Happy New Year

1. Celebrate :: Holiday, celebration, come together in every nation
2. Resolve :: Resolute quality : fixity of purpose
3. I need to :: leave my past behind. I need to leave my behind in the past.
4. Call :: Me
5. Token :: Bus
6. Brand :: Loyalty
7. Comparison :: Shopper, which contradicts being a brand loyalist
8. Far away :: That Tom Cruise/Nicole Kidman movie, which was really called Far and Away but it's close enough to remind me
9. Artful :: Dodger
10. Fantastic :: Sam's haircuts, also the movies Transamerica and Breakfast on Pluto

Happy New Year.

Spitting distance? How vivid.

Another rainy day in Northern California. At least it's not flooding where we are...or is it? I haven't been out of the apartment in days. I do that sometimes. When I have an extended period of time off from work, I stay home and don't leave for any reason save food. And we're fully stocked. I've got a great vantage point from my desk, and I can smell the fresh rain-cleaned air wafting through the windows. I can hear the cars driving through the watery roads. Why do I need to go outside and get all wet? Besides, I've finally got Auntie Mame on dvd—I can't tell you why I waited so long—and I've got to catch up! What a delicious movie that is. Ah, the memories it brings up...

Tomorrow I go back to work. Sadly. Normally, I'm really a hard worker, dedicated and efficient. But if you give me sixteen consecutive days off of work, I'm apt to become a little resentful at the idea of having to go back. And add to that my own personal countdown of what's to come ’round April, I'm going to be itching to get the hell out of there as fast as I can.

In the meantime, I have rediscovered the joy of baking. I made cupcakes and tiny little cake loaves yesterday, and I dug out my fabulous cookie cookbook that I picked up for ten bucks at Borders in Santa Cruz. So many recipes, so little time. I've made up my wishlist and will hit BB&B after work tomorrow to make it so.

And then I'll cozy up with my Hot Nude Yoga DVDs from TLA Video. No, I won't be joining the men in my birthday suit, mainly because neither I nor my apartment is hot. I'm learning yoga because it's the only form of physical exertion that appeals to me anymore, and I simply can't bear the thought of losing all of my flexibility at the dawn of middle age. Besides, I need to find a compact form of exercise for my post-April future. Twenty-one days to make a habit. So by the end of January, I'll be on my way to enlightenment and a higher state of being. I only hope I can concentrate long enough to meditate effectively.

Ah, well, that's all!

Happy Monday

I woke up at eight o'clock this morning. Ooops. What do you expect after eleven days of time off and sleeping in? I forgot to set the alarm clock. Good thing the sun came up!

I got to work at 10-ish. No big deal as usual. I could show up at two in the afternoon, dressed in sweats and flip flops and no one would care...not that I would because that really isn't my thing. It's bad enough I've resorted to wearing jeans every day now. I used to be so careful about what I wore to work. Always had pressed shirts and pants. Always had shoes clean if not polished. Then I got into the rut of working eleven- and twelve-hour days, and all of that fuss was uncomfortable, so I used the submission schedule to justify my casual attire every day. And while it's true that we're starting another submission now, I'm not really that busy—in fact, I'm doing absolutely nothing but cleaning out my files and surfing the web—and I could very well dress the part of a corporate employee. And then again, who cares? My boss doesn't even know I'm here half the time, and when she does know I'm here, she avoids me like the plague. You should see how she skirts my cube sometimes, eyes forward, sometimes peering out of the corner of her eyes to see if I'm where I should be. It's hil-aaaaaa-rious. Ah, good times.

So, should I start a countdown? Is that tacky? Is it disrespectful? I don't know. I'm trying to think. What. Ever. If my math is correct, I should only have sixty-eight days left. Oh, make that sixty-six to exclude the holidays in January and February. That also excludes a week off in March which I plan to use again in sunny (and should-be warmer) Palm Springs. I love it there. So peaceful and relaxing.

Oh well, guess I'd better find something constructive to do.

Stop the Hate!

Found on the QueerFilter.com forums, and gladly shared to do whatever I can to spread the word:

Would you please consider the following to put out on your blog to help promote my efforts to Stop the Hate!

Stephen Bennett ministries has started an ex-gay, anti-gay radio show called, Straight Talk Radio. They have a website that is www.straightalkradio.org. On that site is a web discussion board that has become just a venue for ex-gays to discuss how horrid the gay "lifestyle" is and how destructive homosexuality is. Just real lovely stuff.

I have started a campaign to flood that web board with pro-gay, but polite messages letting Stephen Bennett know just who his show is hurting. I do not want people to send him hate messages, in fact I want them to send messages of love and pity. I would love to fill his web board with so many nice, polite gay people to let him know who he is hurting. Sticking with the nonviolence principles of SoulForce. Any negative messages posted he will just use against gays to show how "evil" we are (puke)

Details of this effort are on my website as well as some info about his radio show. The shows topics are just as endearing as the web board. One show was "the medical dangers of homosexuality' another was Matt Barber (guy who was fired from Allstate for being too anti-gay) as a guest.

Any help you could give me in getting the word out for people to visit this site, join his web board and offer messages of hope rather than hate, would be really great.

Please let me know if you can help. I would be happy to write a blog entry for your blog or even if you could just write a quick blurb sending them to my blog were I have lots of info and some quotes from Stephen Bennett.

Joe Brummer

Why are you wanting me to suck on your chicken?

Another late day today. This time, I woke up at 8:30! Quelle horreur! On the way across the Bay Bridge, I called my boss and let her know, very candidly, that I was having a hard time adjusting to the regular work schedule, and that I would be in between 10 and 10:30. She thought that was funny...my honesty, that is. And besides, I have nothing to do, so what difference does it make when I get to work?

I went on a shopping spree last night...or my equivalent thereof. I didn't spend more than a hundred bucks, but that is a real spree in my books. I went to BB&B and bought a few cooking-related items that I have gone without for far long enough. And you know, typing in my abbreviation and then adding the <span> which defines it takes longer than just typing in the real name, but hey, it's the web; use it or lose it.

So, now that I finally have a decent kitchen timer, I can stop using the microwave for that purpose and use it in conjunction with the oven, and I can finally hear the damn thing when it goes off...because it's portable, and I can take it with me wherever I go, like on a walk or whatever. Because I can, you know.

So now I'm ready to indulge in my newly rediscovered hobby of baking. Yay.

And a short plug for my newest favorite podcast, the Drink ’til We're Funny podcast. It's a trio of friends, a king trio, from the greater metro Chicagoland area, who put out once a week and tell us funny stories, all grammatically correct to boot. I love love love it. Their Chicagoland accents make me smile in remembrance of people I used to know, mostly family. And the fact that they're only out once a week makes their podcast that much more special. You know, some of the more regular casters get a little tired of their own shtick, and it shows. Deena, Jon, and Justin have sworn to keep it funny by restricting themselves to only one show per week. And good for them. The show has a downside, too, though. They are so clever with their usage of the English language that they inadvertantly (or perhaps not so) create catch phrases that stick with me for days. So now, when I'm pissed at you, and I tell you to "burn in hell with Harpreet," you can blame it on the guys and gal at DTWF. Too bad we can't have real-life Noj cards. And too bad we can't arrest people for vernacular manslaughter. That's one way to cull the population, don't you think?

Are You Ready to Jump?

OK, so this blog should be all about what time I got up in the morning and my drive in to work. This morning was easy. I got up with the alarm at 7 a.m., and got to work by 9 a.m. Great! Maybe it was my mood yestreen that gave me a good night's sleep, or maybe it was a subliminal thought I placed demanding that I wake up at a reasonable time. Or maybe it was that I was sick of dreaming about tagging along with Charlie's angels and I just wanted to get back to the real world. Now, hang on, who am I kidding? But then again, some say that our dream world is the real world, and that our waking world is an illusion. That's the stuff of The Matrix, I think, and I really don't feel like contemplating it right now. I'm just so excited that I got here early today!

Sixty-four days left!

The Friday Random Ten: The Why-the-Hell-Not Edition

Fire up the iPod, set it to shuffle, and write down the first ten songs that play. No cheating. No skipping forward.

1. All You Want—Dido
2. (Don't) Give Hate a Chance—Jamiroquai
3. Picture of My Life—Jamiroquai
4. Come On Come On—Mary Chapin Carpenter
5. ’Til the Day that I Die—Garbage
6. Insecurity—Stacey Q
7. Me Against the Music—Britney Spears
8. Some of Us—Starsailor
9. I Want Your (Hands on Me)—Sinéad O'Connor
10. Wait for Me—Susan Tedeschi

As long a we're resurrecting this blog, I might as well dig out my old bad habits and play this silly meme. It happens to be an easy one for me to play with no clever answers to not-so-clever questions. Whatever. It's Friday.

Yestreen (I love this word!), Roommate and I had a very in depth conversation, a heart-to-heart if you will. It lasted over an hour! That's a record nowadays; we don't really talk too much anymore. Anyway, he hasn't really heard about my plans in sixty-three (working) days from now. So, I tried to outline them for him as clearly as possible. That wasn't easy. Talking to him is an exercise in both patience and rational thinking. He challenges me with his supposed logic, and he makes me justify why I think the way I do about my future plans. He also has the annoying tendency to interrupt with his own insights in the middle of my sentence. Now, I know that interruption is a normal part of a flowing conversation, but typically, it happens after the thought is complete, or is that just wishful thinking on my part? I never got into debate, so I don't get the rules and etiquette. (Damn, even my digressions bother me sometimes!) What. Ever. The point is that he hadn't heard my plans in so much detail, and he decided to punch holes in these plans and make me think about what I'm doing and why. And now I'm second-guessing myself. And that pisses me off.

I have thought about this for over two years. I have spent an amazing amount of time in research and contemplation and I truly feel that I'm making a good move in the right direction. Naturally, there will be critics, my friends and family among them, who think I'm making a mistake, giving up security and stability for the unknown, but it's the security and stability that are my enemies right now. I have become so lazy and complacent that I'm bored and apathetic, and I feel like I have wasted a lot of time doing nothing at all. Small variations don't do enough to shake things up. So I thought making a life-shattering change to my daily routine would force me to wake from my stupor and face life again.

The night I got to boot camp in San Diego, almost sixteen years ago, I was forced to strip down to my skin, shove all of my civilian clothes without even folding them into a small box, seal the box, address it, and mail it to my address on record. I was issued a sweatshirt and sweatpants, undergarments, and a pair of tennis shoes until we could get to general issue for our uniforms. Then we had our heads shaved clean and bald. This happened within twenty-four hours of arriving at rtc/ntc, San Diego. They did this to shock us into our new lives, and it was effective. I quickly forgot about everything I had left behind because I had no choice...and also because there was nothing left of that life except memories.

Perhaps this is an extreme model to follow, but honestly it's the only thing I can think of right now. I'm fucking desperate! I am so absolutely miserable with my life as it is that if I don't do something drastic, I'm going to fucking kill myself, and that's just too unrealistic—there are far too many movies coming out this summer that I have to stick around to see.

Dammit, if only I could concentrate long enough to meditate effectively enough to find the answers within...

I’m so excited, I’m in too deep

OMG! I almost forgot to make a post today. Goll, that would suck.

So, I finally took The Weekend Baker to task and baked something fun. I started fairly easy and made some scones. Roommate bought some dried blueberries a while ago, and we've been looking for something to use them in, and the scones were perfect...I mean, they were a perfect vessel for the blueberries. And the recipe turned out pretty nice, if I do say so myself. I was a little daunted by the kneading part. I've never kneaded bread before, so when the dough was a little too sticky, and when my hands got all gooey, I freaked a little. I didn't pee or anything, I just was like, "wtf, help!" What can I say?

So I made up a batch of oatmeal cookies using a recipe from Schrafft's and no, I didn't speak French to the counterman to get the recipe, either. I found it at epicurious. I also made up a batch of ground nut butter cookies. Both batches are currently chillin' in the fridge, waiting for tomorrow. My dogs were tired after standing all afternoon, so I gave them the night off.

I wanted to watch my Netflix flicks, but I ended up managing one of my iTunes libraries instead. On one of my external drives, I have a library that has 15,915 items, which would take 51.3 days to play. Oh well. There are a lot of duplicates, and stuff that I can't stand anymore, like what's playing right now, "Just the Lonely Talking Again," by Whitney Houston, which reminds me of Matt Hunter (not his real name, but I didn't make it up; he did) a little too much to get into right about now.

You know, it's cliché to think that gay men should adore Whitney, but frankly, she's over, and now when I hear her old stuff, I'm reminded of what could have been and what we're left with instead, and that just makes me depressed. So, I clean out the old stuff and try to deny that she ever had potential. I'll keep her dance stuff, but that's about it. You're a mess, girl.

So tomorrow I'll bake up the cookies, watch the Netflix, and maybe try some nude yoga.

Latter Days

Cookie Update (’cause I know you're all dying to hear about them): the ground nut butter cookies turned out dry and crumbly. I don't know. They're edible, but not what I call cookies. The oatmeal cookies, the ones from Schrafft's, turned out...top drawer.

Then I watched my Netflix, and the post-season return to "Charmed." No nude yoga. What a day. Very relaxing. Very fattening.

And before I start counting sheep:

1. Better off :: Dead
2. Girls :: Rock
3. Uniform[ed] :: Escort
4. Classified :: Eyes Only
5. Hard :: I can't print that
6. Kitty :: Cat
7. Team :: Player—I forgot to mention that I had my personnel review on Friday. I have officially been upgraded from a "good" employee to an "excellent" employee. Isn't that wonderful?
8. Massive :: Embollism
9. Depressed :: Yours truly
10. Award :: red carpet disasters

Good. Night.

Intellectual Beards

Well, we're back at Monday again. Funny how that happens.

I went to bed around 10:30 p.m. last night, and didn't really fall asleep until about 3 a.m.. I had a persistent headache all weekend, and it intensified when I laid down last night. I tossed and turned all night, was way too hot, kicking off the covers, pulling them back on, and dreaming about buying candy at the Walgreens in the Castro before I went to a movie at the Castro Theatre. I tend to stock up on candy and soda before I go to the movies, mainly because the theater doesn't have the kind of candy I want, not necessarily because I'm cheap, because I always spend at least as much on the popcorn and Coke as I do on the ticket itself. So the dream wasn't so weird, except that the Walgreens was in the Crystal Coffin, I mean Twin Peaks on the corner, complete with the giant plate glass windows looking out on to the street. And that's really it. My alarm went off at 7, I turned it off, got up at 9, and got to work by 11:30. Ooops. I see a habit forming here.

And that's all. I have pledged to stay late tonight, until at least 8 p.m. to make up for the tardiness. I don't know what I'm going to do until then, but who knows what will come along.

[This Space Intentionally Left Blank]

Not much to say today. I was so busy all day at work, the day's almost over...and I got here on time today! There is hope.