Avoirdupois

I've been gone for a while, and I have thought of a lot to say, so I'll try to keep it interesting and to the point. Ha ha. Just kidding.

Today is Wednesday, late afternoon. Monday afternoon, I went home very early because of severe stomach pains. I thought I was sick to my stomach, but it turned out to be stress, more than likely. I couldn't eat a thing, and I was seriously in pain. I have been worrying about a lot of things in my personal life that I never used to let bother me before, and I think that it's catching up with me. I know it's silly and destructive to do so, but I do it anyway.

So Tuesday I called in sick. I had planned to stay in bed all day resting and relaxing, but one thing led to another and I ended up in the city having lunch, walking around, buying this really cool USB flash card reader for my digital camera which releases me from the last remaining bond to a PC, and then stopping by Grace Cathedral for a few minutes of quiet introspection. I'm not a religious person in any sense of the word, but sitting in this cathedral on the top of San Francisco, I was very calm and relieved. I don't know what it was. And don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that I had a revelation. I had no choirs of angels welcoming me (and no lightening bolts warning me away for that matter), but the quiet and the solemnity of the building worked some sort of magic on me. Maybe I should consider that in the future. Although, the whole cathedral/church thing doesn't really fit me. I should be able to find that sort of peace anywhere I go. I'll work on that instead.

I went in to work today, and though my stomach was still upset, I can't really tell if it's the organ or the muscles that surround it. I did workout last night, for the first time in a couple of moons. I don't know. And then I find out that I'm not getting paid until next week instead of yesterday, just in time for taxes. I think this is what bothers me the most. I owe for last year, and I owe for the first quarter of this year, and that's a lot of money. I can't change this, and it will be rough for a while, and I know all of this, so I have to accept it, deal with it, and move on.

In short, more drama catching up with me. What is life without drama? I'm trying to follow my bliss, but there's all this drama getting in the way, and I'm not even sure what my bliss is. It seems to change from time to time. I'm trying to fight off (or make peace with) different aspects of myself that are causing me grief, in a cave on a jungle planet, but I don't know what it's all supposed to mean.

And then when I least expect it, I look out of my office window over the bay and see brilliant rainbows sparkling over the grey water. It's always a sight that makes me stop in awe and realize how irrelevant all of my drama really is.

Homasekshuls

Today I was given the supreme responsibility of converting our standard American measurements for paper size, margins, and the like into more world-friendly metric measurements. And I got to asking myself why we Americans are so set on using inches, feet, miles, ounces, pounds, etc. as our standards of measurement. Are we the last country on the face of the Earth to do so?

I remember, in the 70s, there was a movement to convert the whole US of A to the metric system, but that movement failed. I think I've been told that it was because of the enormous cost involved in converting the countless road signs to kilometers in addition to the other various measurement devices already in use. It was cost prohibitive.

OK, that's a reasonable answer, but why are we stuck with a 2-liter bottle? It's true that I've never heard anyone go to the 7-11 to buy a half-gallon bottle of Coke. This morning, my apple juice bottle is measured at 473 mL and 16 fl oz and 1 pint. Even the scientific documents that I look at that are written in America, use kg and mm as standards. It seems half-assed to me. I hope that one day we will move to metric. It would be a good idea, a good idea for more prosperous times.

Which (kinda) leads me to the Iraq thing. I don't have much to say about it other than that I fully support and respect the honorable men and women fighting in our armed services...except that lousy fuck who threw grenades at his own people. But I don't have the full story on that, so I will withhold any further comments. And I said the men and women fighting, not the scary, old men deciding whom to fight. I, myself, was willing to die for my country once upon a time, but my sacrifice wasn't good enough because I am a homosexual. Yes, still bitter.

And that leads me to a story during my illustrious career as a Temporary Employee that I remembered last night. I was working at a small company doing lots of 10-key data entry. One day, I'm out having a smoke on the smoker's balcony overlooking the green, red, and brown mountains of the (Carmel) Valley. One of the guys I was working with came out to join me. He couldn't have been more than 18 years old. And point blank, he asks me, "Are you a homasekshul?" (That's how he pronounced it: ho-ma-sek-shul.)

The question came so far out of left field that I could only laugh and say, "Why yes, I'm gay." The kid blinked with a kind of stunned look on his face. I don't know if it was because I admitted it or because I answered at all. "Why do you ask?" I wondered.
"I've never met a real gay person before," he said.
"Well, now you have. How do you do?" I replied. The job (thankfully) ended the next day.

The fact of the matter is that I've never had to come out to anyone. I've always been gay by association or gay by looks. The gay by association thing I can (kinda) understand, but the gay by looks thing has always puzzled me. I mean, I don't follow fashion trends; I sort of do my own thing, whatever looks good on me, you know. And it's not like when I open my mouth a pair of Manolo Blahniks falls out. (I'm not a swishy queen, I'm not, I'm not, I'm not!) Frankly, I don't even think about being gay that much. It's so old hat for me, like having green eyes or being a leftie. It's part of who I am, but it doesn't define who I am.

So I've always been curious as to what about me people see that sets off the bells. Is it the fact that I'm so comfortable with it? At least I don't have to worry about attracting the wrong sex, although I've had two women already put dibs on me if I ever go straight. I think that's a compliment. But then again, I have enough trouble attracting the same sex, with no man alive putting dibs on me, now or for any time in the future. Whatever.

Another long one, thanks for reading!

Light Years

This is my new favorite album. I simply love this woman. But I've said that before.

And this is the view from my office window. It's not all mine. I share the office with five other people, and we all share the view. But it's still captivating. It's a shame I might have to give that up soon. No downer moments today. I promise.

Stories

I got here really late this morning...afternoon, I guess I should say. And I have a few stories to explain my tardiness, depending on who asks. And with all of these stories I've told, I must give the impression that I have no scruples and that I am just a big, fat liar. I don't want anyone to think that, really I don't.

Story No. 1:
I got up this morning to find a voicemail from the taxman. My tax documents had been prepared and were waiting for me to come and retrieve them. I did so at about 9:30 am, and upon reading the prepared tax documents and discovering the amount of money I owed Uncle Sam, I had to return home to vent and rage and break things to get rid of the purely visceral emotions that the interaction with the taxman caused. Don't get me wrong, the taxman was excellent and very proficient. It's the amounts owed that enraged me. So, I went home and spent some time meditating and wiping my tears away before I went to work. That's why I'm late.

Story No. 2:
Last night, H and I went to the Sunday afternoon happy hour, and I got falling down, shit-faced drunk. I was having such a good time that I couldn't leave at a reasonable hour. I don't even know how much I had to drink. All I know is that most of last night was a blur. We did stop for a slice of pizza on the way to the train. I thought it would not only taste good, but it would be good to have solid food in my stomach before I went home. I don't know what that was supposed to accomplish. Expecting the one slice of pizza to do anything with that alcohol is like trying to drain a pool with a tiny little sponge. Does that make sense? It did when I thought of it in the shower this morning. So we get home after midnight, I run up to Safeway because, in my drunken stupor, I absolutely had to buy bread and chocolate chips: bread for lunch today, and chocolate chips for cookies that I decided to make. Hello? And then when I get back and go to bed, it's almost two in the morning. So naturally, my body needed at least eight hours of sleep, and it took all eight of those hours, I woke up at 10:30 am and was out the door by 11:00 am. Thank my stars that I wasn't hung over.

Story No. 3: (and the least believable)
We forgot to change our clocks. Yeah, no I'm not going to use that one.

Pick the one you like the best. And I have to say that they're all true. I got my tax papers in the mail on Saturday, and it was totally devastating. Sunday afternoon, I realized that we didn't change the clocks, and then we went out and got fucked up. I don't think that everyone needs to know the real reason, and that's exactly why I'm posting this on the Internet. Duh.

Life's Little Lessons

OH MY GOD!! The girls in the office were doing Google searches on all of our names and one of them found my little site here. I was working diligently when I heard her say "If you want to get ahead, get a Michael," and I totally freaked. I mean, fucking totally freaked. It's not even that she found this site, it's that there are comments on these pages about the people I work with and the company overall. I was waiting for this to happen. I mean, I can't keep this private and keep it on the Internet at the same time, and I'm not taking it down. As much as it's cheesy from time to time, I like it here. So, what now? Do I censor myself when it comes to matters of work? I think that would be prudent. Oh my God, I freaked. My face went all red, and my heart started pounding. I felt like a rabbit in a cage with half a dozen people looking in on me. How long did I really expect to remain anonymous when my name is on this thing? And why should I be afraid of being who I am? I don't know if that's the issue here. OK, lesson learned.

Another

I'm learning another of life's little lessons, slowly but surely. I haven't been paid for March yet, and I don't know when it will come. I'm boiling with rage, not because of the delay in my pay (although that has a lot to do with it), but because this company is not run very well. It's like a game to everyone. And it turns out that I am the only one who hasn't been paid.
And then they tell me that I shouldn't be so angry about it. And then, I am reminded that there is more to life than work. In other parts of the world, people go to work, and after that they go home and live their life. I haven't done a very good job of that in the last few years. I spend way too much time here, and I take it all way too seriously. It's a tricky business, software development, but it's not the end of the world. You can't know how it felt to admit to myself that I had tomatoes and feta and red wine waiting for me at home, like the clouds parted and the angels said to me, "You're free." Of course, I have to come back tomorrow and face another payless day, but I know that it will come eventually. I hate this. I'm trying to talk myself into being OK with this. At the same time, I'm looking for a way to get the red fuck out of California and to a place where I will be able to afford to buy a home for myself one day. Anyone know a good place? Just kidding. I can't go into too much detail because I'm still formulating. Can't you hear the wheels churning? But as this is my excuse for a diary, I'll be back to fill in the details as they happen.

Just a quickie

For the last three nights, I have dreamt of vampires, especially of Angel and Buffy and Willow. I haven't even been watching that much TV lately, either. So, I'm forced to wonder what the symbolism is for these dreams. I'm not much on interpreting these things, but I know it must be something. Three in a row?

I say this just before I go to sleep. I'll let you know what happens.

Wet

No vampires last night, but I did have a dream that I went on a business trip and hid my car in a lake. In the lake. Under water. Uh huh. So I get back from the trip, return my rental car at the rental car office, and have them escort me to the lake where my car was hidden. I had my computer locked in the trunk with the mouse hanging out. Apparently, I left the mouse attached to my iMac, closed the back hatch on the cable and left it out so that I could use it to pull the car out of the water, which I proceeded to do in front of the rental car staff. After I successfully pulled the car out of the lake (I suspect that I left the car in neutral so it would move easier, but that's the logic of my conscious mind talking), I noticed that the car had been sealed to be watertight. The interior carpet was a little moldy, but that was due to the extreme damp and humid conditions to which they were subjected over the course of my trip. I took out my American flag, and my map of the continental US, which were dry as a bone. I thanked the staff, who disappeared as I thanked them, got in the car, and drove away.

What on earth is going on in my head?

I don't know what the vampires mean to me. I could go on to say that I've always been fascinated by vampires. When I worked as the night shift PBX operator at Quail Lodge in Carmel Valley, I used to go outside for a smoke and send out "psychic" signals hoping that a certain famous vampire who lived in the area would hear me. (I was fairly fucked in my early 20s.) I never met the vampire, but I almost bumped into Clint Eastwood, who is a very large, towering man in person. "Oh, hello, Mr. Eastwood." I met a lot of people when I worked there. But I digress... Perhaps for another time.

I am intrigued by the thought of immortality. I admire the power (mental, physical, and supernatural) of the vampire. I wouldn't mind being the vigilante vampire who scoured the streets of Oakland at night, cleansing them of the scourge of the skank-ho crackheads who go around killing people for drugs and guns. (America the Beautiful at it's best.) Blood is blood, right? This is just a juvenile fantasy that clearly says something more, and I'm even a little embarrassed to admit this here. And Dickhead said I had no imagination. The fuck.

So now I'm at work bug-testing the latest release. It's slow going, and I'm so glad we have such big windows. It's raining cats and dogs. I can sit and watch the rain for hours. SFO has diverted in-bound flights to come in from the north instead of the south so I can see all of the planes come in for landing. Had a scrumptious gemelli pasta lunch with chicken and sun-dried tomatoes. Love that. Tasted great, and it was gratis. I'll have to work tomorrow, too.

That's all for now.

Knowledge Base

Let me just share something with you. I just got a new hard drive for my computer at work. I went through the old one and backed up all necessary files on CDs. I archived all of my e-mail, especially. I have done this several times in the past, and I'm well aware of the procedures. So when I installed the new drive and apps, and then went to import my e-mail archive into the fresh version of Outlook, I got error messages saying that I did not have enough privileges to access this file. What? I'm the administrator of this computer. What do you mean I don't have the access rights? Just give me the damn files! So I was perplexed, but at the same time I was kinda relieved that my e-mail boxes were sparkling clean and fresh. So, a little later in the day, I noticed that three other programs were not working correctly, giving me strange errors. And then it hit me. When I archived the files on CD, they became read-only files, and when I copied those same files back to my hard drive, they retained their read-only status. So, I went in and changed the properties of these files, and voilà, they all work again. I felt like such a complete moron for not noticing this earlier. I did know this happened; I had seen it many times before. I was so wrapped up in the drama of not having my old e-mails that I completely overlooked the butt obvious! Let that be a lesson to you, Mike. Thought I'd add this experience to the universal knowledge base just in case someone else had a similar problem. Just so you know.

On a lighter note, I mailed my taxes today. In the last fifteen years, I have been able to file the 1040-EZ form, and I always did so just days after receiving my W2. And in the last five years or so, I've been able to file over the phone. And, I've always gotten a refund. Now, I have a huge tax bill, and I waited until the very last moment to send them all in. I'm not really a procrastinator. But this time I did. Fortunately, I know of a secret post office somewhere on the Peninsula (which will remain secret), and when I got there at eight o'clock this morning, there was NO LINE!! So, while I'm paying through the teeth, at least I didn't have to wait in an obnoxious post office line. What a relief. Phew.

Think Different

OK, I said before that I installed a new hard drive on my Dell laptop. It worked fine for a week until I undocked it, took it home, and tried to use it on my home DSL connection. Then the fucking piece of shit that it is went to hell and took me with it. *ahem* Sorry, I just had to get that out of the way. I fucking hate Windows and fucking hate the fact that Bill Gates is a billionaire for shoveling this shit to the world. *ahem* Again, I just had to get that out of the way.

When I plugged the ethernet cable into the laptop's ethernet port (and yes, I know the difference between it and the modem port), nothing happened. No connection. Nada. I checked out the network settings, and the LAN connection was reported as having no network cable connected. That's funny, what's that thick, blue cord sticking out of the side of it? Just my imagination, I'm sure.

So, I gave up and turned to my trusty Mac. Yes, I am a dyed-in-the-wool Mac user, and nothing anyone can say or do will ever change my mind.

I went to work today, redocked my laptop, and when I turned it on, I still had no network connection. OK, that's even more bizarre because I have an ethernet port on my port replicator, and the cable is always attached. In fact, the green light was on, and the amber light was flickering as a sign of some kind of activity. Now, I'm no computer genius, for sure. I know how to use a lot of applications very well, but I really don't understand how the damn thing works.

So, I rebooted. Twice. And nothing happened.

So, I called up the support guy who's doing work for us on the side (he's got a real day job) and spent the first hour of my morning with him trying to troubleshoot the motherfucking network connection. We pinged. We did the ipconfig /renew thing. We disabled that, enabled this, rebooted again, and nothing worked. We uninstalled the network adapters and let Windows 2000 Pro figure out what the things were. We removed stuff from the registry. All of this over the phone. Nothing worked. So I was out of luck all day today. No e-mail, no newsgroups, no cursed web browsing for a lazy Friday. I couldn't even print for crying out loud! I felt like I was stuck on a desert island.

Drama, drama.

Poor guy, I felt bad for bothing him on his Friday morning. We were planning to be in my office on Saturday anyway, so he said he would take a look in person to see if he could fix it. I don't get it. So I undocked the fucker and tried to use another ethernet port. What's the big deal? And so, if this is how it's going to work, does that mean I can never take the portable laptop off my desk again? How portable is that?

Whatever. I'm just ranting. I hope he can fix it, because it does work better with a fresh system on it. I still hate having to use it every day. I'd much rather install Virtual PC on my iMac and bring it into the office. At least I know the machine would work when I wanted it to.

We'll see what Easter weekend has to offer me.

Good Friday

OK, so I ranted a bit below about the Windows thing. And then there have been these coincidences around our office in the last few days that make me wonder. For instance, our e-mail host decided that they didn't want to support our e-mail anymore, only they didn't cancel the service, they just sort of let it hang out to dry. In fact, we were not able to send or receive e-mail at all on Wednesday. When our CEO called in to get support, the tech actually said to him, "You have over 60 e-mails waiting for you here. Do you really need them?" Nah, not really. And then our printer died. Out of the blue. Just stopped printing. Blinking lights and blank pages. So even if I had a network connection today, I wouldn't have been able to print anything anyway. And then R&W's home internet connection went to hell. Their techs said they could fix it within two business weeks. Hahahahahahahaha. Yes, honey, you do that. And then my computer went to hell. And it's all sort of culminating right around Good Friday, and I'm thinking is this a sign? Maybe I should go to church. Yeah, no. Not a good idea.

Happy Easter

Well, I'm stumped

I don't know what happened here. I've had my share of bad code in the past, but this one takes the cake, and I don't even know if it's my fault or theirs. In the last two weeks, anything that could go wrong on a computer has gone wrong for me, and I will swear to my grave that it wasn't my fault. I have given up trying to decode the secret meaning of computers, so I'll just stick with the programs that run on them. I'm not cracking the codes anymore. And this time I didn't crack anything. I swear!! All I did was post the results of yet another online quiz (which ranks me as 52% virginal, which is still high, I think), and when I clicked Publish, all I got was nothing. I didn't even post a graphic! It was just plain text. And if you view the source on this page, you can see all of the previous entries. WTF? I think it might be time to move.

Ooops.

OK, I was high or something. I don't know. I did mess it up. And it took, what, four days for me to figure it out? I've so busy this last week. It's already Thursday. Normally I would be happy that the weekend is almost here, but Roommate has been out on holiday for the whole week, he comes back Sunday sometime, and I haven't been able to enjoy the peace and quiet. I haven't even cooked for myself this week. Late hours, migraines, bad traffic. It's been quiet when I'm at home...I wish I could get my own place.

So that's fixed. I'm embarrassed. Whatever. I'm still looking at the other options. It's all so complicated.

There were almost 20 accidents in the Caldecott Tunnel this morning!! Two of the three bores were blocked or closed because of it. All at 8 o'clock this morning. What's the big deal? So it was raining. What gives? Bunch of punks, that's what.

Last

1. What was the last TV show you watched?
Coincidentally, the last episode of "Sabrina, the Teenaged Witch." Yes, I'm serious. I've said before that I can only get three broadcast channels in my hovel: UPN, WB, and KQED (public TV). It was the best thing on, and I wasn't really paying attention anyway. But I forgot how totally cute Harvey is. So "aw, shucks" and cuddly.

2. What was the last thing you complained about and what was the problem?
I can't remember exactly, but it was probably Windows again.

3. Who was the last person you complimented and what did you say?
My co-workers, I know, but for what I don't remember. Oops. Guess it doesn't mean much, does it?

4. What was the last thing you threw away?
An embarrassingly old dish of coleslaw. It was about to get up and walk out by itself.

5. What was the last website (besides this one) that you visited?
The Iconfactory.

So I fixed the blog. It was, in a roundabout way, another Windows fuckup. See, sometimes I like to post my entries from home, on my Mac. And I do remember looking at the template on my Mac. And when I did so, I inadvertantly fucked up the template, but I didn't really do it. The simple action of viewing the code changed a < to the text &lt; in part of my Javascript rendering it useless and the rest of the page empty. So, because Blogger doesn't really seem to care about its users since they've been funded by Google, they're not really developing more solid and more compatible interfaces for their little application, and they're relying on their Windows-based interface to do all of the work. Of course, I don't have the full story, but since no one at Blogger or Pyra Labs will return my e-mail, I can only surmise. That's what you get for paying for a service. This seems to follow the trend in declining customer service in anything and everything, except L.L. Bean, but I've said that before, and I'm not in the mood to regurgitate it all here.

Is the potbelly the new gay ideal?

Thanks to Sarah for pointing me to this one. I feel so much better about myself now, only I'm still in image-conscious California. Oh well. As trends often do, maybe this one will move East to West someday. I won't hold my breath, though.

Happiness isn't happiness without a violin-playing goat.

Last night I watched one of my favorite movies, which was set in a part of London that became, I believe, overwhelmed by tourists after the release of this movie. I love it so much even though every fucking time I watch it, I cry like a baby. It's so romantic and so touching every time I see it. But I'm allowed.

Holland Park

I was doing some house cleaning here today and I just happened to run across my little spiral bound pocket map of London. I know, I talk about London all the time. For some people who read this, they might get sick and tired of it because I live in California, I'm an American, and I should be dealing with living here instead of dreaming about living there. But you know what? I have some fond memories of the three visits that I made to London. So, whatever!

So anyway, that particular movie that I mentioned earlier sparked this memory in me today as I was driving through San Francisco. This was March 2001, and I was on a business trip. The business ended on a Wednesday, so I took the rest of the week off as a mini-holiday, and left on the following Sunday. I had three days in London by myself.

I'm walking through London, it's March, the sun sets early, it's dark and chilly, and I get off the tube at...let's just say Holland Park. I get on Holland Park Avenue, and I start walking around, and then I remember that Holland Park itself was very close to where I was. I figured, well let's take a look around the park just to say that I've done it. I don't remember now the significance of Holland Park. Maybe it's something special, I don't know, it could have been a place to meet cute guys.

So I'm walking through the park, taking my time, listening to my music, smoking cigarettes, sitting on the benches, and eventually it was nighttime. The sun was completely gone and it was dark. I started walking again towards the other end of the park. When I got there, the gate was closed and locked. I thought, "Well, what's this about?" I looked around for another gate, and there is one, but it's locked, too. I thought, "Holy shit. What am I supposed to do?" I started walking very quickly back to the Holland Park Avenue entrance to the park hoping that there would be an open exit there. But no, that gate is locked, too. Essentially, I'm trapped in this park, and I started to panic a little bit. I'm a tourist in a foreign city, locked in a park after dark, and what the fuck do I do, sleep in the park overnight? Give me a fucking break.

Then, out of nowhere, two kids walked right past me. I thought, "Maybe they know where the exit is. I'll just follow them to get out." They reach the gate at the Kensington High Street side of the park and they jump over the fence. I'm all, what the fuck? Why didn't I think of that? I felt like such a moron for not thinking of the obvious. The gate was barely up to my chest, so it would not have been an effort whatsoever. I guess it was just that my bag was heavy, I was tired, I didn't feel like exerting myself if I didn't really have to. So I climbed over the gate, and I thought, "Wow. I'm free!" You have no idea the terror that filled my head in the fifteen or twenty minutes that I was stuck in the park. It was nonsense. I thought I might be trapped there forever or arrested for trespassing.

There was a scene in the movie last night that reminded me of this episode, and I just thought I'd share for posterity's sake.

Roommate comes home tomorrow, and I'm so not looking forward to that. I've got a lot of crap to finish here before then. I will miss the peace and quiet. That's for fuck sure.

Fragmented

What a day. We lost three of our people today. It was not a pretty picture. I had to leave the office for two hours before I was calm enough to come back. (I had to wait for my tear-stained eyes to return to their normal glowing-green state.) Start-ups are hard, you know. I hope we'll get them back soon. It's going to be very quiet without them.

Freaks

I feel that I should explain the "glowing-green" comment. I don't want anyone to get the idea that I have been irradiated or possessed. I have very green eyes. In fact, I have been told that they are some of my best features. I don't know what that means exactly. But yesterday, as I was dealing with a mild case of survivor's guilt, my eyes became bloodshot and puffy, and not so "best." That's just bad English, I know.

So, last night I went to the gym to relax and swim. In the hot tub, there was an obnoxious man who was chastising a woman for her religious beliefs. She said that she did believe in God, but not in the cartoon character God that everyone else imagines. He was a visually perturbed by this comment and went on to preach about how she just needs to find a good man and a good church and then she'll find the real God. Needless to say, I was more than perturbed. The woman proclaimed that she was a lesbian and that no man on earth would ever "save" her, and no God in any church on earth would ever "save" her, either. There was another lady in the hot tub who got up and left commenting that he should just mind his own business. And a third person suggested that some people might be more old-fashioned, believing that politics, sex, and religion do not make for good conversation in public. I whole-heartedly agree with the old-fashioned notion, by the way. I don't need to be bludgeoned with someone else's moral beliefs, especially when the person themselves cannot articulate their beliefs adequately enough to explain to me why their God is better than mine. "He just is, and you should know better." Fuck off, little man. But then again, this was the YMCA, the C of which stands for Christian, but I still fail to see how I should be subjected to this bullshit when all I really want to do is get rid of the day in the soothing heat of the hot tub.

And then again, this was the YMCA of San Francisco, which apparently makes it OK for people to cruise you wantonly without any regard to whether you want to be cruised or not. Is it possible to go anywhere in this city and not be viewed as a possible sex partner? I know that sounds totally whack, but really, this guy was at least 70 (I'm not kidding) with a male-order bride who was in his 20s, and you know, that's just not my cup of tea. The two of them in the locker room were picking at each other like...well like I should just mind my own business and not deal with it.

On a final note for this sunny Wednesday, I have come to the conclusion that being vapid is no crime. Besides, one person's vapid is another person's charming. I think. Maybe. As I was trying to ignore the preacher man in the hot tub last night, all I could think about was a new swim cap that one of the regulars had on. "Oh, Bonnie has a new cap. Look at the blues and purples in their nice marbled pattern. It's nice." And then, "Oh, they fixed the air vent, and now it doesn't look like it will fall into the pool." I'm not an intellect, as this site clearly exemplifies. I'm good a several things, I'm not well-versed on a lot of other things, and you know, that's OK with me.