Drive By Cellphoning

I was so tired I just couldn’t get myself out of bed. I had planned on getting up around ten o’clock am to call George. I finally got up around noon and called him about getting my truck seat fixed. I left a message and he called me back a while later. By they I had planned on going to play some poker at Mr. Z’s, but I wanted to get my truck seat fixed. He gave me directions to his place and I headed there. He has a really nice house over looking the LC valley. I helped him remove the seat and chatted with him while he was fixing it. It did not take very long compared to what I thought it would take. It was a total of two hours. He glued all the foam back together as well as added reinforcements to it so it will not happen again anytime soon.

After he was done he took me to his house to show me around. he had a very large house that he built himself. His downstairs had twelve foot ceilings so he can display all his hunting kills. He has a ton of those as well. I got back to Pullman with some time to spare before rig checks. I made myself some dinner and kicked back ever so slightly.

Before long though I had to go to the station. I first spent time with the new guys on their map tests. We got several of them knocked out. While working on the map tests a call went out so I asked Tyson to go on it in my place. It was only a fire alarm. By the time they got back I had started to wash out the bay. We got another call. I went on that one and had Tyson go over some of the tools on Engine while we were gone.

Finally we were able to get back and just work on the rig checks. We were nearly done. Tyson and I did the pump test while Keith and Brian showed the new guys how to use the tools.

When we were all done I went home and started on the project for the HazMat team. I have a bunch of DVD’s they want copies of. I wanted to go to bed because I have to be up for the radio show, plus I am leaving town and wanted some sleep before I would have to prepare for the road.

As I was working away on the DVD copying project I was also working on my organizing of the boxes of files and papers I have that I need to get put away in order to complete the move-in process.

I was able to get a fair amount of that complete as I started the next DVD in the machine. But on the last DVD I was having problems with it not finishing the read.

Before I got to that point, however, I got a call. When I got onscene I was helping with the patient and Matt, from WSU PD, made a joke about the patient having the same issues that I was. I had heard why we were there and then when he said that wasn’t sure I heard him correctly. I was taken aback slightly because I was unsure if he said that because he knew about me or if he was just making a joke. It because clear to me it was a joke at the time. As we were walking out of the apartment he said he was sorry. I then told him I heard he gives reach-arounds, something Kelly, yesterday, said I need to joke with him about.

That was that as far as I knew. But when I got back to my place and I was working on the DVD project I decided to check my facebook account and there was a message from Carl.

I was talking to Matt who told me what he said to you at the Medical call. He said that he felt really bad about it and it was not his intention to offend anyone. He always jokes around but wanted me to tell you he was sorry.

So when I saw this I figured he must now know, if he didn’t already know. I tried to get more information from Carl. It seems that somehow Monte told Matt about me. What really surprised me is that Monte knows. I am not sure how he would have found out. I am curious as to how Monte found out, unless he remembers it from that one article that Rob wrote for the Evergreen. So now Matt knows.

I hate it when people find out. It causes me concern. It is the whole idea that when only I know they other person is normal or what they do to me is them acting out who the are. But when they know I am gay and I know they know then I seem to be hypersensitive about it insofar as I am always wondering what they are thinking. Because now everything I do will go through their “gay” filter. They will wonder if I did something because I am gay. That will be on their mind, and because I know they know I am gay, then I know that they are thinking certain things, therefore I get concerned about what they are thinking. So rather than them being themselves around me they will self-censor and I can never really have good friends if they are always afraid of being who they are.

They should not worry about making any kind of jokes. I don’t want them thinking they need to keep their back to the wall around me. I want them to judge me on being a softball player, or a firefighters, or whatever I am doing. Not based on the fact that I am gay.

How do you explain that to someone? John G. seems to understand what I am saying and he gives me a hard time. Which is how John acts, so he does not treat me differently. But what about Matt. How can I explain to him the concept of being gay I don’t fully understand it. I can explain that I am not happy that I am gay. That it is not something where I make a conscious choice to be attracted to certain guys. I can try to let him know that I would love to be attracted to women and that I could live out a normal life. But because I cannot the only thing that will help is if people don’t stop being themselves around me.

I want him to understand that I believe that you must choose to be offended. And in no way was I offended on the call. He probably thought that because of my reaction, but my reaction was because I was concerned that he knew.

I now have to try to talk to him and hope that he doesn’t start to act differently around me. I hope that I can also get him and Monte to not say anything to anyone as I want the information to not make it out to everyone. I like having my own little secret.

So to top that off we got two more calls. One was for a rollover car accident. Turns out that no one got hurt, but we were on scene for a bit. We got the rig cleaned up. It was nearly five in the morning I figured that we were done for the night, but nope. We had a drive-by cellphoning. That is where someone sees what appears to be a car accident and rather than stopped to see if people are okay, they keep driving and call it in on their cellphone.

The problem is that many times no one is hurt so we all go out there to find the person is fine, or that no one is even there anymore. I wish people would just stop for a couple minutes and see if the person needs an ambulance before calling it in. That would help everyone involved in the situation.