Today is the first day of the rest of your life!

It's monday. I'm home. Not home sick. Just home. I have a tentative play date for some piggy bondage at 3pm. Need to call and confirm that. Not sure what I'll be able to cross off my To Do list today.

Spent the morning making an Excel spreadsheet of all the men to whom I've said, "We should get together and play sometime" but haven't been able to as work days are long, and weekends are short.

And here's big news. I may go to IML. Well, sort of. I may go to Chicago for Memorial Day Weekend might be a better way of putting it. Whilst there, I'll spend time at the Chicago Hellfire Club clubhouse, perhaps go to the Leather Navigator party, and meet up with a Top who has me fascinated. I could get airfare for $220. I might drive. $220 would probably give me nights in a hotel on the way out and back (or in the alternative, I know a guy in Toledo who plays with knives...) and the gas I would need. Perhaps a nice long road trip to clear my head would be a good thing. Driving would also give me some flexibility, too. Wonder if I could get Baron von Philadelphia to stay here while I'm gone, saving some money on boarding my dog. (I think I can talk the Baron down to $25/day, rather than the $35 a day I pay to Pet People. Too, there's not much doing with GMSMA, and I won't have to miss a softball game.

That does mean that I won't be making a trip down to Fort Lauderdale that weekend. Alas. My Brother somehow weedled his way into my driving trip down to Fort Lauderdale. Well, not really. My sister and I were very close, and my brother and I were less so. When my sister died, I think my brother and I both felt a need to get to know each other better, and to get closer. So that's all good, right?

Well, kind of. Y'see, my brother is sort of an Ex-Gay. No, he didn't have a religious conversion or anything, and didn't go through de-programming that I know of. He came out when he was 19 or 20. He was never particularly successful as a gay man. He was sort of dorky. He only had one boyfriend, and that guy was a drug-addled young man that my brother supported. (While living in the house next to my parents that I'll be moving into, now that I think of it.) When he was 35, he met a woman at church who sang in the choir. He was master of the acolytes. The woman was really sorry to hear that my brother was gay, because she thought that he was all that. They became friends, spent a lot of time together, fell in love, and got married.

Now, I don't know quite what to think about what my brother thinks about me being gay. I mean, he's never said anything. (Although he did mention once that my softball team was 'just a bunch of fairies anyway,' which pissed me off. But I have no idea how he would feel about me getting leathered up and going to the Eagle if we were in Fort Lauderdale together.

And I think I would want to forgo that, anyway. I mean, it's not like I'd be able to bring some hot boy home at 2 in the morning and whip him. There are no longer any walls in the FTL digs. "Just pretend you're asleep, David..."

No, I'd like to make that trip down to Fort Lauderdale with my brother, and spend time with him, and go to the beach, and get the place painted, and all of that. But, not yet. In a little while.

Memorial Day Weekend would be ideal for him, as he wouldn't have to take that much time off work. And I think I was looking at that as a good weekend to drive to Florida as everybody I'd be interested in meeting up with would be in Chicago for IML. So there would be less... distraction.

Eh. It'll work out.

But I think I'll go to IML.

---