My Own Worst Enemy

 

You keep it together like this: you wake up, you get groceries, you pick up cat food for Ned from the vet. You do this all successfully without crying! You celebrate these little victories since the breakup, these small signs that you’re getting better. You get online on the dating apps (major shout out to the dudes trying to look serious and smoldering in their profile pictures, who come off looking crazy and murder-y). You look at the New York guys to see who might be available to date once you move out there, but instead you’re interrupted by a vivid mental image of every single one of them taking turns on your ex who lives there, all of them lining up for a chance at him, the line extending around the block, extending across the Brooklyn bridge into Manhattan, all the men eager with hungry, mean eyes and bodies far more muscular than yours, and at the head of the line your former love’s door, occasionally opening, letting one out, letting another in, him closing the door gently like he used to with only you, and now a revolving door of sex with anyone but you. You shake your head of this image, grab your keys, head to your first therapy appointment. You have no clue what you talk to therapists about, it’s probably a bad fit because he’s not even gay and what the fuck would he know about your life. You go up to his office, greet each other, look at his walls lined with books. Maybe one of the books has the right sequence of words to make you better again, the magic incantation to make you as good as you were with David. The therapist says: “What would you like to talk about?”

You burst the fuck into tears. Continue reading

Back In The Saddle

Tears of happiness stream down your face as you think: thank you God. You are sitting across from him on his bed in his apartment in Bed-Stuy, you flew here a week after he called you and said he was sorry, that he’s had a rough time without you in his life, that he’s missed you since the breakup. You didn’t tell your friends about the call, you secretly flew out on a redeye after work one day. You went to his apartment, and after hasty greetings to his roommates (who scrammed the fuck out of there quickly), the two of you went to his bedroom and talked about everything: the expectations, the communication that was absent until it seemed too late, the pressure that social media puts on a public relationship. You find a common ground, you make commitments to mend what was missing, you hold hands, you cry together. The two of you call your families, your close friends, agree to keep it off of social media for the time being, maybe forever. Later, you hold him in your arms, you smell the familiar smell of his neck, of his hair and his sweat, and you get a full night’s sleep for the first time in almost two months. Continue reading

Life, the Universe, and Everything

 

Do this, exactly: Wake up on your forty-first birthday in 2014 on Thanksgiving, and finally feel happy, feel ready for what’s next. Realize that although there’s a lot you have in common, break up with a very sweet man who you’ve been seeing for a few months. Hunker down and make some fun art, take some silly pictures, spend Christmas in a snowless Portland winter. Spend time with friends, miss your family who you can’t see very often around the holidays because of your day job. Continue reading

How It Ends.

 

The text appears mid-afternoon, when you’re at work: “Hey, can we talk?” You go home in a daze, set your things down, lift the phone to your ear when it rings. He says words, you say words back, hang up. Just like that, it’s done: you woke up this morning in love with a man you’d loved for almost a year, whose family you had met, a man you thought you would have a long future with, and tonight you will go to bed no longer in love with him, you will go to bed alone. This is how things end. Continue reading

“Sour Times”

I was happy to direct this 4-minute short for the Shorty Shorts Film Festival in Portland, but I was even more thrilled to work with this talented, generous cast (credited at the end of the short). Thanks much to Gula Delgatto for including my short, and Donovan Edwards, Ace Hotel Portland, and Pepe Le Moko for donating their resources and locations. Hope you like it!

Fight Or Flight, Part 2

 

Part Two of Three. Read Part One here. First published in PQMonthly.

When I woke up that morning, getting into a physical altercation with a bigot was the last thing I thought I would be doing. I had been minding my own business, puttering around my house, when the word “faggot” came through my open windows on that hot day. It was barked in a harsh male baritone in the context of a conversation, and then it was repeated again. It had startled me so much to hear that ugly word in my own space, in the last place I would expect to hear that word of hate, that I had spontaneously stood up from a sitting position in the middle of my living room. I stood there for a minute, let the feelings wash over me. Continue reading

Laugh In My Face

 

I’m usually super dead inside, but I was thrilled when Hello Mr magazine and the Ace Hotel in Portland invited me to tell the tale of my worst date ever. It’ll be this Sunday, June 14th, 5 to 8pm at the Ace. There will be a DJ! There will be cocktails! There will be an opportunity to heckle me, laugh in my dumb, dumb face! There may never be a better chance to mock me before my slow, sad fade into obscurity. See you there! (Click here for event details)

Fight Or Flight

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Instagram

First published in PQMonthly.

It was a long drive back to Portland that morning; I hit traffic at Tacoma and Olympia, so I was already tired. I had been in Seattle for a few days, and spent more time downtown than I had in past visits (when you’re in love, even the downtown urine smells sweeter). And I’m sorry, but when I travel it’s like I don’t even know my own poops anymore. So yeah, I was in a strange headspace.

It was a warm day, and I had opened the windows in my apartment to get some breeze going. I made a sandwich, settled down at my desk (actually my couch…I didn’t want to admit eating on the sofa) and got ready to catch up on emails. That’s when I heard him from the sidewalk outside, just below my window. There’s a convalescent facility in my neighborhood, and often one or two of the residents would cross the street to rest under the big trees surrounding my apartment building. I’d chatted with a couple of them, they would almost always be friendly and chatty. This voice? I recognized his booming baritone; he had been in front of my building before.

The murmur of his voice outside was suddenly punctuated with words that rose out of the background noise of his speech in sharp relief: “…yeah, and all the faggots and child molesters moving into the neighborhood…”

My hand froze, holding the sandwich halfway to my mouth. My breath caught, I could suddenly hear my heartbeat in my ears, and my eyes widened. “…The fuck did I just hear…?” I thought. I shook my head, slowly lowered the sandwich. Then again: “…yeah and the faggots are all over the place…” Without thinking, I pushed off the couch and stood up, startling my cat off the sofa. Is this what fight or flight feels like? I wondered.

I was born in the Bay Area and my family moved to Albuquerque, New Mexico when I was five. Although no one in my family ever disparaged gay people, my dad was the son of a Lutheran minister, and my mom and grandma came from a Latino Catholic background: I had good reasons to stay in the closet. I don’t remember my first ever thoughts of being gay, but I do remember making my same-gendered stuffed animals kiss each other. A bit later in high school, I had a best friend Helen who was brassy and outspoken. I eventually came out to her after my junior year. In my senior year, I had a massive crush on Mark, a freshman (some things, it seems, follow a pattern). I passed many, many notes to Helen detailing my infatuation with him in the form of poetry and prose.

One day, Helen ran up to me breathless. It was a disaster: Mark and his friend were riding the bus with Helen, who was dutifully reading yet another note of mine. They decided they wanted to read the note, and grabbed it out of her hands. Knowing that she was the only person in my life I was “out” to, she heroically fought and grabbed the note back. When they persisted, however, she made a last-ditch desperate attempt to safeguard my secret, and threw the note out of the window of the moving bus. What she didn’t count on was Mark and his friend’s curiosity, and they got off at the next stop, ran back, and found and read the note.

When Helen told me this, my teenage chest tightened, every pore in my body closed, and my vision blurred. And now more than 20 years later I felt this again, listening to the voice outside my window.

“He’s not worth it”, that other guy had said, so many years ago. After high school I stayed in town, went to the University of Near Mom New Mexico and pursued a theater arts degree. It was here that I finally came out to my friends and family, and even though being gay in the early 90’s was easier than decades before, it was still Albuquerque. I found this out one night as some friends and I ate our weight in Moons Over My Hammy at Denny’s, a greasy-spoon near the school. I wore my Freedom Rings proudly around my neck, coordinating with my solid cobalt-blue flannel shirt (did I mention it was the 90’s?).

Our meal was interrupted in much the same way that my current sandwich was. Two guys at a table nearby, older and bigger than us, noticed my rings and started talking loudly: “What are you looking at, faggot?” “Stop looking at me, faggot!” My friends and I stopped eating, looked at each other with wide eyes, silent and still. Maybe we collectively thought that they would leave us alone if we played possum. Maybe homophobes’ vision is motion-based, like a T-Rex.

No such luck: they strutted up to the table, and the main aggressor repeated what he said before directly to me. His friend got uncomfortable, though: “He’s not worth it”, and pushed his angry friend away from the table, out the door.

It was that, that same feeling, that I was feeling now. Sure, I’d heard that word plenty before, but usually in public, and mostly in a way that I could walk away from. But here? In my own home? I couldn’t stand for this. Could I?

I couldn’t. I’d be damned if I let someone say that word in a place I was supposed to feel safe. I haven’t been in a lot of fights, but I know how to get ready for one. I took my glasses off, took my watch off. I got my phone ready in case I needed to record anything.

I opened my door and walked toward him.

Continued in Part Two.

 

 

If you liked this, you’re possibly broken forever! Read about my drunken tips for decorating, or listen to the dreadful music I like, or even about my dumb thoughts on monogamy. Let’s be horrible people together!

How It Happens

 

First published, in abbreviated form, in PQMonthly.

This is how it happens, and in retrospect it couldn’t happen any other way. You look at the dating app Scruff one day, having been single for three years, single at 41. All of these faces scrolling by. Some familiar ones occasionally post new photos, where maybe they have a little more grey, or they’ve lost or gained weight. Maybe they look a little more tired from the search, a little more cynical. Maybe they’re almost ready to press “delete” and just leave meeting people to fate and natural circumstances. Their faces say they’re ready to just trash every dating app and get on with living life, spending more time with their friends, creating more art. Maybe their weary faces say they’re a little scared that they’ve already experienced all the love they’re ever going to.

Or maybe that’s just me, you think. You open up a dating app, yeah that one, see a handsome bearded face. He has a boyfriend, because of course he does, and they’re exclusive. You chat a bit, and he won’t even flirt with you because he’s taken. He makes an impression on you but the conversation fades away after a few days.

All of a sudden, months later, Continue reading

Lemonade

As with most mornings on my days off, it’s a slow roll to wake up this particular morning. I sleepily smile at the text from my boyfriend, reply to it. I pet my perpetually hungry cat, Ned. I browse Facebook for a couple minutes, watch the new Star Wars trailer, realize that Darth Vader’s helmet kinda always looks like the “gritted teeth” emoji. A friend on Facebook has lost a loved one, and I almost comment on the post but decide not to. I’m sorry for your loss, but I’m even sorrier for all the notifications I’ll get if I comment on your post.

Then I check the dashboard for my shitty-ass blog. Oh great, I think, rolling my eyes, Chad’s back.

I started this blog a few years ago to chronicle my experience leaving my job for a year to have an “artistic sabbatical”. Halfway through that year, I had a rough time of it and suddenly the writing got more personal. I knew then that I was making a choice to put my ramblings out into the public domain, and I also knew well enough from Reddit message boards that not everyone would be kind. Take the above comment, posted at 1:04 am to my recent piece about transparency and honesty. Chad’s clearly trying to bring “tool” back. The overall message in my piece wasn’t very controversial, just an affirmation that it’s better to be open than not. But Chad’s had it in for me for awhile: Continue reading

See Right Through You: The Case For Transparency

 

First published in PQMonthly

Walking down Broadway, I shuffled along, staring at the sidewalk and musing on the possible titles of my inevitable, boring memoir: “My Cat Is The Handsomest: Thoughts On Dying Alone By Michael James Schneider.” “Sir, You Can’t Take A Bottle Of Lube That Large On An Airplane, A Long-Distance Love Story By Michael James Schneider”. “What It Looks Like When The Universe Poops On Your Life: How To Get It All Wrong, by Michael James Schneider”. I looked up just in time to realize that A) I was at a bottleneck in the sidewalk, between a cafe table and a tree, and B) a guy who was Dreamy As Fuck was also trying to get through the narrow path from the other side.

I stopped, made an embarrassed gesture to let him through. He, however, did the same. No, no, my next gesture said, my hand sweeping magnanimously, Please, after you, I insist. And there we stood for a good 20 minutes, each trying to be the Beta dog in this classic West Coast Standoff of politeness, each trying not to bare our teeth or make eye contact lest the other one attack.

On the surface, the PNW is a friendly, polite place to live. What happens when you look under that surface, though? Is politeness a form of dishonesty and artifice, and if so, what does it take to live a transparent life? Continue reading

Cheat Code: Leveling Up on Dating Apps

 

First appeared in PQMonthly

There he is, that writer, on his day off from his day job. Tall, lanky as fuck, wandering from room to room in his apartment in NE Portland with a coffee cup in hand. He stops to pet his cat, then checks his phone. A notification from Tinder, a dating app for boring people. A new match! His thumb hovers above the screen of his mint-condition iPhone 3GS. “What is happening here?” he thinks. Ignores the notification. Life goes on.

A day later, he’s on Scruff, a dating app for guys who want more Instagram followers. A few guys “woof” at him, he gets on the Global View front page, he feels good about himself. Then he wonders why, what kind of validation he’s getting from this. Continue reading

Swipe Left

"Workout Buddies" (screencap by Shawn Jackson) .ig-b- { display: inline-block; } .ig-b- img { visibility: hidden; } .ig-b-:hover { background-position: 0 -60px; } .ig-b-:active { background-position: 0 -120px; } .ig-b-v-24 { width: 137px; height: 24px; background: url(//badges.instagram.com/static/images/ig-badge-view-sprite-24.png) no-repeat 0 0; } @media only screen and (-webkit-min-device-pixel-ratio: 2), only screen and (min--moz-device-pixel-ratio: 2), only screen and (-o-min-device-pixel-ratio: 2 / 1), only screen and (min-device-pixel-ratio: 2), only screen and (min-resolution: 192dpi), only screen and (min-resolution: 2dppx) { .ig-b-v-24 { background-image: url(//badges.instagram.com/static/images/ig-badge-view-sprite-24@2x.png); background-size: 160px 178px; } }

“Workout Buddies” (screencap by Shawn Jackson)
Instagram

I was interviewed by Reggie Aqui at KGW, the local NBC affiliate here in Portland, about dating apps. I managed to make Scruff sound almost respectable! To see the full video, click this link. UGH WHY IS IT NOT EMBEDDABLE.

Faraway, So Close

 

First appeared, in edited form, in PQ Monthly.

Outline for a piece about long-distance courtship.

Told in third person. Main person is Mike, hopeless romantic, late 30s to early 40s, been in long-term relationships most of his life. Been insulated from realities of dating and being single until two years ago, he calls the phenomena of feeling like a fish out of water the “Single Gay Time Traveler” effect.

He reluctantly gets on a hookup app (that he charmingly calls a “dating app”). Which one? Should it be Grindr, or Growlr, or Scruff? Let’s make it Scruff. For a while it’s a secret, he won’t tell his friends about being on the app. He’s also kind of judgey when confronted with “sluttiness” and explicit pics (this could be a character arc for Mike, going from a place of almost prudishness, to eventually embracing his sexuality). Continue reading

1973

 

This is how it happens: you turn 40, in the fall of 2013. You write a cute post about turning 40, about hitting parked cars and falling down for no reason. It’s funny, but inside you’re actually still a little sad. You realize the earth is spinning through the same space it was a year earlier and it’s the exact time of year he told you no. You still think about him sometimes, but then you realize that he probably doesn’t think about you since the three manifesto-length texts you sent him probably forever sealed in his mind that you’re a creeper. You thought your 40th birthday would be a blowout, but it’s the opposite: friends can’t travel around Thanksgiving except to their families, the timing is off. You have a quiet drink with a friend at a bar you now don’t even remember. You realize you’re in for a long winter, or what you later call “Olive Garden’s Endless Heartbreak.” Continue reading

The Crab-Free Diet

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Instagram

First published in PQMonthly.

He stands there in my doorway, not coming in. His hand is holding his bike up that he rode over on, also halfway through the threshold. Carl mutters something, small talk: “Hey. How did you sleep last night?”

“Like a log,” I say, and then add “A drunk, crying log.” He doesn’t react, he just looks down at his feet. “Come all the way in, will you?” I ask, now annoyed. Everything’s been going great with Carl, we’ve been dating a couple of months now, so this is about the time for something to get completely and irrevocably fucked up. I look at my watch: yup, it’s Breakup O’Clock! Continue reading

The 30-Day Dating Cleanse

"App Soup", photo by Jeff Howard, digital by Tucker Cullinan .ig-b- { display: inline-block; } .ig-b- img { visibility: hidden; } .ig-b-:hover { background-position: 0 -60px; } .ig-b-:active { background-position: 0 -120px; } .ig-b-v-24 { width: 137px; height: 24px; background: url(//badges.instagram.com/static/images/ig-badge-view-sprite-24.png) no-repeat 0 0; } @media only screen and (-webkit-min-device-pixel-ratio: 2), only screen and (min--moz-device-pixel-ratio: 2), only screen and (-o-min-device-pixel-ratio: 2 / 1), only screen and (min-device-pixel-ratio: 2), only screen and (min-resolution: 192dpi), only screen and (min-resolution: 2dppx) { .ig-b-v-24 { background-image: url(//badges.instagram.com/static/images/ig-badge-view-sprite-24@2x.png); background-size: 160px 178px; } }

“App Soup”, photo by Jeff Howard, digital by Tucker Cullinan
Instagram

Inevitably, the text came a couple of days after the second date, like it seems to a lot lately: “Sorry, just no sparks. Let’s be friends!” This one smarted a bit. Handsome, great tech job that he was good at, seemed a bit old-fashioned, and we didn’t meet on an app. On the one hand, I loved the honesty, but on the other hand, it was maybe just one too many rejections in too short a time, and this was a guy I was crossing my fingers for.

Time to take a break, I thought, so I did what any self-respecting single person would do: I went on a cleanse. A 30-day dating cleanse. Since I was inventing it as I went along, what were the ground rules? Okay, #1: No sex. Duh. #2: Nothing “datey”, no dinners or meals. Not even going to have a drink or beers. #3: Yes, I can use apps to say hello and chat, but no dates goddamnit.

Day 1. Hey, this isn’t too bad. I’m busy with my day job, and I have a writing deadline to make, so I can concentrate on that. Famous last words!

Day 2. Oh. Hey. Holy crap, a hot paramedic on Sruff who’s into sci-fi movies. Dave Eggers is his favorite author and he describes his beard as “post-ironic”. He has really nice legs. Okay, just one date? Continue reading

All Good Things

So much love for these Fools (photo by Jessica Sherman-Prince)

So much love for these Fools (photo by Jessica Sherman-Prince)

I studied theater in college, because of course I did. I mean, I didn’t get this weird entirely on my own, right? Then I fell in love, moved away from Albuquerque to Chicago for a few years, fell out of love, and eventually found my way back to New Mexico. It was then that I really immersed myself in the theater scene there. I helped found a Shakespeare company, directed for the first time, and found a passion for theatrical production design.

I moved to Los Angeles in 2001, ostensibly to start an acting career, but also because all of my friends made a mass-exodus to the west coast. I quickly found myself discouraged by the constant rejection. This isn’t making art, I argued in my own head, this is a business. There were so many other people who wanted it more than I did, and were far better at it than I was. I stepped away from pursuing acting, put my nose to the grindstone at my retail management job, and didn’t look back.

Fast forward a few years. Continue reading

Truth, and Consequences

Honesty is a hard pill to swallow .ig-b- { display: inline-block; } .ig-b- img { visibility: hidden; } .ig-b-:hover { background-position: 0 -60px; } .ig-b-:active { background-position: 0 -120px; } .ig-b-v-24 { width: 137px; height: 24px; background: url(//badges.instagram.com/static/images/ig-badge-view-sprite-24.png) no-repeat 0 0; } @media only screen and (-webkit-min-device-pixel-ratio: 2), only screen and (min--moz-device-pixel-ratio: 2), only screen and (-o-min-device-pixel-ratio: 2 / 1), only screen and (min-device-pixel-ratio: 2), only screen and (min-resolution: 192dpi), only screen and (min-resolution: 2dppx) { .ig-b-v-24 { background-image: url(//badges.instagram.com/static/images/ig-badge-view-sprite-24@2x.png); background-size: 160px 178px; } }

Honesty is a hard pill to swallow
Instagram

First appeared (in edited version) on PQ Monthly

We’re walking along 10th Street near Everett. Karl and I just had the greasiest, sloppiest meal of our lives at Tilt (I’m sorry, but tater tots should not should be the size of my fist, or my increasingly struggling cardiac muscle). The first date had gone great for sure, ended in a make-out session that had startled my cat Ned away with its ferocity. We scheduled this date, the second one, even before the first had ended. I had good reason to be optimistic about this one. Holy shit, I had even saved his last name in my phone.

This place, walking past the yogawear shop, the rainwear store, the record shop that only sells cassingles, that’s where he drops the Bombshell. Not at the end of the date, and not a day or two afterwards, which would have been better. Here, while we’re wandering around the Pearl district and telling each other embarrassing stories about ourselves, this is where he ruins everything. Continue reading

The Gold Medal for Dating

from l to r, Michael James Schneider, Jess Burchett, Blake Morgan  .ig-b- { display: inline-block; } .ig-b- img { visibility: hidden; } .ig-b-:hover { background-position: 0 -60px; } .ig-b-:active { background-position: 0 -120px; } .ig-b-v-24 { width: 137px; height: 24px; background: url(//badges.instagram.com/static/images/ig-badge-view-sprite-24.png) no-repeat 0 0; } @media only screen and (-webkit-min-device-pixel-ratio: 2), only screen and (min--moz-device-pixel-ratio: 2), only screen and (-o-min-device-pixel-ratio: 2 / 1), only screen and (min-device-pixel-ratio: 2), only screen and (min-resolution: 192dpi), only screen and (min-resolution: 2dppx) { .ig-b-v-24 { background-image: url(//badges.instagram.com/static/images/ig-badge-view-sprite-24@2x.png); background-size: 160px 178px; } }

from l to r, Michael James Schneider, Jess Burchett, Blake Morgan
Instagram

The scene fades up, and there I am, eating my lunch on a bench at the waterfront near downtown Portland. I’m on break from work, wearing a suit, and have ordered a tortilla positively stuffed with ingredients (local, organic, because Portland). I look up and there he is: the man of my dreams. Bearded and short, with glasses on that make him look smart (YAY EVEN IF HE’S NOT), wearing shorts that show off his legs, and walking his pug. I smile at him, and he smiles back.

It’s then that it happens: Continue reading

We’ll Laugh About This Later: A Pride Recap

This Could Be Us But You Playin'

This Could Be Us But You Playin’

First published in the July issue of PQMonthly as the first post of my new column, This Ends Badly.Click here for more pieces in the Single Gay Time Traveler Series.

Here in the PNW, it’s Pride Season, or as I like to call it, Summertime Sadness. I’ve gone to a couple Pride Festivals in Los Angeles, where I moved from a year ago, and then my first Portland one last year. It was fun, but I usually just go to the parades and daytime festivities, and I found myself shrugging off Portland Pride 2014. It seems I had lost the spirit of Pride; so this time, I summoned the ghosts of Pride Past, Present, and Future to get it back. Continue reading

Happy Birthday, BLCKSMTH

Photo by Chase Person (from l to r, Jennie Kay, Michael James Schneider, Nick Mattos, Wayne Bund, Chase Person, Summer Olsson, Logan Lynn) .ig-b- { display: inline-block; } .ig-b- img { visibility: hidden; } .ig-b-:hover { background-position: 0 -60px; } .ig-b-:active { background-position: 0 -120px; } .ig-b-v-24 { width: 137px; height: 24px; background: url(//badges.instagram.com/static/images/ig-badge-view-sprite-24.png) no-repeat 0 0; } @media only screen and (-webkit-min-device-pixel-ratio: 2), only screen and (min--moz-device-pixel-ratio: 2), only screen and (-o-min-device-pixel-ratio: 2 / 1), only screen and (min-device-pixel-ratio: 2), only screen and (min-resolution: 192dpi), only screen and (min-resolution: 2dppx) { .ig-b-v-24 { background-image: url(//badges.instagram.com/static/images/ig-badge-view-sprite-24@2x.png); background-size: 160px 178px; } }

Photo by Chase Person (from l to r, Jennie Kay, Michael James Schneider, Nick Mattos, Wayne Bund, Chase Person, Summer Olsson, Logan Lynn)
Instagram

Two years ago, when I lived in Los Angeles, I left my job to take a year-long “artistic sabbatical”. I felt a creative itch that was brought about by working with my LA family at Sacred Fools Theater Company. A few months into that year, I went through some shit. I came out on the other side more determined than ever to create a life that was artistically fulfilling, and more than anything true and authentic to myself. I visited Portland for the first time in February of 2013, and instantly fell in love with it, thanks to my good friend and tour guide Summer Olsson. And then a funny thing happened: Continue reading

Love In The Age Of Scruff, Part 2

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Instagram

Disclaimer: I don’t consider it particularly noble or funny anymore to post photos of screenshots of private conversations on dating apps. Nevertheless, this series of posts strikes a chord in a lot of people, so I have kept the screenshots in.

“I have been holding this fart in from the day I met you, and now I’m ready to let it go.” When it all boils down, I’m really just looking for someone to say that to. There are a million and one different things that people on there are looking for, but that’s the common denominator. Whether it’s friends, or “workout buddies” (hahahaha who the hell are you kidding), or an eventual husband, we’re all looking for someone to get know on a comfortable level. Someone who we don’t have to worry anymore about holding in our farts around.

This occurred to me while I was in the grocery store, where most of my Deep Thoughts happen (hey, dawdling stranger, get the fuck out of the boxed wine aisle so I can get to My Preciousss). Being single for a couple years isn’t a big deal…unless you’re someone who loves to be in monogamous relationships, like me. Loading my cart up with cat litter and Juanita’s tortilla chips, I thought Maybe it’s the first impression. If I’m going to make Scruff the primary thing I use to meet guys, maybe I should work on my profile.

Let’s break this down one section at a time, shall we? Continue reading

June: A Soundtrack

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Instagram

BLCKSMTH first talked to Michelle Lesniak last year for our Princess Mononoke-themed photo shoot. To say she’s a force to be reckoned with is an understatement. This talented Portland-based fashion designer makes bold choices, has clear vision, and is humble about her successes. 2014 looks to be a banner year for her, with her recent engagement and her studio/retail space opening up in SE Portland this month, with a trunk show June 13th and 14th from 2 to 9 both days.

Michelle’s song contributions this month were dark and moody, and inspired me to make similar choices for my picks. We went up to the Pittock Mansion for a Gothic-inspired photo shoot from the masterful Chase Person, with makeup by Jill Greenseth. Michelle is modeling looks from her own current collection. This month’s soundtrack knows what scares you: Continue reading

*How To Save Your Own Life, A Webseries

 

from l. to r., Kevin Kauer, Michael James Schneider, Nick Mattos

from l. to r., Kevin Kauer, Michael James Schneider, Nick Mattos

This is how it works: life happens the same as always, day after day. You go to work, you go home, you eat ice cream on the couch and pet your cat, and you lose yourself in the routine. Then, one day, everything falls apart — and things get interesting. Then, things get really interesting. Continue reading