The First

I spent the night at the Watergarden last night. Had to. J had company over, and it was better for me to make myself scarce. Ah, the joy of sharing a house with people. I can't beat the deal, though. Good rent, nice location, decent views of downtown. I wish the Lord of the Manor would fix the dishwasher, though. He takes his own damn time on everything. Anyway.

So I was at the Watergarden, it was 2-ish. I was a little tired because I worked all day Saturday, and I was relaxing in the hot tub. I didn't see anyone in the hot tub when I entered, and if I had, I would have apologized for the splash I made. The water felt so good on my tired legs and feet, I just sort of crashed into it. K said, "feels good, huh?" He freaked the shit out of me. You know, stomach in my throat, shivers up my spine kinda freaked. I just didn't expect anyone to be there. After all, it is a semi-public place. "Oh," I said. "Sorry, I didn't see you there. Sorry about the splash." "No problem. It's only water."

So we started talking. Small talk of course, which I loathe. "Nice weather." "Look at all the stars." "Did you come by yourself?" I just don't understand why people are so uncomfortable with silence. Elevators, the bus, the subway, even the office. The banter of it all. The meaningless, petty, irrelevant, yet mostly innocuous chit-chat at the watercooler. I prefer to live in peace and quiet. If the silence is deafening, I pop in my earphones and listen to my music. Mlle Boulay, je suis tombé toi! I guess it's my way of tuning out the world. Yes, this man is an island. Anyway...again.

So we just chatted about this and that and whatever. He was too cute to ignore, and considering that he was so friendly and forthright, I would have felt like a clod if I had ignored him. I put on my best small talk hat, and tried to be friendly. After about twenty minutes, I got out to shower off the chlorine, and he followed me. Blah blah blah, cut to my rent-a-bed, and it turns out he's sweet and funny and happily married. In fact, he asked if A could watch. Uh huh. Yeah. "I guess so, if he's into that." "Oh, he is." And he was. I won't go into gory details, but it was good. I was relieved to hear him admit that first. A liked it, too. He even offered to mop us up. How thoughtful.

So we sat and talked some more, and then they left for home-sweet-home. I took another shower and fell asleep. I woke up just in time to check out. Now I'm back at work, clearing off my hard drive. I have accumulated so many .mp3s and .mpgs that my 40GB hard drive is down to 12GB. Fear of that. So, I'll borrow a few CDs and take 'em all home with me.

So this is my first blog. It's a cool idea. I'm sure I'll get the hang of this HTML thing, and I hope to add other stuff to it as well. Who knows.

In the short three hours

In the short three hours that I've been blogging, I've been checking out the other blogs of the world. How bizarre is this? I mean, the whole idea of putting your diary (in essence) on the Internet for all of [insert the possessive form of your religious icon here] creatures to see. I think it's cool for me, because I am only doing this in the hopes of finding other people who might possibly think the way I do.

For a very long time, I have had trouble communicating with other people. No silly, I speak English (et français pour tous les francophones qui puissent possiblement lire cela), and I use my mouth and teeth and tongue just like you do. It's just that I form my sentences and thoughts a little more differently than most of the populous. Often while speaking, I feel like I am speaking an alien tongue, for I see more blank stares looking back at me than I would, perhaps, like to see. It's as if they're all saying: "What the f*ck are you talking about? Please try, darling, try, to make some sense. Please."

It's especially troublesome when I am talking to someone that I have just met or whom I don't know well. Take for instance, K [see earlier today]. I was trying to express my extreme, colossal, titanic adoration for Tori Amos and Isabelle Boulay (among others), and some of the emotions came out as emotions instead of words. See, I'm doing it again. Sometimes I wish I was Vulcan. It would be so much easier to mindmeld with someone to convey the messages that I seek to convey. And the whole control of the emotions thing is definitely cool, too. I've tried to read a book that X, the other housemate, has on the coffee table: An Introduction to Logic, written possibly before any of us were even born. It's a tricky thing, logic, but it's something I aspire to.

I do it to myself. What the f#ck am I talking about?

Oh yes, the need to pour our souls out on to the World Wide World. I guess I don't remember what it was like to be a troubled teenager with loves and losts and longings. All I do remember was hiding the fact that I loved Mike Finn because he was sooooooo cute, and I loved the way his mouth puckered when he played the trumpet, but then, I guess your mouth is supposed to pucker when you play the trumpet. I never learned. Oh, but he hated me openly. And I dealt with it. I actually used to fantasize singing "Dress You Up" to him. It was just about silly. Maybe that's how I dealt. I don't know.

Yeah, growing up sucked. I graduated high school in 1989. The year before (1988), an openly gay schoolmate committed suicide because he wrote a love letter to a guy on whom he had a crush, and the guy threatened to beat the living bejeezus out of him for doing so. Two years after I graduated (1991), my high school opened their Gay-Lesbian-Bisexual Student Association something-or-other. My band teacher came out of the closet, divorced his wife, died his hair an unbecoming shade of...rust, I suppose you could call it. So, three years after Jim killed himself because of his own internal torment...sorry, strike that...I never really understood why he did it. I always assumed that because I had some sort of internal fortitude to live with and love myself for who I was, everyone else should, too, right? Anyway, three years after Jim killed himself, the same school that ridiculed him for being openly gay made some kind of safe haven for other students and faculty going through the same thing we were. What am I getting at here?

Oh right, the whole diary thing. I know what some of these people are going through, and it brings back painful memories of abadonment and rejection, but I know that you will all get through it. We all will. We grow up, move on, meet people who matter to us and to whom we matter, and we will forget about the boy/girlfriends that stomped on our hearts and made us cry. We will find happiness even if it takes 30 years! I am proof to that. It has taken 30 years for me to realize that I like everything about me and my body. I love my green eyes. I love my combination Irish/Scottish/Polish nose. I love my smile and my hands and my butt. It's a little plump and comfortable to sit on. The only thing I have to complain about is my lack of coherency when I try to speak. I get all muffled up by the pure emotion and words fail me. But only when I talk. Thank goodness for computers with delete keys and spell checkers. And thank my stars for my beautiful grape iMac. Love that.

But more importantly, it has taken me 30 years to realize that I don't need a man to make me happy or to feel special. And there's no real reason why it had to take 30 years, either. I am just stubborn that way. So buck up little campers, it's only going to get better. And don't, please don't waste your youth and your prime pining for a guy or even a girl. If they don't treat you right, move on. Dionne said it best: If you see me walking down the street/And I start to cry/Each time we meet/Walk on by. Ok, not exactly the message I wanted. This is how you do it: put one hand on your hip, the other hold up as if to say "stop," but instead, wave him on by, hence the "walk on by" part.

This blog should be titled "Tome Time." Meowie.

Computers

You know, I am a Mac person, a Mac person forced to live in the PC world. I know, I know, you've all heard that one before. But you know, I am just sick of Windows. I am tired of the fact that no external peripherals work unless they're on the parallel port. Why do they even bother making SCSI cards for PCs? I am tired of all of the little fault errors that Schmindoze conjures up. I am tired of programs that just quit with that stupid little red circle/white x that says the application was terminated because of this stupid little fault. And this fault is completely incomprehensible by anyone, anywhere. It's all just code. And if you ask the techies no matter where you are, they'll look at the code, shrug their shoulders, and mutter "eh," as if their ignorance of the fault will make me feel better. Why? Because I'm in good company? (Actually, at this place, I am in excellent company because our two top IT guys are just big, beefy, barrel-chested studs. *Drool* But I digress...again...)

Whatever. Just a Mac-biased rant. I love my grape iMac DV with a 30GB hard drive, 1 GB of RAM, which is completely compatible and swappable with X's souped up Pentium 4 (they finally got something right in the battle of the platforms), FireWire CD burner that works everytime, 60GB external FireWire hard drive (for all of those .mp3s and .mpgs, you know). I love how it looks, how it sounds, the icons, the fact that the MacOS has always had built-in ligatures in its font sets. It's all good. Next up, the G5 Powerbook when it's released next year. Can't wait, can't wait. At least it will give me the time to scrape up the money to buy the thing. In the meantime, here is someone else who favours the Mac and a nicely compiled comparison of the MacOS and Windows.

I should be out of a job in a few months. The big, bloated pharma that I work for is moving down to San Diego, like right now. They have already told us that we will be out of a job by the end of May, 2002, mainly because they have a redundant staff, and as such, there is no need to even offer us a relocation package. Hmmpff. However, with the re-introduction of my current boss, Dragon Lady (who is a tome in herself), I figure we should be out of here by the end of the year. I guess I'll have much more to say about this in the coming weeks. C U Next Tuesday. That's all I have to say. Thank you.

Fury

My mind is ablaze with fury. X warned me when she came back that I would have to choose my battles wisely. I don't believe that I have done that so far. In essence, then, it is my fault for letting this get out of hand. However, I am only trying to streamline processes that were in place after she left. We changed our entire department and its strategies and planning to become more efficient and supportive of our "customers." She comes back and tears it all up because RJ, DS, and PD were wrong and uninformed. That's why they're all millionaires, thanks to a brilliant idea and a successful dot.com. She's an egomaniacal, power-hungry, lying, back-stabbing bitch who doesn't like the fact that her people know more about their jobs than she does. MS made a huge, gargantuan mistake by bringing her back here. If I didn't have sooooo much to lose, monetarily, I would be out the door, happily answering phones at the Mandarin Oriental or something. I hate her. I truly, truly do. What the fuck.

Other bits heard around the office today:

"God made a mistake (sic) and made my hair brown. It should be black, in my humble opinion."
Personally, I think God has a little more up on your queen ass when it comes to color coordination and design...in my humble opinion.

I haven't been able to post anything in the last two days because of her. Apparently she likes to watch the mice run around in their cages all day long. It sucks because I am finally getting the hang of this HTML stuff, and, and I got a free web server on which to store my various trinkets. So now I'll be able to post pictures and stuff and all kinds of kitschy little things that will make my blog really white trash. I'll try to keep it all to a minimum. I promise.

How do they do that?

I have been watching a bootleg version of the BBC series "Walking with Dinosaurs." It's a remarkable production. The creators of the series have gone all out to recreate the Triassic and Jurassic periods and their corresponding dinosaurs as realistically as possible. I am awed by it all. But...

...at the same time, I am left to wonder how on Gaea's Green Earth anyone can know that the Diplodocus used their long, flexible, whip-like tails as a method of communication with other Diplodocuses. And how could they know that the Allosaurus had those exact coloured markings on its face? I mean, it's not like we have cave drawings from this time. And it's not like someone brought their Sony Digicam with them on their family outing and just happened to run into a Brachiosaurus.

Still it makes for fascinating, imaginative musings. And I love musings of any kind.

These Dreams

I had a very nice dream about Lara Fabian last night. J and I were stuck in Canada overnight because of the September 11th attacks. That part is real. In my dream, however, while we were there, we won tickets to a Lara Fabian concert. She was performing at the local movie theatre in Edmonton, Alberta, and we were special guests. We showed up at the back entrance, went through security, and were escorted to the wings of the stage in the theatre. I looked out at the audience; it was full of people. A group of young women and men piled up right behind me. They were speaking French, and I knew that they were personal friends of Lara's, and they, too, had been given special invitations. Lara arrived, running down the centre isle of the theatre. She jumped on the stage and started revving up the crowd like a cheerleader. She looked over to the wings where I was standing, and she jumped down from the stage and ran toward me. One of her girlfriends intercepted her and gave her a big kiss and hug. I could see Lara better from this distance now, and she was wearing a mint green fuzzy turtleneck sweater, black leather pants, and really nice black boots. Her hair was down and full and curly. She was beautiful. After she greeted her friends, she came up to me and J. She shook his hand, and took my face in her hands and asked me what I wanted to hear her sing. I said, very insecurely as my French isn't as good as it should be, "Urgent désir, s'il vous plaît" She responded, "No French tonight. It's a night of joy." I didn't understand her meaning, but instead I responded, "Mais je vous adore. Je rêve de vous écouter chanter en français. J'aime toutes vos chansons en français." And then that f*cking alarm clock went off and ruined it all. *Sigh*

Some men say...

Some men say that they can never figure what a woman is thinking. From my experience, I can't figure out what men are thinking.

This morning on BART, I sat down on the side seats across from a nicely dressed man who was probably in his mid-40s. He was attractive with pretty brown eyes. Tailored suit, good shoes, nice briefcase. Orinda? Walnut Creek? Didn't matter. He caught my eyes looking him over and I kinda got the impression that my interest was objectionable. I looked again, and there on his left ring finger was that little something special that tells me no. So I went on listening to Sheryl Crow, and throughout the rest of the ride, as I glanced around the train my eyes naturally fell forward, and they met his. I glanced away each time.

I have only lived in the Bay Area for about three years, and in this time, I have never been able to figure out what kind of politics some people have. I will never take it for granted that the people that live in this area are liberally-minded or even gay-friendly. So, when I see a guy who I think is attractive, no matter where I am, I have to be careful not to give unwanted attention to someone who won't appreciate it.

We reached Civic Center, and he got up to leave. On his way out the doors, he turned around to look at me again. I'm thinking, yeah, he's sizing me up, telling me not to f*ck with him. His stern face seemed to convey a kind of warning. All right, whatever. For the sake of being a shit since he was going to be so forward with his gaze, I watched him walk up the platform, and he turned around again with the same look on his face. This time, I screwed up my face as if to say "whatever, moron," but then I saw a quirky kind of smile in return. Then it occurred to me that he was interested or at least cruising me as badly as I was cruising his Kenneth Coles.

As the train departed through the station, the train passed him as he continued down the platform. I looked out the window to see him smiling at me and to see him throw a little wave in my direction. What?

So, what's my point? I don't know how to judge people. I don't know how to size 'em up. I know how to cruise. What gay man doesn't? But sometimes it's not as obvious as it could be. And I'm left to think about it, and blog it all.

Whatever.