Friday, March 31, 2006

Best Craigslist "Missed Connection" ever?

I'm sorry, I just can't resist.



I'M SORRY I CHOKED YOU - M4M

We've been doing the dance for months. Finally after work today, we both got a lot more than the nerve up. I am so sorry that you got choked and that I freaked out when my stuff came out your nose. PLEASE lets give this another chance. You were really great for a first time. See you at 5am, man.

* this is in or around UPS parking lot
* no -- it's NOT ok to contact this poster with services or other commercial interests

Thursday, March 30, 2006

Everything. Everyone. Everywhere. Ends.

Yesterday Chris and I started watching season 5 of Six Feet Under. We've been planning to watch it together for weeks now, and he ordered it on Netflix a long time ago. He got a message yesterday that discs 2, 3 and 4 were on their way, but there was a wait for disc 1. So, being probably as obsessive about it as I am, he went on a city-wide trek to find disc 1, but no one in town had it. When I got home from school at 3:30, I tried one last place, and they had it!!!! So I rushed to the Movie Store and picked it up, and went to Chris' house.

We're the biggest geeks. Before we started watching it, we walked to the gas station and got some snacks (beer, Gatorade, ice cream and peanuts). Then we pulled down the blinds and settled in on the couch for the first 2 episodes. We commented on how much we loved the opening sequence and when Lili Taylor's name popped up as a guest star, we both groaned. "That's not a character they need to bring back," Chris muttered. I agreed.

As the first episode began unfolding, everything seemed off. A little too stable, maybe. I started to get worried that maybe everyone on the show was too happy, or content, and the show had suddenly lost its steam. Who wants to watch Six Feet Under without neurosis, misery and suffering? That's what the show is all about. Turns out my fears were unfounded: within 20 minutes, the catastrophe and heartache were already being piled on. Whew. I breathed a sigh of relief. Brenda's still completely miserable, Nate's still a total shithead, Billy's still crazy. Ruth's character has seem to taken a very interesting turn towards bitterness and regret since last season ended, and I have to say I'm not crazy about the direction Clare's heading. But we all saw it coming. I hope it doesn't last. But Keith and David's relationship seems to have taken a sweet, tender turn, which makes me happy. They both need to get over themselves and just be fucking happy already. Or break up. Jesus. David had a great line in the first episode. One of their clients at the funeral home is a woman who died by getting stabbed in the eye by her husband. David took one look at her corpse and said, "That's what happens when couples don't learn how to fight." *Sigh*

I'm aware of a couple of pretty major plot points this season, and I'm very excited to get into it. I think Chris and I are going to try to have a marathon at some point over the weekend, or next week, maybe. We can both sit and watch at least 5 or 6 episodes at a time. I love it. Although I'll be really sad when it ends.

Wednesday, March 29, 2006

Kids these days are so sophisticated!

The other night as I was exiting the locker room of the gym at 24-Hour Fitness I ran into a classmate of mine, Cole, who was coming back into the locker room after a workout. I didn't notice him, but he said my name, and it took me a second to even remember who he was. He's this guy in my Spanish class that just seems like a typical dude, a jock, kind of a country boy, drives a pick-up, etc. I know these things because we reveal many personal details about ourselves in Spanish class. I'm serious.

Anyway, we chatted for a bit, and I asked him where he lived, since he was up at the Hancock 24-Hour, and he said on campus. When I suggested that it was a long drive all the way up here just to work out when there was a gym on campus, he kind of shrugged it off, saying he got a better workout here. Hmmm....

So I leave, thinking nothing of this exchange until later that night when I check my email and have a notification that Cole has "written" on my wall on Facebook. (A brief diversion: Facebook is sort of the university equivalent of MySpace, only you have to have a valid university email address to sign up, but it's worldwide. And it's big. I think everyone on this campus is on it. Including me, though I only have 2 "friends," because I only vaguely know about 2 people here. And "writing on someone's wall" is like posting a comment, where everyone can see it; it's not a secret message. It's public.)

So, Cole has written something along the lines of "I was surprised to run into you at the club tonight. I figured we would have run into each other somewhere else by now. Good luck on your Spanish test tomorrow."

WTF? What did he mean by he "figured we would have run into each other by now?" Where? So I check out his profile, and though it says he's interested in dating women (and he was born in 1985!!!), it also says his "current relationship status" is an "open relationship with...." and had some guy's name. John or something. So I click on that guy's profile, and he's a baseball player at Rice.

I must say, I was quite surprised by the whole ordeal. And slightly intrigued. Is this what the kids are doing these days?

Friday, March 24, 2006

I'm Waking Up to Us

In two months you-know-who and I will have been broken up for a year. I was talking to Brad about it on the phone the other night (I hope he doesn't mind my talking about this), and he said, "Doesn't it seem like the year that you were together was SO much longer than the year that you've been broken up?" And I was all, "Yes!" because I had just been thinkng that earlier.

I guess it can be attributed to a lot of things: this past year has brought a lot of pretty serious life changes, from having surgery to going to school to moving apartments to quitting my job. I think things like that just make time go by faster. But I also realized that my year with He Who Shall Remain Nameless was so fraught with anxiety and tension and second-guessing myself that I didn't even realize (which, I guess I do now, in retrospect) how unhappy that relationship made me in a lot of ways. Don't get me wrong, it was incredible and wonderful and fun and affirming in its own ways; I wouldn't trade that year for anything. And it just felt really, really good to actually be in love again, but overall I think it was probably pretty unhealthy (g'duh!).

Anyway, it's interesting to think back on those times and be able to come to this kind of intellectual discovery about them. It's weird. It doesn't make it hurt any less (and believe me, I'm still hurting), but at least I can be more objective about it now than I used to be able to.

I Just Might Find I'll be Killing Time for Eternity

Wow, I suppose it's been awhile, hasn't it? 2 weeks, to be exact. My "new" laptop has been all kinds of fucked up, and after taking it to the stupid fucking "Genius Bar" at the Apple store in the Barton Creek mall three times last week, on Saturday they finally sent it off to be repaired. But I got it back last night, and everything seems to be working beautifully, including the new keyboard and my new Airport card I bought for it. Having true wireless is very exciting. But I suppose that's a bad excuse, as I have access to computers at school (where I am now, in fact) and the library.

To be honest, I've been quite busy and had lots going on, but I feel really weird about all of it for some reason. Greedy, I guess, like I just don't feel like sharing much these days. Partly I guess it just doesn't seem like it would be that interesting to people, but partly I've also just been very wrapped up in my own head.

Collier left yesterday to go back to California. I'm inordinately sad about it, but the full heft of not being able to call her up and see if she wants to have dinner, or have her call me to drink whisky and play pool (or whatever) hasn't yet sunk in, I don't think. I'm used to her coming and going, but she was here for almost a year this last time, and I got really comfortable having her around. But she needs to move on, even though I already miss the shit out of her.

I've also gone to 2 orientation sessions for some volunteer work I'm going to start doing with Project Transitions, and in turn, Doug's House and at Roosevelt Gardens. This was all originally through the GLBTSA club at school, but ironically enough, none of them showed up to the orientations (it's ironic, I guess, because I haven't gone to a single GLBTSA meeting, though I'm on their mailing list, and their President is in my Personality class and I talk to him occasionally). They only do them once a month, so everyone else from the club that's interested is supposed to be going to those. Anyway, at Roosevelt Gardens we were planning to do some general maintenance, upkeep, landscaping, stuff like that, and provide a monthly meal/social gathering for the residents to come and mingle with one another and get out of their apartments. We're helping to foster a sense of community there. A lot of people living there have gone through some really rough times, and feel very isolated from their friends and families and are trying to get back on their feet from some pretty devastating blows, so anything we can do to help facilitate that would be nice.

Independently, however, I also want to start volunteering at Doug's House, which is a hospice. The work there would certainly be less glamourous and much more taxing, both emotionally and physically, but it also seems quite rewarding. They're both run by the same people, and there's a special orientation for that one on Saturday, which I unfortunately can't attend because I'm working. But I can go to the one next month. It's a little scary deciding to commit my time to this stuff, for a lot of reasons. There are risks, both emotional and physical (though having sex, with anyone, is probably riskier than working at Doug's House, even though "exposure" is possible, and does happen), but I think it will be worth it. If nothing else, I need to start padding my resume, and secondly, I need to start getting experience with this stuff and learning how to really deal with it on a day-to-day, reality-based basis. I do, in fact, deal with it in my life on a day-to-day basis now, as many of you know, but it's a little bit different than in this capacity.

Anyway, Clay was here last week for SXSW, and stayed with me for a few days. It was nice seeing him again. I acted in one of Laura's films (in a part she wrote just for me - "A slight gay man, wearing a spectacular pair of aviator sunglasses" -) which is nice. And it was fun to shoot.

Hmmm. I can't really think of much else to write about. There's 5 weeks in Mexico coming up, which will be really fun, I think. But it's about time to get to class, so that will have to wait.

Also, Karen's coming in tonight, and staying with me!!!!!!!! I'm so excited. We barely got to talk at all last time she was here, but tonight will be a whole night of talking, whisky and cuddling. I can't wait.

Friday, March 10, 2006

Ear Nose & Throat, part Dos

Firstoff, I want to apologize forthe way this looks. The spacebar on my computer that I'veonly had for 2 weeks is already sticking and it'sa huge pain in theass. Luckily the refurbs have warranties so I'mtaking it in this weekend.

Secondly, i spent 3hours in the emergency room this afternoon. About 2 months ago I was having a lovely Friday night dinner at Thai Passion with Kurt, Meredith and Bill, when the underside ofmy tongue on the left side starting burning as if I had a spice caught underneath it or something. And then my gland started swelling. Up to about the size of a ping-pong ball. After about 20 minutes it went down and I didn't think much more of it.

Jump to several weeks later, againwith Kurt & Meredith, eating pizza, and it happens again. This time, however, it went down even quicker than before, so again, Ijust shrugged it off.

Today, however, I was eating breakfast at home before class, and it starts happening again, only it never really goes down. So after about 5 hours (after I get out ofclass and go to work and tell them I need to leave), I take myself tothe emergency room.

After I wait for 2 and a half hours, I meet with a doctor for about 3 minutes who looks inside my mouth and tellsme I need to see an ear, nose & throat specialist. So I guess I'm gonna go see the guy next week that did my surgery for me last summer.

Anyway, turns out I have a blocked salivary gland on my left side. Which means that, much like a kidney stone, whenever I eat, and my gland produces saliva, it's clogged onthat side and instead of the saliva going into my mouth where it's supposed to be, it just builds up in my gland, thus causing it to inflate. The doctor said there was no infection, and was probably just some kind of blockage. I can probably flush it out by sucking on lemons or sour candy, but if not, it may require surgery. Let's hope to god it doesn't come to that.

It's pretty gross, but it doesn't particularly hurt, or inhibit my breathing, so I guess it's not a huge crisis. But it is uncomfortable and a little scary.

Wednesday, March 08, 2006

Overheard at St. Edwards

Girl: I'm gonna get alocohol poisoning. What's that called?
Boy: What?
Girl: Like, when your body starts rejecting alcohol?
Boy: Really drunk?

Undergrads are fucking awesome.

And on a self-congratulatory note, all of my professors submitted progress reports for me this week, and I have A's in all of my classes!

Also, if anyone's interested, Pink is the New Blog currently has some interesting links up. Well, maybe not that interesting, but definitely H.O.T. If you're into that sort of sleazy celebrity porn thing. Get 'em while they're hot.