V&I are up at his family’s place in upstate New York for his grandma’s 75th birth­day party. He grew up on the lake, on a small lane of houses, in the mid­dle of the woods. we got in around 1:00 a.m. last night, and all I could see were stars in the sky. this morn­ing, I woke up to, not only a house full of peo­ple, jab­ber­ing away at each other, but also the sun shin­ing through the trees and the sweet, fresh breeze com­ing through the win­dows. it reminds me of Door County. It’s been over 20 years since I was in Wis­con­sin, but the smell brings all mem­o­ries flood­ing back. it’s beau­ti­ful up here, despite what the locals may say. I love the woods, I always have, and it makes me won­der how much of a city per­son I really am.

V is out run­ning his 13-mile “long run” right now, and I’m left to fend for myself. I’m try­ing to be as help­ful as I can, where I can, but it seems to be a ball of man­aged chaos. Appar­ently that’s to be expected.

We’re here for four days, and then we’re going to NYC for four more days. this should be a fun trip. I feel like pig­ging out every­where I go. OMG.

I stepped into the future this morn­ing. I opened up my pack­age from Amazon.com, and found my birth­day present to myself, my new Kin­dle. For a long time, I poo-poo’d the whole idea of the Kin­dle. Books should be printed on paper and bound with glue and have pretty and col­or­ful and attrac­tive cov­ers to look at. And peo­ple should have copi­ous book­shelves on which to hold these books.

At the same time, I was secretly intrigued by the tech­nol­ogy and the pos­si­bil­i­ties of the Kin­dle. Remem­ber when I went to Palm Springs all those years ago? I used to lug three or more paper­backs with me, some of which were parts of series, and after fin­ish­ing them, I would often drag myself out of my pool-side chair to drive to the Barnes & Noble in Palm Desert only to find that they didn’t have what I wanted. And I would be kinda pissed off. Well, those days are over with the Kin­dle. Seri­ously. This is not an adver­tise­ment. I’m not being paid for this. I love the Kin­dle. Now that I have one for myself and have seen how it works, I won­der why I waited so long.

When V and I moved into our cur­rent abode, we made a sac­ri­fice with space. There is no room here for book­shelves and a library. When I cleared out my stor­age, I “donated” dozens of paper­backs that I didn’t really want to get rid of, but in all real­ity, couldn’t keep any­where. Granted, I’ll have to repur­chase those books that I would like to read again, but I won’t ever have to move stuff around to find a spot to put them any­more — and feel guilty about doing so. They’re all stored on the device, and even if I remove them from the device, they’re stored at Amazon’s site and can be down­loaded again at a moment’s notice. I’m totally in love.

That said, I really do hope it hooks me up again. I loved to read and dis­tract myself from real­ity for a while. But with com­put­ers and the inter­net and YouTube and every­thing else vying for my atten­tion — and fuck­ing WoW, Jesus on the cross, Ennis is drag­ging his butt to get to 80, hon­estly — I won­der how effec­tive it will be. I hope so. And I hope that more col­lege classes allow Kin­dle ver­sions of their text­books to be used. OMG. Can you imag­ine? I’ve already seen a few listed, and it’s bound to happen.

This is the way of the future. I can’t wait.

1. “Numb” — Pink — Mis­sun­daz­tood
2. “Come to Me” — Bonnie Raitt — Luck of the Draw
3. «Ne viens pas» — Roch Voi­sine — Sauf si l’amour
4. “Can’t Stop” — Ozomatli — SXSW 2010 Show­cas­ing Artists
5. “I Turn to You” — Melanie C — North­ern Star
6. «Le bon­heur te fait de l’œil» — France D’amour — Les autres
7. “New Amsterdam” — Elvis Costello — The Very Best of
8. “Mon­day Monday” — Mrs. Miller — OMG where the fuck did I get this?
9. “Out and In” — Moody Blues — Time Trav­eller (Disc 2)
10. “Con­fide in Me” — Kylie Minogue — Con­fide in Me

OMG. I have a new e-mail domain, and I’m try­ing to set it up, and it just won’t work. I have set up e-mail accounts before, but this one just stumps me, and I’m pissed off. Much later…OK, so it’s POP, not IMAP. I’m not a techie!!! I’m a total wannabe. I swear to god.

I worked three days this week, and today I’m off. Whatever.

I woke up with V to go do my laun­dry, and 1) I went all the way down­stairs and across the street to the laun­dro­mat with­out my money (duh), so I pre­treat a few things with the soap that I brought with me, and 2) when I went back to get the money, I brought the soap back with me and left it at the apart­ment and then picked up my quar­ters, so 3) when I got back to the ’mat, I real­ized that I hadn’t put any deter­gent in the washer and was forced to buy the lit­tle boxes of Tide at the ’mat. What. The. Fuck.

I’m sick of this.

Hey Uni­verse, how about hold­ing up your end of the deal?

Sorry, G’ville, I can’t take it any­more. Your locals are so methy and cracky that I just don’t want to deal. It makes my soul hurt to see so many peo­ple who have given up. Your cli­mate is hot and dusty and dry. Your local cui­sine is lack­ing. Your local enter­tain­ment is … well, it isn’t. The Lodge was a clus­ter­fuck, and it’s a walk into town on a busy, two-lane high­way, and I don’t trust your dri­vers to be legally licensed and sober enough to stay on the road and not come careen­ing into me. I know you would like to con­sider your­self “awfully handy to the city,” but you’re not. I just can’t hack it any­more. I don’t think we’ll be see­ing much of each other in the future. We’re just not meant to be.

1. Une place sur terre — Liane Foly
2. Le coureur — Jean-Jacques Goldman
3. Adri­enne — Isabelle Boulay
4. Sur le même bateau — Céline Dion
5. Dis ce que tu as — Marilou
6. De sable et de rochers — Marie-Elaine Thibert
7. Cow­boy virtuel — Roch Voisine
8. Un ave maria — Lara Fabian
9. Je t’aime encore — France D’amour
10. Et la regarder — Lau­rence Jalbert

Et pourquoi pas ?

So, this week­end, we’re jet­ting off to the Russ­ian River to spend the Fourth of July week­end with the gays. Not exactly what I would like to do, but at this point, it’s all about com­pro­mise, n’est-ce pas? Last year, we camped, in tents, and it was freez­ing and messy with 15 other peo­ple. This year, we’ve got a cozy room in the Guerneville Lodge all to our­selves with no mess and no dirt. The group sup­pos­edly has near 30 peo­ple camp­ing in one spot. I just can’t han­dle that, and thank­fully nei­ther can V, and that’s why we’ve got a room. So we’ll spend Sat­ur­day after­noon and evening drink­ing with every­one, sleep in a pri­vate room, spend Sun­day and Sun­day night drink­ing and cavort­ing and what­ever, and then come home on Mon­day. What­ever. Compromise.

Gosh, what else. Life is soooo exciting.

Happy Pride. Yay.

We went to a cou­ple of par­ties yes­ter­day and ended up in the Cas­tro for Pink Sat­ur­day. It was crazy as usual. V wanted food, so we left and got sushi, of all things. I was a lit­tle too blitzed to appre­ci­ate it. After that, we were too tired to stay out any longer, so we walked home. I think we were in bed by 11:30. That’s kind of early. We had talked about Blowoff, but we blew it off. Ha ha.

I woke up this morn­ing, bright and early, at 5:38 a.m. I don’t know why. So I fin­ished my mount quest and received my Ven­omhide Ravasaur. Really cool. It took twenty days of dai­lys, but it was worth it. And I didn’t know it qual­i­fied as a feat of strength. So, cool. Yeah.

Ho hum.

1. “Starman” — David Bowie
2. “The Right Thing to Do” — Carly Simon
3. “Think­ing About You” — Norah Jones
4. “Beyond the Invisible” — Enigma
5. “Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea” — Diana Krall
6. “Coloured Bedspread” — Annie Lennox
7. “Twi­light World” — Swing Out Sister
8. “A Good Year for the Roses” — Elvis Costello
9. “Lost of Sea” — The Bangles
10. “Incom­plete With­out You” — Swing Out Sister

Last night, we went to the Lone Star for DJ Beary­oncé, and in the process drank way too much. It was a beer bust, so it was Rolling Rock on tap, which is light years bet­ter than Busch or Bud or any other yel­low beer, but still yel­low beer, and I’m a lit­tle sore this morn­ing. I’m not tore up, but I’ve got that dull pound­ing in my head that makes me wish I could sleep all day. I just can’t do it. I’m a busy, unem­ployed per­son, and I’ve got stuff to do. Like deposit my social­ist hand­outs and such like that.

I’m offi­cially reg­is­tered for the Fall 2010 term at CCSF. Yay. Voy à apprendir español. Or some­thing like that. I’m also tak­ing an Eng­lish class, and I’m excited about that. The lit­tle bits of writ­ing I did for sosh last term (in which I scored a full, legit­i­mate A, thank you — see, I am smart after all) reminded me how much I enjoy writ­ing and how much I’ve missed it. Give me a sub­ject and I can go all expos­i­tory and turn stuff out, yo. And I’m tak­ing an Amer­i­can cin­ema class, at a dis­tance, which means I can watch TV at home and get credit for it. Sort of. I don’t know how it works just yet, but it sat­is­fies a require­ment, and that makes me happy.

I’m so excited to move on and com­plete my degree. I think my first foot­steps at SFSU were side­tracked by the whole drama with He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named, who turns 53 tomor­row. But now that I have a sort of vision for my future and my edu­ca­tion, and now that I have non­judg­men­tal sup­port from the peo­ple around me, it feels like fun and I can’t wait to get started, I mean, really started. This GE stuff is for the birds, hon­estly. I’ve been por­ing over the IGETC require­ments and trans­fer cred­its, and it’s like an annoy­ing, drawn out puz­zle. “Will this his­tory class work? Or maybe this astron­omy class instead of biol­ogy? Oh wait, do I still need a lab?” Ugh. It’s annoy­ing. What’s even more weird, is that when I talked to an advi­sor about my trans­fer plan, I was told that the classes I took at SFSU can be used as trans­fer cred­its to go back to SFSU. That just seems a lit­tle cir­cu­lar to me. I mean, yeah, I did the work there, so I guess they still count. What­ever. My head hurts too much already. I can’t wait to get into it deep and dirty. Yeah. Il me tard beau­coup de par­ler français toute la journée, tous les jours.

What else.

Oh, I upgraded to Word­Press 3.0. All by myself.

I guess that’s all.

Stor­age is no more. I spent all day yes­ter­day out in that dusty, cobweb-ridden stor­age unit in Pleas­antville. I picked up H, and we drove out there in the rented Uhaul ready to clear it out and cart it to the dump. Of course, as soon as he saw his own stuff out there, he changed his tune and decided to keep all of it. I sorted through the mess to find the few things that I wanted to keep, and after a cou­ple of hours, we had the truck full, the space empty, and the account closed.

We drove back to Oak­town to drop off his stuff, which took way longer than I wanted because he was insis­tent on orga­niz­ing and arrang­ing as we brought stuff in. All I wanted to do was drop and run. The dump in SF closed around 5 p.m., I had to return the truck by 5 p.m. or suf­fer a $250 over­age charge, it was already 2 p.m., and we still had Bay Bridge traf­fic to deal with. It is his way to change his mind mid­stream. The epit­ome of ADD. As it was, I had to leave my stuff at his place to pick it up later because I wouldn’t have had time to drive home, drop it off, then drive across town to drop the truck off. I never would have made it in time.

Back in the truck  —  he offered to help me unload at the dump, which sounds dirty, but it isn’t, trust  —  we headed over the bridge and to the SF dump. We got there and started unload­ing every­thing. The guys there swarmed over the stuff, dig­ging through boxes, read­ing old cards and let­ters. H seemed a lit­tle upset about the whole thing, while I was very happy to purge the junk from my life. There was so much unnec­es­sary detri­tus from my past hid­den out in that dirty old hole that even I for­got about it. My retainer was stuck in a box. The thing that I got after I got my braces off! When I was fuck­ing six­teen years old! What the fuck was I hold­ing on to that for? Please!! Jesus on the cross!! And H had the nerve to ask me (more than once) if I was sure I wanted to part with this stuff. Are you fuck­ing kid­ding me? I’d burn the shit down if I could. Ugh.

I made it out of there, paid for the dumpage, drove to the Uhaul cen­ter, dropped the truck off, and was fin­ished by 4:15 p.m. That was cut­ting it close, but it was over. I’ll never have to do that again.

All in all, I saved two small boxes of books, most of them French books I will use later on and my hard­cover Anne Rice nov­els, one pair of shoes, and my bag of mix­tapes through which I will dili­gently sort in the com­ing weeks and dis­card, bag and all. I just want to hear them all once more before con­demn­ing them to the refuse for­ever. Nos­tal­gia got me just a lit­tle bit, I will admit.

This was one of the most expen­sive learn­ing expe­ri­ences I’ve had so far. In the twelve years I’ve had a stor­age unit, I’ve spent uncounted thou­sands of dol­lars to keep junk that I was too lazy to throw away. Thou­sands. Tens of thou­sands. The last charge I had from these peo­ple counted out at $130. Do the math over twelve years. That adds up to a pretty nice car, you know? Yes­ter­day alone cost me just around $400. I’m unem­ployed. I don’t have that kind of money to throw around!

This was a seri­ous les­son in hoard­ing. Don’t do it! I will get on my soap­box about this. I feel so strongly about this, I almost feel that there should be a law against these pub­lic stor­age places. No joke. If you don’t have space for it, get rid of it. If you don’t need it, don’t buy it. If you don’t use it, get rid of it. A paid stor­age unit is never the answer.

It’s over. No regrets. No remorse. It’s over. Les­son learned. Let’s move on.

1. “Spring Can Really Hang You Up the Most” — Bette Midler
2. “Home” — Sheryl Crow
3. “A Cure” — Blonde Redhead
4. “We’re Hav­ing All the Fun” — Fun Boy Three
5. “Should I Laugh or Cry” — ABBA
6. “This Must Be the Place I Waited Years to Leave” — Pet Shop Boys
7. «C’est si bon» — Bar­bra Streisand
8. “Misfit” — Curiosity Killed the Cat
9. «Tout porte à croire» — Lau­rance Jalbert
10. “Runaway” — Deee-Lite

JS from Lon­don is here vis­it­ing. We went out last night and drank it up. I don’t do that any­more, and I’m pay­ing for it. What­ever. I’m offi­cially unem­ployed now, so who cares? I even got my EDD paper­work in the mail yes­ter­day. That was fast.

I also got my Fit­Bit, and it’s pretty cool. It’s the cutest lit­tle thing, so small it could get lost, but it’s unob­tru­sive and fun. They have a great track­ing sys­tem that is per­sua­sive with­out being preachy. It makes me want to go walk 10,000 steps a day. That’s crazy talk.

I’m reg­is­tered for three classes in the fall term. Yay for me. I am step­ping things up a lit­tle to get this shit over with. I have been string­ing it along and it’s time to make it work. I just woke up, so my com­po­si­tion skills aren’t exactly warmed up, but I have a paper to write, so I needed to do some­thing. It should be a good term, and after this one, I think I have three classes left before I trans­fer out. I should hit the CSU in Fall 2011. Wow. That’s pretty damn awe­some. When I started this in Jan­u­ary, I thought I would be stuck at CCSF for another two or three years, but since I’ve made the com­mit­ment, it will be eas­ier. More work, less time, harder and eas­ier. Whatev. I can’t wait to study French all day every day. I can’t wait for an excuse to spend six months in France study­ing French with the French. I can’t wait for a chance to live and work there full time. Go Secret, go!

Looks like I’m gonna be work­ing for RJ again soon. I e-mailed them last week offer­ing my ser­vices, and they accepted the offer. I swore off being a con­trac­tor so many years ago, but this time, I have a more clear vision of what it’s all about, and even forc­ing myself to save half of what I earn for taxes only, I’ll be able to make it work and sur­vive in the city while I go to school. If this does turn out for me, I could do it all the way through school, so I can go full time, day classes and every­thing. It’s a win/win for all of us, really, so why not?

That’s all.

1. Human Nature — Madonna
2. Promises Promises — Dionne Warwick
3. Easter Parade — Judy Garland
4. Fan­tasy — Apple­ton
5. Twi­light Omens — Franz Ferdinand
6. Preg­nant for the Last Time — Morrissey
7. The Voice Within — Christina Aguilera
8. Before it Breaks — Brandi Carlisle
9. Ride the Ride — The Bangles
10. By the Time — Mika

As the end draws near, I’m start­ing to close up accounts, some of which I’ve had for over ten years. It feels like I’m cut­ting out big pieces of my life. But in real­ity, it’s trim­ming the fat. I only wish I could do that lit­er­ally. Ha. Accord­ing to my cal­cu­la­tions, and if my sev­er­ance is as big as I think it will be, I should be able to get by on a min­i­mum with a pos­si­ble remain­der of about $50 a week. Granted, I’ve lived on far less for longer, but that itself was over a decade ago, and I’m afraid I’ve for­got­ten how to be poor.

And, to add to this con­fu­sion, V wants to fos­ter kit­tens from the SPCA. Appar­ently, spring­time in the ani­mal world is when cats go fuck­ing crazy — or should I say crazy fuck­ing — and there are lit­ters and lit­ters of unwanted kit­tens all over the place. San Fran­cisco and Oak­land have no-kill facil­i­ties, but they still can’t han­dle the mass of kit­tens who need con­stant atten­tion and care in their begin­ning months. So they ask for vol­un­teers to take in a few at a time to raise for a month or so until they can be returned and adopted. We’ve been talk­ing about get­ting cats for a while now any­way, and I want two, from the same lit­ter, and we’ve got names and every­thing, so this could be a great oppor­tu­nity for us. We take in two kit­tehs, fos­ter them, and then adopt them and keep them. This is crazy. I’m gonna end up the crazy cat gay. And V’s answer? “You’ve got time on your hands, you can do it.” What. Ever. Bitch. Rub. It. In. Any­way, it could hap­pen as soon as this week­end. Whaaaaaaaat? OMG.