Well, I've been here sporadically and honestly only popped in today to mention that this blog is in no way affiliated with the new movie, Love and Other Drugs. I have nothing against the movie and might even see it as I'm fond of the stars, but I've been using Love and Other Drugs as a blog for years now and used it as a sign off on email and letters for years before that. I know there's nothing new under the sun, but when I heard the title, I did feel like someone had stolen it from me. True, the original phrase I used on those pre-blog emails and letters was the more robust Love and Other Strange Drugs, but I thought it was too long for a URL. Since then, I've grown quite used to the shortened version...which is now a movie title.
So, I popped in tonight to mention the above and discover that Blogger, my publishing interface, is migrating away from FTP as a method of publishing and wants me to migrate my "blog" to some new address. This rather sucks for me since I have a bit more here on the site than just entries and archives. What I think it means, though I'll have to do some more investigation to confirm that I'm not making a mountain out of an anthill, is that I'll need to go to another blog client or figure out how to publish via old school FTP.
Either of those choices would be a bit of a pain in their own way. I've heard horror stories about the former in which folks lose much of what they once had in neat blog form. As for the latter, I'd lose the convenient interface and be forced to take a few more steps with an FTP client, but it ought to be doable on the rare occasions I want to pop up a photo or a random thought. We'll see, they've delayed the official turn off date until May 1st...which gives me at least a few weeks to ponder...or procrastinate.
Wow, it got empty in here. The smell of dust and disuse hangs in the air. Perhaps I ought to just shut the door and seal off this particular room, let it be discovered by some web archeologist out there in future world. An HTML snapshot of random man's life.
Except here I am, hovering in the doorway, unwilling to say goodbye quite yet.
I really appreciated this fan video for Trader Joes. Especially since we recently discovered that the Cambridge Trader Joes, right down the road, has a license for wine and beer. Almost like being back in San Francisco! (almost)
So due to one thing and another, I ended up getting an iPhone. I originally wanted a new smart phone of the pc variety, but couldn't justify the cost when the old generation iPhones were selling for so much cheaper. Still, I was a bit hesitant, and even told the Apple associate that, "I'm a pc.". He leaned in and whispered that I should be careful because the iPhone was a gateway drug into the world of Apple. Know what? I don't think he was joking.
You find some odd things after moving. I've been slowly going through files and recycling bags full of paper, but had to stop when I found my handwritten will from midnight, August 28th of 1991.
Some things stayed the same. Jackie can still have her copy of Bob Geldof's autobiography back. Even though I lost touch with her during the intervening years, we're back in touch thanks to FB. I wonder if she knows I still have it. Ummm...I wonder if I could find it if she asked me? I'm picturing it sitting on a shelf in my old bedroom back in Weymouth but...
Some things shifted. Mark can still use some money to go skydiving should he so choose, but not because I never got to try it. Tried it and loved it!
Some things changed. Valri, we lost touch and the leather jacket will go to someone else.
The closing statement could be written in stone because it's as true today as it was back then:
I would like to be cremated (only after I'm most definitely dead) and have my ashes scattered someplace tranquil with a good view of the stars.
I most definitely NEVER want to be a living vegetable. You have my okay to pull the plug if my brain's not working anymore.
Taking an "in your face" approach, PepsiCo sent a public message of support for the homosexual agenda. The company ran a full-page ad in the June/July issue of Out, a semi-pornographic homosexual magazine. The magazine is filled with page after page of nude and semi-nude photographs of men in suggestive positions.
First I raced home to see what the fuss was all about and found...no nudes. Bummer.
Being summer, there was a swimsuit fashion spread that featured men in swimsuits. Hmmmm...in a fashion mag. Really? Seriously though, using their criteria, any fashion magazine on the racks at your local drugstore qualifies as semi-pornographic. Oh, except it's usually women in those suggestive, semi-nude positions, so maybe that makes it okay?
Even if the AFA were to agree that all fashion mags are semi-pornographic, which they might, I've never been alerted by them about the various companies that promote themselves in Cosmo....or Elle, or Esquire for that matter. I keep an eye on AFA materials to see just what sort of lies they're spreading, and couldn't let this one go without a comment. Once again they are trying to punish a company for a willingness to believe that life should be about love and honesty and not about outdated social mores; and they're using outright lies to try and push their point.
I'm usually a Coca-Cola type of guy, but this is one time when the Cola war needs my support on the other side, so I'm shouting it here from my little corner of the internet soapbox: I am a very out and proud member of the Pepsi generation.
So it's four in the morning and I can't seem to fall asleep. M and E are visiting, and that's exciting, but it also means an early morning tomorrow so sleeping right now would be a good thing. Not sure if it's the change in weather, the wedding yesterday messing with my schedule, or just an overactive brain keeping me awake.
I spent the past half hour running through the 90's in my head. Graduation, coming out, Overlook, NEMC, San Francisco, Chevron and so on. The people I met, the things I did. The trip down memory lane was intended to tire me out and allow me to drift off into dreamland, but it invigorated me instead. So here I am tapping away on the blog for the first time in well over a month.
Cambridge is wonderful so far. There's still a few boxes left to unpack, but most things have found new spaces to occupy in our new place. Loving the fact that we can walk places again. Loving having a big kitchen. Loving the feeling that we've pulled out of neutral and are on the path again. Walton was good for us in many ways, but we both felt the desire to move on to the next stage later last year and patience has never been my strong suit.
Funny story, unrelated to move. Last night at the wedding, I was joking with my cousin that she would be next to get married and she got me back by mentioning that she'd heard G and I were getting married in September. (This was a bit of a surprise to both of us since we've never said anything definitive.) We had thought, quite some time ago, that his parent's coming out for a visit in September might be the one time that we'd have both parents together, but they're going to be here during the weekdays.
The thing is, I really do feel like we've been married since October of 2002, when we first exchanged rings...just the two of us with only God watching. When times have been tough, I've always known that running away is not an option because over six years ago I made a commitment to G for life. We didn't need any legally sanctioned ceremony to make that true for us.
That said, the piece of paper does matter for any number of pretty important legal reasons, and we wouldn't mind making it official. It would be nice to call him my husband again without causing confusion. (Back in 02 we could use the term and be making a political statement. Now, being in MA, people assume it means we went through the whole shebang.)
Oy. The shebang bugs both of us. We're a little too pragmatic to want to spend a boatload of money on anything big, but can't quite see our way around doing something. Our joke, ever since it actually became recognized in MA, was that we would make it official when we first bought a house since That's when we'd actually need new stuff and the gifts would be a fair trade...but I suddenly don't want to wait anymore.
Don't be surprised if we run off and get the certificate on our own. Some form of celebration can come at a later date, but getting the piece of paper just makes a certain truth official that we've both known for years.
We'll be moving to Cambridge in a week and a half. That's all, just thought it was about time I posted an update. Everything else is going along just fine.
Really wondering if this blog will go on. Might be different once we're in our own place again. I may feel the need to update more often. Then again, perhaps this is something I needed to do for a while and can let go of now that I'm back on the East Coast. We'll see.
I write a lot at work now. I also have this batch of ghost stories I'm trying to write on the side. With FB keeping me connected to most everyone, Love and Other Drugs is getting neglected. I'm not quite ready to let it rest yet, but the updates are dwindling.
A snapshot of my life in March 2009.
Started own business in order to work directly for company instead of through a temp agency. Very exciting, but one repercussion is that banks require at least a year or two of self employed status before they'll give you a mortgage. This means we're once again looking at rentals. Very excited about a potential opportunity in Cambridge, but don't want to count any chicken pieces before they actually make it into the bucket of delicious, fried goodness.
G spent two weeks in California visiting friends and family. I missed him lots, but took advantage of one weekend to go to NYC and visit college friends. Played WII for the first time and thoroughly enjoyed myself. Brian and I ended up going to see Hair, which was brilliant! I've always loved the music, but worried how they would go about updating it. First off, they played it more like a period piece. The modern mind can't help but make a few correlations between the struggles we were facing 40 years ago and the struggles of today, but the director didn't hit us over the head with anything. They also didn't overuse complicated pyrotechnics and special effects to enhance the experience. It was really about the people on the stage...and ended up being more powerful for it. Do you hear me falling chandelier? I'm looking at YOU.
Truly enjoyed it.
Not sure what the rest of the month has in store. The Cambridge place isn't available until May 1st. This is a good thing since it'll allow us to gather the first/last/deposit together without having to dip into savings. Okay, must stop. I'm beginning to salivate over tasty chicken that may not be destined for my table.
So on March 3rd, Chris statused "Happy Square Root Day! I immediately commented that he was about 11 days early, but he pointed out, quite correctly, that it was 3/3/9 and not 3/14. I had pi on the brain that day obviously.
Now it is officially pi day and I can't let it pass without wishing everyone the happiest of pi.
I officially opened my company today. Went down to the town hall, filled in the paperwork, paid 30 dollars and took an oath. Yes, they asked me to raise my right hand and swear that all the information I was submitting was true to the best of my knowledge. Kinda old school, but I enjoyed it immensely. So now I'm president, treasurer and janitor of my very own business!
What this means to those of you not on FB is that I have been liberated from my temp company and am now working as an independent contractor. Basically, the company I'm working for decided they wanted to pay me directly instead of the temp company, so they gave them the finder's fee and I'm invoicing them directly. From my business. I'd tell you the name, but I'd rather not have that particular bit of information link back to this particular blog. I'm still pretending that it's semi-anonymous...even though my name's all over it.
I'm extra happy it all happened today. After all, 2+2+5=9, so it all adds up.
It's official. I've been sucked into FB and tend to ignore this blog now. I status update when I want to send out an APB. I post memes on the notes page.
I zip little notes back and forth to friends to keep in touch. Look at pictures and feel more connected to them. I've communicated more with friends on FB and know more about what's going on in their lives now than I did before. Reconnected with people from the past that I missed and, thanks to the privacy settings, kept away from those I didn't want to deal with. I'm not giving up on real-live contact, but it's nice to catch up with someone across the country during my lunch break. Someone who, before FB, I would have spoken with once or twice a year...if that.
My friends who aren't on FB don't know that I was lost in the thesaurus last week. Well, now they do...if they still check this blog. The friends on FB may or may not have that information. Depends on how often they check the status updates...if they even do. Some people find them annoying. (and so they should turn them down...it is an option for the haters) I find the updates akin to communicating telepathically. You write what you're thinking and someone far away, doing something else, sees what you're thinking. If they have it texted to their phone, it's almost instantaneous. (sorta like Twitter for techno-weenies) If they want to respond, they do, and you hear back. (I dream of the day when it really will get sent directly to my brain, but that might just be me. I do enjoy connectivity...as long as there's always the option to turn off when I so desire.)
Bottom line: I'm just as twizzled by my FB love affair as everyone else posting on the subject, but I'm going to enjoy it while it lasts.
The more it snows Tiddly Pom The more it goes Tiddly Pom The more it goes Tiddly Pom On snowing.
Spent a good two hours outside with G clearing off cars and shoveling. I do miss the lazy Sunday afternoon in San Francisco on a day like today, but I also enjoy the feeling of accomplishment when the driveway's fully cleared and the cars are ready to drive again...as if we'd leave for anything but the very necessary. My New England upbringing clashes with over a decade of West Coast mellowness on days like today.
In other news, saw Slumdog Millionaire last week. It was NOT a romantic comedy as advertised on some random blog I stumbled upon. Still, it's very much worth seeing...if you can deal with the violence. It was realistic and rather grim. The folks behind us tried leaving two or three times. They'd stand up to leave, walk over to the top of the stairs, stand there for a few minutes, get caught back into the story and then return to their seats. (We were in the balcony section of the Loring so this wasn't quite as annoying as it could've been, but still.) They ended up staying throughout the whole thing, so I guess that's another thumbs up of sorts.
Who am I to ignore a meme? The year in review via the first words I wrote on LAOD each month.
January: Spent a good part of my day continuing the search for the paper.
February: G and I have been having a pretty wonderful time playing house this week, but reading TNTP's blog the other day did make me long for San Francisco.
March: Sorry for the bad pun of a title, but my body feels like a wet noodle right now.
May: A good friend of mine is directing a play in New York called F*ck Me, B*eat Me, L*ve Me, but given the difficulty of pronouncing an asterisk in normal conversation, he also refers to it as the dirty gay play.
Milk, it does the body good. (and the brain and the heart.)
Sean Penn has never been a favorite of mine, but he won me over fully while playing this role. He managed to capture the nuances of the Harvey Milk I know from news footage and give him a depth that the footage often lacks. Oscar will be calling to him for sure.
It would be impossible for me to see this movie and not have the current situation with Prop 8 brought to mind. I did get angry again, but I left with a little more hope than I had going in.
It's been ten days since I've popped in to post something. Thanksgiving rather sucked aways any extra time I had. That and doing a marathon read of The Book Thief. Devastating. Beautiful. It's aimed at the teen market, but then so is everything these days...don't let that dissuade you. Big recommend from me.
Looking forward to seeing Milk tomorrow. Vaguely annoyed as well. Somehow I've been made to feel by the media that it's my gay duty to go see it because it's an "important" film. Even though the reviews have all been stellar and I have a true desire to go, a small part of me is reacting like a teenager faced with a summer reading list. (I've always loved to read, but back when they would give me a REQUIRED reading list it got my dander up and was one of the few times I'd buy Cliff Notes. Odd way to rebel? Perhaps, but I never pretended to be normal.) Fortunately, the media got to me well after I'd seen the trailer.It's not often that a trailer gives me goosebumps; gay duty or not, I'm going.
G's coming home tonight! I have prepared by purchasing a 6-pack from DD* and washing everything and everything I may have come in contact with whilst coughing and sneezing over the past week. It seems as if the sneezing has passed for good, but once every 6 hours I have a coughing attack. Stupid cold.
*For those of you not from this area...DD is a bakery type place, not a liquor store.
I can't stop coughing and sneezing and my body has sprung a constant snot leak that finally turned into a minor migraine this morning. I didn't get to go in to Boston myself as I planned, but I have to say my piece to the tens of folks who read this. Not because I feel I need to change your mind, most of you are already on my side, but because it needs to be said in as many places and with as many voices as possible and I will not be a silent Who.
Today there were rallies. in Boston. As you can read in the article, some folks ridicule us for speaking up here in Massachusetts where our right to marry is still valid.
To those folks and also to those who are saying that the voters in California already decided and we should leave the protests to them, I have this to say. The incredibly large sum given to the proponents of prop 8 by the Mormon Church which is located in Utah nullify any of your out-of-state support arguments. As for the vote, it was a rather narrow margin that allowed that bill to pass. If it hadn't been for the hate-filled, negative advertising funded largely by out-of-state agencies that blitzed the airwaves the week before the election, the majority may have cemented the marriages of my friends in California vs. putting them into a state of uncertain limbo.
I am for equality. I'm not looking for the government to force churches to accept gay marriage...just that they be recognized by the government the same way that my brother's recent union to his wonderful wife is recognized. If that means taking away his right to marry and coining a new word for those rights, I'll be happy about it. Marriage, they argue is a religious thing...so coin a new word for it...say PARTNERING or some such, and let that be what we call it from now on...for everyone both gay and straight. I want to be very clear here, recognizing civil unions - while a step in the right direction - is too close to a certain "separate but equal" philosophy that still leaves me as a second class citizen. It's marriage (or partnering if that's what it takes)or nothing. We will keep marching, we will keep standing up for ourselves, and we will eventually win. As I pointed out in an earlier post, this seems to be a generational issue and I have no doubts that it's a matter of years, not decades before this becomes an issue to be studied in history books, not current events.
So to all my brothers, sisters and siblings in-between who went out in support of equality today, I say thank you. I couldn't make it in person, but I was there in spirit. We're here, we're queer and we're going to be equal!
I'm happy that certain people I've known in life will have a harder time hiding. The people who pretend to be color blind for the most part, but think nothing of whispering a racist comment to me because I happen to be a white man.
This sort of person has always bugged me more than the overt racist. The second I point out that their comment isn't fair, they say, "But some of my best friends are black!" This is usually followed by, "Besides I love Oprah!" (or Denzel or Will Smith or whomever else happens to be hip at the moment) I've never met the black friends of these folks, but then I don't usually get to know these folks very well after they start making those comments. Even if these friends of theirs did exist, it doesn't give them license to dismiss the rest of that racial subset. I don't have the right to go around saying that other women are weak and less intelligent than men just because I happen to be friends with one or two of them. Besides, my mother would run over my toes if I ever said anything like that.
I'm happy for the country. There'll be some growing pains for sure, but already I'm hearing from friends outside the US that they're impressed that we can indeed make a change for the better and maybe, just maybe, can move back into a good place on the world's playground instead of being seen as the class dunce/bully who everyone both hates and pities.
On the other hand, we lost on prop 8 in CA. A very close race, but it passed. The fact is that blacks and whites may finally be ready to play together, but gays are still not allowed in the same game. We're still dealing with separate but equal which isn't equal at all.
Good news is that those under 29 voted pretty strongly with us. Those 30 to 64 were pretty evenly split. It was the 64+ age bracket that voted strongly against us. In another decade we'll have a much better shot at getting equal treatment. Until then, I remain a second class citizen.
Don't believe the polls. They can be twisted and turned and things are really too close right now for anyone to rest easy.
Want to know how to vote? I heartily recommend a helping of Obama with a side dish of NO on Prop 8. (That particular side is only available for tables located in California. I'm not there anymore, but I'm counting on you folks who are there to do the right thing and vote against discrimination.)
As for MA...I'm voting NO on question 1. It bugs me that people are trying to sell it by saying that it'll force the government to cut the fat. Call me a cynic, but it's obvious to me that they'll only cut things I care about and leave all the pork intact.
On question 2, it should be no surprise that I'm voting YES. I've been pretty vocal in my support for the legalization of all drugs. If someone wants a drug, they'll find a way to get it. Making them illegal only creates crime and deprives the government of a rather lucrative revenue stream in the taxes they would generate. (Total legalization would also throw organized crime for a loop and this tickles me.) But this isn't about all drugs, it's just about a very minor one and my feelings on that are simple. It has always bugged me that marijuana is illegal when alcohol - which I've seen destroy many more lives - remains legal. There you go. Either bring back prohibition or decriminalize marijuana, but be fair. And don't bother telling me about your cousin Henry, the pothead who is wasting his life. I'd rather deal with a pothead than an alcoholic any day.
As for the greyhound question...I can't help it, I'm a sucker for sad little animal commercials. (I still won't eat veal because of the PETA ads back in the 80's.) I'm voting yes.
This might seem sad, but I've been waiting for this for a rather long time. MTV has videos available online at MTVMUSIC. Currently advertising seems minimal, but the video selection is also lacking several artists I searched for. I'd happily have appropriate banner ads up if it meant more selection. I'm keeping fingers crossed that they add to the library as time goes on, but with over 25,000 to browse through, there's enough to keep me amused for a while.
Having a job is great for the wallet, but it's slowed down my blogging quite a bit. Looking at the beginning of October, I barely missed a day...now it's back to just once or twice a week.
Spent yesterday with J and C in Cambridge. Very nice to escape the suburbs for the evening. We went into the square so that C could have his hair cut and during that time, J took us for a rather nice tour through Harvard. We've wandered around the campus on our own before, but it was very interesting to hear some random facts from J that only a former insider would know.
Ended up eating at John Harvard's. The food there has definitely gone down hill. That said, I'd had quite a few cocktails, so anything in my stomach was a good thing. We ended up back at their place watching an 80's marathon and generally having a swell time. Now that the cash flow has resumed, I'm hoping this can become a more regular event.
Second day went very well, but supercala-FRAK. Took me an hour and a half to get home. That's an hour more than it should take to travel that route and a half hour longer than it would've taken had I gone along the back roads. Stupid Boston traffic. We'll have to take this all into consideration when we look for potential areas to live in.
Good first day. Not sure what part of today was the "interview" part. The folks I trained with acted as if it were a fact that I'd be staying on at least through next week from the moment I walked in the door, so I felt immediately relaxed. (the whole working interview thing had me a bit stressed, but perhaps it was the temp company screwing with my head because I dared to ask for more?)
In truth, I'm finding that this position is pretty much just a small part of what I used to at the Iconic American Brand (IAB) in San Francisco, only with more copywriting and proofreading thrown in. That is to say, it's what I've been hoping for. So far. Ask me again in a few weeks and I might be tearing my hair out, but so far most folks seem pretty normal and laid back. Except for the VP of my group who is better than normal, she's HILARIOUS. (in a deadpan way and with whom I immediately bonded thanks to her dry sense of humor and my general "less is more" approach to creative)
As I did with the IAB I'll keep comments about the company itself to a minimum on the blog, but I will say that the daily commute in Boston traffic might strain me a bit. It's 30 minutes from door to door...without the aforementioned traffic. It was 55 minutes this morning and then 45 minutes this evening. Where is my Jetsonmobile(TM) to take me there? The way I figure it, going there directly via air vs. having to deal with the loopy routes and traffic on ground would take about 15-20 minutes at 55MPH. Given that the standard Jetsonmobile(TM)has an average flight speed of 100MPH, I could be there in 10 minutes!
Well, they came back at me with a higher wage offer. Not as much as I asked for but pretty much inbetween...so that's okay.
Now I have to do the working interview. This means going to work tomorrow and proving to all and sundry that I'm the right person for the job. If I do well, I'm employed pretty much through December...if not then it's back to square one. Either way, I'll get paid for tomorrow and that's a good thing as the credit card bill is due soon. Ugh. Why won't the government bail me out?
I am not a big fan of salary negotiations. Add an intemediary temp company into the mix and I like them even less.
Had a really good interview today for a job I'd be very good at and in a company that seems to be a great fit...but the temp company is lo balling me and hitting me with the minimum hourly rate that I gave them a few months back. I know they can pull up my files and see...Mike will not work for less than X, and they just hit me with it. Well, the job is worth more than X, but it's currently a 3 month assignment with an option at the end for the company I'd be working for to renew...if the economy doesn't crash too hard, and the candidate proves suitable. Believe me, I'll prove very suitable and they won't want to let me go. I could feel it already.
So, how hard do I let the temp company screw me in the interim? I do get the benefit of a foot in the door, a rather good dot on my resume and steady income for the next quarter. That said, if I accept their rate, I also hurt myself as I move towards the uncertain future and with the company I'm going to be working for.
Bottom line: after the interview proved to me that the rate offered wasn't commesurate with the job description, I asked the temp company for more and now I'm playing the waiting game. Since the end company wants me to start on Thursday, it should hopefully be a shortish wait, but as of now we're already pushing into tomorrow. Ugh.
G saw a coyote out in the backyard this morning. Just wandering about and sniffing at our flowers before it ran back into the woods.
Maybe it's because I'm just getting over my second weird sickness in just two weeks, but I'm hoping it's not some kind of bad omen.
EDITED TO ADD: Okay, within five minutes of my posting this, G came in from his little adventure walk. (The coyote made him curious about the woods behind the house.) While out there, he found a random twenty dollar bill waiting for him in the middle of the path. I've got to remember that omens can turn out to be good if you read them correctly.
Why CBS? Why won't you let me watch full episodes on your website? Note to corporation types. You may think you're saving advertising dollars, but instead you've lost the internet dollars you would've gained from my watching your show online since we can't watch it "live." /rant
I've lost 30 thousand dollars over the past year from my 401K thanks to this country's economy going to hell in a hand basket.
I'm having visions of history repeating itself. Back in the 90s I had 14 thousand in a 401K from my former company that I could not roll over. By 2001, it had dropped to 4K which was too small an amount for the big bad bank to deal with so they cut me a check...no penalties. I did still owe taxes on it, but it has occurred to me that if I'd just taken the full amount out when I first left my old job, I would've had enough to put down on that 1 bedroom apartment I was tempted by back in 1999. A one bedroom that is now worth, even in this market, at least 40% more than I would've paid for it back then. At the time though, I thought it better to save it for retirement and pushed aside the dream of my own place...and then watched the money evaporate like water from a hot skillet.
So combine that history with the current drastic drop in my nest egg, and I'm really wondering what to do. I know that there's at least a 10% penalty for early withdrawal and that any amount drawn out would count towards my yearly income.
That said, my yearly income so far has been rather below the poverty level for this state and I'm not sure just how much tax I would end up paying on a withdrawn amount...if any. Do I suck up the 10% and withdraw some of my hard earned cash to pay off the credit card debt? As it is I'm paying about $125 a month towards the big one. (yes, we spent a LOT of money crossing the country)
Say I took out 16 thousand to pay off the debt. I'd give back $1600 as a penalty, but I'd save myself $1500 in payments to that card for the next calendar year...not to mention eliminating the finance charges. Sure, I'm smart enough and have good enough credit to keep them low, but they still eat up money that I don't have. In fact that one bill is taking away all the earnings that I've made during those days I actually do get temp work.
Other than taking away some funding from my future retirement, which my inner ant preaches against, it seems to make sense. My inner grasshopper is aching to dance again. What would Suze do?
I'm emerging from the other side of a nasty cold. Fever, achy body and a little baby headache that just wouldn't go away. Physically I'm feeling much better, but for some reason I'm mentally exhausted right now and just want to take a long nap. Odd.
But it was the "smoking weapons" that tickled me. So close to smoking gun and so appropriate for where I was. Some of my more formative years were spent in the building next to that sign.
Before I get to the building, let me step back. Stress has been sneaking into my life now and again. The idiot who coined the phrase money can't buy happiness, obviously had some. I'm not looking for happy, I'm just looking for enough to get to content again. Yes, so stress happens and going for a walk sometimes helps. This evening the walk took me past a trio of former schools. I didn't stop to examine the elementary school very closely, other than to note that they'd put up green awnings that almost looked horrible, but somehow succeeded in making the school look even more charming. Of course, any view my eyes see of that school is shaded with golden glasses, so my opinion may be skewed a bit.
Then came the school that no amount of gold tint could improve. The fortress that was East Junior High. They've since given it a new and more romantically historical name, but it'll always be East to me. East as in the witch Dorothy still had to conquer. What fun we had ensuring that at least one teacher every year was saddled with that moniker! Wicked Witch of East Junior High. Well, I pretended to have fun, the honest truth is that the two years I spent within its bricked up walls were the worst I've lived through. I felt trapped inside that fortress. This isn't just imagination on my part, it was actually built to look like one. The auditorium has windows like arrow slits, and there's rarely any good expanse of plate glass windows that you'd normally expect to find in a school. There's even mini battlements along the roof line. I remember writing a story as a teenager about a world where all the adults had died from some horrid disease. The school became a center of a new culture because it was so easy to defend. I know, it's been done since - and probably before too - but at the time I thought it was a thoroughly original idea. It remained buried in my memories until just an hour ago as I looked up at those tiny battlements.
So instead of walking on, I went right up through the parking lot and really examined it. The steps up to the auditoriums' emergency exit where the kids would be smoking before school, and those who wanted could buy pot or other things. I hadn't thought about it for years, but I remember now making sure that I timed my arrival just right so that the parking lot would be pretty much full and everyone already engaged in conversation. Full enough so that my walk through it would end close to the bottom of those steps when the first bell rang. Steps I was desperately wanting to climb, but always too afraid. Every day I thought of climbing up them and surprising those kids by asking for a cigarette, but fear of the unknown always got the best of me. Well, that and a fear of getting the piss beat out of me. The other advantage of timing it that way was that it left me within 20 feet of the door that was being unlocked by the unlucky teacher who drew the short straw for that day and far ahead of the crunch. I could usually get up to my locker and be sitting in homeroom reading a book before most anyone else had made it up the first set of stairs.
Then there were the quaint looking buildings next door to the school that were rumored to hold the juvie kids. Buildings that looked as if they'd been lifted out of some European village from the 17th century, and oddly appropriate next to the castle of a school next door. I heard happy shouts coming from within those buildings today and something about them made me wish I hadn't been so scared all the time when I was in junior high. Not that I advocate climbing up the steps for a joint when you're in 7th grade, but maybe stay in the parking lot for a while after the first bell. I wonder who I'd be now if I'd done that? Then again, given my knowledge of where I did go after learning to leave fear behind, it may have led me up those steps too early. Maybe a little fear of the big bad world is a good thing for a thirteen year old.
Okay, I realize I set you up for a third school, but I really was still too busy thinking about Junior High to note much about it as I walked by. Maybe next time. Unless the lotto number hits, I'm pretty sure I'm due for another walk in the near future.
What I learned at work today. Proofreading: more fun than a poke in the eye, but still gives you a bit of a headache by the end of the day...martini here I come! Because martinis never give headaches...never ever!
Why is it always during vacation times that I suddenly realize just how many projects I have left to complete? Of course, this happens mostly when I'm sitting in front of the computer. Perhaps I should just turn away and go for a walk with G before the rain comes falling down.
The wedding has come and gone. Dude and I stayed up extra late the night before just talking and listening to some of his older songs. Not the best thing for clear eyes the next day, but wonderful thing to be able to still do with my brother. I had the redness reliever with me...along with all the hair product that Dude normally wouldn't deal with. G put it all to good use yesterday getting Dude's hair (and mine) ready to deal with the humidity.
Have I mentioned lately how grateful I am to have G in my life? He put up with me agonizing over the wedding in general (and the toast in particular) for several weeks now and didn't slap me upside the head once. Then yesterday, Mark wakes up cool as a cucumber and I'm literally shaking with nerves as we put on the tuxes. I don't think it was just the thought of having to speak in public. I had the nausea I'm used to experiencing up in front of any public speaking, but this was different. I was in a state of high agitation. Not the sort of state you want the best man to be in. Anyway G kept up a steady refrain of encouragement that everything would work out and managed to calm me down enough so that I could be there for my brother when he needed me.
About 45 minutes before the outside ceremony was supposed to start, the sky opened up and we got our first taste of Hanna. A secret part of me was happy about this. I had on four layers of tux and just stepping outside onto the front porch caused an immediate sheen of sweat to pop out on my face. A move inside would mean blissful AC. That said, I knew how important it was for both Dudette the bride and Dudette the photographer to have the ceremony outside, so I joined in with everyone who was trying to push the rain away for an hour or so. There were a lot of people actually praying, but I chose instead to try and channel Storm and push it away with my crazy mind power. The rain broke long enough for us to have the ceremony and cocktail hour/photos outside in front of the house. The Daniel Webster Estate is truly a gorgeous backdrop to have in pictures, so whether it was the prayer my X-Men like ability or some strange combination of factors, I'm very glad it worked out.
I remained pretty nervous throughout the ceremony. (I would make a lousy sentinel as I have a very hard time standing still.) Fortunately, the ring bearer was dealing with the same struggle and having someone to be an example for can be very good incentive to hang in there. I must compliment him. At eight years old, standing in place for five minutes is a struggle let alone for a full twenty. Sure, bribery may have helped a little bit, but he even came through when the minister asked him to kiss the rings...something that nobody prepped him for during the rehearsal.
An odd thing for me was that the moment the Dudelyweds turned to walk back down the aisle I stopped being nervous. As stressful as this wedding prep sometimes got over the past months, it was all very worth it. Seeing them so happy up there saying their vows made me even happier that they've finally taken this step.
So, there I am, an hour or so away from the toast and I actually felt deeply calm...even though I'd left my copy of the toast sitting on Dude's bureau and normally would've been freaking out. Turns out that Dude and I really do compliment each other. I'm feeling calm for the first time all day and he began to get agitated about how long it was taking to start the dinner. Hopefully I helped him a little bit there. I managed to snag some of the meat on a stick appetizers and a beer for him and kept him company while we waited for everyone to get their turn in front of the camera. The photos did take a pretty long time, but I'm guessing that happens a lot.
Then came the toast. It went well. I got some compliments and a few confirmations that people got teary at appropriate moments. The caterer did tell me at the end of the night that it was the best toast she'd ever heard, but I truly believe that's something she must say to "all the guys."
My original intent was to have this entry right after the wedding just be what I'd written for the toast, but I varied a bit from the original and I think it came out a bit better because of that. I hit all the main points I'd originally written out, but I'm actually very curious to see the video to figure out how just how much I ad libbed. The scary part about watching that will be realizing just how much champagne I spilled on one of the maids of honor during the whole thing. I do have a tendency to gesture with my hands when talking and that's not very wise with a full glass in my hands. It will also be interesting to see how much I was sweating during the whole thing. Humid weather plus enclosed tent makes for a squelchy atmosphere. I'm pretty sure I was looking a bit like a drowned rat in a rented suit, but pretty much everyone else was in the same boat...or swimming alongside it I guess.
The rest of the evening was great. Good food, lots of dancing and just general fun catching up with familiar people and meeting new ones. In fact, G and I have been invited up to Maine this fall and we're planning on accepting, but more on that later. Right now we're at the Dudelyweds' apartment cat sitting for them while they honeymoon far away from hurricanes in Aruba.
Spent most of today getting the house cleaned up for the aunties who arrive in about 15 minutes. First time I'll see either of them since my last trip back to Europe and I am looking forward to them meeting Greg. That said, their arrival means that the week of crazy has officially begun. There's something happening every day this week with the grand joining of the Dudelyweds at the end of it. While there'll be fun to be had, I have to admit that I'm very much looking forward to the quiet after the storm. Right after the reception we'll head over for a mellow week catsitting while the happy couple enjoys their honeymoon in Aruba. (of course, I could end up working for a wig company somewhere in there, but that would be counting chickens and I really oughtn't to do that)
So I'm going to take another break from writing a great toast for Dude's impending nuptials and hit you with some thoughts on two very different movies.
The Lives of Others The story takes place during the early 80's and follows an East German Stasi agent who is tasked with spying on a well known playwrite. The Minister of Culture has organized this so that he can steal away the writer's actress girlfriend for himself. Ulrich Mühe is brilliant as the Stasi agent. Having no real life of his own, the Stasi slowly becomes swept up by the events in the lives of those he is spying on. (Hence the title.) Mühe really had me believing that the path he was on and the choices he made were real ones. I really don't want to give too much more away, but I must say that the film had me running through many emotions: disgust, fright, sadness, despair and lastly hope. It's truly a Pandora's box of a film, and one I highly recommend that everyone watch. Especially now, as we Americans slowly give up more and more of our rights in this era of "Homeland Security".
Walk Hard, The Dewey Cox Story On the opposite side of the coin, a laugh riot. I initially avoided this movie because my search for a good parody movie has been thwarted too often by bad acting, uneven writing or just too many jokes that rely on either flatulence or debasement instead of more complicated humor. Don't get me wrong, there are some outright, in-your-face funny moments in this movie. That said, there's also plenty of clever humor to balance that out. It even dares to poke fun at the genre the movie is parodying instead of just replaying scenes from pre-existing movies for laughs. What a concept! The funniest movie I've seen in a long time.
I'm taking a break from contemplating Dude's toast. Instead I'll tell you about the movie we saw last night. (Four dollars each at the Cameo! Can't beat Economic Recovery Tuesdays!)
Worth a rental, if only for Emma Thompson's superb performance and the chance to see Castle Howard again. Emma manages to convey more emotion in ten seconds of acting than most other actors get out during a full movie. This is definitely a boon for this version. Overall, the story will seem a bit rushed to anyone familiar with either the mini series or the book. Emma's ability to communicate so much in such a short time is very necessary as they needed to cut out quite a bit in order to get the story down to movie size.
In case you haven't already figured it out, my review is going to be completely colored by my experience with the aforementioned miniseries, so if you haven't watched it already...go do so now. Are you back yet? Helloooo? Oh, that's right, the original runs well over 8 hours. It may take you a few days before you get back here and I have a toast to write so....
Matthew Goode does an good job playing Charles. He seems constantly caught in the headlights of the Marchmain train, yet is able to believably dodge to the side at the appropriate moment and even get in a dent or two himself now and again. I confess, I quickly forgot Jeremy Irons.
Sadly, Ben Whinshaw as Sebastian is a different story in that he never manages to give any real depth to his character. This is most noticeable when the story moves to Morocco, but by then I'd given up on caring very much about what happened to him and was glad the scene ended up being so brief. I'm happy that they didn't dance around the gay issue as much in this version as in the original miniseries, but overall Whinshaw's one note performance left me yearning for Anthony Andrew's original more than any other character in the movie.
The Charles/Julia relationship fares better, thanks mostly to Hayley Atwell who may seemed a bit dazed here and there but overall holds her own. That said, this is one area where the cuts to the storyline become most troublesome as characters' true motives get a bit lost in the shuffle. It may've been the director's intention to show them all in a slightly different light, but it didn't work for me.
To be fair, I'm sure the many cuts also added to my distrust of the Charles/Sebastian storyline. Either one of these two main relationships in Brideshead (Charles/Julia and Charles/Sebastioan) may have fit into a normal movie's running time and given the characters more believable motivation, but the compressed timeline ends up hurting them both. While the ending still rings true, I'm very glad I had the fuller story in the back of my head. It helped to fill in the gaps and overall allowed me to enjoy the experience.
I have a good friend named Max. He comes in handy whenever a company is offering up a free sample or there's a website newsletter I'd like to receive, but I'm afraid of them selling my address and/or email. This helps me to sort unwanted junk mail of both the snail and "e" varieties directly into the recycle bin. The one thing I never do is hook up any real phone number to his name. If it's required by the company forms I'll either use the sitcom number of 555-1212 or decide to look elsewhere for amusements. Marketing phone calls are one of life's more annoying obstacles and I try to avoid them when possible.
Today I signed Max up for a free sample of cologne using the sitcom number. (I really wanted to smell purdy.) Within 5 minutes there was an automated call to the house looking for Max, which means that the evil company must've connected the address I gave to the actual phone number and just ignored the other. Within the hour, two other companies had called. Modern technology, both frightening AND annoying.
No, it isn't the latest toast topping for cannibals. Just my version of a bachelor party. Dude's request was to skip the gambling and strippers and just give him a night of beer and music making with his old jam group. G and I transformed our living space back into a room full of amps, drums, cords, more cords and several guitars. The guys sounded pretty good, especially considering that they haven't had a chance to get together for quite some time.
Later on, after everyone else crashed out, I got to sit by the fishpond with my brother and just hang out together. This was around 3:30 after large quantities of empty bottles and cans had already piled up and several delicious, but rather greasy foods had been consumed. I mention this because the following events may seem mundane to the sober reader, but at the time they had a wonderful surreal quality.
Shortly after we sat down, a family of raccoons appeared at the top of the little waterfall that runs into the pond. They seemed quite disconcerted that two crazy humans were awake at that hour and hogging their watering hole. They slowly ambled away, but in a manner that said, "We're not scared of you, just not that thirsty tonight." Before the oddness of that meeting left us, a pin prick of red light flashed across the water causing both of us, in our beer sodden state, to start wondering if a UFO had just tried to message us or if the raccoons had discovered a way to divert humans. I confirmed later that it was only G and one of Dad's laser pens that he'd found on the desk. I should've known he wouldn't sleep before visiting with Mr. Computer one last time.
After that, things settled down and Dude and I just talked about life in general, the wedding in particular and how wonderful it was to sit together by the fishpond. Shortly after dawn, we finally found our way back into the house and got a bit of sleep. Quite a nice night, and hopefully a nice little break from the wedding hustle for Dude.
Found this meme over on yaniblog and thought it sounded fun so I tried it. Lucky you, I turned it into a quiz!
The concept: 1. Type your answer to each of the questions below the mosaic into Flickr Search. 2. Using only the first page of results, pick an image. 3. Copy and paste each of the URLs for the images into mosaic maker.
This is what I ended up with: (click to enlarge)
The Questions: 1. What is your first name? 2. What is your favourite food? 3. What school did you go to? 4. What is your favourite colour? 5. Who is your celebrity crush? 6. Favourite drink? 7. Dream vacation? 8. Favourite dessert? 9. What you want to be when you grow up? 10. What do you love most in life? 11. One Word to describe you? 12. Your nickname?
Having trouble figuring out what I answered? Here's a clue via the original photo links on Flickr.
The rain's falling gently outside and the temperature has settled down to a respectable 74. It feels like a San Francisco morning, albeit a bit warmer than I remember.
The job search continues. I think there's some light at the end of the temp tunnel with a some potential copywriting gigs, but I'd rather not count that batch of nuggets until they're fried. My stomach's still a bit in knots from an experience earlier this week where I almost could've had a job except for the fact that I was overqualified. I've heard it a few times now and I can't help but wonder if that's the job search equivalent of saying, "It's not you, it's me." during a breakup. The truth is that it usually IS you.
I'm glad to be living in a state that's willing to recognize and repeal a discriminatory law.
Sure, there's going to be folk shouting even louder that marriage needs to be between a man and a woman, but I'll never understand this argument. It's based upon a religious principle. Why should someone else's religious definition take precedence over mine? What about the atheist who has the freedom in this country to choose no religion? Is their definition of marriage not allowable? We need to take the religious equation out of it and look at this as a civil union.
Just to be clear, I'm not arguing for civil unions vs. marriage. Marriage, as defined by law, should be a union between two people. Or, if use of that word really bugs everyone so much, then change ALL unions to civil unions. No marriage for some and civil unions for others. That in my mind falls too easily into the trap of "separate but equal" that this country got caught in during last century.
I know I'm not going to change a lot of minds with my little blog here, but I feel better having typed this out. It really bothers me that my decision to live an honest life and love G throughout it causes such an uproar across this land of the "free". We're not killing puppies here. Just living our lives together.
I'm not a fan of numerology, but numbers have an odd way of following me around. Fives are the biggest culprit. No matter where I go, there seem to be Fives. I trace this back to my original phone number from when I was growing up. It was a numeric palindrome that contained two 5's. I first memorized it at the age of five. I did this without the area code of course. (Back in those days, you only needed an area code to call people who lived far, far away.) The 5's were the number I gave emphasis to when I chanted it to myself. 33FIVE-ohFIVE33. Yes, those 3's tend to creep into my life with astonishing frequency as well, but I don't like to mention them much. You can read about that in my original about me.
I'll bump into a 9 now and again that makes an impression and 7's are always welcome. Now 1's. Don't even get me started on 1's! They're almost as ubiquitous as 5's! (and 3's, which I'd really rather not discuss)
Even numbers, however, come and go without leaving much of an impression. There's an odd 2 that'll affect me, but 4's, 6's and 8's usually leave me cold. (Ha! "Odd 2". There's an oxymoron I can get behind.)
Why this sudden interest in integers? Well, one thing about numbers is that they get a bit shy if you talk too much about the magic, so you'll just have to remain in the dark for now. How's that for a cliff hanger?
It's been hot. Very hot. Then it rained buckets. Thunder, lightening and sheets of water drenching me from hair to shoes. Twelve years in San Francisco allowed me to forget that "rain buckets" is not a hyperbole. Now it's cooler, but humid. No, not humid, muggy is a much better word. As if summer waits around the corner each morning to clobber you the moment you leave the house. We haven't hit August yet and I'm already tired of summer.
One thing about San Francisco, it never stays the same season for longer than a few weeks before giving you a break. Unsettling at first, but I sure got used to it.
I didn't find the box with the book. (see previous entry)
I did spend the past weekend house/catsitting for our friends in Cambridge. They had a copy of Caspian there that I immediately reread.* There were some other differences between the book and the movie, but Peter's personality change is really the most significant.
In the book Peter is not the petulant guy from the movie. Instead it is Susan who is in need of an attitude adjustment...a fact I had totally forgotten. Given the sexism inherent at the time C.S. Lewis was writing, and the fact that I always found her character's arc the most unsatisfying, I now find myself applauding the decision to shift the burden of unpleasantness to Peter. That said, I wish they'd done more to finish off his story at the end. I'm hoping for some deleted scenes on the DVD and maybe even some commentary on the differences between book and movie. All in all, the sequel seems to have sucked me in just as much as the first one did!
*As a bonus, J had the same boxed set that I received myself back in the 70s. The same set that's now hiding somewhere in storage. Somehow that made the reread even more enjoyable.
Enjoyed the air conditioning at the Loring theater today and saw Prince Caspian. Watched from up in the balcony because...well, when else do I get to sit in a theater balcony for a movie?
I admit to having a hard time at the very beginning since the movie quickly diverged from the original text with a fight in an train station involving Peter. It took me about half of the movie to get over the fact that Peter's personality diverged so much from what I remembered. Don't get me wrong. It worked out pretty well for the movie, but it made it harder for me to "let go" as I kept wondering if I'd missed some subtext in the books about Peter being such a prat.
This in turn made me want to reread the books for the umpteenth time. Then I began to wonder exactly which storage box held my copies of the books. Naturally I had to start imagining where in the storage locker that box was buried and when, if ever, we'll ever get to have our stuff within easy reach again. Fortunately, before I turned into a pity party of one, Susan made googly eyes at Caspian. That was all it took to snap me back to the reality of watching a movie adaptation that needed to conform to certain standards if any more sequels were to be made. Since Prince Caspian was never my favorite book in the series, I decided to give in and stop being so picky.
So, though it continued to diverge from the book here and there, I still left the theater a bit dazed as if I'd woken up from an odd dream. That, in my book, is what a good movie ought to do to you so I give it a thumbs up.
Dude inspired me to start exercising again. He found this push up program via presurfer that's very simple. It won't drastically reduce the comfort zone that's grown around my waist, but it might tighten me up a tad. (and wonder of wonders, I've stuck to it for a whole week!) With that and the mowing of the lawn today I'm feeling a bit sore.
In other news, we're heading into Southie tonight to catsit for Keeks who's heading out to the other coast for the weekend. I'm rather excited about the prospect of watching cable television all night, but even more excited that we'll get to see M and E tomorrow. (with Sugah too!)
I love asparagus, so my excitement over the fact that Martian soil seems to be ideally suited for that particular vegetable should be understandable. I picture an entire pastoral planet devoted to cultivation of asparagus and other nutritious goodies.
That said, it seems to me that we really need to figure out how to take care of our own planet before we go forth and start using up another one...and if it's better to eat locally grown food then I shudder to think of the costs associated with interplanetary produce. Aye, there is no silver lining without a cloud attached somewhere.
This random thought of the day brought to you by the wonders of modern cold medicines. Better living through chemistry indeed.
Oh, the news about Martian soil came to me via Slashdot.
I've got the grippe. Okay, it's a summer cold type thing, but the grippe sounds so much more interesting.
I've also got this nagging feeling that maybe, just maybe, 38 is already middle aged. Meaning I don't have two years until I reach it after all. My mind feels too young to be middle aged, but my middle tells me otherwise...where did that buddha belly come from?
Yes, navel gazing has been occurring here in Mikeyland and yes, I've spared you from most of it. You're welcome.
I'm watching G's flight across the U.S. The scale of the map makes it look like the pilot's taking sharp right and left hand turns, but I'm pretty sure they're more gradual than that. Either way, the turns seem to be for no apparent reason. Did they suddenly see a UFO or something?
This tidbit sounded much more amusing in my head before I typed it in, but there you go. It's been an odd day all around.
Found out for certain that someone in the family didn't OD last week as I previously thought, they committed suicide. Not someone I was close to or even knew very well, but there's no way to avoid the ripples that particular stone causes once it hits.
forgetting that the temperature in the relative cool of the basement was not indicitive of the temperature outside, i decided to mow the lawn this morning
two hours later, i melted into a little puddle on the lawn
Gram had a psychotic episode this morning. I guess this isn't uncommon for someone with Alzheimer's, but it is unusual for someone at her stage of the disease and at that particular time of day. (She, like many patients, seems to be less herself as the day goes on.)
Right now we're not even sure if it's really the Alzheimer's or some reaction to her meds or something else that changed in her environment. I wasn't there to witness it, but she became very distraught and paranoid. Having convinced herself that the staff was trying to kill her, she fought them hard enough to to tear her blouse in the struggle.
To think of my grandmother, a woman known for her fastidiousness, to be fighting that hard scares me. Fuzzy as she was last weekend when we had her over for Memorial Day, she still showed concern that one her nails were in need of a good manicure and always checks (and rechecks) to make sure her clothes are fitting correctly.
She seems back to normal again...or as normal as she gets these days, but it saddens me to see her losing a grip on what the rest of us accept as reality. I can live with her different view of the world around us when she's happy with it. It's this sort of rare instance when she gets angry or scared herself that I have a hard time dealing with it. It scares me to know she's becoming frightened, and I'll own that this is for purely selfish reasons. What if that ends up happening to my dad and I have to take care of him the way he's taking care of Gram today? What if that happens to G? ...what if it happens to me and I have to actually trust someone else to take care of me? Will I be strong enough and smart enough to make the right decisions when it's my turn? Will I let others help me when they have to?
shake, shake, shake the ketchup bottle none will come and then alot'll
That's been stuck in my head for a while now, and it's beginning to drive me just a little bit crazy.
Seems to be an apt metaphor for my life at the moment. I put myself in charge of cleaning out my Gram's apartment now that she's moved into a nursing home. It's amazing how easily history will stick to your hands if you're not careful when handling someone else's artifacts. I'm grateful for all the help coming to me from siblings and cousins, but there's certain things I'm willingly going through on my own.
She has neatly marked boxes full of condolence cards from various funerals. Almost all are getting recycled, but I've been reading each one before sending it to the blue bin. As as if it's my duty to let the words live one last time. Random words from people who may, themselves already be dead.
My favorite great aunt's sympathy cards were all rubber banded together along with each and every notecard from the flowers people sent. Each of these notecards is marked with Gram's precise handwriting telling me who sent just the flowers and who expended the extra effort to also send a regular card along: "also sent card" or "no card, just flowers".
She was one for keeping records. There's a boxful of diaries capturing everything from her hairdresser's appointments to the fact that my cousins had egg and cheese bagels for lunch at 11:30 on July 23, 1996. To add to the oddness, these aren't full pages giving all the details for each day, but monthly calendars with all these events crammed inside the box given for that particular day. Everything written out in tiny, yet perfectly legible block letters.
There's odd things you find out when working through someone else's life. A preponderance of turtle figurines has popped up over the past month. I had no clue Gram liked the little guys so much.
And the doilies...there are doilies for days. Sure, most every one's grandmother has a doily or two hiding under the candy dish, but this goes beyond that. As the last living member of her generation in the family, she's inherited the doilies of an entire clan. They sit patiently inside a plastic supermarket bag in the corner of our bedroom just waiting for me to decide what exactly I'm going to do with them.
Well, according to the BSG Personality Quiz I'm a human...but a dead one. (Billy Keikeya) The description below is eerily accurate...maybe I should take the hint as I continue my job search? After all, there is an opening for president right now.
No one makes a better executive assistant than you. You never steal the limelight from your superiors, unless they need you to create a distraction. Loyalty is very important to you, and you take your work very seriously — maybe a bit too seriously.
Your greatest strength is your knack for understanding other people's points of view. You genuinely care for the fates of other people, who sense this and reward you with their trust.
Organization is your other strong suit. You know how to track details and juggle schedules. Rolling with the punches, on the other hand, is not your forte. You cling to relationships and ideals long after everyone else realizes it's time to let go.
No one would call you a worrier or a free spirit; you maintain a steady balance of hope and pragmatism in your life and work. Your approach to problem-solving is similar. When a situation calls for innovative ideas, you come up with them. When a crisis demands a practical action, you know how to get the job done.
You ought to run for president. Just try not to get shot.
Just to be clear, BSG is still the best show on television. (Edging out Lost by a rather small margin of .4815162342, but it's enough to give it the win.)
This afternoon I put on my purple polo and had G take my picture in front of the lilacs. Why did I have G take my picture in front of the lilacs? Well, I've been thinking about changing my profile photo, but honestly, the lilacs with the purple shirt look a bit too matchy mathchy so we'll have to try again later. That said, for those of you who haven't seen me lately:
When I moved to SF 12 years ago, it was for a variety of reasons. I wanted better weather. I wanted to go to a place with a more liberal attitude. I wanted to
Most of all, I wanted to prove to myself that I could actually make it on my own. My first job out of college came to me through a connection from my Dad. My first apartment out was actually owned by my Dad. My first car was given to me by my parents. Sure, I payed most of it back to them over time, but the schedule was erratic and they never hounded me for it.
California was truly a chance for me to get out there and be the best Michael Tyler Moore that I could be.
Now I'm home and I'm having trouble accepting that help from Dad. Connections come through to me via him or friends of his and I balk at following through. I'm not really sure why. I figure part of it is that part of me that's realized how much I hate the land of Corporate America that lies at the end of those connections. Part of it is that I want to prove that I can still stand on my own two feet. Another part, no less small, is the joy I've had over the past 6 months getting to spend so much time with Greg. I can't kid myself that we'll have too many happy retirement years together. I can hope, but giving most of my energy to a job and giving him just what's left over doesn't seem to make sense if I'm going to spend my golden years without him.
I also moved back for more time with Mom and for the chance for Greg and I to have a house of our own. The former I've been able to get quite a bit of while living here under the parental roof, but the latter won't become reality until I buckle down and get some income.
For the past two mornings we've been washing the front of a friend's house. (She's got company coming in and wants everything to sparkle.) Today we had this super long brush that we'd dip into a cleaning solution of lightly bleached water. As we scrubbed away and the chlorinated smell began seeping into my skin, music from Bagdad Café started running through my head. You know, the bit where Jasmin (Marianne Sägebrecht) is sitting on top of the hotel cleaning the signs?
Okay, not exactly the image I was thinking of this morning, but it's as close as a quick google got me and gives the general idea.
Made me happy all day long and inspired this post. To top it off, I just found out from Wikipedia that the original German version has an extra twenty minutes. Naturally, I am now off on a quest to find myself a copy. I really do love that movie!
One of the biggest differences between Boston and San Francisco is the weather in general and rain in particular. F'rinstance, it's raining today. It will probably rain next week. It will rain off and on over the next month. It will also rain every once in a while during the summer.
In San Francisco, it stops raining in March and doesn't start up again until November. Sure, there are days with a fog so heavy that you might think it was raining if you're not used to the fog, but the seasoned San Franciscan knows the difference.
G and I both like the rain, but having a heavy downpour with May just around the corner is a bit disconcerting for some reason.
ETA: Serendipity strikes. Did my obligatory tagging of two back entries, and one of them was this bit I wrote several years back about the seasons of San Francisco.
Had a nice weekend down in NJ with M and middle sized E. Experienced Whale of a Sale for the first time and got a few cool pieces of clothing including a tux for each of us...you know, for all those formal dinners we are asked to attend. Hey, it was 20 bucks for the pair, if we decide to let 'em go on E-Bay, we'll make money on the deal. Oh, I also picked up several books...because the to-be-read pile at the side of my bed wasn't quite high enough.
Reports of nasty weather were only half accurate. The early afternoon was actually quite nice so G and I drove into Marshfield for the North River Arts Society SNAP show and finally saw Dude and Dudettes pieces. Quite nice. Dudette really has a good eye for composition of a piece.
Ended up at Web park wandering along the beach, skipping stones and combing the sand for treasures washed up on the shore. No treasure, but we did find a kite amongst the detritus which we untangled and got aloft for a good 20 minutes. At that point, the fog rolled in, the temperature dropped about 15 degrees within ten minutes, and my hands were suddenly in need of gloves again.
I'd forgotten how spring jumps from one extreme to another here in New England. It may seem odd, but it's afternoons like this one that make me really glad to be back.
First, thanks to the snafu with Blogger, I lost my ability to blog. Now that it's all fixed, I've lost my...verve? Yes, I've been in a bit of a funk due to the interview thing and not much up for sharing the day to day, but also most of my writing time has gone into editing up this odd piece I've been obsessed with since last fall. It's undergone quite a few revisions since I dug it out of my past and it really did need some finessing. Overall I'm quite happy with the results, but...
I'm afeared it may be just a tad too twee right now. Probably ought to sit on it for a week before sending it off on its merry little way.
In other and only very slightly related news, since last fall I've been tagging my blog entries. A few every time I do a new entry, but given that I have over 900 to go back over, this is a long term project. That said, I have managed to hit about 500 or so already and was a bit surprised when I came across my original review of Queer Eye and there was no GAY tag to hook onto it. Thus, in honor of Margaret Cho, I just created "the gay" tag. (apologies to MC if the below is misquoted)
My mom used to give me messages like this: "Ummmmm... Scott called.... IS HE THE GAY??!!" "Well, God, Mom, I don't know if he's THE gay... that's a lot of pressure on just one guy. He has to do the parade all by himself! 'I'm here! I'm queer! ...I guess I'm the only one.'"
I've heard that not being overly obsessive is a good thing, so I will not go back and find the other 100 or so previously tagged entries which "the gay" tag might also have applied to...at least not today.
I'm back! Did you miss me? Whatever upload problems there were have been fixed.
Sadly, I'm in a bit of a funk and not really feeling much like blogging. Because the tens of you who read this actually might be curious to know, I will tell you that the job I applied for and had great interviews for and really, really wanted is not to be mine.
