I slept close to 7 hours, never waking. Not even when Aaron got home and joined me. I woke about 4:30. I got up, made a smoothie, and watched the season finale to Daredevil: Born Again (S02E08 “The Southern Cross”) which mostly fulfilled my expectations, sometimes exceeding them. Bullseye was the breakout character for me, although there were other greats as well and a lot of payoffs in these last 5 episodes, which were all drastically better than the first 12 – hopefully next season will be more like these episodes. I do think that the season ends just before “Thunderbolts*” but I’m unclear when next week’s Punisher Special, “One Last Kill” will be set and I’m eager to find out. I’m also curious to see if “Spider-Man: Brand New Day” ties into anything. I mean, we know that Frank Castle is in that movie, but in the trailer we also saw Spider-Man fighting The Hand in what seemed like a prison. Could he be defending Matt Murdock? That would be cool, but I don’t want to jump to conclusions. The Punisher Special will be out on Tuesday, May 12.
My migraine is much better than when I went to sleep. I don’t want to say that it’s gone, although the pain is mostly removed for the moment. These cluster migraines linger and then hit me really hard when I least expect it. But maybe today will be different? They eventually do go away, so maybe that will be today. I’ll know soon enough.
Part of me would like to go back to bed to cuddle with Aaron, but I’m a little afraid I’ll fall asleep again and not get up fast enough to enjoy the morning. I could probably get some work done here before the office gets too bright and noisy. I need to ask Aaron how his appointments went yesterday. He said he was going to a doctor’s appointment, then working from his office before choir practice. Hopefully everything went well. I missed a call from him around 7 but there was no voicemail and when I returned the call he didn’t answer. I’m sure it was nothing.
I have this VAST song playing in my head. I made a music video for it 26, 27 years ago with two crappy vcrs and a stereo. It mixed the song with religious imagery from the Hellraiser films, Stigmata, The Exorcist and others. It was cool. I still have a VHS copy somewhere, if it still works, I should transfer it and see if I can post it – though I don’t have the rights to the images or music, obviously.
I did watch the season finale episode of Star Wars: Maul last night, S01E09 (“Chapter 9: Strange Allies”) and S01E10 (“Chapter 10: The Dark Lord”) which was mostly excellent. I found myself slightly less engaged than I feel I should have been, but in part I think that has to do with the way I’ve watched the series. This was meant to be binged and the release model didn’t do anything to support that. The only complaint I have is that Dryden Vos is noticeably not voiced by Paul Bettany, who played him in “Solo: A Star Wars Story”. Speaking of the latter film, this series is really putting the pieces together, from how Maul and Crimson Dawn were displayed in The Clone Wars vs. that film and I love that! It’s really cool. And I look forward to what future seasons will reveal about that journey and how else they might incorporate continuity there.
Speaking of Star Wars, Aaron mentioned that he got us tickets to see The Mandalorian and Grogu. Originally he got them for opening night but something came up and we’re now seeing it on Friday or Saturday; he told me because he wanted to know if this was okay with me and I assured him that was fine. I’m not concerned about spoilers with that story. The only movies where that’s a big deal for me are the Marvel movies. I really haven’t rewatched any of the post-ROTJ, Mando era TV so the movie will likely feel even more like a standalone movie for me. I expect I’ll re-watch it all someday, possibly after Season 2 of Ahsoka is available.
I went to bed around 4am. I slept 6 hours. I woke up, had a smoothie and joined Aaron in the office where I started working on my Star Wars viewing order on my website. Aaron had to leave for a doctor’s appointment and he’ll then work from his office downtown before choir practice, which means I’m on my own until he comes home. My aide is here until 6. The season finale for Daredevil: Born Again begins streaming at 9pm. I will likely try to get some more things done online and then get ready for a walk. It’s nearly 80 degrees today. It was only 60 when I went for my walk on Sunday.
Instead of going for a walk, I cuddled with Aaron, which he was very grateful for. I had a smoothie. I looked at the weather and we were to have a high of about 60 degrees around 4pm. Aaron revealed that he had choir practice in the West Village. I had a slice of pizza, got ready and then rode down to the village with him, arriving about 2pm. We held hands in the rental car, which we needed as our car, Ruby, had a flat tire the day before. I went with Aaron to Dunkin Donuts but I abstained from all the sugary snacks. We went to Saint John’s Lutheran Church, where my former writers group, The Poetry Table, used to meet. It is always so nice to see everyone! Cynthia Powell, the choir director welcomed me with a big hug. I asked her if I could get a photograph. She put on some lipstick and agreed.
Bald Jason with Cynthia Powell. May 3, 2026. I told her at their last concert: she’s a rockstar! <3
I left as the choir began their warmups. I walked to the Stonewall Memorial where I snapped another picture. The wind chill was a bit more chill than I like my wind! But I wanted to walk and I was dressed appropriately. I kept getting cold, pulling my sleeves down, getting warm, rolling them up, getting cold…
It’s so lovely to see all the rainbow flags at Stonewall. Even more so now that Trump and his goons tried to get rid of them and failed. <3
I walked around a bit and ended up at Washington Square Park. I sat for awhile and walked around some more. It was pretty crowded, despite the fountain not being on, and it was fun to watch the various groups of people. I snapped a few pictures of the Washington Square Arch just before I exited the park and headed out.
I had a nice, windy, walk around the village. I needed to pee so I stopped into the Stonewall Inn before I headed to the A train. Only there were delays on that track which would require a shuttle service so I walked over to the 1 Train instead and finally headed home on a very crowded train. When we were approaching 181st Street, the woman next to me had a coughing fit and I asked if she needed / wanted a cough drop but she aid her mouth was just very dry. I informed her I was getting off the train at the next stop and that she could have my water, which she accepted. I felt good that I was able to help. I walked the few blocks home, got undressed and took a shower.
I was hungry. I had cauliflower and broccoli with ranch dressing, while I read the news and chatted with some friends. Later, I realized I was up to leaving the house again, got dressed and went for a second walk, running into Aaron at the gate as he was arriving home. Initially intending to walk to the Little Red Lighthouse under the George Washington Bridge, I got distracted by some greenery and headed down Bennet, through the subway to Bennet Park where I called my recently widowed cousin Linda, so we could make each other laugh, the way we always do. I spoke to her as I took the long way home. She asked if I was in an elevator when I was heading up the the apartment and I told her I was. She said hello to Aaron and then we said goodnight. I played some Zelda and had another smoothie. I was still very hungry though so I opted for another slice of pizza, with added chia seeds. I got a call from Mark Adams and his daughter Raven and we spoke while I got ready for bed, and then I passed out pretty quickly. I woke up at 4:30 and wrote this.
While writing this I started getting a visual migraine and quickly took the appropriate medication for such an event. It was a struggle to continue writing as I was only able to see about half of the screen, but I did it. The visual obnoxiousness has mostly faded now. But when I’m done I’m going back to bed.
And I guess I’m done now? I slept well. But if I can get a bit more sleep that would be nice and would undoubtedly help with the migraine which is likely to begin in about 20 minutes or less. I feel like I had a good day yesterday. I avoided overly sugary / salty snacks, only drinking water or smoothies, and I also managed to get outside multiple times for some exercise. I don’t have much planned for today. Possibly watching the final Maul episodes of the season and I’d like to go Aaron’s pool game (if he goes). Otherwise I think I’m good. Oh, and I need to write a review for Claire of the Moon, which I was going to do now, but again, that’s not a great idea now. I hope everyone is having a good day!
And now it is Tuesday, May 4th! Happy Star Wars Day! May the 4th Be With You! <3
I did not sleep well Friday night. Sometimes I’m fine on my own. Others, it’s hard to sleep without Aaron there. Also, I have psychological stuff that pops up now and again. When I was a kid I used sleep on the floor, in front of my sister’s bedroom door. I thought I was protecting her and I would fight to stay awake. That comes back to me as an adult and I resist sleeping. It’s why sleeping pills are such a temptation for me; because I don’t even think about sleeping and I’m out like a light. I only slept 4 hours. But I also took the night off of Zolpidem / Ambien, which meant that I could take it without guilt on Saturday night. Any decrease in Ambien consumption is a win and I’m doing better controlling that then I have in years.
Saturday, I got up early and worked on my website about half of the day. The other half I was fighting off a recurring migraine I’ve had for about a week. I get those a lot this time of year. Well, anytime of year really, but I’m on Aimovig, which cuts the number of migraines I have in half. I used to have them almost every day and now it’s a couple of times a week, occasionally less, which probably sounds horrible to most people, but to me, it’s like a vacation! But this is a particularly bad time of year for my migraines and this is clearly a cluster. So that bit sucked. I gave in and took my meds. I have an inhaler that helps with most of my worst migraines but it has negative side effects so I don’t take it unless I need it. But that didn’t help. I took a scalding hot shower and also took some Ibuprofen and Tylenol Migraine and eventually they helped, but I could tell the migraine was still there, beneath the surface.
Later I rewatched one of my guilty pleasure movies, “Claire of the Moon”. A lesbian drama film with some questionable acting choices. It’s not a great movie but I love it so much. It was the right call. I last watched it about 6 years ago. And I’ll likely see it again someday. It’s a comfort movie for me. Also, I’m trying to revisit the movies I watched but didn’t write much about during my LGBTQ+ movie marathon that began in 2020; some of those movies were viewed before I started reviewing them and others I just didn’t get around to writing. But now that they have a home here, I will try to stay on top of it, which should be pretty easy. I’m not watching 5 or 6 a day anymore and also, I don’t have to keep track of them as much, so once I’ve transferred all the reviews from Facebook, I can take my time, have fun and not worry about getting it all right.
I went to bed around 10pm. I slept until around 7. Friday night I had dreams that I was at Meijer and that Lisa and Emily Murray were there with Aunt Karen. Last night I dreamed that I was seeing a Spider-Man film with Janice and her kids, and as we left, Tom Holland and Zendaya were with us – and I actually think Tom was on one of Janice’s kids. There were also dreams that I was living on a boat with Aaron / Mark. A whale had crashed through the boat and I was surveying the damage, the whale still in the hull. Later I learned that Aaron / Mark had imprisoned the whale to pull us to our destination and was so angry. I was telling him / them that if the whale died that I would never speak to him / them again when I woke up. The latter dream seems heavily influenced by Doctor Who’s “The Beast Below” (S05E11) but I haven’t even thought about that episode in years so I’m not sure why that popped up here.
I want to lose weight. Which is not something I’ve really had to contemplate much in my life. Growing up, I was relatively thin due to PTSD tied into eating. And in my late 20s my stomach became partially paralyzed, which I’ve struggled with ever since. 9 years ago, I was a little under 164 pounds. I weigh over 200 pounds now. I think I weighed 220 for awhile and maybe I still do? I’m a little afraid to look. I’ve recently changed my diet for the better, dropping ice cream and replacing ice cream shakes with smoothies, with each ingredient being much healthier than the ingredients in the shakes. I also stopped eating a type of of pizza (pretzel crust) which was delicious but had more salt on it than was healthy; it even included a health hazard warning! I’ve also stopped eating bacon and peperoni, which I was eating often before. I’ve not sworn off these foods but I’ve made it a point to not eat them on a daily basis. I’ve also drastically reduced my intake of potato chips. I still get them once or sometimes twice a month, but for many years I had them every single day. I have fruit every day. I have veggies often. All that is to say that I’ve made some really good dietary choices. But I need to start exercising. If I could, I would run, but it’s very high impact at a point in my life with that seems really not good for my body – and it would likely aggravate my stomach. I’m leaning more toward stair climbing, hiking and taking more walks. And if I can find something a bit more heart intensive that works for me, that would be wonderful. I miss dancing but there are no clubs near me that I enjoy and while I can dance at home, it’s not easy when I’m rarely on my own.
I need new shoes. Good comfortable shoes for walking / hiking. The shoes I have now are nice but I got them in 2021 I think and I’ve since walked many miles in them, all around the world: Belize (Harvest Caye), England (London), France (Marseille, Nice), Greece (Athens, Mykonos, Olympia, San Torini), Honduras (Roatan), Malta, Mexico (Costa Maya, Cozumel), Monaco (Monte Carlo), Italy (Florence, Naples twice, Pisa, Pompeii, Rome twice, Sicily twice, Taormina) Spain (Barcelona) + the United States: Michigan, New Jersey, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Texas (Galveston & Houston) – at least.
I had a smoothie this morning, which has mostly settled. I think I’m going to get ready and try to go for a walk.
I didn’t realize this but Aaron will be staying in Philly tonight and then he has stuff tomorrow too, so he won’t be home until tomorrow afternoon. This might be good for me because I can try my less effective night medication with no pressure to be asleep. And I’ll get plenty of work done on my website, which I already have. I got several pages of my Star Trek viewing order up, which I’ve been struggling with for weeks.
I’m having an interesting conversation with this guy named Emanuel. He lives in the Bronx and we’re discussing the value of sex in culture and in relationships. His views are not quite the same as mine, fascinating, but also kindly expressed. I wish more people discussed such things so openly and without rudeness as a cover. It’s refreshing.
I ate a salad and later a smoothie. I had a few olives too. All fruits and veggies today it seems. Oh, I had some bread this morning, before the sun came up. Anyways, I’m sitting still while I try to calm my stomach down. Then we’ll see where the day takes me.
Aaron’s endoscopy went very well yesterday. He had another endoscopy 3 months ago and they discovered he had an ulcer which they’ve been treating with medication and therapy. Yesterday’s procedure revealed that the ulcer is gone! This was a wonderful outcome. And the wait time for the procedure was greatly reduced this time – we were essentially in and out in about an hour.
I traded texts with Glenn, my nephew Jon and my cousin Ariel. Glenn was concerned for Aaron. Jon and I were talking about Daredevil: Born Again. Ariel invited us to her graduation party, which will be held in Michigan, despite her living in Georgia. We’ll see how that plays out. I also later traded messages with my old friend Flordeperla, who was a co-worker at Starbucks in Manhattan.
He was a little groggy after and I was dealing with another migraine. I always have lots of migraines, but this time of year, when we get far more rain, it’s always the worst. I went to bed relatively early, hoping that I’d wake up early this morning to get some work on my site done, headache free. Part of that was true. I woke up early. And my headache isn’t as bad as it was.
I have gotten a lot finished! But it’s in a draft stage so nobody can see it yet. It’s part of the Star Trek viewing order section. I also uploaded a bunch more LGBTQ+ movie reviews from 2024 yesterday.
I’m not sure what’s on my agenda for the day. It’s very sunny outside this morning. The weather says a high of 63 this afternoon. Maybe I’ll get outside. Aaron has a trip to Philly planned this evening. Maybe I’ll go out then? Or maybe I’ll start my new Star Trek book? I’ve been having a lot of trouble finishing books in the last couple of years. I was doing really well; I was re-reading The Wicked Years in hopes of reading the sequel trilogy for the first time, but then they announced 2 new books, set earlier in the timeline and it killed my interest. I figured I’d wait a bit for those and then do the whole thing again. And I’ve stumbled over everything since then.
The new Trek book is a sequel to Star Trek: Picard, set during a time-jump in the series finale (S03E10 “The Last Generation”) the book has been described as continuity porn, filled with references to various Star Trek episodes from multiple series and films – which sounds like just the kind of thing that I might enjoy at the moment. So, that’s definitely an option. Plus, as the book features Seven and Raffi, we have our LGBTQ+ representation right there. Nice. But who knows if I’ll finish this one? I’ve wanted to finish everything I’ve started in the last few years; I didn’t begin anything with the intent to stop reading, so we’ll see how it goes.
Oh. And I spoke, briefly, with my sister Janice before I passed out. She tried talking to me about her conspiracy theories about 9/11 but I told her I couldn’t listen to it. 9/11 stuff gives me nightmares and always has. I imagine it would likely be worse now that I’ve lived in Manhattan for nearly 14 years. I wish she had more time to relax. She’s always so busy, even on her days off. I love her. She can make me laugh like almost nobody else. Aaron is good at it too. I’m feeling sleepy again and might go back to bed for a nap. I actually didn’t sleep very long last night. I was in bed quite early but it took me a long time to get to sleep and then I was only out for about 5 hours.
I didn’t do much today. I struggled with a migraine, but really I just made a series of bad choices this week that eventually overwhelmed everything else. Sometimes a bad choice is better than no choice at all, which I find comforting tonight, but I hope to make better choices in the near future.
Aaron has an endoscopy scheduled for tomorrow so I’ll be going to the hospital with him and seeing that he gets home, and that will be most of tomorrow for me. He also told me that we may be going to Florida in a few weeks. We have a home there that we rent out, which had been occupied by a family, but they skipped out without paying us and so that means a court battle and also means we need to go see how the apartment is doing. We’ve had good times there and I wasn’t sure we’d ever go again as this family had, for a time, wanted to purchase our property, but I bet they’re glad they didn’t now.
I’m oddly very tired, which is fine with me. I need to be up tomorrow anyways, so I might as well sleep tonight. I don’t have anything I need to get done. I don’t need to work on my website.
I posted on Facebook yesterday that I’m feeling really burnt out there, and that’s true. I deleted something like 100 posts there today. I don’t want to give it up as it connects me with so many people, but I don’t want to spend as much time there as I have in the past. It’s not political exactly. It’s not a reaction to this or that thing. But it’s not as much fun as it used to be and when I see all the shit that I’ve posted that doesn’t actually seem to matter, I find it a little embarrassing.
I did try working on several viewing orders for my website but I was undermined at nearly every level by formatting issues. There’s a certain way that I like to work and it simply isn’t made easy by WordPress or the theme I went with, and it’s too late to turn back now. So that was unsatisfying. I ended up uploading a dozen LGBTQ+ movie reviews, which inspired me in passing to revisit Derek Jarman’s “Caravaggio”, which I was shocked to learn that I didn’t own. I quickly acquired a copy and re-watched it, enjoying my time with the movie.
I was very tired. All day I was tired and nearly slept. When it came time for bed I slept without taking any drugs, but I didn’t stay asleep. I had eaten a bit more than I should have yesterday and I had acid reflux, which thankfully doesn’t happen often. I’d had many vivid dreams in the few hours that I slept, involving theme parks and oral sex. Upon waking, I was reminded of my first visit to a theme park, Cedar Point in 1985 – and how my PTSD relationship to food first presented to the world as an eating disorder and how much this shamed me. I didn’t eat anything all day save a small box of Nerds – the cherry & orange variety that later went away for some reason. I later learned that I did not have an eating disorder, though I definitely suffered from disordered eating. I had to do an interview on the topic in 2013 to qualify for a surgical procedure. Finding anyplace that would do this interview was very difficult because they generally only saw women, but eventually a found a sympathetic center that made an exception for me. The interview was very thorough and very painful – which is a quote from Terry Hatcher from an interview with her on Inside The Actors Studio, which has always felt like an apt description of my experience and so I’ve used it every time I describe it – but this is the first I’ve ever explained the origin of my expression. She was talking about reporting sexual abuse, and essentially, this is what I was doing as well. In some ways it was liberating, but mostly, it was just horrible. The woman who interviewed me was sympathetic and supportive. I don’t know her name but I’ll always be grateful for her tact. She was amazing.
Trading pictures in text conversation on April 27, 2026.
I briefly traded texts with Michael Eisinger, who I hadn’t spoken to in a long while. He had gone for a long walk, more than 6 miles. It was 70 degrees out and he was loving the beautiful weather – I believe he lives in Maryland? Meanwhile, I was indoors all day. It wasn’t quite 70 degrees in New York.
We did not go to Aaron’s pool game. He had told me early in the day that he wasn’t going, which disappointed me, but by the time the gametime rolled around, I could barely keep my eyes open, and so I likely wouldn’t have gone anyways.
I have two Star Wars: Maul episodes to watch, but like last week, I don’t feel like it right now. I might save them for next week and just binge the last 4 episodes of the season, but I’m not married to that idea. If I feel like watching them at some point, I will. It’s that simple.
I tried working on my website a bit more yesterday but after the productive morning everything I tried just confirmed that I needed to take a break. I showered, shaved and dressed. I decided I wanted food and ordered online. I walked to the store and back. I tried one more time to get something done on here but again, I knew it was time to stop. I ate, put away the leftovers and played some Zelda. I also had a conversation with Mark Adams about his recent birthday, last week’s “Daredevil: Born Again” episode, which he thought was the best of the series to date, and our old adventures for Shawn Foreman and Sean Mobley (whom he had totally confused for one another) – and my now somewhat extensive experience with cruise lines.
I was growing tired and between 9 & 10 I started getting ready for bed and was asleep when Aaron got home. I woke as he was getting into bed and trying to get settled – he closed the door really loudly and kept moving constantly, so he kept waking me up. He also kissed me. Which now that I’m awake, I appreciate, but when I’m sleeping, and people try to be affectionate with me, my sleeping brain does not accept these things and I was mostly just annoyed that he’d woken me up again! lol I did get back to sleep though. I dreamed that I had cancer, or they believed I had cancer. I wasn’t sure I trusted my doctor and others who were there definitely thought it was a hoax. The treatment was going to be extracts from eggplants, liquified and blasted up my ass. I wonder what that could symbolize? lol I woke around 5am and was out of bed by 5:20. I had a smoothie and looked at the news.
I want to work on my viewing orders but I have yet to find a format that I really enjoy for my website, even if I’m excited about the things I want to convey. I’ll give it more thought. I also want to give some thought on what my next essay should entail. And I have so much more to upload here.
I wonder if we’re going to Aaron’s pool game tonight?
During the Nightmare on Elm Street sequel, there is a statue which says “The Children Will Endure”, which stuck with me after the movie. I had long been having erotic dreams; homoerotic dreams, and I latched onto the “The Children Will Endure” and wrote a bunch of poems with “Children” in the title, most of them named after different songs, with the poems being disguised / coded retellings of my dreams which were sexy enough to feel like I accomplished something but were secretive enough to share without feeling like I’d actually outed myself. “The Children Chronicles”. Reading those things now, I’m mostly just happy that I don’t have to hide such things anymore, but a few of them do capture the imagery that in my dreams haunted me daily. I like to sleep. I like to dream. And some of these dreams are as treasured as my waking life.
“The Children Chronicles” ended, more or less, with poems written about friends I’d made while staying in Mercywood Hospital from March – April of 1992 after a non-existent “suicide attempt” (I had a scratch). Most of these friends have been lost by now, but I sill remember them fondly.
I should have gone to bed hours ago, but I needed a shower. And I do some of my best thinking in the shower. And I was thinking about all these interesting things and I thought I might like to write about them. So I did. And I put some artwork together and posted it here. And then I posted it on Facebook. And now I’m writing about doing those things, which is probably redundant.
Shawn Foreman sent me a friend request on Facebook. I didn’t approve it right away because I assumed it was a hack as we’ve been friends on Facebook for years, but when I looked, we were not friends anymore, so I’m assuming this is the real deal. We’ll see. I should let him know that Goth Boy is back.
I’m very tired and I don’t think I’ll need anything to sleep, but if I do, that’s fine. I did not go outside yesterday. I got ready. I shaved. But I didn’t need to go anywhere and my energy levels felt off, so I didn’t go out. The only reason that bothers me is that I’ve not been out since Monday and I don’t want to fall back into bad habits. I did however get a lot done on my website. And I also got to catch up with Aaron on the phone, which was nice.
