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Tuesday, 20 July 1999 (organic) 7:05am In drab for the second day in a row now. I was extremely tempted to get made up this morning, and I'm fairly certain my skin has healed up enough to handle it, but another day of medication is what it really needs. Certainly this'll make the jowls go away sooner. And maybe the big ugly zit which has appeared on my neck won't seem quite as out of place. If I'm going to look like shit, I might as well go all in the way. So Madeline sent me another picture yesterday, a very recent and fairly candid one. (No, not in that way.) I'm finally starting to form a definite mental image of her; it's taken quite a while, since you could probably look at two different pictures and not necessarily realize it's the same person. The same holds true for me, admittedly. Anyway, I was struck by something I hadn't noticed before: she bears a certain resemblence to The Ex, at least the way The Ex looked several years ago. This isn't necessarily a bad thing, for The Ex was quite lovely (and Maddy is even more so now), and it won't have any bearing on our relationship one way or the other. Until recently, though, it was difficult for me to shake the image of Maddy with blue hair, which is how I first saw her. Still, I can't help but find it a little ironic: surely more by random chance than any kind of grand design, The Ex and I seem to have found new loves who are not unlike the other was when we were younger. Heck, if I was making a film about the early days of our relationship, I probably couldn't ask for a better casting job than—
Oh, wow. Oh, wow. How brilliant an idea is that? To get
an independent film made and subsequently noticed these
days, you need a hook or gimmick some kind. (Hence the whole
"Is it real or isn't it?" nonsense about The Blair
Witch Project. Tangentially, going to see that together
is one of the relatively few out-of-the-apartment things Madeline and I
currently have planned
for when she visits. Seems an appropriate first date, somehow.)
And there it is: an autobiographical film with my grrlfriend
playing The Ex and The Ex's boifriend playing me. Goddamn, I
love it! Now if I can only find funding...
i was hoping we could heal each other 5:01pm I screwed up, no question. No real harm done, and she says I didn't so much hurt her feelings as make her feel uncomfortable, but still. (It was the reference to her bearing a resemblence to The Ex. All I can really say in my defense is, when I came up with the joke about making the movie, I couldn't resist. Mea culpa.) I don't like the thought of hurting her or making her uncomfortable on any level, and I'm extremely sorry for having done so. Her sister came to her defense to an extent, though, and that was nice to see. It's good to know that her family is watching out for her. I'm trying to imagine mine doing the same, and frankly, it ain't happening. Meanwhile, Tania said something absolutely beautiful: I'll bet that the last quarter of this year will be one of the highlights of your life. Just promise that you'll be conscious of it and enjoy it as much as you can. I had a time like that once and I'm eternally grateful that I had the sense to recognize it for what it was while it was happening.Amen to that. 8:58pm It's safe to say my skin has healed up enough to handle makeup tomorrow. There's still redness right now, but it may well be gone by tomorrow morning. And if not, the foundation alone will cover it, let alone the powder. And the swelling has gone down, returning my face to an approximation of its normally aesthetically questionable shape. That's good enough for me.
It won't help the overcrowded restroom situation any, and
I think I've made the accounting department nervous enough
just with how I've looked the last couple days. (Scary.
Trust me on this one.) But I don't care. I don't like
looking like this anymore, so I'm not going to.
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Monday, 19 July 1999 (alternation) 8:32am Shaving this morning was successful, meaning no blood or discomfort. I was very tempted to take that as a sign that my skin's ready for more stress, which is to say makeup, but I decided against it. Another day of hydrocortisoning the hell out of it is surely for the best. Not to mention there's still a degree of swelling; whether or not it's noticeable to anyone else I can't really say, but I'm well aware of it and that's enough. If I'm going to be misshapen, I might as well be misshapen and drab. To that effect, I'm wearing jeans for the first time in weeks—black jeans, of course, but jeans nonetheless. Somehow, wearing the velvets didn't seem quite right in this context. Still wearing eyeliner, though. I mean, come on, it's not like I'm going to leave the house naked. Anyway, their stuff appears to be moved in, so I guess the accounting department arrives today. Fun.
I finally put up a picture of Maddy at my desk; bottom left corner of my monitor,
to be precise. Took me long enough.
(It gets worse: I was forced to use a urinal for the first time in months. I've been avoiding them on ethical grounds for quite some time, but in this case I had no choice, for the two count 'em TWO stalls were both occupied. That's never happened here before. One restroom with two stalls and two urinals for this entire floor. I sadly cannot report on the situation in the women's room, but I'd imagine it isn't much better.) Anyway, we got to talking, and went back to his office. I mentioned my growing dissatisfcation with my current position, particularly the spatial issues in the office. As for my job itself and who I work with, except for certain individuals about whom I've already bitched too much about, I'm fairly happy. But this damn place is wrong. The more I think about it, the more I believe that we're here because the big boss took one look at what was to be his corner office and got an immediate erection. It fits his overinflated ego perfectly, never mind whether or not it made a damn bit of sense of to move this department here—and I assure you, my obvious bias aside, it did not.
So he got me thinking about transferring elsewhere. Into the TV division, maybe. What the hell, I have
a film degree, so it makes a little more sense. Same company so i can keep my current benefits and
stock options (which I won't see a penny from until post-Y2K), but a new building, a new environment,
new challenges. I can't deny it has a very strong appeal.
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Sunday, 18 July 1999 (currents) 9:56am Big huge headline on the Examiner, in what I presume to be their largest typeface: "JFK Jr. feared dead." I wonder what they're going to do when/if the death is confirmed. Have nothing on the front page but the headline, I suppose. My face is actually healing up quite nicely. I definitely look like I'm storing food for the winter and don't plan to be seen in public, but the redness is nothing like it usually is. There's already regrowth, of course. That's a given. Not quite as prominent on the upper lip as usual, even for this short a time; usually by the next day I already have a John Waters kinda thing happening. But the day is still young. As for today, my primary goal—beyond awaiting Maddy's return—is to finish up my latest column for Errata. Perki is not pleased, and Dana & I are the last tardies. At least I'm in good company. The feeling is not dissimilar to knowing you have homework due on Monday and not being able to bring yourself to do it on Sunday. Y'know, one of the reasons I went through college so quickly (three years community, three years university, out the friggin' door with a useless BA in hand) is so I'd never have to put up with that again.
Certainly gives me mixed feelings about writing for a living;
having a deadline can suck the joy clean out of it. (The
column has nothing to do with how I earn my living, but
let's ignore that for the sake of argument.) But that's the
way the system is, the way it must be—I know enough
writers to know that without some kind of imposed schedule,
most would never get anything done, except for the most personal
of indulgences. Lord knows I'm as guilty of that as anyone.
Just called my mom. It's been a while since we spoke on the phone, and I figured now was as good a time as any. When I first dialed, though, I got a recording informing me the area code had changed from 209 to 559. Further proof that you can't go home again. I told her about Maddy, of course. She was more inquisitive than anything else. "Is she like you are?" was the first question, and I answered the next most obvious question before she had a chance to ask: yes, she knows everything about me. I gave her a brief rundown of how we were introduced, which I can only hope will convince her there's no deception involved. She grilled me further: where exactly she lives, what she does for a living, education, kids, etc. A checklist. On some level I'm sure she was happy for me, though she didn't actually come out and say it. She did mention that she'd been thinking earlier on the morning about the breakup and what it a tragedy it had been (though acknowledging its inevitability due to...oh, well, gosh, we all know WHY The Ex's heart got broken, right?), and particularly how fond she was of The Ex, how she considered her a close member of the family and would miss her. I observed, as I have many times before, that the most common reaction I'd received regarding the breakup was people hoping The Ex was well and how much they'd miss her. Concern for my well-being, what with having just been through a breakup and all, frequently seemed an afterthought. ("Oh, and what about you? Are you okay? Good. Well, if you see her, tell her I said hi and how sorry I am.") She didn't argue the point. The Ex's parents, while ostensibly fond of me, have made no attempt to contact me or let me know they still wanted to be friends as my mom and much of my family seems to have done with The Ex. Indeed, the only member of her family to do so was her cousin Gloria. Which is perfectly okay, because I've always liked Gloria and was never too crazy about The Ex's siblings. In any event, Mr. Ex certainly made any need to keep in touch with me moot, since he bears a striking resemblence to how I looked about seven years ago, and of course everyone prefers that to how I look now. My mom plead the Fifth on that one. Ironically, we had to get off the phone because my brother and his wife arrived at her place. I'd had no idea they were even in Fresno for the weekend. Not that I'd had any plans to go into Fresno, but it pretty much confirmed my suspicion that the next time I need to go there, I'm on my own.
What the hell. I'm used to it.
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Saturday, 17 July 1999 (hyrdocodone) 8:29am Here we go, again. I'm wearing the "Love Sucks" t-shirt Madeline gave me, which somehow makes it seem like it won't be quite so bad.
swallow it down (what a jagged little pill) 7:00pm Just call me Coma White. I hit the painkillers pretty hard today. I took a half vicodin before I left for Phil's around 9AM, then a full one around 10:50, while still on the bus, just before I got to his place. You see, after all this time I've only now gotten it through my thick skull that the stuff is much more effective if you give it a little time to be absorbed into your system. Used to be I'd wait to pop one until I was about to lay down on the table. Nope, wrong. My overall comfort level really was improved this way, since I was already feeling a smidgen dopey by the time I laid down. It doesn't take much to knock that level completely out of whack, however. Into Phil's CD changer (he learned very early on that it was wisest just to let me have free reign) I put Bob Dylan's Desire, Wilco's Summer Teeth and mechanical animals. The last was a bit of an experiment, because for as much as love that album it's a bit heavier than what I usually put on for zapping. The less overtly aggressive, the better. But mechanical animals has a great deal of emotional resonance for me right now, as Manson's music often does. Arbiters of taste—and you know who you are—can kindly go fuck themselves. We took one of our occasional breaks shortly after the disc began. I paused the stereo and went downstairs to the restroom, an oddly communal one-seater with no lock on the door (either the mechanism had been removed or the door had been kicked in and that's where it broke, I don't know which) and a perpetual though not entirely unpleasant smell vaguely reminiscent of oysters. Ah, the glamour that is my life. By the time I got back, Phil had turned discovered that JFK Jr.'s plane was missing. I'd heard something about it that morning but didn't give it much thought. To be perfectly frank, I don't care. (Between that and The Blair Witch Project I have an awful feeling that TFQ will not be able to keep his miserable little trap shut come Monday morning.) I'm sure he was a very nice guy and I suspect this many hearts haven't collectively broken since his marriage, but otherwise it simply does not matter to me. Celebrity deaths seldom do; Carl Sagan, Jim Henson and Frank Zappa are the first ones that pop to mind as having genuinely affected me. Carl, particularly. It broke my heart. It's not fair that he's gone yet Art Bell and Jesse Helms are still with us. When Imani, an avid Art Bell listener, described me not unkindly as having "a scientific mind," I took it as a great compliment and would like to think that Carl would have been proud. It's thanks to him. His books opened me up to a whole new way of thinking, and are to an extent responsible for me being who I am today. Phil, on the other hand, was hooked. He particularly wanted to know if anyone else was in the plane, which struck me as pretty damn ghoulish. A very American reaction, I suppose: what's the bodycount? Phil sat back down and said we'd keep the TV on until they mentioned who else was in the plane. At this point, all they really knew was that his plane was missing and precious little else. But it was very important to Phil, never mind that by tomorrow surely every minute detail will be plastered over every medium. So I popped another pill (this one from Phil, either vicodin or loracet, he didn't know for certain and I didn't care) and laid back down on the table. So wrong. It was all so very wrong. The comfort level was nonexistant. I had nothing to listen to, nothing to focus on other than Tom Brokaw (Peter Jennings?) repeat that the plane was missing and that they couldn't find the fucking plane and that John F. Kennedy Jr.'s plane was missing and here's some expert or another to say kind things about him and comment on his life and while we're at it did we mention that his plane is missing and he's presumed dead and in addition to running a magazine he was named Sexiest Man Alive at some point but of course that made him very uncomfortable because you see that's not what he was about and here's another commentator to commentate on— I couldn't remember the last time it had hurt so bad. He wasn't even working on a particularly sensitive area (he'd already done the upper lip) yet the pain was only barely tolerable. This wasn't right. I hate the media, I hate how it goes into a feeding frenzy when something like this happens and I want nothing more than to just hide from it all, particuarly right at this exact moment as I have needles penetrating my flesh and believe me when I tell you, during electrolysis the absolutely last fucking thing you want to do is ruminate on the procedure itself or on the philosophy of pain management, because whatever buffer the brain is able to construct for itself begins to crumble... My eyes began to swell with tears. This was fucking nuts, this was not happening, uh-uh, there was absolutely no chance in hell that I was going to start crying during a fucking electolysis session, and certainly not just because I wasn't getting to listen to my music, never mind that it wasn't fair at all, I honestly believe I don't ask for much in this world, this is one of those little things, and don't even get me started on how fair it is that the woman I love is 1800 miles and a month and a half away— If Phil noticed, he didn't say anything. He was working on the right side of my face, hence my head was cocked to the left, so what few tears managed to struggle from my right eye just sorta stayed there since my eyes are fairly sunken. At least a single fully-formed one escaped from my left eye and rolled down my temple. Most likely he didn't notice, since he was of course intently focused on the bottom half of my face. The most obvious giveaway would have been my voice, and I said as little as possible. Asking him to change it any sooner would have pointless, and when you're trying not to worsen an exceedingly fragile emotional state, the first step is not to talk. Talking always makes it worse. Eventually he put the music back on, though I don't know how long the TV had been on. Maybe twenty minutes or so. Entirely too long. My eyes did dry a little, and when got up to do the honors I took the opportunity to wipe them as much as I could. In any event, mechanical animals had never sounded quite so comforting. The session lasted four hours. I was prepared to go longer—I had enough medication, music, will and facial hair to continue almost indefinitely, even if it wouldn't have been wise financially—but he had to leave to join his wife and her kids. His wife, whom I've never actually met, is a post-op TS, and the kids are from her previous marriage. They'd come to terms with their father's transition. Then again, maybe not. One of the kids, whom I'll give the benefit of the doubt and say is 21, came into Phil's office. Very all-American, with short hair, wraparound sunglasses, baggy pants, etc. It was only 3pm, but he was admittedly already drunk, talking proudly of the five brews he'd already slammed that day and how he intended to get more and par-TAY. I'd never actually heard anyone pronounce it that way without being ironic, but he couldn't have been more serious. Or eager. Y'know, however frustrating, harrowing or just plain unpleasant this may all be at times, it's people like him which help remind me that I'm doing the right thing, at least the right thing for me.
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Friday, 16 July 1999 (poison) 8:45am I've been through this movie before. This is nothing. This is a fuckin' cakewalk. Having to deal with that little yutz on a regular basis doesn't even compare.
Screw him. I'm stronger than this.
Well, it just disintegrated from there. He started going on about how tired he was of me always "talking over" his conversations with Elizabeth, how he doesn't do that to me—he's butted into Summer and I talking, but I guess that doesn't count—and that if I couldn't say anything nice I shouldn't say anything at all. I didn't so much argue his points as play almost the sullen teenager role: "Yeah, fine, whatever." Escalating the situation wouldn't have helped matters any, and the mood I was in that day...okay, I don't know what "snapping" would be in my case. But it's best to be avoided. He is irrelevant. Not even a blip on the radar.
I'm in love with a beautiful grrl who's in love with me. That's what my emotions are about these days. The
rest of this nonsense is just in the way.
3.2 Why is the "punk episode" enormously popular?
While "Generation X" is now in their late 20s and early 30s, many get quite a kick out of this
and another early 80s series (CHiPs) take on what it meant to be a "punk rocker."
I see. The Sex Pistols and The Breakfast Club. Yes, now it all makes sense.
They won't actually be here until next week, though. Right now the movers are doing their thing. Of course, the stare factor is pretty high. Duh. Large men who may or may not speak English obviously not sure what to make of me. What else is new? I'm starting to feel kinda bummed about missing Shrine tonight, but there's just no way. Even beyond my hairiness, The Ex is taking the car so I'd have to Muni it. Uh, no. On the plus side, she's going to be picking me in about an hour so I can at least go grocery shopping and don't have to take the train home tonight. I'll have to bus it to and from Alameda tomorrow, and the inevitable swelling means Slick is out on Sunday. A lot of my friends are attending and I want to go with them, but healing from electrolysis and going to a fetish club aren't particularly compatible activities. And Madeline's out of (her) town until at least early Sunday afternoon. She'll have sporadic email access, but that's about it. Something tells me I'll be keeping one eye on the AIM icon on Sunday, though.
Over the weekend of the Fourth, my philosophical dilemna was whether or not it was even possible to miss
someone who you hadn't met in person. I'm quite beyond that particular brain-teaser now. Now I'm onto
a new, slightly more complicated quandry...
Of course, this was the first time I'd seen her since I'd told her about Madeline, which was on the phone. I don't care how detached she claims she is from me, it's simply not possible that the news wouldn't have caused some small reaction in her. It's like official confirmation that the old us is gone. Even her becoming "official" with Mr. Ex didn't quite do it, for I was still in a holding pattern at the time. I hadn't yet moved on. But that's just what I'm doing now. This isn't to suggest that I think it's tearing her up inside or anything like that, just that it bothers her more than she'd ever be willing to let on. That puzzled look is like a plain brown wrapper, and who's ever been fooled by one of those? To my chagrin, Annie Lenox's "Why" came on the radio while we were driving. I like the song well enough, but its current existance as a car commercial jingle bothers me quite a bit. What's more, during the brouhaha of October '94 she found great significance in the song, believing it applied to our relationship. She was particularly belting it out today, with a certain emphasis on the line "These are the years we've spent/and this is what they represent." I found myself thinking as always have that she really has a beautiful voice and that it was a shame she'd never pursued singing as a career. After a few years together I'd stopped bothering to encourage her, since it became clear that encouraging her to do something was an almost sure-fire why to ensure it didn't happen. I was also saddened by the thought that she's willfully destroying her voice by starting to smoke again. Perhaps it feels like a liberating act, I don't know. Some smokers seem to regard it as an act of personal freedom. Gaining an addiction as a means of expressing freedom is one of those mysteries that make humans the fascinating creatures they are.
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Thursday, 15 July 1999 (severe minority) 7:48am So Lee is alive and doing well. He sounds very happy to be away from all the drama and politics and backstabbing and egos and bullshit that poison our little subculture and indeed the world at large. There is justice.
I have no idea when I'll be able to make it to his continent, but I'm hoping it'll be
soon. I'd particularly love for him to meet Maddy (not as much as I'd love to meet her,
mind you),
though that may or may not be possible during her visit. Something to think about. Yeah,
like I'm at a loss for those lately.
I wonder if it isn't time that I start seriously considering looking for another job. This place is starting
to feel even more unfriendly.
Guess it means I'll have a chance to get some writing done. No, really.
Played with one the new toys on her computer, with interesting results. I can only dream of being the sort of geek she is, but it'll probably never happen. I'll bet she's really good at math.
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Wednesday, 14 July 1999 (coma white) 8:00am So far, so good. Then again, nobody else is here. 9:52am He's online again. He knows I want to hear from him, so the ball's in his court. I can only do so much. 10:00am Madeline refused my initial request to kill me. Maybe if I asked her really really nice? She can even drain my blood if she wants. There are worse ways to go. 12:40pm She's in pain. I'm here. She's there.
Goddamnit.
Seems the people closest to me are in a state of anger for one reason or another. Fortunately, none of us are mad at each other, lest we'd have nobody to help us through. Rather, they're angry with their Ex's, and for good reason. Madeline in particular may finally be acknowledging her completely justified yet mostly suppressed rage at how she was treated by her Ex. It's difficult and painful and I dearly wish she didn't have to go through it, but it may be necessary to do so, for the catharsis which I can't help thinking she needs. And me...well, all things considered, The Ex and I are on fairly good terms. The vindictive part of me (yeah, I know, what other part is there?) would like to think that she's just the slightest bit upset about Madeline and I. That somewhere inside of her there exists a neuron or two that still loves me and wishes we were still together, and that it's hurting just a little tiny bit. Of course, I didn't even go to the trouble of informing her that Maddy and I are official, as she had so graciously done in regards to her man. I simply referred to her as my grrlfriend, which certainly felt wonderful. When we broke up, The Ex said that she wanted me to hurt in the same way as she was hurting. Perhaps I've never quite forgiven her for that. Perhaps like most humans I can't just be satisfied to have someone to love, but someone else's heart has to break a little, too. Distance is based on perspective; how can you know you're moving on unless you're leaving something behind? Then there's my primary twin targets of personal anger and rage and frustration, The Fidget Queen and Crawford. (Maddy's Ex is dwelling in their shadows, but that's categorically out of my hands.) Neither have directly wronged me, and Crawford probably doesn't even realize I exist, which is surely for the best. But I cannot forgive him for what he did to my dear friend, the person who was probably most crucial in my development being what it is today. The sonofabitch's nearly angelic status with the rest of the universe—remember on South Park when Stan's mom thought he was a serial killer, so she started smothering him with love to compensate? that's what I'm reminded of—does nothing but aggravate me more. Of course it does, becuase it just confirms that he got away with it. He tried, he was successful. He's confirmed to his admirers that even though he dresses like a sissy he's got a big huge dick which he can wield anywhere at any time. And as for TFQ...oh, there's no point. There's no goddamned point at all. I could list a million things that piss me off and not a single one would be remotely justified and I'd just get myself more agitated. It's not worth it. He's here, and that's that. Fuck him. Fuck them all. Tomorrow, Dana's coloring my hair. Saturday, I'm getting zapped. Freshly blackened hair, a face devoid of fur. And who knows, maybe it'll unnerve that spikey-haired little pud just a little. Of course, I'd like to think that's what it is, that what I've percieved as his extreme discomfort with my feminization is what causes the tension between us. It has nothing to do with him being gay, either. This company is brimming over with queers, and I've yet to meet one who isn't completely cool with me and what I'm doing. (Mark has even referred to me as a "goddess." He's getting through.) Except, my paranoid mind tells me, him. He can be butch and fey all he wants. I'm going to be beautiful and feminine.
Let us give thanks for the shallow and superficial things, sometimes all we have
to cling to in moments of duress.
Sometimes my life is so surreal, if I wasn't living it myself I wouldn't
believe it was actually happening.
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Tuesday, 13 July 1999 (downswing) 5:15am Third shaving mishap. This time I took it right on the chin, so to speak. Real bleeder, this one, the kind which should best not be exposed to foreign substances, even of the hypo-allergenic nature. The kind which usually results in guys walking around with little tiny bits of tissue sticking to their faces. Like a masculine badge of honor.
I think I'm going to be ill.
It's too soon to tell, of course. If I haven't heard from her on some level by this afternoon, I'll call.
All the signs I'm getting are that if I spend anymore time in the world than is absolutely necessary I'll
regret it. Something will go wrong. And yet, I'm feeling the strong urge. Indeed, I've been thinking
about heading over to Pier 39. Tourist central is far from the wisest place for me to be right now. Or
maybe that's exactly what I need, to swim amongst the rabble, if I may mix my metaphors. Maybe all I
need is a shot in the arm.
Oh, that was harsh. The worst of all possible bad timing. My heart really goes out
to her.
I hate this. I hate confrontations, I hate animosity, I hate that in every gathering of humans there will be at least two people who each other, I hate that I'm frequently one of those people, I fucking hate hatred.
this isn't me i'm not mechanical 8:17pm Just when I thought the day couldn't get any heavier...well, that'll teach me, huh? 8:49pm I wonder how many times I've told myself I'd do this, but I'm keeping my goddamn mouth shut tomorrow. Headphones on. Fuck 'em all. I don't want to know what's going on or what they're doing. If anyone wants to talk, they can walk right up to me. Otherwise, I don't care. 9:54pm Maybe what I need isn't a shot in the arm but a zap on the face. To that effect, I actually called Phil tonight and have an appointment with him this Saturday morning. Changes my plans for the rest of the week a smidgen, though. Probably no Shrine on Friday, and then laying low for the rest of the weekend. When I heal up, there's a roughly zillion percent chance that my mood will be greatly improved. The degree to which my facial hair is noticeable has a direct bearing on how I regard the world. And, right now, the world can fuckin' blow me.
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Monday, 12 July 1999 (mercury) 7:27am Woke right up at 4:10am this morning, no problem at all. Even though I used to get up by 3:45 regularly, it's been much harder lately. Today was much easier, for some reason, and I'm glad. If I've learned anything over the last few weeks, it's that I've gotta get out of the apartment no later than 6 or else I *will* get caught up in the worst of the morning commute. The extra hour or so of sleep ain't worth it. I got stoned last night with Gloria, which actually may have had something to do with it. Grass has always helped me sleep, and consequently wake up earlier and more refreshed. During my intense weight loss period in late '98 (not to be confused with my current, even more intense "keep the weight off without really exercising" period), I smoked every night, fell right to sleep, woke up super-early and worked out for two hours at the gym. The perfect synthesis of sixties and nineties lifestyles.
Now I get to catch up with all the work I didn't really get done last week. Oh, joy.
And if I might mope a bit more, The Fidget Queen is playing Mariah Carey. My teeth are rattling.
Now, I'm not necessarily suggesting that a strict ratio must be maintained or anything like that. And yet, it's not
the most positive of trends. Of everywhere I've ever worked, all the way back to the video store, there've always
been women in management and otherwise well-represented amongst the employees. Except for HR, however, this is a
very male-dominated company. Nothing's perfect, I guess, and I'm sure TFQ wouldn't object.
tear the petals off of you
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Sunday, 11 July 1999 (if) 10:00am Never did make it to Orky's party, any more than Madeline made it to her engagement for the evening, since we spent the entire night talking. Somewhere along the line we decided to take that next step and declare ourselves official, to consider ourselves grrlfriends. It might seem silly. Maybe it is silly. I don't know, and I don't really care. It just seems right. The "L" word remains unused, at least in classical subject-verb-object structure, and will probably stay as such until we actually spend some time together in person. Which doesn't mean we don't both feel it...
But it will tide us over for now. Indeed, for now, I couldn't be
happier.
Of course the powder goes on over it, and how it interacts with the powder is what I'm most curious about. Specifically, how the powder clings to the foundation, because typically after a couple hours it's mostly gone away. I may just not understand the chemistry involved, but that's what experimentation is all about, isn't it?
Anyway, so far I like it. Been about three hours and it's holding together
nicely. (I'm also using the "frosty" side of the Revlon Street Wear Tar
eyeliner on my lips, an idea I stole from Maddy, and it looks quite neat.)
Then again, I've been inside all day long without
much air circulation (which is to say, without walking into the wind),
so that probably has a lot to do with the longevity. So tomorrow will be
the real test.
Which, in and of itself doesn't bother me, seeing as how my family is essentially very friendly. That's just the way we are, and I'm glad. It was nice to have someone to talk to about Madeline who's been out of the loop otherwise. (I see Gloria maybe once every six or seven months on average, although her work will be bringing her into town about once a month now, so hopefully we'll be hanging out together more.) She was very happy for me—and also mentioned at several points how pretty and real I'm looking and how impressed she is, which sure doesn't hurt seeing as how I'm a total compliment whore—and didn't seem disapproving whatsoever. I guess I'm expecting to get the "It's too soon to get involved with someone else!" speech from somebody at some point. Granted, it's most likely to come from the sort of person who would give me the "Are you sure you know what you're doing?" speech on other matters, and that's not Gloria. My mother seems the most likely candidate. I haven't actually told her about Maddy, though I did drop a few less than subtle hints recently. By her own admission she's lousy at getting hints, though in this case I think it's partially a steadfast refusal to get involved on any level. She probably doesn't want to hear anything about my personal life that doesn't involve The Ex and I getting back together. Anyway, Gloria and I went into the Castro because there were certain items she wanted to obtain and that was the most likely place. (Don't ask.) I love that part of town, I really do, but damn, the scutiny one receives there is astonishing. Somehow, in the place once called "the gayest four corners on Earth," I was so damn queer looking the clones stared largely in disbelief. Considering that I was wearing all black and didn't have big hair, that struck me as an odd kind of achievment. At least I got to see how the foundation holds up in natural light. I definitely looked even paler/whiter than usual. I may very well be on to something here...
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