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Wednesday, 20 July 2011 (one time we lived) 1:20pm In Half Moon Bay. Marta and I just had lunch with Davina and Mouse at Brianna's, a damn fine Mexican/Oaxacan restaurant, then checked out the Feed & Fuel, a horse supply place that was recommended at the Roundup (and which shares a name with a now-defunct Fresno restaurant we used to frequently have brunch at on Sundays after church). It was kind of overwhelming, both in a good way and bad way. The good way was that they had pretty much everything ever, and bad in the sense that we really didnt' feel remotely welcome there at all. At the Boot Barn in Clovis nobody really gave us a second look (well, one young girl stared at the squid), but at this place, I got a distinct oh, great, these people vibe from behind the counter, made worse by the fact that all the bits were hanging next to the counter, making causal browsing difficult at best. Alas. We left without getting anything. As Marta pointed out, bits are fairly inexpensive online. I support brick-and-mortar stores as best as I can (I've tried to buy as much from Borders over the last few years, to no effect), but, our money will be spent elsewhere. 9:13pm We rode on the Giant Dipper (Marta's been jonesing to go on a rollercoaster for months now), played air hockey, walked along the pier to the elephant seals, and had dinner at Pink Godzilla, which Davina and Mouse loved. Missions accomplished! Back to jury duty tomorrow, where I may or may not actually get selected to serve. Not looking forward to it at all. | ||
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Tuesday, 19 July 2011 (slow light) 9:31am Jury duty. Bleh. I was originally supposed to go in yesterday, but my group got pushed back to today, thus getting my hopes up that I just wouldn't have to come in at all. No such luck, though I may still be able to avoid going into the actual courtoom and, heaven forfend, getting selected for a trial. 12:02pm I have to come back in on Thursday to find out if I have to actually serve—and if I do, they expect the case to last for a few weeks. On the plus side, I don't have to be here tomorrow, which means that Marta and I don't have to cancel our plans to go to Santa Cruz with Davina and Mouse. Priorities and all. If I do get selected, I'll still have to find a way to be productive with my work-work. After all, civic duty trumps making a living, such as my living is. Plus it'll overlap with the beginning of school. Frak frak frak. 5:38pm At Borderlands, and I do believe I just finished this draft of Landing on Water, and can send it off to My Agent. It's not presentable to publishers yet—at one hundred and ninety-seven double-spaced pages, just shy of sixty thousand words, it's certainly too long—but I need a little space from it at the moment. The chapters look like this: 01) Closure (Prologue)Covered the Manson, Nine Inch Nails, R.EM. and Alanis bases title-wise. Meanwhile, I've dropped out of the oft-delayed live Star Trek episode that's going to be staged at The Dark Room in September. I've been looking forward to it, and Jim even just gave me a promotion in the form of a character with more to say and do, but the rehearsal and performances are happening at the same time as my first semester in school, and there's just no way I can handle that. Challenging myself is swell, but they still need to be challenges I can actually meet, and that would be far too much. It meant I had to break Jim's heart a little, and he's been going through bad shit lately as it is. But it had to be done. I think. I'm pretty sure. | ||
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Monday, 18 July 2011 (ghost return) 10:19am Taking the "Entrance Loan Counseling Quiz" for my student loan, if I do decide to actually take one out. It's stupidly simple, basically the governement's way of making sure the borrower can't claim to not understand the system, but still, I'm already taking my first quiz. I guess I'm officially back in school. | ||
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Sunday, 17 July 2011 (hope is gone) 4:31pm Marta and I are at Borderlands, writing. Mostly I've been working on Landing on Water (I've reached the Columbine shooting, and found a reprint of the "goths are obviously evil and likely to murder" article that sfgate printed the day after, then pulled down in less than twenty-four hours), though I've also been brainstorming about last night. I'm not quite ready to actually write about it yet, though, since if I start trying to shape it into prose too soon, I may forget some imporant details. It doesn't take long for things to evaporate out of my head. 11:54pm Oh, thank goodness—we got a big crowd at Bad Movie Night for Conan the Barbarian. Whew. We needed that, and I needed the grocery money. | ||
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Saturday, 16 July 2011 (stock radio) 2:05pm After parking in the NakedSword lot for the first time in well over a year, and sharing a tuna sammich at Deli Board, Marta and I are now at the Citadel for the Roundup's afternoon classes. Four years later, and here I am again. That's about average timeframe for me to get back on a horse. So to speak. 5:57pm At Ananda Fuara for dinner, and our volunteer shift begins at seven. The classes were similar to but not quite as detailed as at The Dog and Pony Show, and with less of a focus on spirituality and more on fun, which I can appreciate. The only class that was really repeated was Smash's talk on furries, and this time it included a show-and-tell with a number of his suits and masks. We got to try on some of the latter, essentially reconstructed gas masks, which was pretty neat. Indeed, the furry presence was much stronger this time around, which I liked, since it included Tenebris and Sagemane and some people from the first party of theirs I'd attended, the guys who had actually been friendly to me—one of them was just pleased as punched that I was there, not just hugging me but kissing me on my shoulder. Sure, why not? It finally struck me that it's just the younger furries, the ones in their twenties or below (like the methy kid or the relentlessly cranky one) who seem so uncomfortable around me, whereas the older ones have no problem with me. Oh, kids these days. 7:46pm Our first volunteer duty was putting sheets on all the couches and mattresses and otherwise porous materials—leading me to finally notice that the floor is carpet, both upstairs and downstairs in the dungeon where the majority of the secksing tends to take place, and I have a sneaking suspicion that this carpet gets a pass even though the Power Exchange carpet that never actually existed was cringeworthy—and then we put together the hors d'eourves trays. While we were doing the latter, we heard a staff member on the phone with an out-of-towner who was calling to find out what the chances were of getting laid if they showed up tonight. I was a little surprised that they weren't scared off by the animal theme, which the staff member tried to explain as best as they could, but whooboy, the staffer reacted strongly when the caller asked if it was a "swinger's club." Beyond the fact that there's a sign at the front desk reading this is a bdsm club, this is NOT a sex club, there IS a difference!, people in San Francisco sex culture tend to hate the s-word. Especially the swingers. 9:53pm Okay. Let's do this. sometime after midnight I wasn't sure before what I was going to be reading about a Perverts Put Out at the end of the month, but now I know. We made some new friends, I think, and gave Tenebris and Sagemane a ride home. As we were walking from the Citadel to the NakedSword parking lot, we ran into Horehound. Such a small town, and when I told him where we'd just been, his eyes widened and said god, it's times like this that i wish i could be in two places at once. Indeed. | ||
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Friday, 15 July 2011 (study war) 9:12am Back to bootcamp this morning. The girl has been officially hired, though she will in fact be switching off with the boy. She's not really sure who's going to be doing what days, and I have a hunch I'll be missing the next couple months' worth of Wednesdays anyway, since Marta and I will be up late on Tuesdays watching the new season of Breaking Bad with the Goldies. Priorities and all. | ||
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Thursday, 14 July 2011 (a seated night) 7:59am Rita informs me that there really wasn't any bootcamp to speak of yesterday, since no instructor actually showed up. So I don't feel quite so bad about not being there. Heading to Marta's soon. Doing things a little differently today. 4:53pm At Borderlands now. Spent much of the day at Marta's, doing work-work while she continued to construct the headgear and harness. We had to made to go to Mendel's once again because Fabric Outlet didn't have the right kind of rivets, but whoever Marta spoke to when she called Mendel's was mistaken about the kinds of rivets they had, plus the guy behind the counter was unaccountable dickish, as was the waiter when we had lunch at All You Knead. I guess working in the Haight will do that to you. I know it would do it to me. | ||
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Wednesday, 13 July 2011 (wait for me) 8:11pm For some reason, neither Marta and I could relax and/or go to sleep last night. We went to bed at about half past ten, and by two we were still restless and wide awake. Quickie sex helped some, and there's never a bad reason for it, but still, it was all very strange. I turned off my alarm, since there was just no way I was making it to Bootcamp. I wrote for most of the day (mostly work-work) while Marta continued to work on the pony headgear and harness, and then I took her back home. My intention now is to not only get to bed at a reasonable hour, but to actually sleep. And I think it may happen. | ||
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Tuesday, 12 July 2011 (shot in the back of the head) 7:41pm Wrote one (1!) work-work article at home, then heading to Borderlands to get some writing done there. Marta and I then got burritos to go—which is an extremely rare occurence for us—and now I'm working on my second essay for Pretty Queer while Marta works on the pony headgear. | ||
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Monday, 11 July 2011 (a city half erased) 12:03pm At Collette's suggestion, I got Perdita new food and litter. I'm sure this won't be traumatic for either of us. 4:59pm Did two articles today. If I can keep up this pace, I'll be fine. If. | ||
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