Perhaps still feeling some momentum from this weekend, I'm considering going to Camera Obscura tonight. I've still never been, and there's parking right next to the building, and of course I don't work tomorrow (although I'll probably get up at half past five as usual), and so on...then again, it's so cold and blowy out there....

sometime after midnight

Why do the best radio shows have to be on at midnight?

I tried to convince myself to go the gym this morning, but the will just wasn't there. It's either because or in spite of the fact that I ate way too much this weekend, especially at the Gothnic. I even had a Little Debbie Swiss Cake Roll for the first time since the mid-nineties, mostly as a nostalgia trip. (All it took was one bite of the sugary lardness to remember why I stopped eating them—that, and the fact that I can look down and see my shoes now.) There was healthy food, too, including some very yummy vegan dishes, one of which the otherwise carnivorous Terminal helped himself to voraciously, much to the chagrin of the cook. Not that she objected to him having some—though I imagine some must exist, I have yet to meet any vegans who are as arrogant as their reputations would suggest—but after Terminal was through there wasn't much left for those who, unlike himself, didn't have the option of turning around and eating meat. Observing this, I found there's something comforting in the fact that certain people never change.

Anyway, my stomach ached somewhat for the rest of the evening and through dinner with Dax on Sunday, and it still feels a little odd. I think I ate more this weekend than I have for the entire last week, and it's simply not accustomed to accomodating that sort of volume anymore. So I'll give it a couple days to recuperate before I exercise it. Yep, that's a good plan.

It's always the reasonable questions which sting the most..

Or maybe it was sleep deprivation, since I only got a few hours of sleep on Thursday night after getting home late from People Like Us (at which I hung out with Negativland's Peter Conheim, who recognized me from the Chopping Channel shows). Most nights we're in bed well before 10pm, but when there are late nights, they for some reason tend to be two or three in a row.

Friday night we went to a screening at the Artists' Television Access on Valencia called Ladies Love Trannys!, which while being primarily f2m oriented (demographically understandable, considering where it was held) included No Dumb Questions, a documentary about three preteen girls coming to terms with their uncle's gender transition. Although it differed in the details (my nieces being older and already understanding gender and sexuality, et cetera), it hit close to home.

Speaking of home, by the time we got to it I was dead tired, falling asleep at the first pillow contact. Which is a good thing, because I needed to be well rested for the Gothnic today, which we followed (after first going home to change, of course) with a club excursion to Smoke and Mirrors. The number of people at both events asking me where I've been lately and saying I need to get out more leads me to suspect that I do in fact need to get out more; I'm not missed, precisely, but it does my ego good to know that I'm at least remembered. And, of course, the comments on my appearance are always nice, and I think I've done a good job of learning to accept them gracefully. I haven't seen Imani for at least a year, and the first words out of her mouth were "You're skinny!" Since blunt honesty is hardwired into her—I don't think I've ever heard her say something that wasn't genuinely how she felt—it was among the relatively few compliments that I took to heart. Otherwise, it's still hard to convince myself that most people aren't just humoring the poor deluded tranny. Or maybe I'm worried that it would be dangerous to believe the hype.

(I wore kitty ears to the club, which I also wore last month to the Some Kind of Queer party at the LGBT Community Center. I put them on before we left the apartment tonight, and I think I confused the heck out of Mina. She looked like she recognized the shapes on the top of my head, but couldn't quite figure out what they were doing on me. The poor thing.)

I took advantage of the bring-it-in-and-we'll-play-it policy of Smoke and Mirrors, and as a result I'm guessing tonight was the first time Negativland's "Christianity is Stupid" has been played in a goth club, or any Negativland at all for that matter. It emptied the dance floor pretty quickly—with the obvious exception of your humble narrator—because of unfamiliarity with the song, though I'm sure once the appropriated vocals kicked in ("Christianity is stupid/Communism is good/Give up") some people didn't know what to think. Lee would have been so proud.

"Are you going out with Louis later and are you guys going to exchange balls?" (I don't wanna know, I don't wanna know, I don't wanna know....)

"Dude, why don't we have a Bachelor party, dude?" (This was areference to a teevee show called The Bachelor, which I'd never heard of until reading about it in a Salon article.)

"If you go out in the 'hood, we'll definitely meet up for a cocktail." (In spite of his authentic gangsta slang, I'm going to take a wild guess and say the 'hood in question is not Hunter's Point.)

This morning there's what's usually referred to as a "water cooler discussion" happening at his desk regarding the aforementioned teevee show. Apparently it was high drama, and they were all glued to their sets.

And yet, I don't want to leave. Go figure.

Meanwhile, I just discovered that legendary minimalist/drone composer Terry Riley is playing tonight. I'm not going—it's at Yoshi's in Oakland and costs $20, whereas People Like Us is at Studio Z (nee Transmission Theater) in town and I'm on the list—but I really need to start paying closer attention to these things. Especially since I'm unemployed again. I've also come to belated conclusion that we need to use some of his music on kittypr0n. Public access television really is a great way to exercise your pretensions.

sometime after midnight

Not that we needed it, but we now have permission to use Negativland on the show.

Those are what I carry in my backpack for the commute to and from work, anyway. At home I've been reading George and Mike Kuchar's Reflections from a Cinematic Cesspool. For the last few nights I've been reading aloud from it in bed to Maddy. I'm sure George would approve.

12:06pm

Leigh and Dino invited me to go to lunch with them, and in spite of the fact that I may be gone after this week (haven't heard anything from Lew yet), I turned them down. No good reason, just out of reflex. This knee-jerk antisociability of mine can be a drag sometimes.

3:25pm

Proving that I've been re-employed for too long and lost my sense of responsible spending, I bought a hacked DVD player off eBay, one which plays all region codes and has Macrovision disabled so I can record to VHS if I'm so inclined. Unfortunately, it got jostled in the mail and the disc tray won't come out. There may be a lesson to be learned.

So I won tickets from KFJC to a show tomorrow by sound collage artist Vicki Bennett, aka People Like Us. I'd never heard of her before, but the words Plunderphonics and Negativland associated with her were enough to get me to overcome my reluctance to call the station from work. (Both Dino and the Sales weasel recently planted nearby are regularly on the phone, and the weasel's usually very loud as is their wont, but it was still kind of embarrassing.) Also present will be Wobbly, whom I'm somewhat familiar with from his shows with Negativland last year as The Chopping Channel. There were only two shows, but I'm proud to have attended both. On that note, I've just happily discovered that they're available on mp3 from Wobbly's site. I haven't picked myself out yet, but I'm one of those voices and/or clapping hands in the background. I do love living in this city.

It's looking like I might stay with the company after this week, but Lew doesn't know for sure yet. I may find out today.

2:47pm

Robert Rich is playing in town next month, but somehow I doubt I'll be able to use Oscar to win tickets this time.

Meanwhile, I continue to hate that I missed Gore Vidal's talk.