I Go Back

The truest lines
I've ever written
Have come to me
From those I've bitten
Moments in time
Captured in memory
An arrow shot just so
It breaks through my armory

The best you can do
Is try to find harmony
In days that seem filled
With endless monotony
Long ago I promised
To tell the truth
To lie would be unkind
To lie would be uncouth
But the truth has a way
Of reminding me
It's never that easy
To find harmony

So I go back: To the white of the paper
The black of my pen
I go back to times when I was fooled again
So I go back: To the blush of the morning
The thrill of the night
I go back to what I feel is right

The best lie
I ever told
Was that it would be easy
Just to grow old

Age has a way
of reminding you
pain can be tragic
But you've got to stay true
In another time
I was a travelling bard
But time has had it's say
and I became hard

So I go back: To the white of the paper
The black of my pen
I go back to times when I was fooled again
So I go back: To the blush of the morning
The thrill of the night
I go back to what I feel is right

Throw your papers on the fire
Watch the smoke dance on the wind
Tell me baby, can I go back again
Listen to the prophets and the lies they tell
Find solace in a stranger who releases you from your own hell

So I go back: To the white of the paper
The black of my pen
I go back to times when I was fooled again
So I go back: To the blush of the morning
The thrill of the night
I go back to try to figure out how to make it right

Not a prayer in the world could save us

Dear Natey: Ask Abby With A Queens Perspective!

1. Dear Natey,
I love my boyfriend very much, but we have NOTHING in common. He loves showtunes, has horrible taste, and is very much a home-body. I’m a rocker, have a modern taste in everything, and love going out to have a good time. I don’t want to break it off with him, but neither of us will budge on these issues, and we’re fighting a lot. What can I do?

Signed, Modern Taste

Dear Modern,
Part of a healthy relationship is give-and-take between the two of you. If he's playing Broadway music at all hours, get headphones. Perhaps you could meet him half-way on going out. Plan a dinner party and invite your friends, that way he's happy being in, and you get to have a good time with your people. I also suggest setting aside one night a week as "date night." Just the two of you, to keep that flame of love burning. There's nothing better than a romantic, special evening with just the two of you. As far as style goes, that's a very personal subjective thing. If the issue is home decor, go shopping together and find things you both appreciate. If the issue is clothing, you should be doing your best to get him out of them as often as possible.

1. Dear Natey,
My girlfriend is addicted to her smart phone. She’s constantly texting, facebooking, twittering, checking in on 4square, and it’s driving me nuts. We can’t even have a dinner together without her being on her phone for 90% of it. We even get yelled at when we go to movies. Whenever I bring it up she gets very defensive and pouts for hours, of course talking about it on twitter.

Help!, Textually Exasperated

Dear Textually,

Smart phones are the new black. Everybody has one and once they get into them, there's no turning back. How are you bringing the issue up? If she gets defensive when you bring it to her attention, maybe it's time for a new approach. I suggest asking her in a calm collected manner, "Could you please put the phone down for a while? I miss our conversation." Throw something in there about why you fell for her in the first place, and give her hands something to do other than hold her Black Berry.

If You'd like to write in to "Dear Natey" send an email to Nathan.Note@gmail.com. All questions remain confidential.

I don't miss you yet

You had my heart in your hands

and taught me all of your tricks

I grew up cool, mean, and fast

watchin' you get your kicks

didn't take me long to see my trouble

If I stick with you better order a double

You taught me all that I know

Showed me some of what I needed

I got a lot that I wanted if I wasn't conceded

Now we should get over our fight

You've had too much whiskey tonight

So I don't miss you yet

I wish I had a story of regret

Or better yet,

If I could say "I'm sorry"

and mean even one word

you don't make me feel

like time with you is real

you've got mass appeal but one-on-one

you can't seem to get it done.

So I don't miss you yet.

Unless you live it, you have no idea what it's like to be in your twenties, single, queer, and free. Many people can say you don't know what their life is like until you walk a mile in their shoes. I'm not talking about personal life experiences, and sappy emotional moments where music swells and you have your first heart break. I'm talking in the over-generalized sense of what I experience.

There's a collective conscientiousness among young gay men. Be thin, beautiful, tan and tight. Dance well, hold your liquor, never hesitate with a witty come-back, and above all else, make "it' about you. This has existed since time began; when the first neanderthal looked out over the rocky plain and saw a young man sunning himself on a boulder, He felt a quiver beneath his beaver pelt, and next thing you know the rocks are covered in cum.

Sex is everywhere in our culture. It drives our purchases, our likes and dislikes, and is the reason every gay man thinks he's fat. With us, sex is so in your face because for so long we are told what we desire is abnormal. Sleeping Beauty didn't wake up because some big burly butch Dyke kissed her and built her a deck. Though you knew they were fucking, Batman and Robin never kissed each other after they saved a life.

So our PRIDE parades have 95% naked men dancing in bubbles, and if you ever watched the L Word, you know that getting fingered at the Opera can create white the climax during the Aria.

On top of all this sexual aggression and pressure to fit into it, drugs are everywhere you look. Pot, cocaine, and crystal being the en vogue drugs of today. One can abstain from any or all of these and be fine, but there is something magical about a Rihanna Remix at 1:30 AM mixed with too much booze that tends to make one lose their inhibitions in a quick hurry. I've seen young kids be carried off of a dance floor covered in their own vomit, and no one misses a beat.

Danger is the third lady at this table. Danger and thrill are what make everything worth it. It's why you go home with the guy you just met at the bar 15 minutes ago. It's why you drink too much around sweaty people you don't know and dance so hard your legs hurt the next morning. It's walking down the street holding hands with your significant other. It's hanging a rainbow flag from your office balcony. It's getting a rainbow tattoo. Danger is the lube that makes everything slip into the place where it feels just right. Danger is the fear that you won't be able to pick up anybody at the bar, and that's why you work out ten times harder, and eat one less meal.

Sex, drugs, and danger, everything we hold dear. This is a slice of what it's like to be queer, young, and beautiful.

A Dream

my main goal is this whole non profit dorm deal: When you are cast out it's easy to feel like no one loves you. It's easy to let that pain turn into anger, let that anger boil over, consume you and lead you to make choices that aren't in your best interest. People need to know they are loved, and sometimes your parents aren't the best to raise you. sometimes it takes a village. I wanna see that village thrive, and beautiful people come out of it

I'm sick and tired of seeing HIV rates rise, Drug abuse rise, Physical abuse and suicide rise. I'm god damned tired of it.and i want to do something about it


For years it has been my dream to open a place where people who are cast out from their homes can find a new place to live. Find a place to grow up, a place to thrive and discover themselves.

Too many people in our community get pushed out of their families. When you lose the people who you thought loved you, it's easy to feel alone. When you feel alone it's easy to find comfort it all the wrong places. Often that lonely feeling breeds anger, which manifests into making decisions that aren't in your best interest. we've all been there, we've all done it.

I want there to be a place where kids can get through school, learn who they are, and become prepared young adults in the process.

It's just a dream

12.27.09, early

I've demolished the idea of having a sleeping pattern. Some days I'm lucky to grab a few hours. Others, like today, I sleep 16 hours straight, without stirring once. Either I have a disorder, or I'm incredibly lazy. Naturally, I'd like to blame a disorder.

Schloemer xmas tomorrow in Geneva, starts at noon. As of now, It's still snowing, and the roads were quite slippery tonight when I came home. Hopefully I wont end up in a ditch with my family.

I've had my new laptop for three days and I have Ten days worth of music on it. I wasn't able to download my old iTunes purchases. Which irritates me, being as i bought them. Dear iTunes, you suck. Revise your policy.

I passed my Med Aide class. Need to complete a few more clinical hours and then I'll be done and certified. It remains a nice promotion.

The apartment is a horrendous mess. I'm going to force myself to clean here soon, probably. Maybe.

It's impossible for me to string together a coherent thought longer than two or three sentences, so I'll stop now. Folding laundry and working on kicking this cold's ass. Hopefully to Iowa City soon. Need a recharge.

Sex, Love, and Fucking

Sex isn't just sweat and an exchange of fluids. Sex can mean so much more, or sensationally, so much less.

Sex can mean hello. Fiercely fast and unemotional. Dripping with curiosity and the fervor of discovery.
Sex can mean goodbye. One last shot at holding on to ten years of devotion. Silence breaking in where screams once stood. Ten thousand paper cuts bleeding out painfully.
Sex can mean I love you. A tooth paste kiss leading to me mounting you on the sink. Your head banging against the mirror, legs wrapped around Me. Hungrily clinging to one another in mad passion that only thought can describe. Your arms needing to hold Me, while my lips must melt into yours.
Sex can mean red hot critical mass. Up like a redwood lasting for hours. Coming once, twice, then three times until you collapse, thoroughly spent and tired. Falling asleep with him still inside you.
Sex can be inappropriate. Vigorous fear of being found out. Knowing what feels right is wrong. If only for the moment, letting yourself go with tactile abandon with the rush of hormonal adrenaline. Forgetting that you are fucking yourself rather than truck number ten thousand.
Sex can remind you that you're alive. When hands flush and tingle. Fingertips igniting sparks on skin that erupt into uncontrollable flames.a forest fire as hot as hell telling you that today is all there is. That this world is too much to worry about how you're surviving in it.
Sex can be a declaration. Announcing to yourself and the great wide universe that you'll do whatever the fuck you want, when you want to do it. Forget 'em if they can't handle our kind. Leaving the deniers behind to forge a brave new existence.
Sex can be a dire contradiction. Grinding unabashedly on one thinking of another. The question of who you came across the one in your bed or the one in your head. Haunting you stiffly.