I participated in the BlogSecret exchange. My secret is off in the world somewhere and someone else’s secret appears below. See the list of participants here.

My taboo secret comes from the secret life I live. To the world I am a normal, goody-2-shoes kind of a person. I may present darkness at times, but most of the time I come across as a normal guy. However, under cover, I am your online gigolo. I specialize in erotic chat. I think of myself as very good at Cyber Sex, and pride my skills. Why do I do it? For the perveness, for the thrills, for the erotica, and sometimes, just for amusement. It can be interesting to see somebody’s sexual personality. Hidden skills and traits suddenly show themselves when one wakes the animal within. I am not ashamed of this secret, but I think the people who generally read my blog are not ready for that kind of a secret. Then again, it would be interesting to see there ’sexual’ side. On that note, I am thinking of forming another blog, soon… One that deals with my ‘adultapades’. That touches the matters that are part of everyday life yet seem to be taboo for the naive audience that I have. We shall see! I am actually half tempted to leave my email/msn ID just in case somebody is interested but I know my manners and I know the need for privacy. Maybe, someday, I will come out under the cover of darkness, under a different name, under an ID that would let me live that part of my life in open.

Just a very quick thing to say we arrived in the US no problem. I do want to tell everyone about train craziness and how I spent the morning speed cleaning and having coughing fits.

My sister and her family are amazing and I wish I could see them more regularly. We have been very chilled so far mostly adjusting to the time zone and talking. I’ve got to watch some wonderful Sims action with expansion packs I’ve never had. It is much hotter than Weasel and I were expecting so we bought a few things today to make life a little easier.

I will tell more stories when I have more time or when I get back to the UK. I don’t want to waste a minuete of my time here.

Food news is coming too – been to three gorgeous shops and we have cooked some delicious things already and there will be more to come.

When I sick and had to stop working I spent a lot of time panicking over money. I didn’t earn that much, but I felt so incredibly guilty for that little loss. So I joined a pile of survey sites. I fill out forms and they give me reward points or similar and everyone is happy.

One site has a mini-poll and a recent question caught my eye: Which of the following would you be willing to do for the person you love?

Move to a new country
Change the physical appearance radically
Convert to (another) religion or world view (e.g. Marxism)
Pay this person’s rent / mortgage
Break with your family / friends
Abandon your favourite TV program
Give up your career
Donate an organ to this person
I wouldn’t do any of those things

I already moved to a new country for love. The other three I’d be willing to do: abandon a TV program, give up your career and donate an organ. The others would feel dishonest if I tried to do them. Not saying others couldn’t do them, just saying I couldn’t.

I have started to do little things to get ready to go the the US. Like print our flight itinerary and contact details to put in our suitcases and photocopy my doctor’s notes to travel with my drugs. I upgraded my MP3 player’s firmware and added more music. I’m going to do laundry tomorrow. I’m going to try on clothes and try to figure out how much of everything I’ll need. I have finalised which shoes I’m taking [comfy all-weather for walking, sandals for lounging and cute heeled shoes for photos/dinner]. I call it progress.

I have my lung function test tomorrow – at 8:30! My sleep is so shagged right now, I didn’t get to sleep until 3 last night and slept until 11:20. I just cannot fall asleep anymore. Plus last night, I managed to fuck up my lower back again. I was in bed for 45 minutes, I got up to go to the bathroom and when I stood up my back was in agony. I’ve been resting today, I went for a 30 minute walk to see if it would help [it didn't]. Stupid back. So if I am lucky, I might get four hours of sleep tonight.

I was reading on the internet [as I do] and stumbled upon something that appealed to me. BlogSecret. Sort of like Post Secret, but blog sized and spread around. We’re all writing a post and sending it to a central place. We’ll each be randomly send someone else’s anonymous post to put up on our sites. I’ve had something I’ve wanted to talk about here, but couldn’t so this is ideal.

I watched the speeches. Obama was inspiring and gracious in victory. The audience was polite and suitably excited. McCain was gracious in defeat. It annoyed me that he spent the first three minutes on race basically saying ‘Obama won and his people should be so proud’. It made me grumpy. Then the audience. Oh god those people. How scary are they?! They need lessons on how to be gracious in defeat too. They need to be looking for the good they can do in our society even with a president they don’t agree with. Obama talked about working together and building a better society. Surely that is something everyone can get on board with? He also admits to his own humanity and admits he still has things he can learn. He is a class act.

The whole thing reminded me of something. You know that exchange superheroes and villains have during a fight. The one where the good guy is losing and says that bad guy isn’t playing fair? The bad guy doesn’t have to because the rules don’t apply to him. This is why democrats are seen as weak I expect. They’re not willing to kick people in the balls as much. This is a broad generalisation so unless you booed at the mention of Obama’s name you’re okay.

It is feeling more real today. I so want things to start changing now. I have to remind myself that he won’t be sworn in until January. He won’t be able to change things for a while yet.

Can I also just say that I hate it when America is called the ‘greatest nation on earth’? Because it isn’t. It is one of the best that it true. But personally, I think countries who put workers before profit, who treat health as a right and countries who invest in defence but not warmongering are better. Ah well.

I get to go walk among my fellow Americans in a week. I am giddy with excitement and joy. I love going home [to visit]. I get to hug my sister… and my Mom and Dad. I get to meet doggies. I get to eat breakfast in a restaurant! I’m going to make Fergus a little passport for him to carry. He is very excited about foreign lands too. He is fairly well travelled already, so this should just be one more notch. He is Chinese, but born in Indonesia. He lives in the UK now.

Oh, I went to have the painful bump on my wrist looked at; it is a volar wrist ganglion. She said it should clear in 6-8 weeks. Meanwhile, I just get to try to not move too repetitively and rest. I can rub it with ibuprofen gel and take it orally to encourage it.

Guy Fawkes night was very fun. Doodle came here after work. We had chilli and cinnamon rolls [leftovers from Monday]. We watched South Park and Samantha Who?. Stoat & Mal arrived around 7, we went and parked at Mal’s work and walked to the city centre. The firework display was delightful as expected. The bonfire was better; the flames were so alive. Fire is so amazing and I rarely have the chance to just sit and watch. Stoat made the comment that a bonfire was the rare time you could look at a fire and smile. One bit I loved was look at the fire and putting the screams from the fairground to it. Like they were burning alive. I’m evil like that though. We headed home after that. They all had a cup of tea and went on their way. Very enjoyable and I hope we’ll do it again.

A few months ago, I bought a no-nails corner shelf for the bathroom. It has suction cups that should stick to little stickers on the tiles. Unfortunately, we could never get the cups to suction to the sticker; so we glued them together. It worked okay for a little while. Then the stickers started coming off the wall. We bought a foam tube and two tiles and made a little rest for the shelf. It worked okay for a little while. Then the sticker part failed altogether and the whole thing fell. I finally got around to fixing it today. I re-stuck the stickers to the wall. I lined the cups with tape to give a new non-glued surface. Then I used double sided tape to smoosh them together. Then I put the foam tube and tiles back. Then I used a bit of thread and tied the shelf to one of the mirror screws. It seems very steady now, but I bet it is lulling me into a false sense of security just so it can fall into the trash can.

My life really is too exciting.

I told myself to go to bed. That the election results would still be there in the morning.

It didn’t work, I totally gave myself a two finger salute and stayed up until 4am – when I was absolutely sure there was no way McCain could win.

Weasel woke me up this morning at 12:30 to let me know that Obama had definitely won and in a landslide. I feel sort of shocked still. I didn’t actually believe it would happen, it doesn’t feel real yet. I’m sure it’ll sink in as the day goes on. And once I watch his victory speech and McCain’s concession speech.

Also, I feel a little empty because this election has had my hackles up. I couldn’t stop thinking about it, talking about it, debating it, researching it… I’m so glad to finally let it go.

Sadly, when I went to look up all the goodness on my computer, I got an e-mail from my sister. Her husband has been laid off a little earlier than we were expecting. They’ve been shutting down his plant for a year already so it has always been a question of when and it was before this recession started. So now I’m going to do my best to find UK companies that will want to high a highly skilled engineer and bring his lovely young family over so he can work for them.

Not sure how I’m coping with big, big high followed by big, big low.

I expect I’m too tired to process it all anyway.

So I am going to get a few things we need [milk and eggs look how traditional!] and focus on Guy Fawkes instead.

I am having a dinner party!

I didn’t realise I was until I’d set the table. I never set the table, so this had to be something different. Eleanor and her new husband are arriving in an hour and a bit. I had it all planned out from the moment I woke up. Quick breakfast, shower, clothes, get the dough for cinnamon rolls started and head to the grocery store to get the chilli ingredients. They thwarted me, no pinto beans! I decided to call Weasel to check if I ought to change the menu or just use other beans. My phone was out of credit [I know, I'm the last person on earth with a pay-as-you-go mobile but I only use £20 a year so a contract would be stupid]. Normally, I can just call and top up with my card. Unfortunately, our credit card was changed to another provider recently and I had to call and get the new card tied to my account.

Important note: I’d been shopping and listening to music on my ear hooks so my hearing aids were on my loop system.

I call to attach the card and I cannot hear the man to save my life. He has to repeat everything eight times and I feel awful. I thought it was just my bog standard deafness. It didn’t occur to me that I was on a very quiet setting. I finally took my hearing aid out to finish the call. I only realised my mistake on my way home.

I finally top up and call Weasel. She and I agree to go ahead with more mixed beans and call it good. They’d rearranged the store to accommodate some new Christmas products and I couldn’t find the canned beans anymore. I saw the sign ‘pulses’ and my brain told me that was lentils and I should move on. Sometimes my brain is very slow. We finally figured it out, got our beans and some other necessaries and headed home.

The chilli has been simmering and building flavour for several hours now and the cinnamon rolls are ready to go in the oven. The icing is made and my hair is done.

I wrote the above on Monday evening, it is now Tuesday evening. Everything went off without a hitch and we all enjoyed ourselves. The food turned out perfectly. We played Trivial Pursuit afterwards and Weasel won [of course]. I totally want to have more dinner parties now. It was incredible.

I got to sleep around 1 or 2 and woke up at 12:40pm. I have been busy [for me] this last week and it has finally taken its toll. Fergus and I decided to spend today resting. We plan to do it some more tomorrow, until about 7. Then Weasel, Doodle, Mal, Stoat and I are going to go take in the fireworks and bonfire for Guy Fawkes Night. I’m very excited.

Friday I’ll rest and call my parents and Doodle is coming over. Saturday we’ll see Stoat & Mal for the day. Sunday I’ll start getting the necessary paperwork together for the US and trying on outfits so I know what to pack. Monday I’ll probably start packing and getting my recipes in order. Tuesday I have a lung function test. Wednesday I’ll book our seats on the plane, print boarding passes and finalise packing. Thursday we travel to the US and I’ll see my sister that night for the first time in nearly three years.

This is always a tricky time, I’m very excited and anticipation is running high, but it will pass so quickly and the holiday will be over before I even know.

In other news, I have a strange, hard, painful bump on my wrist.

Thinking about the US election makes me nauseous so I’m not. I will sleep tonight and when I wake up tomorrow I will know. Then I will either cry and be more grateful than usual that I no longer live in the US or experience giddy joy.

Oh and I should say that Horatio’s friends couldn’t come to dinner in the end on Saturday. The whole weekend went so wonderfully, it was the perfect way to say goodbye before I leave for three weeks. We’re already scheduled for our next visit – 11th December. I get to go to his work Christmas party, a Black & White Ball and I’m soooo excited! I bought some gorgeous tights last weekend to wear, they have a ribbon all up the back and I’ll get to wear my garter belt!

Weasel introduced me to Steam and I’ve been playing Peggle, World of Goo and I’ve just downloaded a demo of another one. I adore World of Goo and recommend it to anyone who enjoys logic puzzles and really good music.