I had a lot of sex when I was in my 20s. I did it without thinking much about the consequences. I told myself that sex was about letting go, and that thinking about practical matters (e.g., whether I spent too much time looking for sex) only detracted from the full enjoyment of the sex itself. With that technique, I avoided carefully considering what I was doing.
There were several things about my approach to sex in my mid-20s that I wasn't fully aware of at the time. If, after sex, someone asked how old I was, I asked them to guess my age before I told them. I looked younger than I was, I knew I looked younger, but I got a charge out of having people tell me so.
It's human to enjoy compliments; that's not inherently bad. What I didn't realize at the time was how much I cared about what other people thought about me. I didn't realize how dependent I was on it.
I'm not saying it's my goal to not care what other people think of me. I'm only saying that I prefer to be conscious and deliberate about it--to be aware of what I'm doing, to keep things in perspective, and thereby to keep things in balance.
I'm staying at my father's house this month. He's 92 and looks like he's in his 70s. All the time, people he meets say they can't believe he's 92. My dad loves hearing that, and I think that's fine.
Saturday 04.22.06
If, hypothetically speaking, you have a 2.5" diameter aluminum tube used in a musical instrument, and you want to install a thin cylinder of plastic in it near one end as a plug, and if you want the plug to fit tightly, how do you do this. Assume you've got plastic that can be turned on a lathe, and that you can machine it to any diameter you want. If the plug is small enough in diameter that it can just be slid into the open end of the tube, the fit probably isn't tight enough once it's in. How do you install a plug that will fit tighter than that? (The answer is below.)
Meanwhile, I just want to say that New York males have a characteristic look, a kind of unadorned masculinity that I think is hot. It's as if there's something in the water that makes them grow this way. Maybe I'm just irreversibly imprinted from having grown up here, but I think even an impartial observer would see the appeal.
Walking as an adult on the streets I'd grown up on, I wonder what the place is like for kids now. This (suburban Long Island town) was not a gay-friendly place when I was growing up; I wasn't out to my friends as a teenager (perhaps not the better choice, but just about no one my age was out at the time here). I wonder how the kids here now feel about homosexuality, whether more of them are out, and how well their friends accept them.
The way to get a tight-fitting plug into a tube is to first chill the plug in the freezer and to heat the tube.
Tuesday 04.11.06
I'm at my dad's house in New York for about a month to work on building a you-know-what. I bought some materials today and have already started the process of generating lots of sawdust and aluminum filings. I do woodworking (and for this project, metalworking) here not just because my dad has tons of tools, but because he has cool tools. Lots of his power tools are 50 or so years old, and some of the hand tools are older still (coming from his grandfather). They just don't make 'em like they used to. It would be nice to in turn pass the tools down to my own progeny some day, but that isn't in the cards.
My dad's 92 and still with it. That rocks.
Can I say that using a lathe is just fun? It feels like sculpting. Lathes are also cool by dint of being different; with a lathe, the wood moves fast and you hold the cutting tools--as opposed to most power tools that move the cutting tools fast. (Yes, I'm a geek and get off on technology in general.)
I bought a bunch of tubing at an aluminum supply house today. The floor of their warehouse/shop glistens with tons of embedded aluminum filings. The soles of their employees' shoes probably glisten as well. Gotta love a business that posts not one, but two signs in their office saying "all counter orders subject to a minimum wait of one half hour". It almost sounds like a service guarantee; is your order free if it's ready in less than 30 minutes? In any case, I got my tubing order filled in almost exactly a half hour, and at about half the price that onlinemetals.com wanted.
The aluminum foray was preceded by a lumber foray. A lumberyard dude gave me a price that was, as he said, "without the discount". I asked who I had to be to get a discount; he said "just for being you" and gave me a discounted price. Just imagine how much better I could've done if I were young and beautiful.
Which reminds me. When making an announcement welcoming passengers on my flight here yesterday, a JetBlue attendant said "you all look fabulous".
Thursday 04.06.06
Sorry I haven't written more. I've been occupied with designing the marimba I'll be making this month. Lots of details to get right before any wood or metal is cut.
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