I'm starting a brand new life here in Barcelona. I've had to make lots of adjustments to my attitude due to the change of culture, language, people, and locale. Since I made the dramatic change to my life, I thought I'd start anew (yeah again, again...*LOL*) with another blogspot. Different blogspot, different location, same ol' E.
One other change that I've had to adjust to is the change in umm, change. The Euro which actually as of this writing has gotten weaker still wound up costing me a pretty penny to convert my U.S. dollars. Pop quiz: Can you spot the two American coins that are in my picture above?
I don't think there's a 2 cent U.S. coin but there is one in the Euro. Another uncommon one is the 20 cent euro. Also instead of dollar bills, you have 1 euro coins. And the two dollar bills also has a two euro cousin. It makes the task of giving change slightly harder to navigate, lest someone gives you a 50 cent euro instead of a 2 euro.
There are times I question myself for leaving Chicago. Actually that's a lie. I've never really questioned it only because I'm also lying about relocating to Barcelona. Yeah some things never change. I had to do something big to introduce myself back to what's left of the blogging community.
But as of this writing I am vacationing in Barcelona. It's my first ever European trip. I gotten all kinds of advice on the trip from my new friend Jose. Jose and I met over a year ago initially as a hook-up. It was good enough for another followup hook-up. But after the second one, we actually began to get to know each other outside of the bedroom. He's a few years more than half a century old but looks much younger and definitely has a healthy appetite for sex. He's become quite invaluable in my life, offering me career, personal, and of course trip advice. It's been nice having another constant gay friend in my life besides Eugene. He offers me an additional perspective on situations. Plus he lives not far from me so we've been hanging out quite a bit together around the town.
So yeah this year's birthday trip starts off in Barcelona and ends in Madrid, with possible side trips to Sitges and Toledo (not Ohio). The hardest part about this trip is adjusting to the language. Barcelona has the added distinction of having Catalin as its primary language with Spanish being secondary, so it's been a bit of a struggle for me. But thankfully for the most part, Barcelonians (I guess that's the right term.) have been generally nice to me despite my messed up Spanish.
Traveling alone is nice mostly because I control the when, where, and how long aspects of my day. But the hard part for me sometimes is eating alone, especially when everyone else that's there seems to have a date, family, or friends with them. It reminds me once again that I still haven't found boyfriend #2 since my time with Rock ended almost three years ago in December 2008. So clearly "Date and Dash" didn't quite work out for me. One of the best moments of my relationship with Rock was our traveling together to New York (despite the rocky road to get to that point....*LOL*). Eating alone reminds of how much I miss those times.
To add fuel to the fire, I inch closer to the inevitable big 4-0 on October 15th, hitting 39. I can't believe how fast time is flying. On the bright side, I'm reluctantly grateful to still have a job (yeah at that place still....LOL*). It'll be fifteen years there April 2012, assuming I make it. The company I'm at has been a lot of layoffs in the last couple years. Somehow I've managed to hold on for the time being and thank goodness, with the stock market (and effectively my 401-K), taking a nose dive. And of course my crappy penny stocks are barely holding on to their pennies.
It's a wonder I've contemplated having kids this past year. How the hell can I afford them? Taking care of them alone at that. My hat is off to all those doing it alone. Even with a partner, how did my parents afford my sisters and I? Hmm.
On the kid front, the two options I've been looking at primarily at are surrogacy and co-parenting. The main advantage of surrogacy is more control over raising your child (especially since I'm alone...*LOL*) but that same advantage is also a disadvantage. In addition there's the whole cost factor. There's actually a surrogacy clinic I've contacted that is in the Chicago area that has the concept of overseas surrogacy, which is cheaper than having a US surrogate. But even that runs almost 50K for one child. Co-parenting main advantage is having another person sharing responsibility for raising a child. Again that main advantage can also be a disadvantage, especially if you both don't see eye-to-eye on certain issues. There's also the need to split time between the co-parents over who has the child. That could also be good when you have a good set-up as there would be a break (though you never really are on break as a parent, I hear...*LOL*) in when you can have 'me time'. And of course finding the right lady (or ladies assuming a lesbian couple) to co-parent with can be tough. A hookup and occasional chat buddy I have shares co-parenting duties with a lady for their two children and he's constantly bitching about how she handles certain situations. Surprisingly though he wants more kids but the thing holding him back is the thought of having them with his current co-parent since his preference is for the siblings to have the same DNA.
Yeah so that's pretty much in a nutshell my life. Ironically I feel like my 1st blog pretty much ending once my parents found out officially I was 'gay' seemed to be a nice segway since my old blog was my life as a closeted gay man in my 30's whereas this one is about my life as a somewhat old (I mean out...*LOL*) gay man about to enter my 40's. Time for me to rest up before enjoying some Barcelona night life.
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