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Saturday, 10 July 1999 (the last dog and pony show) 10:46am The restlessness of the wicked continues. I got my requisite three and a half hours of sleep, and now I need to start thinking in terms of heading to the East Bay to get the car to The Ex. Magenta and I had talked about meeting up at the Ashby Flea Market, but the timing ain't gonna work; she's probably there already. I'll be going by Belladonna Arcana in Berkeley (just down the street from the Flea Market) to pick up the new velvets but before that I have some shopping to take care of here in the city.
Thus raising the question: why the hell am I just sitting here typing about it?
Uh...well...
No, "comfortable" isn't the right word. It's not as though I intend to spend any more time here than necessary (though the fact I have time to get online and update my fucking journal suggests otherwise). I won't be hanging out here or necessarily attending the occasional parties.
Well...I probably wouldn't do it alone, anyway.
It's official. We are.
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Friday, 9 July 1999 (social) 8:26am So I didn't shave this morning. The message I'm getting is to give my skin a slight reprieve from daily hack and slash, so that's what I'm doing. I'll be shaving tonight before I go to Shrine, of course, but during the week I'm going to try to start doing it only every other day, until I get zapped next. Whenever that may be. If I didn't already have other plans for the weekend, I'd call Phil right now and find out if he's available tomorrow. Uh-oh. Now that the thought's in my head, I might just do it anyway. The more I get done before I see Maddy, the better. Anyway, I still got made up, even though the shadow is obviously more prominent than usual and only going to get worse during the day. I suppose I'm trying to test myself as much as anything else: can I handle looking like this? The open blatant-even-by-my-standards incongruity? Then again, there's a distinct possibility that nobody will notice the difference. It's not like I'd be passing otherwise, for fuck's sake. And for 26 hours of growth, it ain't that thick. So, I'll deal.
It's going to be a very long day.
*sigh* Pardon me whilst I unstaple my hand from my forehead.
Oh, I don't like this. I don't like this one bit. This is very bad. A powder re-app will help, but there's ultimately only so much that can be done... God, I'm so sick of it all. I asked Elizabeth if my shadow was any more prominent than yesteday. It's not wise to solicit opinions on uncomfortable subjects by asking loaded questions, but I did it anyway. After looking closely, she said that yes, it's a little more noticeable. She was exceedingly sympathetic, though. As it turns out, when she was growing up in New York, her doctor was Renee Richards. Before and after, so she got to witness the process close-up. Being very young she didn't really understand exactly what was happening, but wasn't bothered by it, either, and has nothing but wonderful memories of her. (Beisdes, it's not like most adults understand either.) Coincidentally, Renee's autobiography Second Serve was one of the first books I read on the subject, when I was a teenager. The message implicit in the book, and one which she's even more vocal about today, is: if you're gonna do it, do it, like NOW. Get started as soon as you can and don't look back. Do not wait until your forties after having a family and kids and whatnot in an attempt to pretend you're "normal." It just don't work that way. I'm trying my best, I really am.
September, September, September...
It was exactly what I needed, when I needed it.
Since it so clearly needed to be done, I went into the restroom to fix my makeup. I needed the light and the large mirror (even though the poorly designed counter has no splash guard, meaning that if you come into contact with the edge of the counter your legs get wet—oh, I adore this place), other people be damned. Gotta do whatcha gotta do. No comments from the few people who did come in. I wouldn't have cared either way. So I reapplied the powder and fixed my lips. I haven't actually been wearing lipstick lately, but rather I've been filling in my lips with liner. Not even lipliner, precisely, but eyeliner: Revlon Colorstay, black brown. Considerably more subtle, particularly when you have shadow to contend with.
Oh, who am I kidding? It isn't shadow, it's (*wince*) stubble. Pure and simple. Hence the dry, awful, scratching sound
as I rub more powder over it. That damn noise is going to haunt me.
In any event, I should be de-chatting myself from Maddy and getting the hell out of here.
As in, fuck the rest of the world, I ain't goin' nowhere, thank you very much. I have more than ample nourishment and entertainment supplies here, and if I go out I'll just spend money and that's never good. Besides, I know I'll be spending money tomorrow: while in the East Bay I'll be picking up a new pair of velvets I just had them put on hold, and either before or after that trip I'm going into the Haight to get some new stripeys. (I never made it out there last weekend.) Also, it'll give my face a little more time to heal before getting shaved once again.
And, most importantly, I don't feel any compulsion to go out. I know I'll be
doing a lot of running around tomorrow, culminating in Orky's party in the
evening. Right now, relaxing sounds much better.
And it feels really nice to be clean-shaven again.
There's lots of pretty, pretty ones who wanna get you high...
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Thursday, 8 July 1999 (playing your song) 5:29am Ah, shit! That's the second time in as many weeks that I've cut myself shaving. This is an extraordinarily bad sign. Basically, I need to sit down today, figure out precisely where I'll be financially over the next month, and schedule with Phil accordingly. (I've been rather willfully neglecting zapping over the last month or so, and as these things are wont to do, it's come back around to bite me squarely on the posterior.) I'm going to cancel my hair appointment with Miguel this Saturday and let Dana do the honors, which should save me a substantial amount of cash... 9:34am More fun on the subway this morning. When the train entered the tunnel at West Portal, usually the point of no return, it suddenly started going very slow. Slow, but with just enough speed so that when the brakes would suddenly slam on, everybody not nailed down would go flying. I was seated, one of the advantages to where I actually catch the train. The samaritan in me was insisting that I should stand and let someone else have my seat. The physicist in me argued that I'd cause much less damage staying put; what would you rather have coming at you a projectile, someone who weighs 180 lbs or someone who weighs 120? Besides, I was carrying an additional package besides my backpack, thus making my balance that much more precarious. The physicist won. This happened countless times between West Portal and Castro, resulting in that normally 10-minute trip taking at least forty or so. I kinda lost track of time so I can't say for sure, but it definitely took much much longer than it should have. At Castro they took the car out of service and we had to get off. I started walking up Market before I got wise and caught one of the above-ground cars. It was full, and I had to stand. Ah, there's your poetic justice, huh? Systems fail, things go wrong, the center does not hold, I realize all these things. For the most part I've had neutral experiences on the muni; it usually takes me to and from work with no great difficulty. When there's a technical error, well, that'll happen and I just have to deal with it. What really bugged me was that they didn't even bother to tell us while we were essentially stuck underground what was going wrong. Yeah, the car was barely moving, but being neglected didn't help. Even so much as a "Sorry, folks" would have been nice. Now, don't get me wrong. I hate, loathe and detest false courtesy. Safeway is particularly bad: particularly in the mornings, their employees are required to say hello to every customer. That bugs the HELL out of me. When I'm shopping I don't want to talk to anyone. I want to get my stuff and leave. Corporate policy, however, dictates that what customers want more than anything else is the warm and fuzzy feeling of strangers in red aprons wishing them a good morning. I cannot fucking stand it, and I try my best not to be rude to the employees because I know they're just doing their job. And sometimes it borders on inappropriate, or at least suspicious. I've been known to have a rapidly filling cart, going from aisle to aisle without hesitation and not wasting any time browsing, getting exactly what I need—I ain't new at this, my eating habits are fairly established at this point—and yet an employee will come up to me and ask me if I need any help. What the FUCK? Is he trying to settle a bet or something? "You go talk to...him." "No way, you!" "No, you do it, I ain't going near them!" However paranoid I may be, I also know these discussions happen. Then there's the public reading of your name from the receipt, which to my way of thinking is a serious violation of privacy. If I wanted the other people in line to know my name, I'd bloody well tell them myself. Again, corporate policy: suits who probably haven't been in a checkout line in decades figure that most of their clientele are so desperately lonely, hearing their name spoken aloud in public will give them a big warm'n'fuzzy which'll keep them coming back for more. For the record, I keep going back because I have one of those fucking cards and I do need to save money wherever possible—besides, they carry my favorite yogurt, very much a staple of my diet. And I'll admit the name thing was vaguely amusing for a little while earlier this year when I was using The Ex's card, as they clerk struggled to decide whether to call me Mr. or Mrs. But that doesn't really make up for it. The other reason they offer the discount cards is so they can get your mailing address when you fill out the application. False courtesy AND junk mail! Thanks, guys! Okay, now, here's the trick. They don't want the application process to take any longer than you do, so what happens is they'll typically give you the application and the card at the same time. If not, just say that you don't have time to fill out right now, but you'll bring it in next time. In all likelihood they'll give you the card, already activated, and you can go on about your business. Because of this, for the last four months or so my receipts have referred to me as "New Safeway Customer," and I actually think the clerks are relieved they don't have to read my name or guess my gender.
Right. Where was I going with this? Oh, yeah. It's one thing when I'm shopping
and clearly want to be left alone. (I'd like to think I radiate that at times, but
considering how often I get strangers asking me for directions even these days, I
can only conclude I still have a friendly face. Damnit. Gonna have to start going
heavier on the eyeshadow or something.) When I'm stuck underground
and for all I know we'll end up wishing we'd brought a scale in order to figure out
who to eat first, a little bit of communication is nice. That, once again, is all I'm saying.
I wondered how the intensity can last. It can last, I realize, as long as you want it to.
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Wednesday, 7 July 1999 (forget the flowers) 8:26am Disc 1 of Wilco's Being There appears the most likely candidate for heavy rotation today. Hell, I may not take "Far, Far Away" off repeat.
Celebrity Skin and mechanical animals both might potentially edge their way in,
though. I find it fascinating how so many people around me are swearing by Celebrity
Skin these days—coincidentally, I'm wearing the shirt today. I wonder if that suggests
it's going to be one of those seminally imporant albums (I don't know what that means, precisely,
but I like the sound of it) or if it's just a peculiar reflection on the kinds of people I find
myself surrounded by. Not that it matters.
I wonder how long she had to wait for me to figure it out. God, the poor thing...
Uh-oh. News.com is trying to muscle in on our filing space. We're not using it yet, but fuck
them, it's ours.
i and i 7:20pm On the one hand, I'm glad that Madeline wasn't online when I got home, because it means she's in bed and, theoretically asleep. She hasn't been getting nearly enough sleep lately, between both a nasty case of insomnia and talking with me until the wee hours. If she was awake she'd be online, I'm quite certain. We are, of course, huge geeks, and that's what we do. On the other hand, it means not talking to her until tomorrow. That sucks.
Everything is so different now.
Anyway, she had that look as she handed me a copy of John Shirley's Black Butterflies a collection of short stories. She was particuarly excited about a story called "Cram." As she put it, "You'll never want to ride the BART again." A story about a form of public transportation notorious for being crowded called "Cram." Hmmm. Tough to do the math on that one. So what do I do? I read it while on the Muni subway during my ride home. (Muni, by the way, is internal to San Francisco, while BART covers most of the Bay Area except Marin.) The barely ten page story is about what happens on the Oakland-San Francisco BART train (which travels under the Bay, and which my brother and his wife both take every day) when a major earthquake hits. Shirley has a tendency to turn up the ick factor as much as possible, and he doesn't disppoint with this story.
I probably shouldn't have been reading it while on the subway. That's
all I'm saying.
Yet, now, I'm beginning to feel like I'm going to bed not just by myself, but alone. Physics be damned.
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Tuesday, 6 July 1999 (the tourniquet prosthetic dance mix) 6:15am The Fourth went fairly well. It was a little odd not having The Ex along, of course. If nothing else she knows Santa Cruz like the back of her hand, so we were left up to our own devices for navigation. Our own devices included a map (fancy that!) so we got everywhere we wanted to go, but it was still strange. To get the car switchoff out of the way I drove to her boyfriend's (and now ostensibly her) place in the morning, then she took me to my brother's, about twenty minutes away. She came in to say hello, since she hasn't seen any of them in a couple months. Understandable, though I was just the slightest bit annoyed that the tearful reunion completely distracted attention away from the fact that it was the first time any of them had seen me wearing more than eyeliner. Just a vaguely important moment, if I do say so myself. It was a given that my brother barefoot wouldn't say anything on his own accord because even non-macho men such as him don't comment on these things (and his paticular air of ironic detachment must be maintained at all times). I had to flat-out ask his wife Rox and her friend Steph what they thought of my makeup job, however. I mean, jeez, they know what's going on, we've talked about it before, and I thought I'd established that it's something I rather enjoy discussing. That's one of the nice things about goffs, they'll tell you what they think without needing to be asked. The closest barefoot came to acknowledging anything was on the drive to Santa Cruz. He was behind the wheel and I was shotgun, and his "if someone else even drives anywhere in my general vicinity my day is ruined" road rage was in full swing. (Summer's the only other person I know with such a strong case.) We were between Pacifica and Half Moon Bay, and stuck behind a large red SUV with Kansas plates—I reserved comment—which I'll fully admit was going at perhaps too leisurely a pace, and in fact well under the speed limit. Those can be scary roads if you're not familiar with them, and as annoying as it is to get behind someone slow, I can see why not everyone would want to put the pedal to the proverbial metal. My brother was having none of it, though. As we approached an area with passing lanes, he instructed me without a hint of lightness to blow them a kiss as we passed by. Fags are supposed to be catty, right? I declined and did nothing of the sort, and none of them were looking in my direction as we passed anyway. The more I thought about it, however, the more I found it insulting. His veneer of cool couldn't allow him to at least say that he thought I'd looked good earlier, even in the spirit of false courtesey—perhaps he was offended that I'd neglected to comment on his recent haircut? naah—but he was more than happy to use as me his little performing queen to vent his anger. No fucking way, thank you very much.
In any event, other things were on my mind: I hadn't written Madeline that morning,
so I had a mission.
Oh, wow. Oh, this is a very very good thing. Just shy of two months. I can handle that.
A lot to mull over from this weekend. I spent most of Sunday evening with one eye on the clock, knowing the timezones were conspiring against me. I arrived home at midnight, 2am Madeline's time. Which isn't to suggest I didn't enjoy myself while I was out, because I did. Our little stretch of beach in Santa Cruz was even more nuts than it had been in years previous. There were more people, more illegal fireworks and generally more chaos. As we drove away, we couldn't help but noticed that the police had blocked off the surrounding streets; they let us drive out with no problem, but nobody was let in. Indeed, the police presence felt almost like a Y2K preparedness exercise. The Ex's absence didn't entirely register on me. I found myself thinking of Madeline, of introducing her to these strange little customs and rituals and traditions. Of just having her there at all—which would require actually meeting her in person, natch. Ah, the little details. All in good time, though. I'd called and left a message on her machine from the restaurant earlier in the evening. I hadn't written her that morning (largely because she'd been using her sister's WebTV for the last couple days but wouldn't be from the afternoon onwards), and felt the need to make some kind of contact. We'd exchanged phone numbers a couple weeks previous but neither had used them yet. Now seemed like the right time, from the pay phone next to the lobster tank in a Santa Cruz steakhouse called The Hindquarter. (Yes, that's right, not only were we eating at a place whose name essentially meant "ass," it was the second year in a row. I'm trying not to think about that one too much.) Just a simple "Hi, hope everything's going well" kinda message. Didn't actually say my name, but I reckoned it would be obvious. Apparently I was correct. Anyway, Madeline was online when I got home, and we chatted until about 6am my time when I finally had to crash. Much was said which needed to be said, and it was all good. Even the things which hurt a little bit at first—ultimately they were reality checks for me. I won't deny that I'm still improvising to a certain extent, and am prone to making mistakes and saying the wrong thing. It's not as though I got that completely out of my system with Tiff. I should point out that there's no deception or false pretenses at work. She's completely aware that I'm a tranny, and we were in fact introduced to each other by Summer (all roads lead to Rome) partially for that reason. Long story which I won't go into here. And she is very much the genetic female. I spent Monday entirely at home, the first time I've been able to do so without going stir crazy since time immemorial. It was also one of those rare instances lately when I've actually wanted to clean the apartment (which perpetually needs it), so I took a crack at that. And, of course, we kept in touch on AIM. By around 7:30pm my time, the leap was made: Madeline called. For the first time after three months of mostly daily email (and three or four weeks of chatting), we actually spoke in the old-fashioned sense. For about four and a half hours, in fact, according to my phone's helpful digital readout. Haven't done something like that since...well, since the very early days of The Ex and I, just over nine years ago. This was something which I never thought I'd get the chance to do again, and get to do right: the courtship, the beginning of the relationship, getting to know the person, the bonding leading to intimacy. With The Ex, yes, it worked, we were together for a long time and happy for most of that, but it was all very rocky at first. Her ex-boyfriend cast a shadow over us for a long time, and indeed did much more than that at first. Hence us initially becoming official on 6/17/90 but our anniversary being 8/13/90. By the time the dust had settled we were together, true, but the process leading to that point was frequently more than a little painful. I realize that's always a risk, but these things I've heard about—the excitement, the romance, the sense of falling in love mutually, was something I didn't really get to experience. We were together for a while before she would even say that she loved me per se, and being "in love" came later still. That she would always love her ex-boyfriend, however, was treated as gospel. But those were different times, with a different person entirely. For that matter I'm more than a little different as well, and I've got the pictures to prove it. (Oh, don't even ask.) In many ways this is a second chance for both Madeline and I, hopefully to get it right this time. We both have a healthy respect for the "L" word and have used it extremely sparingly, and only in hypothetical contexts. It may not sound particularly traditional, but there's nothing particularly traditional about any aspect of our relationship, and yet to my way of thinking that doesn't make it any less romantic. As powerful and meaningful as it is, that word has also been abused and devalued almost beyond recognition (I'm as guilty as anyone in that respect). Avoiding it, if nothing else, makes you think. Particularly when you still don't know for certain how you'll interact with the other person in real life. Many things can go wrong, as awful as that is to consider. When it finally arrives (in a million years or so), I suspect September will be a very significant month.
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Monday, 5 July 1999 (tourniquet) 3:04pm A day off, and I'm staying at home without going nuts. It's all about the company you keep, I suppose. sometime after midnight 04:31:47 Not bad for starters, even if much of it was silence.
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Sunday, 4 July 1999 (codependence) 6:43am Quarter to seven in the morning, 4 July 1989: I was lying on my buddy Conk's bedroom floor with Yes's 90125 on the stereo, coming down from my first time 'shrooming/doing drugs/using any form of controlled substance whatsoever. I hadn't even drank alcohol yet by that point. I had never ingested anything which would alter my perceptions in any way, shape, or form. I had just turned 16 and I didn't know what it was like to be drunk or stoned, but I absolutely fell in love with what those unspeakably horrid-tasting mushrooms did to the world around me. The world around me for the duration of that night consisted of his bedroom, but it was enough. The visuals were certainly nice—mostly objects taking on an odd sort of aura, colors creeping and glowing around their edges. I'd heard the word "trails" before and never knew what it meant, and for a long time I mistakenly called that particular effect trails. It wasn't until I'd done acid a few times that I learned differently. Nothing was frightening, though. I understood that I was under the influence of a powerful natural hallucinogen and enjoyed it all accordingly. Even more fascinating was how I heard music. Everything just got me very emotionally. It was all soooo fucking beautiful, moving beyond words. As utterly cornball as this may be, but "Nights in White Satin" by the Moody Blues brought me to tears. Oh, please, it's a beautiful song to begin with, and trust me, you would have done the same. Mostly he was playing Genesis—Conk was huge Genesis fan, particularly of the self-titled album with "Mama," "Home By the Sea" and "Second Home By the Sea." He played those songs over and over and over and over. I'd never heard them before, but they might well have been the most brilliant pieces of music ever recorded. Actually, no, they weren't, because they were nudged out of that position by his other obsession at the time, "Southern Cross" by Crosby, Stills & Nash. That might well be the only worthwhile thing they did after Neil went his own way again—well, that, and the last song on the same album, the title track: "Daylight Again." Quite possibly the spookiest piece of music ever recorded, period. He also played those more times than I could begin to count, and they nailed me every time. When it was time to crash, he put on 90125, calling it excellent music for coming down. How any album that begins with "Owner of a Lonely Heart" can be considered soothing is beyond me, but he was convinced. The pattern was in me even then: the sun was coming up, so I couldn't sleep. He was out for hours, though, and I couldn't do much but just sit there and wait for time to go by. Exactly a year later, The Ex and I had been a couple for about two and a half weeks. (I had in fact known her for a couple years by that point; we had a computer class together during the '88-'89 schoolyear, but were just casual friends who occasionally swapped tapes for our walkmans.) We broke up for a couple hours, which was as long as it took for me to convince her to change her mind and get back together with me. She did, of course, in plenty of time for us to join her family for their usual July 4 activities. Nine years later, I'm relieved that today sees the continuance of a tradition which I was afraid wouldn't survive my more recent and permanent breakup with The Ex: spending the day in Santa Cruz with my brother and his wife. But continue it does, simply without her. We usually spend the day walking around and shopping (my brother and I spend a lot of time in the record stores, but today I need to go real light on that). Then we have dinner and proceed to a certain stretch of beach which we discovered, the one which happens to be where the people with the super-kewl fireworks congregate. It's all really quite nice.
Today will be very different, of course. But hey, you know, what isn't anymore?
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Saturday, 3 July 1999 (energy) 10:15am I've been productive so far this morning. I pulled myself away from MST3K—they're doing Hamlet!!!—long enough to get some grocery shopping done. (I taped the show, of course. I have every episode on tape, being the obsessive nerd which I am.) Next up is a pilgrimmage to Costco. Downtown San Francisco on a warm Saturday morning with the X-Games still going on. Oh, fun. *sigh* As both an experiment and for time reasons, I'm in full-on guy mode, which I haven't done in a long time. Jeans (black, of course), t-shirt, white socks, hair tied in a regulation masculine "I'm not a fag I just have long hair" ponytail at the back of the neck, and nary a speck of makeup—not even eyeliner, without which I normally feel practically naked. I brushed my bangs back, and I haven't shaved since at 6am yesterday. The only real giveaway is my fingernails, which are still painted black (though mostly chipped). If I could sit still for five minutes without being at a computer I could remove the remainder. I've been meaning to redo them anyway. Like I said, it's as much for time reasons as much as anything—I want to get my errands out of the way as soon as possible, particularly if Sara calls wanting to go clothes shopping as she said she would. And I'll certainly be in full battle gear for Dana's party this evening. I've made a startling discovery, though: I don't look half bad as a guy. Of course, it's not as simple as that. I tend to associate me as a guy with things like my driver's license or the picture of Pandora and myself from '97. When made up I look nothing like those, and even in what could be considered my most natural state (like right now), I'm still a good seventy lbs. lighter than I was then, and that's bound to make a slight difference in how I view myself. Plus there's the effects of nearly a year of electrolysis and hormones to consider. Even with the fairly dramatic weight loss, without those I wouldn't look the way I look right now.
So I don't know, maybe it's not so much me looking fairly good by
male standards (whatever those are), because I'd like to think I don't look
overly butch, as it is me just growing happier with my actual
body itself, and the face is of course included in that. Someday
I hope be passable without wearing as much makeup as I tend to now,
and I'm thinking I may have a fighting chance. Which isn't meant to suggest
I think I'm passable right now, mind you. I'm not that deslusional. Besides,
as far as the makeup goes, I really am enjoying GAFing out so I'm going
to keep doing it regardless.
To elaborate on my earlier thought, I think what I'm going is learning more to appreciate the (temporary? ephemeral? transformative?) state I'm in right now. I would never ever want to be stuck back in full-time guy mode, but since I can still do it in this odd way I should try to have a little fun with it. It's a difficult concept to articulate. I'm not how I was, nor am I how I'm going to be. I'm somewhere between them, and I won't pass this way again. So I might as well try to experience all the different levels it has to offer. The journey's a waste if you're completely focused on the destination and don't pay any attention to the scenery passing by. Okay, yes, sure, if I could snap my fingers and just be done with it, I probably would. The desire for instant gratification is inside me as much as anyone else. But I think it's for the best it doesn't work that way. What I'm going through, what I'm seeing and thinking and feeling and experiencing, is fairly unique. Of course everyone is unique, but at the risk of sounding egotistical (not my intention), I'd daresay my life might be a little more unique than most other people. For that matter, I'm taking a different route than most other trannies.
But anyway. Gotta get going.
A lot of stuff he just gave away, including his remarkable collection of supersoakers. He invited me to help myself when I arrived, and I did, grabbing the first one to really catch my eye, and I carried it with me for most of the evening. Don't ask me why. For those interested in such things, it's a Larami XXP 175. So now I have a supersoaker. How GAF is that? The theme, more or less, was white trash and/or just obnoxious clothing. I rather thought my stripeys + skirt and Manson t-shirt would fit perfectly—suburban teenage Mansonite, c'mon!—but in fact it hardly made a dent. As was pointed out to me, I dress like that all the time. Fairly valid point, I suppose. Even if it's not all that common, I can't help but gain pleasure from the notion that it strikes people as natural on me. The food was white trash a-plenty, no question. Various forms of meats were barbecued (it was orignally supposed to be an outdoor bbq, but the typical bitterly cold San Francisco summer winds kept most of the activity inside), though there was a potluck element as well. The cheese & mustard sandwiches on white bread sans crusts in cookie-cutter shapes were quite a hit, as was the turkey chili mac. Which is to say, turkey chili with macaroni. At first I was extremely reluctant to eat something like that, considering how careful I am about what I put into my body. Hell, I haven't even had your basic Kraft mac'n'cheese in a long time, certainly not this year, if not even further back. But, hey, when in Rome. It was supposed to be white trash food. So, really, why not? As I rationalized aloud, "Who am I trying to kid? I grew up in Fresno—" I cut myself off, because my mind was reeling at what I almost said and how casually and naturally the thought had come to me: "—and my grrlfriend lives in Kansas." *skreeeech!* There's that increasingly familiar sound: my paradigm shifting once again...
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Friday, 2 July 1999 (the fugitive kind) 9:21am Is it ever too early in the morning for gay porn? I don't think so! 12:31pm For whatever it's worth, Supposed Former Infatuation Junkie is in today's heavy roatation.
Been a long day, and it just gets moreso from here.
Oh, I called TCI. Seems the sonofabitch actually does have an account with them,
so it may well be just a dangerously sloppy wiring job. The mind reels.
It just occured to me, I must look like hell by now. Gotta put the face back together.
The quarterly reviews are coming up. Has it been that long already? Yes, I suppose it has. In the interim since the last one, my boss and supervisor both moved into other departments entirely, so in a manner of speaking this one will be like starting from scratch. Then again, that's the way my entire life seems: every few months, I'm starting over. The reset button is hit, and while the slate may not be wiped clean it's at least dusted off a little. In any event, there's no question that I've been kicking much ass since the last review, and I don't intend to make any secret of the fact that I want a raise. Certainly doing so won't affect my chances negatively, as I'm sure Brian will do whatever he can. The problem, of course, is that there isn't an awful lot he can do, and performance is seldom properly compensated. Just ask Summer. May or may not make it to Shrine tonight. I'm going out to dinner with Dana and a few others, and whether or not Shrine will follow remains to be seen. Indeed, whether or not I'll even be able to go home and fix myself up at all before going to Dana's is questionable at this point.
Returned home to email from Madeline, despite her being at a friend's place in another state entirely. Oh, I do love the internet so. And it was wonderful to hear from her, since she's been on my mind quite a lot lately... My searching, my waiting—my probation—might finally be over.
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Thursday, 1 July 1999 (fundamentally loathsome) 11:27am This day is bound to pick up any time now. It must. Since I actually finally got to work at long last, then survived that useless fucking meeting (and updated this for the new month, but that doesn't take too long—haven't chosen a new picture just yet, though), maybe now I can get some work done for a change. 11:52am As I suspected would happen, I've reached guru status with the fresh-faced young intern. He's been thrown mostly by himself on a project which surely seems a little overwhelming to him, particularly since he's still figuring out all our standards and stuff. I've been in his position before, so I'm extremely sympathetic—I'm reminded of myself when I started at Organic—so of course I'm helping him through as much as I can. 12:41pm If you can't say something nice... 2:07pm Bowing to inevitability, I put mechanical animals on repeat and have just been letting it run. When I was at Autodesk last year, I did pretty much the same thing with Antichrist Superstar for a couple weeks during a crunch period, and it really did wonders for my mood.
Besides waking up late this morning (6:30am), I nicked myself while shaving for the first
time since at least last September. This is not a good sign.
Bad enough I get home a half an hour after Madeline went to bed and I won't get to talk to her again until Monday. Then I noticed something that I'd missed before, probably because I was distracted by the gas fumes. (Speaking of which, the pilot light in my stove had in fact gone out, but almost certainly from the disruption in the gas line caused the the new heater being installed.) My trash can, which is to say the trash can owned by me and ostensibly for the receiving and subsequent disposal of my trash, was missing. Normally it's right outside my front door. Not now. After a bit of hunting I discovered it had been moved away from my front door into the garage proper. (To clarify, the can which belonged to me had been moved away from me without my permission.) And I almost didn't recognize it at first since the last time I'd checked, it was empty. Monday was trash day. Now, however, it was very much full—with insulation and other things which were clearly from the changing of the upstairs heater. So, someone had apparently helped themselves to my trash can, even using the bag I'd already put in. Maybe it was whoever actually was hired to install the new heater, maybe it was my blithering nincompoop of a landlord, maybe it was my now comfy-warm (never mind the heatwave) upstairs neighbor. I honestly don't give a shit, though the temptation is great to call my landlord tomorrow and complain. I realize how George Liquor this is of me, but goddamnit, is it too much to ask that at LEAST my trash can doesn't get fucked with? Huh? Fine—fine—nothing is permanent, everything goes away, all support systems eventually crumble, love fades, you name it. I'm aware of these things. Thus, if I have to settle for just being able to open my front door and toss something into the trash, be it milk that's gone bad or the bag from underneath the sink, fine. When you can't even have that much, what the hell is left? Tomorrow, I'm calling TCI, the evil local cable company. I'm going to tell them flat out that I think my neighbor is pirating my cable. They should be able to tell me if he has an account; I certainly don't recall ever having seen any TCI bills for him in the mail. But I'm willing to allow the 1% chance that it's legitimate, and just a mind-bogglingly sloppy job on the company's part. Though the cable goes into his place through the ceiling, between the hole and where it branches off from my cable, he didn't even both securing it to the ceiling of the garage, hence it's hanging fairly low. If you walked in there with the lights off, you might walk right into it. With any luck you won't stumble and either A) strangle yourself or B) pull it down completely from the wall. In any event, I'm getting frustrated beyond belief with all of this, I really am. There isn't much I can do (what? I'm going to move? not damn likely), but I'm gonna do what I can. A little bit of positivity: The Ex was successful in acquiring the powder from the Pleasanton Hot Topic, and Maddy may be able to pick me up a few in her travels this weekend. So as my damn shadow gets thicker and more prominent and my neanderthal genes really begin to assert themseles, my arsenal will be full and ready to fight it back.
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