Best reason to visit a Folsom Street queer bar this weekend: to hear “New York Groove” by Ace Frehley at 1AM in My Place.

Other good reasons to visit a Folsom Street queer bar this weekend: none.

Sparky was in and out pretty fast, but it was a nice visit which allowed time for dinner with Jessie at Brain Wash (nothing but the best for me and my friends) and a quick tour of the formerly sleazy South of Market nightlife…

And we even got to talk some…

I love the new South of Market bus routes. The 12-Folsom now runs twice as often AND closer to my house. But best of all, no one seems to know it yet. I caught one in front of the Ferry Building at 3:00 this afternoon and had the whole thing to myself all the way home. Talk about leg room…

I shan’t even discuss this weekend’s creepy February weather, where it was considerably warmer than it usually is in the middle of the summer. Wait, I guess I just did…

Funny how you remember certain bits of sex many years later. Today, I’m remembering one from nineteen years ago. Nineteen years ago today, as it happens.

His name was Rick and he was 25. He was in a fraternity at UNCG and was, of course, wearing a T-shirt from said organization when we met, in a men’s room at Four Seasons Mall in Greensboro. I was 17, and that was one of my few options at the time, the others being the men’s rooms in Belk’s, Penney’s, and Ivey’s. I imagine he had other options but chose not to use any of them.

It was not nasty pig sex (although it was quite entertaining) and it wasn’t even the first time I’d picked someone up in a restroom. But it was sort of a first for me: the first time I picked up someone, went to his house, actually had sex in an actual bed, and then had an actual conversation afterward.

I was so excited. I even took his picture. I imagine this really gave him the creeps; a lovesick 17-year-old taking snapshots after we’d just committed numerous felonies, most of which would be unfairly blamed on him. This may have figured into why he didn’t show up for our next “date” the following Sunday afternoon. I was rather unhappy for the next week.

I saw him again once about a year later, when I too was a student at UNCG. He nodded. That was it. By that time, I had other things on my mind and it didn’t bother me so much. He’d be 44 now, and I’m sure I wouldn’t be much interested in a replay. But I still think about that run-in and how exciting it was at the time.

Y’know, this whole “reflective about sex and romance thing” is most likely going someplace, but it ain’t going there tonight. It’s time for dinner…

I’m in a strange mood. Not really a bad mood. Just a strange mood…

I think I need to have a nice little quickie affair. Not marriage, but something semi-romantic that I could get a little excited about. Random anonymous sex won’t quite do this time around, although I probably wouldn’t rule it out if the right boy should miraculously appear at my front door tonight…

Jeez, I even had a slightly lovey-dovey sex dream last night. That doesn’t happen very often, and even this time I didn’t remember I’d had it until I was standing next to the guy this afternoon at work. That was a little disorienting. And I don’t really even have what could be described as a “crush” on this guy. I barely even know him, although I wouldn’t really refuse him a little bedtime action…

Maybe it was the spring weather last weekend. Or maybe I’m just going through puberty…

It’s nice to have an inbox that looks like this. I’m finally getting caught up. If you’re waiting for an email reposnse from me and havent gotten it yet, it means one of the following:

• I shamefully waited so long to answer that I now assume you no longer care (so please correct me if I’m wrong…)
• I somehow missed you (so please try again…)
• You’re one of the seven names above and you should be covered tonight (so please hold…)
• You asked me where to find a good gym, circuit party, or drug connection and I decided to spare your feelings (so please be grateful…)

Thanks loads for your patience…

Sorry, but this needs to be at the top of this page. I’ll stop now…

This needs to be at the top of the page too (and not because of the occasional Planet SOMA references). More new links here…

With email now more or less caught up (and with work on hold pending some feedback), I spent an evening wandering around random personal sites tonight. Which is something I rarely do anymore, ambivalent as I’ve become toward spending long periods of time in front of a computer monitor. I sort of miss doing this…

I even sent email to some of the nice boys and girls whose sites I visited, which is something I do even less. Wow. I made first contact. It’s kind of nice being on the other end of that transaction for a change…

At any rate, it stopped me from continuing with those numerous babbling hourly updates from earlier tonight…

Which may or may not signal a stabilized mood…

Duncan arrives tomorrow night for a weekend visit. It will be nice to have an extra sense of humor in the house…

He’s arriving just in time for predictions of perhaps the coldest, wettest, most miserable weekend of the winter so far. Snow flurries may even be a slight possibility in the Berkeley Hills and Twin Peaks. Jeez…

Yes, I realize that a significant number of you might kill for highs in the 40s and 50s and snow predictions which are little more than a curiosity. I don’t care. I’m still cold..

There’s this guy I work with. No, he’s not the one I had the sex dream about. He’s just a garden variety asshole…

I wonder how people like him manage to function in society. He’s over 30, but he still gives off bratty, sullen teenager vibes more convincingly than most bratty, sullen teenagers. He’s whiny. He has the same “that’s not fair” complex most of us grew out of at 16. This is not just Peter Pan Syndrome; he literally never grew up…

And to top it off, he’s probably the rudest, most inconsiderate person I have ever known. He slams into people and excuses himself grudgingly (if at all). He assumes that everyone’s food, newspapers, whatever, are community property, without waiting for an invitation (or even asking, most of the time). He can’t even be bothered to step out of the way when he sees you walking down the corridor carrying something heavy. And God forbid he should offer to help…

He’s always the first in line for (more than) his share when someone brings in doughnuts, burritos, or whatever, and he has, of course, never brought it anything himself. It goes without saying that he’s less than stellar in his job performance, and defensive when criticized…

Did I mention that he takes things? And that he gets really pissy when you call him on it? Yeah, probably…

The thing that really baffles me is that he manages to be employed or to have friends at all…

This is one case where I really have to blame the parents. It’s a no-brainer to deduce that he was raised by fairly well-off parents with such a blinding commitment to “self-esteem” and “self-expression” that they neglected to teach him the social skills, discipline, and sense of responsibility which might have ALLOWED him to express himself effectively. I can imagine that he’s never written a thank you note in his life.

And you can be sure his self-esteem will eventually suffer for it…

Looks like no Duncan this weekend. As a consolation prize, I have new rugs. Lots of new rugs. For some reason, there are thousands and thousands of rugs on sale at Long’s Drugs on Broadway in Oakland. I don’t really understand why…

By the way, I’m 36 1/2 today. I haven’t celebrated half birthdays since I was about 8, but Ron’s actual full birthday was this week, and I’ll not be upstaged, dammit…

By the way, for those of you keeping score, today was the first day that The Other Stream’s front page had more hits than Planet SOMA’s…

A definition from 1989…

Take it any way you like. I never really considered this site “art”, but the “not necessarily sufficiently original” part fits quite nicely, thanks…

Speaking of which, I’m amused with this again and have added a few titles…

I love Lucy…

Y’know, those 1980s safe sex pamphlets were right. Sex which involves neither mouths (except for kissing) nor butts (except for slapping afterward) can be quite entertaining, thanks. Especially when there are three sets of each…

And that’s all I’m saying on that subject tonight…

Dang. Somebody else was watching cooking shows today too. Didn’t work any better for him than for me, apparently. I didn’t cook either, despite Lucy’s inspiration…

For those of you following that whole drivers license thing, you can see my entries here and here…

I just don’t understand…

• When it’s hot and sunny, I feel draggy and miserable. When it’s cold and rainy, I feel draggy and miserable. Why is that I only seem to be a functional human being when it’s foggy (or at least partly cloudy) and the outside temperature is between 59 and 65? Fortunately, these conditions are present for a significant portion of the year in San Francisco…
• I can’t seem to escape our alleged president anywhere these days. I was watching a movie tonight. At the end of the tape, there was a stray newscast I’d accidentally recorded in 1992. I was having a nice time watching stories about the dangerous new trend called “carjacking” and about Berkeley’s Naked Guy being expelled from UC…
• But then came an interview with some major league baseball owners about the Giants potential departure from San Francisco. Second interviewee? A much younger (but still just as annoying) Shrub Dubya Bush. He didn’t sound any more intelligent back then either, in case you were wondering. He did sound every bit as slimy…
• Funny. I used the word “slimy” in an earlier email conversation tonight without any negative connotations whatsoever…

And now I’m babbling, so I’ll stop…

After trying all day to decide if I was depressed or relieved not to be buying candy and flowers for anyone today, I decided to go with “relieved”. If nothing else, it’s at least the more frugal alternative…

OK, I really only spent a few minutes deciding…

Good news: Duncan has rescheduled his visit for this weekend…

Bad news: I’ve been reminded that this weekend is also Bear Rendezvous, which means we may be forced to leave town as soon as he arrives…

God, how I hate HTML-formatted email.

I especially hate certain HTML-formatted email generated by Outlook Express. Aside from the inefficiency of using 13KB to send one sentence of text (and a couple more quoted ones), the message is essentially unreadable using Eudora 4 and several other quite popular email programs. Damn Microsloth and its “we don’t need no stinkin’ standards” arrogance…

I love it when Duncan visits. I have an excuse to go on long, aimless drives, and random things get fixed in my apartment. It has always been thus…

This weekend’s drives took us to San Jose (via the full length of El Camino) and all over Oakland (twice). And I now have a new showerhead, which allowed me this morning to take the first good shower of my eight-plus years in this apartment…

And there’s no one it’s more fun to watch Cops with on a Saturday night while avoiding the thousands of bears who have descended upon one’s neighborhood…

Woman speaks very earnestly to cop: “I am NOT a crack dealer. I am a prostitute.”

Coming soon: a cool new diner discovery in Oakland and more. Right now, I’m beat. I may be getting sick. I’m going to bed soon…

But I may take another shower first…

I realized this afternoon that I get almost the exact same feeling of inadequacy from reading both personal ads and employment ads. I always find one ad which seems to be an absolute perfect fit until I read the one glaring area in which I don’t quite measure up…

That’s probably why I read employment ads infrequently, and why I look at personal ads about once a year or so…

I think I take the personal ads a little more, well, personally. After all, if I really had to, I could learn Flash or ASP, even though it’s the last thing I’m really in the mood to do right now…

It’s harder, though, to change personal characteristics. Especially since I’m not much motivated to do so…

Queer versions of “my type” (cute little punk rock boys, shaggy-headed types, non-believers in “gay culture”, and other assorted geeky guys) are hard enough to find to begin with, and the few who exist are rarely attracted to ill-tempered, meat-eating, cigarette-smoking, semi-hairy slacker hermits in their 30s…

I quite understand; I’m not much attracted to ill-tempered semi-hairy slackers in their 30s either, except as really good friends…

Maybe in a few years, when I become an ill-tempered semi-hairy slacker in my 40s, my expectations will catch up with my reality, and I might actually start being attracted to more people of the sort who are actually attracted to me. I might even start thinking more in terms of sustainable relationships than of romance and sex. But I have my doubts…

I hate what ever this little bug I seem to have picked up is. My glands are swollen, and I’m draggy and feverish, with a little headache thrown in for good measure. It feels like the onset of strep (with which I’m all too familiar) but it’s been three days and I have no little white spots. Whatever it is, it needs to go away…

I realized this afternoon that I get almost the exact same feeling of inadequacy from reading both personal ads and employment ads. I always find one ad which seems to be an absolute perfect fit until I read the one glaring area in which I don’t quite measure up. That’s probably why I read employment ads infrequently, and why I look at personal ads about once a year or so…

More annoyances for a Tuesday afteroon:

• Idiots who stand about 15 feet behind the next person in line at a fast food counter, so you never know if they’re actually IN line or just wating for someone.
• These same idiots when they get all pissy after you step into the line you didn’t realize they were in.
• These very same idiots when they still haven’t decided what they want by the time they finally get to the counter (after staring at the menu for ten minutes from a considerable distance).

I’m going back to bed now. Tomorrow, we’ll discuss idiots who stand in lines using cell phones…

The white spots have arrived, signalling the beginning of my annual case of strep…

I know there has to be at least one doctor reading this: wanna provide an uninsured web guy with a prescrpition for Erythromycin via email tonight, saving me from a day of pain and a hugely unpleasant trip to the South of Market Health Center tomorrow afternoon? I’ll make it up to you…

Disclaimer: I really couldn’t give a rat’s ass who Elton John sings with, especially when a joke like the Grammys is involved. That said, I found this article really annoying…

Neva Chonin, in all her squishy California sensitivity, completely misses the point. Of course Eminem is controversial. Of course a lot of people are complaining about his lyrics. Of course the moral outrage is flying free. And no amount of whining about “homophobia” and misogyny are going to change the fact that you just can’t get better publicity than this…

“Eminem…would be so much greater if he’d remember that those who need his voice most are the victims, not the victimizers.”

Wow, Neva. That one must have hit the poor kid pretty hard. Them’s fightin’ words…

You don’t fight a bully by saying “your actions are having a detrimental effect on my self-esteem”. He knows he’s not showering you with kisses. Poor Neva seems to believe that if she, GLAAD, and assorted women’s groups will just keep chanting “homophobia” and “that’s so hurtful” loudly and frequently enough, Eminem will have a miraculous moment of catharsis and apologize for his wicked ways…

It ain’t gonna happen. Eminem knows just what he’s doing and who he’s pissing off. And I suspect that he’s rather enjoying it. Face it: his target audience does not consist of middle-aged white liberals or Lesbian feminists. His audience is largely comprised of teen-aged white boys. He could sing “kill the faggot” à la Elmer Fudd and not forfeit one per cent of his profits…

You might as well try to get an intelligent and reasoned response out of Howard Stern…

I’m inclined to say “ignore him and he’ll go away” in this case. Some disagree. Maybe they’re right, but I can’t convince myself that all this whiny “ooh, you’re so mean and hateful” crap will do anything but provide lots of laughs for Eminem and his admirers…

Why is is that when I’m sick and too contagious to do anything about it, I am overtaken by the most raging libidinous urges and want to screw everything that moves? I guess it means I’m getting better, despite the fact that I’m not allowed to touch or breathe on anyone for another 36 hours or so…

I’ve finally booked my Christmas trip to my sprawling hometown. Yes, I know that it’s February, and that it will be April by the time I get there, but I’m running a little behind, OK? I’m very much looking forward to being somewhere that’s not San Francisco…

Side trip plans abound. To start with, I’m driving to San Diego and flying from there. In addition, I’m thinking of hitting both Atlanta and DC for a few days each, with assorted stops on the way…

Even better, I think I’m officially no longer contagious…

I’ve been in a mildly unpleasant, uncertain, and anxious frame of mind all month. Fortunately (or unfortunately) I’ve been way too busy to pay much attention to it, what with lots of work, random visitors, and one minor communicable disease. Now I’m caught up on work and have a full weekend with no real plans to speak of. I’m almost dreading it, for fear I might start dwelling on every little thing that’s nagging at me right now…

And no, I’m not going to bore you with any of this right now. I’m also not going to promise that I wont do so later. But you can always change the channel…

I will, however, say that it has to do with the fact that I seem to have eliminated all the high and lows in my life for one comfortably monotonous mid-range. And I’m a little concerned that I’m not a little more concerned about this…

Dinner tonight at the Dead Fish in Crockett with Dan, Dan’s mom, and Jamie. We all took my mom there last fall when she was here for a visit too. And we really should eat there more often without waiting for semi-annual parental visits. You should too…

I just got my Sears Gold Mastercard in the mail today. Funny thing is, I never REQUESTED a Sears Gold Mastercard. Anyhow, it’s got rental car insurance, so I’ll probably keep it…

I learned a lot about credit cards in my early 20’s. Mainly that I shouldn’t use them unless it’s an emergency or I mail in a check for the amount owed as soon as I get home from wherever I bought whatever I bought…

Speaking of which: did anyone else have a Choice Card back in the 1980s? If so, it probably means that you (a) are over 35, and (b) learned a lot about frustration from trying to find places that accepted the damned thing…

Updated: Yer Humble Host at a Glance.

Themes from the past weekend: work, home, nice boy, performance anxiety, 1984, Rolling Rock, sore shoulders, 99-cent double cheeseburger, earthquake, Spellbound.