Great news yesterday at the Dr's.! Apparently it's normal for your Tcell count to fluctuate 10% up or down. Anything other than that being noteworthy. So how cool is it that my Tcell count increased almost 29% since my last visit? Very cool, indeed. So I get to stick with my vitamin therapy and lots of food and exercise. Let my mutant healing factor do it's stuff. He dropped my bloodtests from monthly to bi-monthly. Hurrah for me. And to celebrate I updated my photo section with a few of my favorites. Enjoy

Finally two days off!

Oh the end of my work week is a happy time. Even though most of the world is just getting started. It's funny, but having your days off in the middle of the week is frustrating in that the rest of the world seems to be busy working even though clearly there are other people shopping when I do and going to the movies and eating in restaurants. So why is it so hard to meet another fag who is on a similar schedule? I have long ago ruled out a serious relationship with a 9 to 5 business type because even though that's my clientel, when it comes to dating they just can't seem to grasp my schedule. It's never too long before they ask you to spend the weekend at the beach and you're like "the weekend being this Tuesday and Wednesday?" but no, that's not what he meant. Of course now that I don't work for tips things are slightly different in that taking a day or two off no longer means losing money as well but still, the reason I'm off mid-week is because the bar business happens mostly Thursday through Sunday and I need to be there then.
Perfect example: This weekend I got in Saturday at 9:30pm. We have a rule that the doormen are supposed to follow. No problems/ emergencies/situations are to be brought up as we are entering the building. It just seems more civilized and easier to take if we get a chance to get in, take off our coat, have a seat, check the mail, apply a little lip gloss you get the picture. One of our doormen just can't quite grasp the concept so on this night, I get a little preview. "Oh, P---- will tell you all about it." (Insert big rock in my gut) As it turns out, what happened was that a patron, or in this case potential patron as he hadn't come in yet, was entering the building and got a little light headed on the stairs coming in. He fell back and managed to sort of break his own fall but then basically passed out for a second on the sidewalk. EMS was called. I'm not even sure at this point if he was taken away or treated at the scene. Problem over. Cut to: the next night (Sunday) Insert brief back story here: I close the bar Saturday at 4am. By the time I finish paper work, accounting etc it's 4:45. A cocktail and shoot the shit with my staff and now it's 5:20. Hop in a cab home in ten minutes it's 5:30. (6 or 6:30 if we hang for a bit). Right to sleep, I'm usually back up by 1pm at the latest. I've got time to check my email, throw down some coffee, watch a little TV maybe shave my *ahem* parts and then leave for work by 3:30. Sunday I'm there from 4:30 till 3am. (And just to totally impress you I do it again: 4:30 - 3am on Monday)

So back to Sunday it was 9pm or so (I think) and I hear "get T--" in that serious way that I know I'm needed for real and not because a bartender needs a band-aid or some nonsense. I'm told that someone has collapsed by the piano. Now, you would think that I would immediately call 911 in this situation but really, not so fast. In my business there are degrees and types of "collapsed". It can be due to medication (legal or not) or old age. It can be alcohol induced (read: passed out). Hell I've seen 'em go down bacuse of diabetes or they're anorexic and haven't eaten in four days. So 911 is not the first option until you actually go and make an assessment of who fell out and why. In this case by the time I arrived the patron appeared unconscious at first but after a second I observed that he was in fact awake and lucid. After I cleared away all the well-meaning but ultimately useless homosexuals surrounding him it seemed pretty clear by his manner and the friend who was with him that this had happened before. So I guess maybe a small seizure or a reaction to medication. I make sure he isn't injured ( as he fell on a lamp on the way to the floor- he was fine the lamp is broken) and ask him if he would like some water which just seems to help in these situations and after a few minutes (maybe ten) he manages to get on his feet and walk out. It's all very dramatic on the surface but really, just a part of my day and actually quite a relief compared to the one two weeks ago.

Now does this sort of thing happen on a Tuesday or Wednesday as well? Of course. But law of averages will tell you that if you have 180 people in your bar on a Tuesday and 580 on a Saturday then chances increase exponentially the something is more likely to happen on a Saturday that needs your attention. So, Brad you see I can't just take the weekend off and go to New Hope with you.

Dr's appontment today. New blood test results to see if I'm losing ground or holding steady. Tomorrow I meet with my nutritionist. I think she's kind of full of shit but hey, it's free.....

There's some heavy shit goin down.

Not with me, really, thank goodness but with others around me. People in my employ and such. But since this is such a fragile new baby blog I don't wanna get all bogged down in cereal-ness right from the jump so I'm gonna table the other people drama for now (but remind me, if I don't tell you about it in a couple of days. Be like, "dude, what about all the other people drama from the weekend?" at which point I won't answer you 'cause I hate it when people refer to me as "dude") 'cause I got other things to say. LA-LA-LA *skips happily through the flowers*.

I'm thinking of hiring a hooker.
To be precise a hooker/masseur.

I have many reasons why I think this is a good idea. First and foremost, I haven't had sex in over a year. If that's hard for you to believe imagine how I feel! I wasn't sure at first but then an anniversary came up and I was like, FUCK! (I haven't been!) I quit smoking a year ago in February, the day after my birthday. Right after I reached the one year mark something came up to make me aware how much time had passed. (Probably the next birthday) It was then that I realized that I had been looking forward to swapping spit with someone with my ash-can-less mouth and it hadn't happened yet. Then I thought, well surely I must have done it as a quicky or something and forgot but no. Now......... as I've been writing this I just remembered that I did make an on-line love connection where it ended up that I invited this neighborhood guy over. He plopped his naked butt in this very chair while I got down and "serviced him". A practice I can totally get into but wish there was a better name for. I like the idea of pleasuring a man. I get off on making him get off. Sometimes. Anyway I THINK that may have happened this year but I don't really know so for all intents and porpoises I haven't gotten nothin. I wish I could tell you why exactly. I wish that there was one particular reason I could cite that prevented me from getting my ass rimmed and royally fucked but as always, in my life, it's layers upon layers. A simple issue won't due when I can ball it up and tie it to six other issues. Only a small part of it has to do with my current, one-sided love affair. (thanks again, Dad) I can still get on all fours and stare at the pedestal at the same time.

A lot of it had to do with me spending the last year on the long road back from crazy. Even if other people would say that crazy is too strong a word and after all I managed to run a 2 million dollar a year business and keep a roof over my head. But I know what was going on in my head and I know how much every day was a struggle and I know that if other people glimpsed an occasionally slipping facade on the outside on the inside, total collapse was taking place. I went crazy. I was a phobic, cumpulsive, anxiety filled mess. Mostly I was scared.

Some of it had to do with the fact that, even in the best of times, I have a basic disconnect with my body image. I'm totally aware of what my body is doing on the inside all the time. But I have no idea really what I look like to others. Towards the end of my mental deterioration ( around the last year or so) I not only drank my 1/2 bottle of vodka a night but I also basically stopped exercising. I ocassionally made a half-assed attempt to keep at it but when you're afraid of some of the equipment in the gym (not kidding, wish I was) it makes it hard. In an ideal situation my perception of how I look is suspect. As I hit bottom emotionally I bloated and put on weight. Not fat by anyone's realistic standard but enough that even when the possibility of meaningless sex with a stranger came up I took a look in a mirror and decided to jerk off instead.

So I'm thinking that if I go pro for my first time back that will sort of eliminate the whole "does my belly look flabby, does he dig shaved pubes?" part of my brain from kicking in. Besides, I want to know how my ass looks these days. I've always had a great ass. In fact I did go see a massage "with release" guy (that needs a new term as well) once a couple of years ago. He was supposed to be the non-sex type but once I got naked on the table my ass inspired him and he asked if he could fuck me. It's that kind of an ass. An ass that makes people do things. Or it was. I want someone to tell me if I still have a nice ass. my hot bootay.jpg A hooker will do that for you.

Besides all that, I really could use the massage. I've been working out very regularly for a while now so I'm frequently sore. On top of that, I carry all of my mental stress in my body, specifically my back and shoulders. I can't tell you how many times I've had a massage (with or without "release") where the guy doing it has been like "Damn! You got big rocks where your back muscles belong!" I know, I know what can I say. I'm a tense individual.

CD's I've made- this oughta cornfuse you.htm

March 7, 2003

That was the title I was originally going to call this blog. At the time, I thought that it was the most significant date In my life. Now I'm not so sure. I'm a 41 year old gay man living in NYC. On March 7, 2003 I learned I was HIV positive. That was quite possibly the hardest sentence I've ever typed. Not because of the HIV admission, but now everyone will know I'm 41! I had to do it. I made a promise to myself that I was going to really commit to this blog and use it to help me get through my new challenges. I've spent a large portion of my life obscuring, ignoring and avoiding the truth or some truths. I'd like to say I'm done doing that but I'd be lying again. I'm going to try as hard as I can to be brutally honest in this chronicle. Not just with you but with myself. I'm hoping that I can see once and for all where I came from and why. The future we'll discover together. I want to take you with me on this journey.

I don't want to give everything away in some lame-ass description of who I am and what I do. I've posted some information already on this site so you can start to get to know who I am and what churns my butter. I feel pretty confident in my skills as a communicator that you will get to know me and my life and the lunatics and sorcerers that populate it rather quickly. As I get more adept at utilizing this blog I will add as much in the way of pictures and extra special chewy tidbits as I can find. I can promise that it will be as true a reflection of my life as I can possibly make it, which means that you can look forward to a lot of humor that may or may not be humorous, tons of dirty gay filth (see my already posted interest links), stories about the people I meet, play with, pick up off the floor and occasionally teach how to laugh through the pain.

I'll start with the whole HIV thing since it was the catalyst for me to begin the blog and I'm sure it will come up again and again on here. Like my dick. It's been just over a month since I was diagnosed. I'm sure some people will tell you about how stunned they were and how they cried for a week after the diagnosis but that never happened to me. When I decided to finally be tested after all these (15!) years in New York City I was fully aware of the possibility that I could get a positive diagnosis. Of course, I was hoping I wouldn't but still. It's like this....in all the years of suckin and fuckin and ass eating and sex parties and boothstores and escorts and masseurs and escort/masseurs (do I sense a theme?) was I just letting everyone blow a load in me willy-nilly? Of course not. But I've never been at all what you would call cum-phobic either. Hey, people are, for lack of a better word "juicy" (No, that is the better word) And sex is sticky and juicy (if you do it right) Throw in a healthy dose of low self -esteem, sprinkle on a liberal dusting of depression and there you have me waking up first thing in the morning and riding a fat hog that I lubed with my own spit. It happened. Move on.

The surprising part so far for me has been how long it takes to know what's up with yourself after you've been diagnosed. I thought that you go in, give blood wait a week, you're positive or negative, they give you a lolly and send you on your way. Not so fast though kitten. The diagnosis is just the beginning. Once you find out you're positive then some real fun begins. Apparently, now you have to find out how positive you are. So it's back to the lab but this time they take vials and vials of your blood. I think it was at least six I'm not sure. That day, there was a guy ahead of me who apparently turned white while he was being vamped which sent me into a mild panic as well. So I didn't count all the vials and I looked away and sang something in my head to distract me. And another 14 days go by so you can get your viral load and Tcell count. And that's it? Oh you silly silly soul! Not even close! In my case it was sort of a good news/bad news event. The good news was two-fold. First, according to my blood test, except for the death in my veins I'm healthy as a horse. (Besides that, how did you enjoy the play Mrs. Lincoln?) Second, not having a clue exactly how long I've been infected at this point my test results say I still have enough Tcells and a low enough viral load that I'm "healthy". So as it stands today my "medication" consists of multiple vitamins and trying to stay healthy. So now we know where I stand, right? You so stoopid! No! I had to wait a month and go back to see the vamps and make another donation. Why you may ask? Because they have to get a few sets of tests over a few months to see if I'm deteriorating or maintaining in my condition. In other words I may stay like this for months or six months or years before treatment has to start. Or not. If my system goes wonky progressively I'll have to go on the anti-virals and oh, won't chronic diarrhea be a happy, happy time?

So there you have it. Our jumping off point. I'll tell you about my Dr. visits. I'll tell you secrets about my job. I may write poetry. Sometmes I'll just post an article I like. If I ever have one again I'll be happy to dish on my own love life. That's not an HIV thing it's a I'm a dysfunctional freak thing. Good news is I'm probably going to have to leave the house more, just to keep things interesting. Periodically, I'll post my e-mail address.(tommyrico@msn.com) If you like what you read so far let me know, I'd love to hear from you. If you want to say something negative shut your hole, I'm not a well woman!

PHOTOS

dare to dream.jpg -yes, that's a thong
hotMEboy.jpg-he actually lives here in NYC. I want him wearing that
spank Me!.jpg-he was bad
spare tire.jpg-pic from the web, text added by me
butt2.jpg-from a site called "ButtmachineBoys" that I found hilarious and oddly hot
travis_box2d.jpg-(sigh) do I need to explain? Let her sue me from rehab..

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aboutme.htm