Journals :2001 : January

Previously

It's very disorienting hearing the fireworks outside and watching them on TV inside. Anyway, they're over now. I've done my duty. I can go to bed now, thus allowing me to wake up early and have San Francisco pretty much to myself until 11:00 or so.

2 January 2001 | Link this

  

I used to trade porn via email. Now I trade pictures of old supermarkets. Thanks Rick and Wayne...

On an unrelated note, does anyone have any brilliant ideas on how best to observe the upcoming fifth anniversary of Planet SOMA? I already used my best ideas last year (reposting the whole site circa March 1996) and the year before (with the parade of front pages). It seems a little wimpy to do either of these again...

On another unrelated note, I can't stress enough how great New Years Day is for doing laundry. I had six dryers and a whole table to myself and I was able to park right in front of the house when I got home. Heaven...

On a final unrelated note: KABL is back. No more crappy adult contemporary from 1975 mixed with doo-wop. It was a bizarre experiment. It is over. The AM band is a better place. Welcome back Louis and Ella...

Is it just me or have things been a little boring around here for the past couple of weeks? Maybe I should go back to waiting until I actually have something to SAY before babbling...

3 January 2001 | Link this

PJ said: "and the really shitty part? the "gay community" is just as bad. this community that's supposed to be about supporting diversity? augh, sorry, i'm not even going to start down that road."

OK. I'll start down that road instead. Who didn't see THAT coming?

Things Sodomites and non-Sodomites (erroneously) assume about me because I like to suck dick:

  • That everything I do is somehow related to sucking dick.
  • That I will be interested in what made for TV movie happens to have a gay character this week.
  • That I really give a flying fuck whether or not any given celebrity is gay.
  • That I really want to see naked pictures of complete strangers the first time they email me (especially when they're ugly).
  • That having a "very active gay community" or a "big gay scene" is a top consideration in where I choose to live.
  • That I am, God forbid, a "spokesperson" for the "gay community".
  • That I believe there is such a thing as a "gay community".
  • That I ever use the acronym "LGBTQ" in everyday conversation.
  • That I don't laugh at people who DO use it.
  • That I ever read The Advocate or visit Planet Out.
  • That I find the statment "I never would gave guessed about you" to be a compliment (or an insult, for that matter).
  • That, by definition, I have loads of shared interests with every other Sodomite on the planet.
  • That I know about all the crappy music (movies, books, jargon, etc.) that I'm "supposed" to.

Glad to get that off my chest...

7 January 2001

My new domain for Bottles finally went live sometime yesterday, it seems. Took long enough. And it seems like the DNS lookup is slow too; that would mean that it takes a long time for the site first to start loading, but then everything's OK. Is anyone else having this trouble? Does anyone else care?

Back to working on other people's sites now...

8 January 2001

OK, it's official: a really big update and a new address for Did You Bring Bottles. Hey, everyone's gotta have a hobby...

9 January 2001 | Link this

Today's date is dedicated to Mark.

Annoyances du jour:

  • Can anyone offer me any explanation why cluster tomotoes grown in a hothouse should cost 50-75% more in winter than they do in summer? Am I missing some crucial issue here?
  • It's freezing in my living room, 58 at my last check. Yes, I still have no heat. No, I do not blame my landlord (whom I actually like and trust, believe it or not). It's all but impossible to get a contractor to do anything in SF right now; they're all too busy building live/work lofts out of stray pieces of corrugated cardboard. Ahh, San Francisco. Where it's always "jacket weather". Inside and out.
  • Has anyone else noticed that everything on TV (networks, cable, and independents alike) has just plain sucked for about the last month or so?

Happy discovery du jour:

13 January 2001 | Link this

Planet SOMA was born five years ago today.

Dang.

I didn't think I'd still be working on this one little website after all this time. Or that this one little website would turn into four not so little ones. But I was wrong. And now I can't seem to stop. Even though I probably should. Help me.

And thanks for coming by, too...

14 January 2001 | Link this

So my friend Duncan is finally moving about 2000 miles closer to the west coast at exactly the same time I'm seriously thinking of moving back to the east coast. Bad timing again; I seem to make a habit of that. But them again, I've been seriously thinking of moving back east for a good year and a half with no discernible action.

Speaking of no discernible action, last night was the last straw. I'm never going out on Saturday night again. Nothing but idiots out, which might have been OK if they hadn't all been such UNAPPEALING idiots. It is easier on the self-esteem, granted, when the problem is that you're not interested in anyone you see rather than no one ine being interested in you. But the end result is pretty much the same.

Had lunch with Sarah yesterday; we hadn't seen each other in months, so it was a good thing. As was the "buy one get one free" sale on Rubbermaid at Walgreen's. That the aforementioned drug store is listed among the highlights of my Saturday should give some indication of how uneventful my life is this week.

16 January 2001 | Link this

At age 36, I have to report for my very first round of jury duty in the morning. You can't imagine how much I'm not in the mood. Especially since I don't have an employer paying me to sit there doing nothing all afternoon.

Civic responsibility sucks...

17 January 2001 | Link this

Look for an exciting entry soon on how much jury duty bites. Or is that too obvious? I have to go back tomorrow for jury selection. As it happens, the defendant is a supermarket chain, and maybe this will get me excused. I may at least wear my Piggly Wiggly T-shirt (thanks Sarah). But if not, this one will still be better than the month-long trial I narrowly escaped...

It's too bad life is not a TV sitcom and that I probably won't be put up in some spiffy hotel for the duration. One with heat, for example...

17 January 2001 (Later)

Happiness is:

  • Hearing a judge say "We're going to have to excuse you from this trial. You have now completed your jury service for this year."
  • Finding that three additional parking spaces on Seventh Street no longer have a two-hour time limit.
  • A Red Baron microwavable pizza and To Sir with Love (especially the song, but the movie too) in the middle of the afternoon.

A trip home (and maybe here and here) will be scheduled as soon as all this is over. Get ready, east coast...

21 January 2001 | Link this

Youth: impulsiveness, restlessness, and enthusiasm.

Adulthood: resignation and stability.

Why am I never sure which one's in charge of me?

Sometimes I feel very grown up, like this morning when I'm sitting here drinking my coffee and listening to Nat King Cole, having just completed a breakfast which centered around leftover cubed steak from last night. Hell, I feel positively middle-aged.

But most of the time, I don't feel like much of an adult at all. I don't see a 36-year-old face when I look in the mirror. When I see other people my age, I almost always guess them to be older than me. Especially if I'm not in San Francisco, where Peter Pan Syndrome is as ubiquitous (and as annoying) as the smell of marijuana or the sense of moral indignation.

I don't really want to be Mister Average Suburban Guy, more concerned with the state of my lawn than with having an interesting life. But sometimes I would like to HAVE a lawn, as well as some of the stability and routine associated with it. Yeah, I'd hire some cute 16-year-old to cut the grass and all, but it would still be mine.

I get restless too, though. I want to go places and do things and never have to commit to one house or one city or one job or one lover. I wake up some mornings a bundle of restless energy, wondering what I should do or where I should go that day. It borders on anxiety, as if I die a little bit by not coming up with some exciting way to pass the time. And I often invest more effort in deciding what to do than in actually doing it.

It's a little taxing sometimes, but I guess it's a little better than waking up knowing what I MUST do or where I HAVE to go.

I think it comes down to the fact that I'd like to have a nice little routine to fall back on, but that I don't want said routine to control my life. More ominous is the fact that I don't seem much inclined to put in the level of work and commitment necessary to get me to this point.

I hate it when I'm feeling neurotic and self-obsessed on Sunday morning. This wouldn't be happening if TNT were still running their "In the Heat of the Night" marathons...

26 January 2001 | Link thi

Yeah, I'm still alive. It's been a hectic week. I'm working a lot and trying to teach myself Director against my will (and my better judgment). And I seem completely unable to compose a simple email message, so particular apologies to Becky and Dan...

I did drag myself out on Thursday night and found it oddly entertaining. Minor backroom activities aside, I ran into a friend I hadn't really talked to in a while, and I fended off advances from a nice enough boy who bought me drinks and said I looked like a thug. I think I like looking like a thug, but I'm not quite sure...

Coming this weekend: more RAM, smog check, dinner with Dan and Jamie tonight (i guess), and maybe a mini road trip someplace. I haven't decided yet...

Once again, I promise to get interesting one of these days...

27 January 2001 | Link this

Stupidest sentence I've read today, from a site owner to whom I complained about being added to his mailing list against my will, and without ever having contacted him nor visited his stupid (comercial) site:

"There's no need to be harsh in the peaceful gay and lesbian land."

Oooh, the peaceful gay and lesbian land, where we're all brothers and sisters who love one another. We don't have to act appropriately, because we're all gay (pronouced, of course, in a hushed, reverential tone). And being gay makes everything we do just fine and dandy, no matter how idiotic or annoying. To suggest otherwise would just be "homophobic"...

See David puke. See David puke up a big ol' rainbow-colored stream of bile...

27 January 2001 Later | Link this

A resolution:

  • Whereas I believe that it is no more excusable for Sodomites to behave like total idiots than it is for anyone else, and...
  • Whereas I do not agree that reacting negatively to idiotic behavior by Sodomites is necessarily an expression of "homophobia" nor of "anti-gay bigotry", and...
  • Whereas I believe that yelling "homophobia" every time someone criticizes the stupid behavior of any given Sodomite individual trivializes REAL instances of prejudice and discrimination, and...
  • Whereas I refuse to believe in a "unified gay front" where we must all think alike and defend each other's actions, no matter what, and...
  • Whereas I believe the idea that such a thing as a "gay community" exists is laughable...
  • Whereas I refuse to pretend that bad movies, books, or music are good just because they have "gay themes" or "gay characters", and...
  • Whereas I fail to recognize that sucking dick has much influence over any aspect of my personality other than the sexual part thereof, and...
  • Whereas I do not believe that Sodomites are inherently inferior to the general population, but I also do not believe that we are inherently superior, and...
  • Whereas I do not believe the lifestyle-oriented reporting of the "gay press" is related in any way to news, nor to my life, and...
  • Whereas I refuse ever to use a term like "gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgendered, or questioning" to classify a group of people with nothing else in common nor to describe myself (God forbid) as a member, and...
  • Whereas I believe that "homophobia" (internalized or otherwise) is a stupid and imprecise term.
  • Whereas I refuse to allow this site to be called a "gay website" even if it some day decides to admit that it sleeps with other websites...

Therefore, be it resolved that Planet SOMA and The Other Stream are now officially recognized "zones of internalized homophobia". If you would like to have your site designated an official "zone of internalized homophobia", please let me know.

28 January 2001 | Link this

I love Super Bowl Sunday. No lines at Wal-Mart. No lines at Krispy Kreme. No lines at Alberston's. I don't know (or care) who won and I'd have to think hard even to tell you who played, but I managed to enjoy the afternoon anyhow. I've got doughnuts and toilet paper. What more could I ask?

Maybe I could ask you to go give Becky some business. Considering the way I ignore typos, maybe I should ask myself to do the same thing...

29 January 2001 | Link this

Pending Sparky visit. That'll be a fun way to meet one more person who doesn't live in San Francisco that I can't hang out with on a regular basis...

Why does everyone I'd most enjoy meeting live on the east coast these days? Never mind. I probably know the answer to that question...

30 January 2001 | Link this

Why no, the picture above has nothing to do with anything. It's just one of the several random Burger Chef moments I'd like this site to become known for. Thanks for asking...

Anybody have any great and unusual ideas for a skate-related porn story I need to start writing for Boardboys tonight? February's PG&E bill may depend on it...

I have SO much stuff I need to be working on right now, and I can't seem to start doing any of it...

30 January 2001 (Later)

I read stories like this, relieved that I'm a long way from North Carolina. And then I read stories like this...

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