I still have hopes that things can work out, they are getting smaller by the moment.

When I first met her, she was an exchange student from Holland and it was a wonderful year. We were all over each other all of the time.

Then she had to leave and I visited her in Holland. She was very cold to me in just about every way possible, but she was also working on her master's thesis so I attributed it to that so went ahead with the marriage.

She was cold to me after we got married and has remained cold ever since.

She said something that really hurt me the other day...that the reason that she became cold to me was because I symbolized to her the reason why she was living in the US rather than Holland. Damn. If you love someone you love them no matter where they live.

That is the moment that I decided that I needed to move out.

My thought right now is that she didn't even love me in the first year that we were together...she just was infatuated with the idea of having an American boyfriend/lover.

Anyways, although there is a lot of pain right now, I think that things will end up better in the long run.

Gary

I am not going to be posting here for a while although I may check for messages and stuff from time to time.

I am moving out of my house today...my marriage is over and any support I get from any of my friends on NN will be appreciated.

Gary

I have come to a conscious decision that I will not deal with anyone that is not a validated NN member. The reason this site is so much better than regular own porn is because it is honest and real and if I don't know for sure that you are either of those things that I just won't deal with you.

my wife has been out of the country for more than a month and it has been a non stop party. Out of control...the other night I drank fifteen or so beers (it was getting hard to keep count of...that was the day that I brought up appropriate issues with my wife but in a very inappropriate way) and felt so terrible yesterday. I didn't drink at all yesterday, but today kind of failed because I was actually feeling shaky...scary. Damn!!! I am just such an epicurean in so many ways...goes along with my chosen profession as a chef.

But I made a healthy decision today as I was realizing that I need to ease into it...nothing other than wine and no more than one bottle ever.

Wish me luck!

Luv ya guys and gals!

Time to listen to Dancing in the Streets because dancing (no organized stuff, trust me...the only thing I do is the Rainbow Dance) is one of my favorite things to do in the world and I am hoping that this will help keep me happily sober!

face pics today. There are just too many people that I know that I don't want to know that look at a hell of a lot of porn and I decided I was uncomforable it. However, if any one wants unadaltered pics and I am sure that they are who they say they are I will send them. Maybe someday there will be an option allowing only validated people to look at their pics.

Hope everyone is having a horny and happy day!!!

that I am really getting off to right now...

"I woke today...
And felt your side of bed
The covers were still warm where you'd been layin'.
You were gone...
My heart was filled with dread.
You might not be sleepin' here again

It's alright, 'cause I love you.
And that's not gonna change.
Run me round, make me hurt again and again.
But I'll still sing you love songs
Written in the letters of your name.
And brave the storm to come,
For it surely looks like rain.

Did you ever waken to the sound
Of street cats makin' love
And guess from their cries
You were listenin' to a fight?
Well, you know...
Hate's just the last thing they're thinkin' of.
They're only trying to make it through the night.

I only want to hold you.
I don't want to tie you down.
Or fence you in the lines
I might have drawn.
It's just that I've gotten used to
Havin' you around.
My landscape would be empty
If you were gone.

[Rain, rain, go away...]

Gary

I really think that I might have finished things off with my wife...here is the message that I just sent to her:

"I'm truly sorry that my last couple of messages have been so hateful, but I think that they truly are things that you should think about.

I am reminded of two things as I am writing what could possibly be my last message ever to you...

That on our wedding night you refused to do anything sexual with me.

That I have thrown out more condoms than we have used because I have hated being reminded about sex while knowing that there is no way that I will get any.

I am a sexual person and I can't afford to be involved with an asexual person any longer.

I have slept on the couch each and every night that you have been gone because I haven't been able to afford to think about how much sexual frustration you have caused me to feel

If you truly are the asexual person that you have proven yourself to be over and over then for god's sake, end all of this once and for all because it will be heathier for both of us in the long run.

Gary"

I think that I just finished things off with my wife...this is the message that I just sent her:

"If all you are hoping for when you get back is for me to act happy and for things to be the way that they were, I honestly hope that you don't come back at all.

I am so much more myself right now and there is no way that I will ever allow a frigid woman to pull me down again!!!

If you are the frigid woman that I think you are don't even bother...just stay home in Holland and do nothing but sit out in the hammock and read your precious little fucking books and continue to ignore the life that is going on all around you..."

Damn...that is pretty intense, isn't it?

I seriously can't remember the last time my wife and I had sex and I am sure that the people who really know me know that this is something that has caused me a lot of pain...

I have been on Lexapro, an anti-depressant, for the last two months and it has been a revelation for me. Life is good once again and I have realized that the last thing I can let myself do is fall back into my pattern of repressing myself.

Gary

I blew my resolution...got finished planting my flowers and was
feeling overheated, tired and hungover so I set the fan on myself and tried to sleep but couldn't...so I went down to the store. Reminds of Waits' "Jesus is going to be here soon" something like, "Lord, but I been so good...except for drinking, but I knew that I would!!!"

But I am truly not worried about it...if I can't get a handle on my drinking problems before my next appointment with my shrink I am going to ask her to prescribe these other pills for me that are supposed to eliminate your urges to drink.

Hope today wasn't too hot for you...I know how things can get at the Z and that it doesn't help that it is such a hard job.

Stop reading for one second and give yourself a hug for me!!! Thanks!!!

I made the digital NN party pic!!! Here is the link and the woman standing behind me is my good friend LongHotShowers (Grace). Since she is standing behind me I sent her a message asking her to tell me just what it is that she is going to do to me...I can't wait for her response...

[photo missing]

I am a dirty little bastard, aren't I? As part of my re-exploration of the world I even have Amber Oil on my upper lip right now...tee-hee-hee. It works for you at Zenon, but I honestly find the scent to be a little too sweet when it is just by itself...as soon as this latest slathering wears off I am going to pick some lavender from my garden.

Two years ago I went to southern France with my wife and her
family...the heat and cicadas were so intense and today really
reminded me of that as I was biking around. Anyways, they had such amazing fields there. Acres upon acres of lavender plants, sunflowers and grapes. I imagine that you have a little idea by now about how happy things like that make me...we also went to a Verdi opera at an old Roman ampitheatre...that was so cool!!!

Write, write, write...that is what I have to do right now.

Here is more about me...I was one of those annoying people in school that always got really good grades even though I didn't have to work at it. Finished high school third in my class (it was kind of funny...one day they took the top five out to get a picture for the yearbook...right before I was leaving for some Grateful Dead shows...the other four people were nicely dressed up and serious looking...and there I was with my very long hair, tye dye and tye dyed bandana wrapped around my head...so out of place in that picture...maybe I will try to find it...) and I graduated from the University of Wisconsin with something like a 3.97 GPA...yet here I am working at Cafe Zenon for a relatively low wage and actually feel really happy about that. It is such an honest and direct way to make a living and live life...it is so nice to know that no matter how rich they are there is not a single person in Eugene that eats better than I do!!!

My biggest regret in life...I did something terrible to Spencer, that wonderful friend of mine that I just reconnected with. I allowed his girlfriend at the time, Twylah, to seduce me...more than once. While I do know that I didn't do any seducing and was truly the one that was seduced (it all started when I was at her house working on Latin with her and she gave me a spoonful of honey and said, "I wonder what it would be like to kiss you with that in your mouth...) I felt and still feel so shitty about having done that.

More...let's see...the happiest moments in my life have been at
Grateful Dead shows...the atmosphere was just always so
wonderful...never found a place like it again. My wife and I got
married in the US, but we also went to Holland and had an unofficial wedding performed at her parents house with one of their friends officiating. The day before the ceremony was the day that Jerry Garcia died. I bawled harder than any baby could.

A story about my wife...when she was about 16 years old she brought a couple of friends over to her house. They went down into her parents wine cellar and broke open a bottle of wine and drank it. When her parents got home they looked at the emptied bottle of wine and said, "I sure hope that you enjoyed that...that was a 500-dollar bottle of wine that you just drank!"

The worst moment...when I stupidly took mushrooms again after having had a seizure from them at a Dead Show at the Rosemont Horizon (while I was high on cocaine as well...I think the cocaine was the thing that kept me from completely tripping out). This time it was at a Jerry Garcia Band concert at Alpine Valley. I went into the bathroom and remember watching this fly that had intense purple trails following it. Next thing I knew someone was waking me up and helping me get off of the bathroom floor...I had fainted. Got up and tried to pee but couldn't. I knew I was freaking out so much that there was no way that I could deal with being at the show any longer so I left. Somehow I managed to find my car...that still amazes me. On the way to the car, I remember thinking about how those little mushrooms were going to kill me that night and had been envisioning how my obituary
would read as I was finding my car. Then I got into the car and the condensation on the window turned into swirling evil faces every time I looked at them...I spent the rest of my trip literally hiding under a blanket in the back seat of my car.

More...a great moment. I took a bunch of acid at my Grandparents
cottage which was right next to Lake Michigan (Stony Lake the place is called). Walked down to Lake Michigan and spent the day playing in the dunes and being blown away by the immensity of Lake Michigan.

Another bad moment...I got back from a dead show with a couple of
sheets of acid so that I could earn enough money to buy this bike that I really wanted (Bridgestone RB-T). I was selling it to anyone and everyone and was driving around with it in my car. Anyways, I sold 15 hits to these little punk ass kids and warned them that it was some pretty intense stuff. I figured that they would just take one at a time and ease their way through it, but they each dropped five at once and this stuff was seriously some tripple stength acid. The night that they took the acid they pulled out a gun at Gabe's house (one of the guys) and shot a couple of holes in the wall. When Gabe's father got home he knew that something was up so he asked them what they were on. "Acid." Where did you get it from? "Gary Strauss."

The coppers were looking for me and I was driving around with it in my car...there but by the grace of god!!!

I have six uncashed paychecks attrached to my refrigerator and morethan 40-thousand in the bank. I just don't get much joy from buying
things like most people do. Seriously, a third of the stuff in my closet is stuff that I bought in high school (and amazingly they still fit me...never trust a skinny chef is one of the things that restaurant people like to say...screw that!) It always hits my ironic bone when they rich bastards get profiled by the paper because they have suddenly decided to enter into the "simple life" and give up their materialism. Treating that stuff like it is a decision rather than a committed way of life...that is bullshit!!!

Van Gogh story...before he started painting he was a missionary in a coal mining workers town in Belgium. He got in trouble with his "superiors" because he wasn't living the dignified life that priests were supposed to lead...rather he was giving away his meager stipend to the people around him and sleeping on their floors so that he didn't have to waste money on rent. God, how I love that man!!!

One of my hanging flower baskets fell down today...I took a couple of pictures of it...they are attached. The last picture is a picture of the basket when it was still hanging.

Girl, you seriously rock so much!!! Please give yourself another
~hug~ for me...

Gary

one of those days when things go so well that you realize how beautiful you can be and how beautiful life is but end up berating youself for not living up to the former nor truly appreciating the latter.

A day when soulful love is so freely given that you end up being pained by the fact that this is an aberration rather than the norm.

A day when smelling the beauty of a rose makes you realize how rarely you have stopped to smell them.

That was my day today.