s just going to come and go like 26 to 30 then 31 through 39. It’s just another year. But everyone seems to make such a big deal about turning  40 now. Like I have to do something or go somewhere that is big and over-the-top. Have a mid-life crisis or start over in my life.

The main reason I am not feeling it is because coming off of Christmas this year I feel really burnt. This year we had the biggest and best decorated house in all the years that we have been decorating. But just like those tired Christmas specials spout off about, we were so busy doing Christmas that we forgot to enjoy the season.

Now my 40th is coming at me at 100 miles an hour and I am out of money and out of steam. Not sure what to do with myself.  Ugh.

So, this may be the last post for a very long time. It’s been great and you can always catch up with me on Facebook

I wave goodbye to Bruno and the teachers and head back to the car. And there she was. The meter maid in her little car parked next to mine. Shit. It was street cleaning this morning. I had left my hazard lights on (as I always do when I drop Bruno off) but that wasn’t going to cut it this morning. As I walked to the car I said, “Sorry! Just dropping my kid off at school…” and as I trail off I look down and there’s the ticket tucked in the hood on the driver’s side. I sigh and say “Oh well.”

As I pick up the ticket the meter maid says, “Give me that back. ” I give her the ticket she throws it into her little golf cart as she jumps in the driver seat and buzzes off into the next block. Now, I am totally grateful to her for taking it back but she just killed the myth of “the ticket is already written so I can’t take it back.”

Work has been a busy, beautiful nightmare. Not that I am complaining – I am glad to still have a job. But really – do all the computers have to stop working and the network goes down and now I am handing out candles and big long feather quills and rolled up parchment so people can have something to staple to their TSP reports? Remember way back then when I would blog all day long at my other job? This is not that job. No time. Must be back down the rabbit hole by 8:15. There are too many jpgs on the motherboard.

I am really proud of myself for completing ten weeks of gym workouts. That is four days of workouts per week. FOR TEN WEEKS! I am feeling pretty rad. I actually took the week off and start a whole new ten week routine tomorrow. The last ten weeks were my muscle building workouts. This ten week stint is my lean and tone workouts. Like I said before and have been now quoted by friends, “I want to be so thin that people worry about me.” Thanks, Mom!

Bruno is growing like a weed and is really a comedian. His latest catch phrase?

“You gotta be kidding me…”

He says it at the most appropriate times, too. Like yesterday we were playing Mario Kart on the Wii (via the HDD I installed – yes I am THAT NERDY) and as the track loaded the in-game camera gives you a little aerial view of the racetrack. He saw the big barrel that shoots you out towards a giant volcano and then he said it .

“You gotta be kidding me…”

He’s three and a chip off the old block.

bruno loves shrimp.

go figure.

Head over to our Flicker site to see them all!

I was filing through some older posts and noticed how the act of blogging has changed. I mean, back in the day, what was up with posts that said, “look at this” with a link? That’s it – nothing more. And what sucks more is that enough time has gone by that those links are now dead. What the hell did I want you to look at? I need to know!

Then there was the posts with the theme, “I’m not trying to brag but I think you need to see that I was mentioned on someone else’s blog…” Hello, insecure much? I mean I am all for cross-linking and getting hits when your blog is young but c’mon already. That also goes for the posts that had “so-and-so though I was cute.”

I think the worst offense was the “here’s some pictures of me and oops – no shirt/pants – tee-hee”. Lordy – you guys cannot imagine how hard it was for me to put up those pictures of me before and after a few posts back, but back then I couldn’t wait to see myself in digital! I mean hell, one iteration of the design was a huge ass picture of me along the side. What was I thinking back then?

I guess it really goes to show that the early stages of blogging is really all about LOOK AT ME! I’m really not putting it down, though. It’s just funny to see the trajectory. But over the years the posts changed. I started writing a bit more about stuff that was really happening in my life. This blog has chronicled my two marriages, my HIV status, my many lovers (which led to the aforementioned HIV status), my breakdown with with my parents, my sister’s drug addiction, her recovery and then her transformation into my brother. You people were the first to hear about our adoption process and some of you were the first people we told about Bruno. I’ve met many of my readers in real life and made some great friendships. There were trips to Burning Man, vacations and parties. The podcasts, videocasts and music downloads. There were even times where I got to show off some of my writing chops with comedy. I’ve tried to put some of that under the category “best of v-hold” so read up if you want.

I guess what I am trying to finish up here is that I really appreciate having the blog and I really appreciate all the readers out there who have stuck it out. There were definitely times that I wanted to just close the site down, mostly due to laziness but I am glad I kept it up. So, thanks to all of you and here’s  a toast to another eight years! VIVA LA V-HOLD!

p.s. My mother wasn’t really a belly dancer. Sorry.

Last night I got into the beta for 1 vs 100 on Xbox Live. The object of the game is that there is The One and The Mob vying for prizes. A host asks a question and everyone answers. If the One gets the correct answer they get to move on to the next question. The Mob also answers the question and all the people who get the wrong answer are dropped from the Mob. The end result is the One hoping to dismiss all the Mob and the Mob is working towards splitting the kitty built up if the One answers a question incorrectly. The twist on the Xbox version is that if you aren’t the One or in the Mob you get to play in the Crowd. By how well you play in the Crowd gets you chosen for the next round to be the One or the Mob.

I played the whole session in the Crowd which was still such a fun and exciting experience. The Crowd is split up into groups of four so you are playing against real people and you can even have local multiplayer. The answering of questions is timed so there’s no way to cheat and search Google for an answer. The show is live so there’s a real announcer and real questions being created during the game. The questions are very current event and pop culture in nature. I did really well in some rounds sometimes only being 100 points away from the leader – so I think I may have been close to getting chosen as the One or the Mob. Or maybe not – but it really feels like you have a chance.  They weren’t giving out prizes since it was the beta, but when the game actually goes gold you’ll get the chance to win virtual prizes like games, MS points (to use for game, music and video purchases) and real prizes like cars. If you like game shows and ever wanted to feel like you were on one this is the game to join!

Next up, a remote control.

We have one of those Harmony Remote controls for our TV, and we loved it. But lately the buttons have been sticking and certain button design got more and more bothersome as time went by (like the FFwd and Skip buttons). Now the volume button is pretty jammed so we decided to buy a new remote. This time we went with the Harmony One and WOW – they really listened to the complaints on the 880 and fixed them. It’s a beauty of a remote with a touchscreen on the top and hard buttons for the things you need buttons for. Paired with the Harmony adapter for the PS3 – we finally have just one remote! The PS3 uses Bluetooth and this adapter lets Harmony remotes use IR to the control the Playstation 3 after converting the signal to Bluetooth. Very slick.

So, just two things for now. Any readers out there who are gamers or gadget buffs – let me know and we can talk tech!

I went to the show with pretty low expectations. Nothing against Monty Python (I love them!) or the modern musical adaptation of a movie… I just felt it was going to be cheap laughs with some songs thrown together. I guess having shot so low I was pleasantly surprised that the show was really funny and actually had some really great music, too! King Arthur was played by John O’Hurley a.k.a J. Peterman from Seinfeld and Merle Dandridge from countless Broadway productions and NERD ALERT the voice of Alyx Vance in the Half Life 2 video game. They both had fantastic voices, along with the rest of the cast. It was a great show and I’d highly recommend it!

After the show we got tickets to the cast after-party which was also a lot of fun. John and I kept each other in stitches but soon realized that we are both quite introverted at parties.  We have a tough time just walking up to strangers and saying hello but have no problem being complete fools if we are acting.That is something we plan to work on the next time we go out.

Fortunately we were introduced to some people through Sean Ray including a guy with whom we had a tough time understanding his name. The music was loud and he spoke softly with a thick accent so for the rest of the night we were convinced his name was Fudgy Icicle. He was very handsome but what mother in their right mind would name their son Fudgy? Later when we were talking with Sean and mentioning how we enjoyed Fudgy’s conversation we were then corrected that his name was Photis, like Photo with IS at the end. How the hell we got Fudgy Icicle out of that I’ll never know. Sean immediately ran over to the guy and told him of our mistake. Yes, we are idiots.

The hordouvers were quite good and the free booze was even better. We got to say hello to some of the stars of the show and some of the stars from Wicked, which is also playing now in the city. My biggest regret of the night was not being able to get a proper photo taken with Eric Idle – an original cast member of Monty Python- who was also at the party! We got home after midnight. I needed a night out and I think that was perfect.

I think my legs got bigger for sure, and the bulge in the belly is almost gone. I guess I’ll have another updated photo in a month or two.

Ludin said, “He is working”
Oliver said, “He is making a new bathroom”
Wendy said, “Flush the toilet”

and what did Bruno have to say?

“He’s hurting the blood”

HURTING THE BLOOD?!

The teacher told me, “I chose not to pursue it with him.”

I think my son is a genius.

Through Facebook I was also able to get in touch with two old girlfriends. Jessie was my girlfriend (as in “let’s make-out”) back in college and Hope was my girlfriend (as in “let’s do each others hair”) back when I first came out. It’s been great catching up with them both and it feels really good having some female energy back in my life. I hate to say it but I have zero girls as friends here in San Francisco. I mean, I have family (blood or married into) who are girls but no casual friends that are women.

Our bathroom remodel is about two days left until completion. We kind of screwed things up because the bathrooms were almost completely done and then I found all this new lighting I wanted installed. Tearing down the old lights and then having the electrician run new wiring pretty much ruined a lot of the new painting. So Jamie had to re-plaster all the old holes and repaint. But like I said, it should be done by Thursday and I’ll have some pictures to post. Fortunately I took some before pictures so you will see what a big transformation it is.

Bruno has been his hilarious self. Every day he shows some new comedic thing he learned in school. Since getting the medical kit for his birthday his big thing now is pretending he’s been in an accident. I’ll be walking down the hallway and peek into his room and there he is, lying face-down in front of his race car bed, moaning.  I’ll rush in with the doctor kit and ask him, “What happened?”

“The car ran me over – ugh…” and then he falls limp.

I work on him with the toy tools and wrap him up like he’s broke his legs and he thinks it’s hilarious. Then Tony and I have to pass him to each other pretending that we are so heartbroken that he got hurt. We have to hug him and kiss him until he says that he’s “all better now”. It’s great to see his imagination running wild like that.