A Thankless Job

I warned that I wouldn’t be very chatty this month, what with all the work I have piled up before my trip back east and all. But then I discovered something: being chatty allows me to avoid doing any of that work for just a little while longer. Cool, huh?

Annoyance du jour: people who email me asking for help with a project, essay, or whatever, and then don’t even bother to thank me after I respond with the information they sought. I know I may not be the best person to complain about breeches of email etiquette, but jeez…

A good portion of the time, the information requested is peripherally-related (at best) to information contained on my sites. Still, I try my damnedest, and almost always respond in some way. And about half the time, the person on the other end even thanks me. Which is a pretty fucking pitiful rate, I think…

Note to assorted high school and college students: I am not getting paid to do your homework for you. I am helping you because I’m a nice guy (no matter what people say). So the least you can do is have the common courtesy to express some appreciation. If you don’t, you may find yourself involuntarily subscribed to several random mailing lists on the subject of etiquette…

OK. I’m kidding about the last part. Really…

Besides. most of the offenders won’t know about this threat, because they never read a damned thing but the one page Yahoo directed them to. Context is a concept surprisingly few web-surfers seem to comprehend. Otherwise they’d probably have found what they were looking for anyway…

Radio Shack

In my estimation, there are two glaring casualties of the “digital revolution”. The first, of course, is San Francisco. The second big loss, however, is Radio Shack. It’s still here, of course, but it just won’t ever be quite the same again.

What a wonderful thing Radio Shack used to be. You could wander in with the most obscure request and be helped pretty quickly by a rumpled-looking, slightly overweight guy with a pocket protector who really knew his shit. His customer service skills may have been lacking, but he could carry it off. He probably knew more tan you did.

There was an art to it, of course. If you knew exactly what you wanted and how to ask for it, you were all set. He’d walk over to the left rear wall, pull it off a hook, make out a handwritten sales slip for 89 cents, and send you on your way.

If you were less sure of yourself and didn’t know the jargon (e.g. you called your turntable a “record player”), things were a little trickier. You’d still get what you wanted, but not until you’d learned a little about electronics, and maybe joined the Battery of the Month Club.

Now, of course, these rumpled guys have well-paying jobs which don’t involve discussing the superior performance of Realistic™ audio components or helping teenagers steal HBO. Their replacements at Radio Shack are, ummm, not exactly brain surgeons. Hell, they don’t even know what brain surgery IS. And they sure don’t know what you mean when you ask for an RJ-45 female to DB-25 male adapter.

Nor do they make up for this lack of knowlege with superior customer service skills. But what can you expect for nine bucks an hour? Been to Kinko’s lately?

I Never Killed My Classmates

My three most powerful memories of junior high:

  • Finding a spot behind the cafeteria building at lunch and sitting there alone so that no one would see me and realize I had no friends to eat with or talk to.
  • Carrying all my books and my dirty gym clothes around with me all day because I couldn’t work the locker and was petrified of asking for help.
  • Walking four miles to school one morning because my dad couldn’t drive me and I couldn’t cope with the fact that no one on the bus was going to let me sit with them.

Reading about the latest high school shooting incidents (a disturbingly common pastime lately) always gets me a bit reflective about my own teen years. Why? Simply because, under slightly different circumstances, I could have been that unpopular, isolated kid doing the shooting.

It wasn’t that I didn’t have many friends in junior high. I could have dealt with that. My problem was that I didn’t have ANY friends, not even of the similarly unpopular “reject” variety. I even felt inadequate even compared to the loser kids on the ABC Afterschool Special; at least they had Kristy McNichol or Leif Garrett on their side.

At school, I didn’t talk to anyone. I didn’t go to after-school events or the mall because I didn’t want everyone to see me by myself. I looked up the phone numbers of classmates I barely knew (and would never call) just to write them down in an address book I was given. I never spoke to anyone first, and only mumbled responses when someone spoke to me. I was embarrassed by my voice, my walk, my clothes, everything.

I often feigned illness for a week at a time, because I just couldn’t cope with school. I thought about suicide, about ways I could make my parents move so I could “start over”, and about any number of ways I could make people notice me in any way at all, especially in a manner which didn’t involve snickering or open taunting.

I’m not sure why some kids turn out so isolated and bitter — and sometimes so angry. I was painfully shy and lacked social skills. I had no talent for sports and was a “brain”. But other kids like this manage at least to find a few like-minded friends. Why didn’t I?

And why did I somehow manage not to kill all my classmates? I hated them and I knew where to find my dad’s gun. But I’d also convinced myself that I was the one with the problem, not my school chums. And frankly, I was a bit of a wimp. I’d never even been in a fistfight. Still haven’t.

But if things had been a little different, who knows what might have happened?

Eventually, I coped by dumbing down a little, by getting in some trouble, and by hanging out with the bad kids. My “in” was smoking and a talent for forging sick notes and hall passes. It’s unfortunate that it had to happen that way, but I don’t regret it. Otherwise, I most likely would have done myself in before my sixteenth birthday.

I’m 36 now. I have friends. I sometimes even engage in social activities. I’m OK now.

But I’m still lacking in social skills and I still spend most of my time alone. I get embarrassed doing things like yelling “back door” when the bus driver doesn’t open it at my stop. I rarely initiate a telephone conversation except with my closest friends or for business purposes. I don’t like crowds, and I’m uncomfortable walking up to a group of people I know for fear I’d be jumping in unwanted.

And I sometimes still feel like a lonely 13-year-old who’s embarrassed that everyone is looking at him and laughing at him for being dorky and all alone. I’m just glad I no longer see this as a reason to kill anyone. Myself included.

I promise to return to my usual sarcastic tone tomorrow. Sorry if this was a bit of a downer…

Gay Enough?

Another obnoxious unscientific test (courtesy of Dan). I got a 45, placing me once again in the very same boring middle I always manage to find. God knows I’d hate to be too straight or too gay. I stay awake nights worrying about it…

Bad news of the day: Hamburger Mary’s has been purchased by the guy who owns Harvey’s on Castro Street. I can scarcely imagine the potential horrors to be inflicted upon this South of Market institution in the coming months. I can only predict it will be brighter, much more “gay”, and unspeakably boring. Blecch…

Speaking of food, two people I work with have expressed surprise this week upon learning that I cook. Is that good, bad, or just a sign that I eat crap at lunch?

Other common misconceptions about yer humble host (a continuing series):

  • That I spend a significant portion of my life trolling for sex in Folsom Street sex clubs and backroom bars.
  • That I spend hours online every day (possibly doing the same thing).
  • That I’m a “bear” or that I’m “into leather”.
  • That I eat a steady diet of fast food seven days a week.
  • That I have a particularly exciting or interesting life.
  • That I will believe a piece of email is “urgent” just because it’s marked that way.

I have a headache. I will stop now…

The Weekend

 

OK. Where was I?

Juan Felipe was here on Friday, which made for a more entertaining than usual afternoon. We ate lunch. We walked around in the Mission. We talked about our parents. I like him. I knew I would somehow…

 

Photos above are from my new favorite Italian restaurant in Oakland. They’re there because I like the place, because I love the grape chandelier, and because I don’t really have too much else to say today other than that it rained this weekend. A lot. I just sort of watched it, which is probably why I feel so groggy today. Who says you have to get drunk to have a lost weekend?

Random unrelated thing I don’t understand today: why will a guy who has no problem letting you spooge in his mouth shy away from a friendly kiss afterward?