T Town Tommy

And The Beat Goes On

I find myself back in East Texas this week taking care of my ailing Father and arranging for his long-term care. I expect I will be spending some time down here and unfortunately right now blogging is furthest from my mind as his condition worsens. For those of you that are still readers of T Town Tommy you may have noticed that my posts have been spotty at best and quite a few of you have even dropped me from your blog rolls, this is to be expected. I told myself I would never be a downer on this site; I want T Town Tommy to be equally fun, cool and insightful. I love to share my personal passions about life. However, I find myself at a place in life where family is taking an increased precedence of my time and energy.

I do not really want to go on about the death process and the requirements of the family. I do not want to dwell on friends I love dearly deeply wounding me and anger I feel about the ugly side of the gay rights movement in Tulsa. All of the things I have been experiencing since my return from Seattle and Canada and it has killed my creativity and passion to write anything of value for you dear reader.

However, after almost two years of effort towards this project and the wonderful response I have received worldwide I feel like an explanation is in order as to my absence and forced effort as of late.

In the post Becoming My Parent's Parent I shared with all of you what I was going through with my Father and our history together. The feedback in both private emails and posted comments truly gave me much to consider when making the life-changing decision of taking on the task of caring for an ailing parent. I decided it best not to take my Father away from his friends, church and our family roots going back to the early 19th century in Texas.

Like most people in my situation, I am wrestling with Medicare, insurance companies, banks, doctors, lawyers, accountants, family, ad naseum. I feel like I am juggling twenty things at once but keeping my Father comfortable in familiar surrounding while his care is met is worth all the effort. He is not doing well and the doctors say his outlook is grim with no course of treatment. When I first saw him after his recovery from surgery in the physical rehab unit, he was a mere husk of the man I knew as my Father weighing in at only 145 pounds, very different from his normal robust self. I was shocked and physically shaken once I got back to the parking lot that first night. Since then he has had numerous strokes and is still sliding down hill.

During my short time spent in Tulsa, I have also experienced some disappointment in my dealings with some of the "leaders" of the gay rights movement and the community in Oklahoma. Like any movement, some people have pure intentions while others are stroking their ego. I will not go into it now but hopefully generations Y, Z and Next will drop the attitude and pack mentality carried over by the gay Boomers and X generations in Tulsa. To add to the drama, a person who I thought was a friend and I am emotionally attached to also deeply wound me with his recent actions sending me into a funk on top of everything else going on. That sucks when it happens in our lives but the timing could not be any worse for me right now.

So here, I sit in East Texas with all this on my head and right now, nothing else can fit in it. I feel like Bill the Cat in Wranglers and boots. Therefore, I have decided to take a hiatus dear reader from blogging. T Town Tommy will stay online during my absence as I plan to return to writing some time this summer. Will I cover the Tulsa Gay Rights movement the same as in the past, doubtful, until some things radically change. However I have my faith that I will come back home to Tulsa a better person for taking care of my Father's health and will continue sharing that gay people and straight people are not so different after all in comparision to what the popular media want us to believe. Right now I am not sure what direction this site will take in the future but I promise to keep it interesting. So to you all, take care and God bless till next time.

::Signing Out::

Time to Ramble On

Photo by Jack C. High

It's been a great break from the real world but I'm back in Oklahoma after a whirl wind ten days in Seattle and Vancouver B.C. Time to ramble on back with the business of living now. My travel back took about two hours longer than it was suppose to but customs had to clear the plane coming from Dallas to Tulsa before I was allowed to come home in a nasty thunderstorm. Turns out spring break started a bit sooner for some travelers going to Cancun Mexico and they trashed the 757 airplane coming back to Texas. The flight made for a bumpy ride and a few green faces but I was more than happy to be back in my own bed. I want to thank my host during my stay up north, Allen, Nicola, little S and little V.

I did a few things I couldn't manage to squeeze into my post such as attend a charity auction for a local Washington youth group, touring Paul Allen's Science Fiction Museum, and browsing the shops and street vendors in downtown Seattle. I suppose I truly am a creature of the big city still and feel more at home blending into the masses on the city streets going about their business of the day. Seattle is a great city for fish and chips from some old school cooks, yet another thing you can't get fresh living in the middle of the country.

I will be writing more about Representative Kern and the fallout from her hateful bigoted diatribe later today but I wanted to let everyone know that I am back at the helm for what is sure to be a drawn out fight to get her removed from office, despite the praises heaped on her by Oklahoma Republicans.

Until then enjoy your Sunday everyone!

Off Again to the Great Northwest

Valentine's Day is finally behind me and my staff at the flower shop for another year and now is the best time for me to escape Oklahoma for a bit before the start of spring weddings. As usual I am making my annual pilgrimage to Seattle, Washington and northwest Canada starting tomorrow. I will be flying out of Tulsa at 6:00 a.m. and hopefully there will be no delays with SNOW. Yes snow, I was wearing shorts this weekend with weather flirting around springtime temps and now we have a 90% possibly of snow tonight and Tuesday morning. At least in Seattle I know what to expect, rain, rain and more rain however the outlook is good for a few sunny days during my visit.

As always I will be taking lots of photos during my stay and on the agenda this trip is hiking  on Orcas island off the Washington coast and a road trip from Seattle to Vancouver B.C. for some sightseeing. I know my postings where a little light nonexistent last week but trying to get everything caught up so I can leave have taken up much of my time. 

T Town Tommy will be back to a normal schedule upon my return on March 14^th. Till then stay tuned for some amazing photos and my ad hoc travel journal on what will most likely be my only trip out of Oklahoma/Texas this spring and summer. Let the adventure begin…

Becoming My Parent’s Parent

Ok so that's not my parents, in reality the Cleavers where nowhere close to resembling anyone's family. Studies have suggested that almost 85% of all families can be considered dysfunctional in some way. A far cry from the homogonous sappy life on "Leave it to Beaver". I guess one takes some comfort in knowing you're not alone in having a fucked up family. It's up to us once we become adults how we deal with our parents and mold the next generation. Hopefully it's in a healthier manner. Whether we accept the mistakes, character flaws and sometimes horrible decisions our parents made from an adult perspective or harbor resentments in many ways defines who we are today, whether we want to admit it or not.

I left home in Texas shortly after my Mother passed away from cancer when I was 15 years old. My father was never well equipped to be a parent so I was given a choice of going to an orphanage or going to live with my Grandparents in Oklahoma and support myself. I harbored a lot of hurt and resentment over the years of having my family scattered and being forced to become an adult over night at such a young age. I saw my Father only once in the following decade, during an awards ceremony where I was getting a medal and he could be a proud parent.

However a lot changed in my mid 20's and I came to see my Father as a person flaws and all and not an authority figure. My friends and cousins where all having children and becoming parents and for a change I was one of the authority figures. Now enough years have passed that my Father's health has taken a turn for the worse. Decades of chain smoking, a poor diet, lack of exercise and bad health choices have left him almost bed ridden at age 70. He had his appendix burst at home and underwent emergency surgery about six weeks ago. It's a medical miracle he survived and after a two week stay in the hospital he was moved to a nursing home for physical therapy. However he cannot walk more than 100 feet before he tires and must rest.

Most of his family lives in East Texas and he is in good hands but this week he has asked to come to Oklahoma to live with my partner and me and have physical therapy in the home. I work from home so I am there most of the day and he knows this after several visits. Members of my family have taken over various roles in his life from carrying for his place, to paying his bills, doctor's appointments and moral support. I would be taking on all of these roles and basically becoming my parent's parent. I find myself on the fence if I want him up here or not and I don't think it's for selfish reasons.

My partner and I cared for my Grandmother till she passed away about three years ago at age 85. It was a real challenge for the both of us. While we gained many rewards from having my Grandmother in our lives having to put those lives on hold for everyday care was a large burden. Am I just being fucked up and in the 85% again for not wanting to have to care for my Father now or just being realistic on what I want for myself and my partner? Medical science has done a good job of rushing ahead to treat the bad health decisions of our parents and extend their lives. However medicine has lagged behind at extending their quality of life. This leaves millions of families in the same situation I am in now. For right now I am tabling such a huge decision until I get through the busiest time of year for my shop. Next week I am planning a trip back to Texas and see what is happening and visit with family.

What have been your experiences? Between now and then let me hear from you and get your input.

A Random Post for Tuesday Night

Our lives are filled with randomness and one of the challenges of daily modern life is being able to process it all and move forward in some semblance of sanity. Today for example I woke up still sore from my massage therapist stopping by last night and going after the knots in my shoulders while we watched television. After this move waking up sore every morning is starting to become routine. The sound of huge mechanical tree chippers, bulldozers, cranes and that annoying beeping noise when they all backup at random is also becoming routine at sometimes 6:00 am seven days a week. Tulsa is still getting rid of all the tree limbs that fell during the ice storm. Huge parks have turned into dumps for limbs and mountains of mulch are being created. The crappy thing is the biggest make shift mulch factory is right behind my house.

The flower shop was dead today, which is a good thing in a way as we are still getting everything setup and functional. It seems like the calm before the storm hits with Valentine's Day fast approaching. So I decided to get my personal office setup and sort through a pile of papers a foot high on my desk, return and make calls and get my Quicken accounts up to date.

Unfortunately I also got pissed at one of my friends who never returns voicemail and rarely emails. When I really need help he goes MIA on me. I am sure we will work it out I just feel disrespected and ignored and I have reached an age where I don't need to take being treated that way by anyone.

I know it was just bitter cold outside today with a high barely above freezing so I opted to stay inside till almost 4:00 pm. I finally bundled up and zipped down Riverside Drive to pick up a friend then we where off to Brandon's Auction in East Tulsa.

Auctions have been a past time of mine for about six months now. I have always loved making and sealing deals and bidding against people face to face is good sport for me. I also love antiques and finding cool and unusual stuff sometimes having to ask "what is it?" from the auctioneers in viewings before the auction starts. Today we found some cool items but it was an estate sale and with all the little items like coins and jewelry as well as large pieces that can't be easily shipped we decided to skip sitting through 6 hours of bidding to get to items that possibly interested us. In total Brandon's Auction had over 570 items up for auction tonight.

My friend however had to pick up a large mirror, small cabinet, a framed picture and an area rug; all in the back of my new baby SUV. He rode with his butt in the windshield holding the mirror from 11^th Street and 128^th East Ave. all the way to Cheyenne and 15^th Street in downtown Tulsa. I wasn't expecting that when I woke up this morning, but he does have a nice ass.

I got home from the auction preview and my partner had found a 20' X 10' Persian rug for the new house. Our entire house is tile except for the bedrooms. Having all tile floors is ideal for having two labs but very cold in the winter so with the cold snap rugs have become high on the priority list. Billy bought it off a friend who got it from a friend who got it from God knows where for $350.00 and it is works perfect in the living room. So check that off of my to-do list.

Finally I get word that actor Heath Ledger has died at age 28. Ledger was Oscar nominated in 2006 for his role in Brokeback Mountain. Current reports are ruling his death an accidental overdose and that he was suffering from pneumonia at the time of his death. He was a great actor and a very handsome man to watch on the screen. His talent lost at such a young age.

Today was complete randomness how we deal with it is what keeps psychiatrist in business. If you had told me this morning that I would stay inside and do paperwork and office stuff all day, get pissed at a friend, ditch tonight's auction, have another friend's butt in the windshield all the way across Tulsa, rearrange all the furniture for a huge rug and end it with news of Ledger's death I would not have believed you. On second thought perhaps I would, who knows what tomorrow holds.

Moving, Money and Feeding the Beast

Hope everyone had a safe and fun New Year and not too terrible of a headache the next day. The week seems to be grinding away. We have been hip deep in moving and getting our new house ready. My new landlord agreed to not charge a deposit if we cleaned the place up and painted. I didn't realize a pool service was so expensive! Movers are coming next week and I will be setting up shop off of Riverside Drive in Mid-Town Tulsa by next Thursday.

Working from home of course compounds the headache of any move. Regrettably a kink has to be tossed into the works when Cox Communications told us today that it would be a two week wait to get our business phone lines and internet transferred to our new address. So I believe their going to lose a nice account with the bundled services I currently have with their company. To be honest for a communications company to have that kind of disregard for a business customer is unacceptable and more than likely everything including cell phones, internet, toll free, phone and fax lines will be going over to AT&T. Hopefully I will save a little money and at worse break even with the switch and not get my teeth kicked in with charges, fees and taxes.

Finally I want to share that Sam's Club is now offering credit card merchant services for small business members and for a small fee non-members. I have been a member of Sam's Club with mixed feelings for going on 20 years. I know I am feeding the Wal-Mart beast that has dried up so many small town squares and home town main streets. However my businesses from college until today have relied on their bulk supplies and recently their gasoline, which is usually 2-3 cents cheaper than anyone else in town, for our day to day operations. And now Sam's Club is offering credit card and internet merchant processing. I am sure my business very soon will be leveraging the low rates and customer oriented services for our home floral shop and internet business. I am all about saving money and granting more options for my customers to pay me for my services and time. If you run a small business and are burdened with the ridiculous fees and rates your merchant service provider is offering, Sam's Club is worth checking out.

The After Christmas Wrap Up

Christmas 2007 has come and went, all the gifts are unwrapped, holiday treats all eaten and out of view and stress levels slowly coming back to manageable. Billy and I spent the better part of last week getting out last minute gifts, standing in lines, making personal appearances and trying to share as much holiday cheer with friends and family as possible. The rest of this week was the holiday hangover cringing at the thought of going in one more department store.

I decided to break down and get myself a big gift this year and bought a 2007 Saturn Vue SUV. I haven't bought a vehicle for myself in over 10 years and my 1986 BMW while fun to drive still, doesn't offer the creature comforts I desire while navigating traffic. I went for bust and picked a fully loaded black SUV with leather interior, On Star and the larger V-6 engine. With the larger engine I still get around 20 miles per gallon in the city and not sure about the highway but GM claims it gets 22 mpg on the open road. If anyone wants to buy a nice 22 year old red BMW with new paint drop me an email.

My partner and I decided for 2008 we are going to scale down and reorganize our lives. What does that mean for us? It means scaling back to a smaller house with half the mortgage and almost half the utilities. I say almost because while the new house is a one story we now have a pool in the back yard to care for year around. Pictures coming this summer of us and our friends pool side! Lowe's of all places has a really good web site for pool care and general maintenance to easily save money by doing stuff yourself.

We also are getting one credit card to pay all of our monthly household expenses. At the end of the month we divide everything and pay our amount out of separate accounts and hopefully find a card with airline miles or some type of compensation for our monthly utilities and expenses. Working on detangling ten years worth of intertwined finances have left us both wondering who is paying what monthly and where some of our money goes. We both have savings plans and have already found more to invest but that's not enough when you work with and run a business with a spouse/significant other regardless of the particular situation. So we are now tracking everything personal with Quicken Home and Business with each of us responsible for our own bank accounts and budgeting on our own computers.

As for the blog in 08' it's getting streamlined too. Soon you will be seeing some changes reflecting content on my site and a new more content rich layout. A new color scheme will also be decided on probably with my readers input. Both gay and current news event stories will be posted somewhere on a larger side bar. It will be stories I would love to comment about but don't have the time for the research and writing. I also plan on offering some video soon. I have been researching some video publishing tools and am open to suggestions for some cheap tools for video podcast or internet players that play well with Typepad.

While I love each and every site I have listed in my blog roll over the last couple of years it has gotten a bit too long. So reluctantly I will be only listing blogs that are willing to do a link swap or has been cool enough to link to me already and non-profit organizations for the LGBT community. If you're a blogger and want to be in my blog roll and don't have a link to me set one up and I will happily link back regardless of political content as some conservative bloggers and I have already demonstrated.

I now have three months worth of hospital visits and surgeries behind me, our natural disaster is being cleaned up and very soon the house move and everything it entails will be done. I can soon get back to some kind of normal, simpler, and cheaper lifestyle. I still have some physical therapy coming up soon to get my abs and cardio back to where things where before this medical ordeal started. However with a pool to hang out by now I have extra incentive to work hard with rehab.

For me chaos is not conducive to my creativity, it merely hinders its flow. I know many creative people who thrive on chaos or thrive regardless of any of the stresses of modern day life. However I suppose I am not wired that way. My site has kind of shown that these last few months but it could not really be avoided. I suppose for a New Year's resolution to add to the one shared with my partner it would be once this more desirable lifestyle gets rolling not to waste it.

2008 looks like it's going to be a fun ride with the Presidential election coming up, a Congress everyone hates, Pakistan coming unglued after Benazir Bhutto got herself killed. All the while George W. Bush and Condi Rice are manning the helm …alone, heading straight towards the sun. The truth will always be stranger than fiction and blogs will be here to tell about it.

Welcome to Camp Thomas

Welcome to Camp Thomas coming to you via generator power and some odd miracle that our internet came back on Thursday. For those of you who don't watch the news Oklahomans were directly hit with what was basically an ice bomb. The three big cities in the state where covered in up to 1.5" of clear ice last weekend and massive power outages occurred as trees some almost a century old split and came crashing down under the added weight of thousands of pounds of ice. Homes, cars, power lines, all were smashed under a solid day of falling trees and high voltage lines.

We have been without power going on day six in Tulsa. After the initial blast of the ice storm and resulting devastation I walked around my home shortly after midnight and surprisingly it was eerily still and quiet no dogs barking, no traffic noise, just the sound of crashing limbs ever so often accompanied by a light show and the sound of maniacal Tesla coils as the high voltage lines and transformers had their guts pulled out or smashed. A misty frozen still air added to the Tim Burton dream like landscape of a smashed, dark and crystal covered city with wild shaped snapped and mangled trees silhouetted in all directions. Our city landscape will be changed for the next 20 years as a result of the devastation and deforestation. On the up side fire wood is going to be dirt cheap when the cleanup is over and lots of generators are going to be found in garage sales next summer.

Of course I had to plan for all of this to happen right after a five day stay at a local hospital completing the last step in my recovery from diverticulitis and possible colon cancer. This last visit wraps up a twenty one day total stay in the hospital over the past three months with recovery time between each visit. I am pleased to say that no cancer was found and after leaving the hospital, 8" of my lower intestine lighter, I am on the path to a full recovery. I will make some alterations to my diet and my exercise regiment with more swimming and cardio instead of just strength training and working around the shop. It will be several weeks before I am cleared in lift over 10 lbs although due to the ice crisis and setting up Camp Thomas for what can possibly be another 48-72 hours of no power I have been lifting 5 gallon gas cans feeding the lifeline keeping our place warm and lit.

After six days of solid work by AEP and rural electrical companies I can report that fewer than 100,000 Tulsa homes are still without power. Over 6,000 workers came from several states to get the power restored and limbs cleared out just for the Tulsa area alone. Brad Henry, our governor will be asking President Bush for another federal disaster declaration for this latest massive hit to Oklahoma, if approved our state will have the honor of the most disaster declarations in a year for any state in US history. Unfortunately the electrical workers and tree trimmers will have to contend with a second wave of winter hitting now. We are having freezing rain and will have anywhere from 1-4" of snow by Sunday. I like many people am having cabin fever bad and despite my condition have been getting out as much as possible during the day. Although none will be conceived at my place, I know that a lot of babies are going to be born around September in Oklahoma, Kansas and Missouri. Bundle up and stay warm however you can readers.

Third Time is a Charm

Hey everyone, hope you have been enjoying the posts and was able to get active somehow in World AIDS Day events last weekend. Just as the disease effects millions overseas it also impacts our own neighborhoods and our very own personal lives.

On my own personal health home front tomorrow I go in for the third and final round of my treatment for diverticulitis. I will be going under the knife tomorrow early afternoon and having 8" of my lower intestine removed. I am dreading the liquid and transitional diet I will be on more than the surgery itself. The only thing worse than airline food ... is hospital food.

Chef Gordon Ramsey would pass out then wake up cursing if he saw the shit I was served during my last two week long stays in the hospital. I don't expect anything different from the hospital "cooks" this go around. So while you are chomping down on that wonderful juicy dinner tomorrow night think of me with my Jell-o and broth diet watching commercials for food on television.

Peace out my readers and fellow bloggers I will be back to normal blogging once my mind clears from the pain medications and the keys stop jumping around the keyboard. Until then keep the faith!

Can’t Keep a Good Man Down

I'm back everyone! You can't keep a good man down or if you listen to my partner, a Big Mary.  The last two weeks have been terrible for me but interesting in a gross scientific way. As I explained in an earlier post I had a CT scan done and went into the hospital again for six days on October 9th. I had part one of a two part surgery for diverticulitis this past week after a weeklong stay in the hospital last month just treating the internal infections on the bad area and bed rest. I had damaged a section of my lower intestine by gaining 240 lbs, after working 60 hours a week for years running a business and eating junk for every meal.

I switched over a year ago to a very healthy high fiber diet but not with enough water and lost almost 50lbs. When I decided to change the way I ate and started exercising more the damage I had done from being overweight became painfully apparent. Over those years working constantly the damaged intestinal section had developed little blown out cyst pockets on the outside wall that was attaching to the back of my bladder and other parts of my entire lower intestine. The surgeon went in and basically gently pulled everything apart and drained the infection out of all the external growths on the outside of the bad part of the lower intestine walls. All of this was done Laparoscopic with only 5 incisions one for drainage and two right under my belly button, damn that hurt. 

Both visits I had three IV bags going at once into my arms 24/7. Two bags where antibiotics and one basically was saline water pumping me to full hydration. I had the same three cocktail this time around with a morphine pump to top it off. My arms look like Keith Richard's during the 70's for Christ sake and for a few days I knew what that must have felt like.

The one thing that really pissed me off is when I came to in post op they had trimmed me from the lower, I mean lower abs half way up my chest. I was expecting them to stay a LOT lower only and I started looking around, after I could make a complete thought, I looked for some huge scar thinking something went horribly wrong. From the forest line up I slowly did an assessment looking for big cuts thinking the worse. Everything went great I was hurriedly told and I finished up the trim work so I don't have a quarter chest of hair. Thursday I had the huge JP tube taken out of my side. The Doctor's Assistant just grabbed it and pulled it out of my side with no drugs and it just felt bizarre, like well… someone pulling something out of your gut. Not really pain as much as a weird sensation. I wanted to do a happy dance in the office after they patched me back up and removed what looked like a Borg implant from my side that I had to care for this entire week. 

So now I can see the problem spots quite glaringly in my abs and chest that need to work due to being sans body hair for the first time since I was 18 years old. Amazingly I weighed 192lbs when I started having this problem first of September and after drinking 80oz of water a day for a month plus the IV hydration for two weeks I have jumped back to 205 lbs. However none of the weight really went to my waist or stomach area. My stomach is still pretty flat with not much in the way of love handles. I think most of the extra water evenly distributed itself though out my body.  I learned most Europeans and Americans are usually dehydrated most of their lives due to our modern diet. Poor hydration leads or contributes to a myriad of avoidable health problems. Due to my size my hydration was calculated at 80oz a day. No one's needs are exactly the same. Nutritionist base requirements for water on the patient's body mass, height, and weight so ignore what the work out sites may state and simply ask your family doctor during your next visit.

Actually the timing for all of this could not be better. I won't be going in for my next surgery until the week after Thanksgiving so I can enjoy lots of high fat low fiber food instead of a diet of Jell-O and broth. I am also getting all of this out of the way before I turn 40 and still improving my health from the stricter diet I will be on once this is all over. My Doctor's assistant instructed me not to lift anything over 15lbs until told otherwise so I can get out of the heavy lifting during the Thanksgiving and Christmas rush from owning a floral business. I get desk duty, talk on the phone with people all day and oversee things. I am still hoping for a busy holiday season this year!

I do want to thank Dr. Craig Johnson M.D. and his surgery staff for a job well done with my last hospital stay. I had both he, his staff and my family doctor Scott Sexter M.D. checking in on me daily and I felt in great hands during the entire ordeal that I can remember and felt much of nothing the rest of the time. Here is a page of photos from the actually surgery. How many bloggers can say they have gone so far as to publish pictures of their own guts for their blog readers! Not for the squeamish…

Going on Injured Reserve

For those who don't keep up with my blog, I have been MIA for awhile now. I went back into the hospital last Tuesday after CT scans showed a very severe reoccurrence of diverticulitis flare-ups in my lower intestine. Wednesday night I had surgery and have been drifting around on a morphine pump until yesterday. Turns out the situation was more life threatening than anyone realized until the doctor started in on me on the surgery table. In six weeks I go back into the hospital for a final round and have 6" of my lower intestine removed; oh joy…

This morning after meeting with my surgeons I was released and sent home with a Jackson-Pratt tube in my side. Basically I have over a foot of tubing inside of my lower trunk draining off excess infection and blood. The surgeons though are very impressed with my recovery so far and I will be getting the tubing out in half the time of a normal patient. I will be posting a blow by blow with photos later of the surgery and my experiences in the hospital. Like I stated before the technology is amazing and my surgery team is second to none.

Right now I am extremely weak and flat worn out by the entire ordeal. I know better than to blog while on pain medication. I can start talking to you about GLBT rights and end talking about Mary Poppins and it will only make sense to me while taking these drugs for pain. I do want to extend my warmest thanks and love again to my support network of friends, family and my loving partner Billy. Without all of you guys I would not have near the fight in me to get through this without losing my faith. I will be back to a normal blogging schedule hopefully within a week or two and I sincerely hope you the reader will have patience and keep the faith during my absence.

Peace, Love and Hugs,

~T

Interesting Results and an Anniversary

My significant other, Billy saw the test results I have been posting from Personality.info and decided to take the Personality Type test to compare to mine. He has graciously given me permission to post his results. I found it interesting that we match up everywhere except in one area. Perhaps opposites do attract after all. I also wanted to share that my ninth year anniversary together with Billy is October 15th; looking for ideas for anniversary gifts!

My Test Results

What Makes Me Tick Part II - Personality Type

For curious readers here is another test from Personality.info that I took today. Turns out according to the test that I am an INTJ - "The Strategist".  According to the web site only 1.5% of people score this personality type. Personality.info describes my personality type by stating:

INTJs are introspective, analytical, determined persons with natural leadership ability. Being reserved, they prefer to stay in the background while leading. Strategic, knowledgeable and adaptable, INTJs are talented in bringing ideas from conception to reality. They expect perfection from themselves as well as others and are comfortable with the leadership of another so long as they are competent. INTJs can also be described as decisive, open-minded, self-confident, attentive, theoretical and pragmatic.

Visit the Personality.info web site to take several different test and see what makes you tick.

What Makes Me Tick - Multiple Intelligences

Catching Up & On the Mend

Just a quick note to bring everyone up to speed on my health situation. I was released from Saint Francis Hospital yesterday afternoon after a weeklong stay. The doctors are carefully optimistic about my recovery and I am pain free (thank God for the morphine they gave me during my stay). Although I am still very weak, words cannot express enough how happy I am to be back home and be able to sleep a solid eight hours without blood being drawn or vitals being taken. The road to a full recovery and getting back to full strength will take several weeks and I am not trying to rush back into work. I want to express my heartfelt thanks for all the emails of encouragement, phone calls, blog comments, and visitors who made the stay in the hospital bearable. Without your support and prayers I am sure I would still be bed ridden.

A lot has happened in the past week that I have missed commenting on including the rehire of Ron Palmer as Tulsa Police Chief, the wrongheaded Arkansas River Tax, the anniversary of 9/11, and the armed forces testimony on Iraq. All of these hot topic issues I will be commenting on in the coming days. For right now I am spending time with my partner and family and not pushing myself too much.

I do want to say wow and thank you to my fellow bloggers for two years in a row being nominated for best commentary in the state. To be thought of in such high regard by my peers is both exciting and very humbling at the same time. I look forward to meeting many of you at the Okie Blog Awards ceremony at the end of the month in Tulsa. Stay tuned for my take on several hot topic issues many of which may surprise my readership.

In the Hospital Will Be Away For Awhile

Wednesday I had a sharp pain hit me in the lower abdomen, pain so great it brought me to my knees and crying. For anyone who knows me personally this is a super rare thing for me to do. I was rushed up to Saint Francis Hospital thinking that I had appendicitis, turns out its far far worse. After an afternoon and entire night in the ER I have been assigned a bed and the doctor's plan on keeping me at least till Sunday. Turns out my appetite for crap that's horrible to eat has caused me to develop diverticulitis. A very severe infection of the lower intestine and colon, the disease usually strikes people in their 70's or 80's, not people at age 37! For the next 4 days I am on a clear liquid diet, with several different IV's of very strong antibiotics and pain killers. I.e. Liquid Morphine being my fave so far. A CAT scan tomorrow will set the stage for my next step in treatment. Best case scenario the antibiotics do their jobs and the infections go away or the surgeon will numb me up and using ultra sound imaging will take a long huge needle and go through the front of my lower abs and straight into the spots with the severe deposits of poison to basically suck the infection out. Worst case scenario the surgeon will be removing part of my colon. In which case I will be in here a lot longer than expected in order to get over a surgery that delicate. The only karma like twist is in a hospital so huge I was assigned the same room and same bed that my Grandmother who raised me died in three years ago. The entire experience being a patient with a serious possibly life threaten illness and winding up in the exact spot of where my maternal grandmother passed away is freaky. So to my dear readers bear with me till I am off the meds and healed up before I am back again telling it like it is in the Bible belt.

Thanks Everyone for Your Patience and Understanding!

Thomas "T Town Tommy"

Don’t Want to Waste a Good Post

A few weeks ago I was asked by a start up of what was to be a pretty high profile LGBT news and commentary site to be a regular contributor. I have learned from watching other bloggers to hold off until everything falls into place before making big announcements. I spent the time since I was invited to be a writer doing double blogging duty with research, writing and re writing, checking my facts and asking one of my friends who is a published author to proof my work. I was set today for the big announcement come to find out the site is now offline for various reasons. So I have some posts for national consumption and I can still publish it here! So hang with me as I share what I would tell someone who is gay about Oklahoma who has never been to our state much less given it much thought.

 

Dorothy is there gay people in Oklahoma? You bet there is and we tend to stir up our share of gay news from time to time. For the last twenty years I have lived as a gay man in Oklahoma, quite possibly the reddest of red states in America. The events of the past two years has landed Oklahoma right in the heart of the great struggle of equality for all gay Americans, or as the right wing refers to it, "The Culture War."

Landmark cases and events with both national and regional impact on gay civil rights have spilled out of Oklahoma. Issues regarding the repeal of sodomy laws, same sex couple adoption and foster care, recognition of gay marriages performed in other jurisdictions, free speech and the rights to peacefully assemble have all been before the Oklahoma courts in recent years. Most all court rulings have been in favor of Oklahoma and American LGBT citizens finally having some of the rights that most take for granted. No one should fear their government will take away their child or their own human rights simply for being born into a minority. To have this fear goes against the very nature of what our founding fathers where trying to prevent: tyranny and oppression of the minority by the church or state.

However my home state, like most in our country, is still rebelling against full civil rights for LGBT citizens. With no hate crime legislation, employment protection or housing rights, coupled with the fight for gay marriage; the dream of true equality is still on the distant horizon. The difference today compared to just ten years ago is that the promise of civil rights is on the horizon and is moving closer instead of simply an exercise in futility. From the sacrifices, bravery, court battles, imagination and hope of previous generations today's Oklahoma LGBT youth are experiencing acceptance and support unimaginable from when I first became an HIV awareness advocate in college at Oklahoma State University in 1990.

Our state hosts Gay Pride events annually in our two major cities, Tulsa and the state capitol Oklahoma City. Tulsa is home to the nation's fifth largest LGBT community center, The Dennis R. Neill Equality Center and one of our Nation's largest and most successful all-gay men's choral groups. Oklahoma City host one of the largest gay rodeos in the U.S. each year and is home to the largest gay resort in the Midwest. With a wide variety of night clubs, cultural activities, the outdoors, and a low cost of living, Oklahoma and the Midwest in general are becoming far from bleak places to live within gay communities.

We still have plenty of right wing politicians, televangelist and mega church leaders in Oklahoma. You can toss a rock in any direction and hit a church. Bigotry and hate crimes are all too common an occurrence in our communities but so is courage and determination. Change is coming at a break neck speed in the destiny of the struggle for gay rights. Many of the fundamental battles for our rights will start in the heartland and not on the coast. Stay tuned for posts from the trenches of the culture war, the Buckle of the Bible Belt.

The Unofficial End of Summer

For the first 22 years of my life I was programmed that the end of summer was signaled by going back to school from elementary straight through college. Fifteen years later I still can't shake the feeling that summer has ended regardless of what the date of the solstice is for fall. Being a florist you only have certain windows in the year when you can travel and spend any time away from the shop. Basically from September through June most times travel is out of the question. So when I can I escape and go somewhere that is new or has a beach. This summer was crazy with travel.

In three months I have been to Chicago, Cincinnati, Salt Lake City, Seattle, Denver, Dallas, Oklahoma City and drove over 1500 miles in Texas. I skipped on Las Vegas this summer but am pondering a New Year's trip. Check out my flickr site for some amazing photos of Northern Washington State and the wide golden fields of East Texas.

The downside of being a small business owner is the long hours and being strapped to your creation. Many studies have proven taking vacation breaks and travel is essential for mental health. Three day trips don't seem to count but add stress instead; extended vacations of five days or more seem to be most beneficial. I have associates who just slave away all year without taking some time off and damn their bitter.

So, even though it's still in the upper 90's for millions of relieved parents, bummed out kids, and myself; summer is over. I couldn't get though the summer season though without at least one injury. I have been gimping around for the past two weeks on an injured foot. I spent a week playing basketball with cousins most half my age and twice my speed. I realized my days of playing a fast game like I did in my twenties are past me so I had to adopt more of a Charles Barkley type of game using my 200 lbs. I held my own but after pulling tendons in the top of my foot after playing every day for a week straight my doctor has advised me against any pickup games for a couple of months. Regardless of injury it's time to get back into gear and hang tough till after Christmas.

Happy Labor Day everyone, enjoy the last break of summer!

 

The End of My Summer Travels and Gay Dallas

Murphy's Law prevailed again for me these past few weeks. If it's going to happen to you it will happen when it's the hottest part of the summer. I have mentioned in my previous post that I would be spending some time traveling this month. To my surprise on my last trip home to East Texas I brought my Father back up for a two week visit. He thoroughly enjoyed his stay and working in the shop but at age 70 he was equally ready to get back home after his extended visit. I think he wanted to get back to his routine of breakfast in town at the crack of dawn with the farmers and business men at the local cafe. This past weekend I tacked an additional 700 miles onto my 1000 miles already spent driving in Texas bringing him back home and then spending the weekend in Dallas.

Of course the Dallas nightlife last weekend provided non-stop entertainment for me and my friend Buster, who tagged along for the ride and we were out till almost 3 am.  For those of you who have not visited Dallas in awhile or who have never ventured to the predominantly gay Oak Lawn area of the city do yourself a favor and go check it out. The hub of gay Dallas night life is on Cedar Springs and Throckmorton. J.R.'s located in the heart of the gay area of Dallas, on Cedar Springs road, has a great open balcony bar offering a spacious view of the entire strip. At night it is an ideal spot to check out the weekend crowd below. Having the quality both of a very nice open bar during the day and good club music and bartenders at night it's one of the more popular bars in the area.

Woody's down the street from J.R.'s is one of Dallas best Sports Bars and is full of hot and not so hot but still crazy gay fans during football season. If there are any other gay readers who just happen to like sports other than figure skating and you're in Dallas I would highly recommend a visit. If you are really looking for good dance music and a huge younger crowd that knows how to dance then you need to head over to Station 4. Providing a really cool light show, good music and a unique club layout it is an ideal place to burn off the stress from a busy week or in my case 6 hours sitting in a car. I ended my night in Dallas at the multiple awards winning Café Brazil just down the street from the clubs. Café Brazil won "Best Late Night Dining" and the huge Café Mocha I sobered up on was one of the best I have drunk in years.

Thankfully by 3 am Sunday morning I was back in my suite at The Renaissance Hotel in the Dallas Market Center area. Booking my stay through Priceline.com I ended up with a very nice room on the top floor with a perfect view of the Trinity River Valley cutting a green ribbon into the heart of the Downtown Dallas cityscape. It provided one of the best views of downtown I had seen ever and I was tempted to take a picture if it wasn't for the window glass. I arrived back home Sunday dead tired and sore from driving 700 miles in two days. I'm getting too old to stay out till 3 am then get up the next morning and drive 5 hours home to be honest. I had fun though!

Now August has come around and the entire region is forecast to have 100+ F degree days for the next week. It is hot in Tulsa but sizzling to the south in Dallas as summer sets in for the year. I plan on staying inside and sitting it out and not traveling again till the fall. The "Honey-Do's" that I have escaped from traveling so much the past two months have stacked up on me and I have a window between now and football season to get them all finished. Stays tuned for some of my projects online and go along with me on an adventure, trust me. In the meantime if you find yourself in Dallas this year and have a free night to have some fun do yourself and your friends a favor and head over the heart of Oak Lawn for the evening. Have a great time and leave with some good stories for your friends back home.

It’s My Birthday and 40 is Coming up Fast

It was 37 years ago today in Houston, Texas that I was introduced to the world.  My how time flies when you’re having fun! Looking back over the past year I think I have accomplished many of my goals and came through this year’s challenges a better person. One of my big goals this past year was to lose weight. After age 30 your body starts burning food a bit slower and I ballooned up to 240 lbs. Being a former athlete I have always been big but that weight was making life too difficult to endure. So with portion control and walking a lot I have managed over the past year to get back down to 195 lbs. I still smoke about a half pack of cigarettes a day but I have to have something to aim for this coming year.  Hopefully with the support of friends, family and my doctor I will finally kick this nasty habit before it quits me.

My plans for my birthday this year are simple as usual. Unlike some gay guys who want a grand gala I will be content with a nice dinner at Steak and Ale with my partner of nine years and some close friends. I am going to see the new "Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix" movie tonight. Having never seen any of the Potter movies in the theater and never read any of the books I expect to be totally lost but with the excellent reviews of the film I will try to pay attention and follow the story along.

Thanks to all who have sent me well wishes this morning, my inbox was over flowing. I love the fact that so many of you have taken the time over the past year to enjoy my blog and join my ever growing circle of friends on the T Town Tommy MySpace page.

My wishes for this birthday are simple but some not so easy:

1. World peace
2. A good and honest president in the next election
3. Equal marriage rights for all
4. An end to world hunger and poverty
5. A cure for AIDS
6. Safety in my travels
7. That my partner and I have another wonderful year together… repeat
8. Even more blog readers
9. A healthy body and spirit
10. A springtime tour to Paris and London with Drew from Drew-o-rama!

And Now I Have an Organized Desk

New Desk | Click to Enlarge

Several months ago I wrote about a study showing that a messy desk no longer equals an organized mind. Much to my partners horror I made the mistake of showing off on my blog my miniature desk that I had been using since I was sixteen years old. Many of my friends both locally and around the world, mostly gay, have given me non-stop crap about the tiny ugly piece of furniture ever since.

Being the less fashion conscience of me and my partner and never giving a second thought about my workspace my boyfriend finally drug me around town shopping for something made during the 21st century that an adult would use in an office. After hitting almost every furniture store and office supply place in Tulsa I settled on this beauty. No longer do I have a black spaghetti pile of cables at my feet and can actually spread out and do some work. It also forced me to get rid of pile A and pile B of papers and use a filing cabinet to organize everything; I am sure the piles will reappear at some point.

As for the old desk that had served me so well for 20 years; I decided maybe it was time to pass on the coffee stained, cigarette burned, well worn blight to someone more deserving than myself. I sold it in a garage sale … to a sixteen year old.

My Life as a Bald Man

Did you ever watch Star Trek-The Next Generation and wonder why far in the future Jean Luc Picard was bald? Surely by the 24th century medical science would have found a cure for the hair challenged. I being among the ranks of over 40 million bald men in the U.S.; finding a “cure” that is not bogus has been a passing interest of mine. Turns out now that due to stem cell research I may not be bald my entire adult life. Scientist who are researching baldness are predicting a cure as early as the end of the decade.

During my teen years of the 80’s I was into the punk/heavy metal scene. I did every hair style from the big hair rock band look to the candle wax infused punker mohawk. Much to my dismay by age 19 my hairline started to rapidly head south. By age 21 I gradually went with the buzz cut and even the dreaded comb over for a bit. Looking back at photos from those years I gasp at how ridiculous I looked with a nasty comb over at such a young age. Finally by my mid 20’s I settled on the buzz cut and for the last year I just started shaving my head every two days.

It was rather traumatic for me loosing my hair during my early 20’s. In the past being a gay man and having a bad hair cut could possibly ruin ones social life and having no hair condemned you to baseball hat purgatory or even worse radical medical procedures or wigs. I was a bartender in gay bars for awhile and I was amazed at the bad wigs, mishaps in hair plugs and the less than natural looking results of medical procedures I witnessed. One bar patron of mine had scalp reduction surgery and I swear the top of his head looked like a hairy butt with a crack going down the middle. The guy literally was a butt head!

Rogaine hit the market and I tried it for almost a year to no avail and I was going to be damned if I was going to wear a wig. So my baseball cap collection started growing shelf after shelf in my closet. I noticed though as I grew more comfortable with how I looked having no hair the more positive people started to respond to me. Bearing the risk of sounding smug, I am far from being unattractive. I have a family history on both sides of many bald guys. The myth that it comes from your Mother’s side is just that a myth. I was doomed at birth due to my mix of DNA to have a hair color of clear in adulthood.

I am proud to say that at the age of 36 I now own two baseball caps that’s it. Most days I just slap on some sun screen/moisturizer and go about my business. I do tend to wear skull caps in the dead of winter and a baseball cap if I know I am going to be in the sun for many hours but that’s for practicality rather than vanity.

Many gay men and straight women both just love my clean shaven head. I am yet to have anyone say ewww your bald, instead I get fingers, breast and kisses on my scalp. During a recent trip to Dallas in many of the gay bars I saw tons of guys with shaved heads. I know that they are not all bald like me so I don’t get why in the hell someone who has a full head of hair would shave it off. Could they possibly be trying to emulate bald guys? Could modern fashion have finally caught up to me and my hair challenged head?

I just know this; it is not the hair that makes a man sexy it’s the attitude and what you radiate out to others. Bald can be as beautiful as long blonde locks. One famous television line from Kojak I can pull off to my partner since shaving my head smooth is “Who Loves Ya Baby!” Seems with the right attitude and a good razor a lot of people can.

Photos are up!

Turn of the Century Farm Equipment | Click to Enlarge

Photos are up from my latest adventure! I had a great time in East Texas and it was a nice change to not be bombarded with the constant noise of the city. However after a few days of peace and quiet and going through internet withdraw from not having a high speed connection it was equally great to get back home. I don't know how well I would fare with rural life again but it's a great place to recharge the batteries. Head over to my flickr site and check out the new pix! I even included a couple of myself this time for everyone to check out!

Off to East Texas

Me and My Mom 1972 Houston, Texas | Click to Enlarge

Well I am off again on a little adventure for the spring. Tomorrow I am returning to “Gods Country”, good ole Texas. My Sister who I haven’t seen in several years came up this week for a visit and the two of us are taking a road trip back down to East Texas to visit with family and friends. It is close to Memorial Day so I will also be taking the opportunity to pay respects to the two most important women in my life growing up, my Mother and my Grandmother.

I lost my Mother to breast cancer when I was 15 years old and my Grandmother took over the care of looking after me in Tulsa. I lost my Grandmother four years ago to a stroke and they now rest side by side in their home town of Athens, Texas. Being a florist I hope to find some nice silk flowers while I am down to make some beautiful arrangements for their markers.

In the past when I visited our family cemetery I was overcome with great sadness at the loss of these two women that had such a profound impact on my life. It is so easy for us to focus on the grief of loss and forget the joy, wisdom and love those who have past on brought into our lives. This year when I walk into that cemetery I will not be bringing sympathy arrangements to lay on their graves; this year I will be bringing gratitude arrangements instead. I will be grateful for what each of these amazing people contributed to my life. I will not mourn their passing but be thankful for the sacrifices and contributions they made raising me. I will be grateful for the love, caring and patients they each showed looking after a young spit fire that was constantly getting into trouble.

I hope each and every one of you have a wonderful and safe rest of the week and I will be trying to post while out of town and adding some more photos to my flickr site of scenic and rural East Texas.

Peace Out,
~T

Happy Easter Everyone

From myself and everyone behind the scenes at T Town Tommy, Happy Easter everybody!
Enjoy the Video

The Easter Bunny Hates You!