Sunday, 10 May 2009 (almost a kiss) 6:30pm At The Dark Room, where I just did the film shoot for "We Women Fuck," the poem I've attempting to memorize for the past month. Thankfully, Cesare was kind enough to spend a few hours helping me memorize it this afternoon in Golden Gate Park. I managed to nail about seventy percent of it, which is better than where I was without his help. I really need to learn to ask for help more. I don't do it as often as I should. 7:18pm Dancing on The Dark Room's stage to Imani Coppola, because I can. sometime after midnight Karaoke at Divas: "Dark End of the Street" and "My Favorite Mistake," because there are always old demons to purge. | ||
Saturday, 9 May 2009 (j.l.i.a.t.o.y.o.) 9:10am There's nothing more futile than complaining about a barking dog. Except complaining about a rampaging giraffe, I suppose. 8:51pm While at the gym this morning (finishing up Amy Cohen's The Late Bloomer's Revolution and beginning Noelle Oxenhandler's The Wishing Year), I remembered that I cried recently. It had been brief, just a few wracking sobs, but powerful all the same. The thing is, for the life of me, I'm not sure when it was or what it was about. I'm beginning to think I was in bed at the time, and it may well have been in a dream. Could be my brain's trying to tell me something. Not that I mind. I'm a firm believer in the catharsis of crying, and consider the two most damaging words in the English language to be don't cry. Anyway, from The Late Bloomer's Revolution, page 276, about a crumbling engagement: Our fights were even more terrifying because we'd made our relationship so public. I knew there were people who thought William and I weren't going to last. I knew this because someone had said, "If this were anyone else I'd be convinced there was no way in hell you two would make it down the aisle." Other people were now asking if I was pregnant. "No?" one of them said. "Wow. I'm shocked. I assumed that's why you two rushed into this." Now if William or I said, "That's it!" or "I'm leaving," we'd have to tell the entire world it hadn't worked out after all.Except for the part about being pregnant, that's pretty how I felt early on in my relationship with Maddy. My first inkling that all was not well came in September '99, when she got upset because I helped The First color her hair. We very nearly broke up in October, but didn't, partially because I couldn't deal with another breakup less than a year after breaking up with The FirstI couldn't have even begun to imagine the Ripley/Vash breakup bloodbath that would happen several years laterand partially (mostly?) because my pride couldn't take that hit. I was very early into my transition and a lot people still weren't sure that I knew what the hell I was doing, so I felt the need to project the image that I had my shit together and was making all the right decisions. It wasn't true then and may not have ever been true (hey, I'm unemployed and single right now! Go me!), but I just couldn't bear the thought of such a public failure. By the time she'd moved across the country and landed on my doorstep in December things were really not well, and would reach levels of heretofore unimagined levels of unwellness in the dark months to come. Which the first sentence of the next paragraph nails: I started to think that even when things were calm between us, it was like Loch Ness, where a monster might rise out at any moment.Pretty much. | ||
Friday, 8 May 2009 (frequencies and colors) sometime after midnight After a fairly productive dayit's amazing how much more I get done when I actually write down the stuff I need to doI hit the gym in the evening, then went to Pete and Sarah Goldie's place to watch the teevee movie Caprica, the Battlestar Galactica prequel. I enjoyed it quite a lot and I'm looking forward to the series which begins next year, since it's obviously going to be a big soap opera, and I do love my stories. Sarah commented that I'm looking thinner, the second person to do so in the past twenty-four hours. At the risk of sounding brainwashed by the patriarchal media's beauty standard, yay! | ||
Thursday, 7 May 2009 (the work of attrition) 12:16pm Michelle Talgarow has officially come on as director of "The Last Dog and Pony Show." I'm very happy about this. 2:33pm I hate waiting in long lines, so naturally I'm going to do it twice today. The first was earlier at the pantry. Never pleasant, since there's so much shoving and attempted cutting. (That's just the Thursday one. The Sunday one isn't like that at all.) The next line is going to be much more fun, I hope, outside the Star Trek premiere with Jim from The Dark Room. It's been a long time since I've been so geekily excited about something, and I intend to enjoy it. 4:59pm In line with Jim. I wish The First could be here with us, but she's out of the time zone entirely. I have my phaser and my tribble, at least. 5:58pm Huh. They let us in an hour before the movie is supposed to start. I can't quite shake the feeling that the gas pellets are about to drop. 5:58pm Seventeen dollar tickets, and we still have to sit through commericals for Sprite and the execrable AXE before the movie starts. Thanks, 2009. sometime after midnight Exhilarated, emotionally drained, proud, thrilled, joyous, wholly satisfied, craving more, dazzled, and pandered to in the best possible way. In short, I loved the new Star Trek and I couldn't be happier. And Winona Ryder as Amanda? Hot. Afterward, I had a late dinner at Big Lantern with Rhiannon and her mom, the latter of whom commented that I'm looking thinner these days. The perfect end to a wonderful evening. | ||
Wednesday, 6 May 2009 (someone else's history) 11:14am From yesterday's SF Weekly (May 5 - 11, 2009): Unemployed straight guys attend transgender job fair Lookit me, I'm fabulously distinctive! And I'm glad the Squid got a shout-out. So, yeah. I failed the Bank of America online assessment, which was not Unicru this time, but rather a marginally less evil system called PreVisor. And that margin is only there because their design is a little more pleasing to the eye because they don't have the "It's maddening when the court lets guilty criminals go free" question. I suppose this should be humbling or effect my self-esteem or something, but it really doesn't. It's an arbitrary gatekeeper, and the fact that it won't let me pass isn't a reflection on me. It's just a rotten system all around. I bought some strawberries and blackberries yesterday. I've really missed having berries as part of my breakfast, and after a couple months on the dole, I've determined that I can fit them comfortably back into my budget, especially since I'm not getting the super high-quality kind from Rainbow or Whole Foods. (My experiment with frozen berries didn't go well. There's something about them which triggers my gag reflex.) What I'm probably looking forward to most about getting a job is returning to my eating habits from late last year. I liked it, and it worked for me. | ||
Tuesday, 5 May 2009 (that's when i reach for my revolver) 9:42pm Thank you for completing the assessment. Unfortunately, based upon your responses, this position does not appear to be the right fit for your skill set at this time. Corporate policy does not allow you to reapply for this position with this company for a period of six months from today. However, please visit the company website to see other career opportunities that may be of interest to you. Thank you.Hey, don't mention it. | ||
Monday, 4 May 2009 (mating rituals of the bespectacled ver. 2.2) 7:51am I've been automatically waking around half past seven lately, unable to go back to sleep, regardless of when I went to bed. That's not okay, body. Then again, I have a ton of stuff to do today, so the sooner I get started, the better. I'll just need to nap this afternoon before working out with Raphaela in the evening, because I know five hours of sleep will not do. 8:33am I just made an appointment to take Phoebe to Chris's Smog Shop tomorrow morning for a long overdue checkup. Hal recommended the place to me, and Phoebe's way past both the mileage and time limit for maintenance. I've been rather stupidly putting it off since getting laid off, both because of the cost (which is negligible in the scheme of things) and because of dreading the eighty-mile round trip to Saturn of Concord. Also falling squarely into the "stupid" column is the fact that I've forgotten to check the oil for gods know how many weeks, and I came very close to burning out her engine on Saturday. I was at the top of Portola near the Clipper turnoff when she started to...shake, for want of a better word. Thankfully, I was in one of the few parts of town where I could pull over immediately. My first thought was that one of her wheels was loose (probably because I watched Zodiac a few nights ealier), and then I had the bright idea to check the oil, of which the dipstick told me there was none. Yeah, whoops. It was cold and rainy, but I had enough sense to talk the mile or so back to the Twin Peaks Gas Station (why it's not called Big Ed's Gas Farm is a mystery to me) to get oil rather than try to drive Phoebe there. Thankfully, she was just fine after a couple quarts of oil, and it would have been my own damn fault if I'd killed her. No more neglect. After I drop her off tomorrow, I have an appointment at the Jewish Vocational Services for a job seach workshop thingy, and then a post-job fair workshop. Lookit me, goin' through the motions! 10:05am Quit taunting me, blank page! 11:12am The dog's extra loud today and barky today. As near as I can tell, there's some sort of loud work going on upstairsreally, not done yet?and the dog is locked in the backyard. Except that instead of being the backyard, it's in the stairway leading to the backyard, which happens to be right on the other side of my bedroom wall, and specifically the wall that my desk is against. Because. Of course. I can't really fathom the thought of going somewhere else to write, not after it's taken me so long to get comfortable working in my own home again. 12:51pm In spite of it all, I managed to get the first draft of the Marvelous Land of Oz essay done. Turned out pretty well, I think. And, since it's not actually due for three weeks, I can set it aside for now and concentrate on other things. 4:03pm Whooboy. Evidently the right people talked to the right people, since I got an email saying that I've made it to the "next stage" in the Bank of America hiring process, and online assessment thingy. With my luck it'll be the godsdamned Unicru test again. 7:36pm I make typographical errors, therefore I are. 11:49pm Normally I work out with Raphaela on Monday nights, but she had to reschedule for reasons I don't quite recall. I also don't recall what night we rescheduled to (probably tomorrow), and in fact I probably would have forgotten about the rescheduling if she hadn't texted me about it this afternoon. And now it's my turn to reschedule for next Monday night, since I just got an offer to be interviewed for The Lesbian Podcast that evening. Neat. Also neat is that I definitely have a director for my AIRspace piece next month. Jim is unavailable since he's tied up with the revival of Emperor Norton at The Dark Room, and though Leni had expressed interest in directing it, I haven't heard from her in over a month. I wrote her a couple days ago and left her a voicemail this afternoon. If I don't hear back from her by Wednesday, I'm going to go with my backup director, someone who's quite gung-ho about it and whom I've wanted to work with for sometime. (Ironically, it's someone whom I almost directed in my Twilight Zone episode a few years back when Maddy went all diva on me.) So, whatever else does or doesn't happen, that much is covered. | ||
Sunday, 3 May 2009 (repay, do not forget) 11:21pm An excellent turnout at Bad Movie Night for the beginning of James Bond month (Diamonds Are Forever), and a fun time was had by all. I think it's going be a good month for us. I went to the Apple Store at Stonestown yesterday to get replacement headphones, and I felt like Tracy Jordan working late. i don't wanna be here! i don't like it here! who's this guy? sometime after midnight There will, it seems, be another date. | ||
Saturday, 2 May 2009 (magic and loss) 10:03pm It went well. I think. Maybe? It's so hard to tell anymore. We both had that classic first date nervousness, and I'm worried that I was creepy in all the wrong ways (as opposed to the right ways?), and I guess whether it was a first-and-only-date remains to be seen. | ||
Friday, 1 May 2009 (every grain of sand) 4:53pm Back at the gym yesterday and this morning, since I have reading to do. (Plus, you know, exercise.) My current reading material is a bit different for me: L. Frank Baum's The Marvelous Land of Oz. I've never cared for fantasy and even as a child I didn't like children's literature, but I'm writing an article about it for Fantasy Magazine, so the least I can do is read it first. Specifically, the article is about a scene in which the main character (a young boy named Tip) discovers that he's actually a girl named Ozma, and why that scene resonates with transgendered people. Oh yeah. That I can write about. | ||