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Thursday, January 23, 2003

Unreasonable Expectations?

There were no palm fronds laid under my footfalls.

There were no fine oils rubbed onto my back, nor scented linens laid upon my shoulders upon my entrance. Wine was not poured; honeyed figs were not proffered. There were no nubile male virgins there to accomodate my every need. (OK, there was the one teenage salesguy with acne, but that's not what I mean.) In fact—and I'm sorry to confess this to the others in the Cult of Macintosh—as far as I can tell, it was just a store. Somehow I guess I expected more from my first time. Sigh.

Not that that stopped me from buying stuff, mind you.

(But nothing very exciting, as the Sales Associate in the Pottery Barn informed me afterwards. Again, I find that my life doesn't measure up to P.B. standards. Alas.)

12:56 AM PST (link)

Wednesday, January 22, 2003

Ding Dong, The Witch Is All, Like...Uhh?

Normally it would excite me that the PC is broken and I have to do all my work on a Mac. But today, nearly everything I need to finish needs to be checked on the PC. Not to be too Feissian about it, but it's really, like...a bummer.

And since I'm ~~complaining~~ talking about work already...while I still claim that I work with some exceptionally smart and talented people, if I hear the phrase "very unique" one more time during a presentation, I may scream. (And, no, I don't care if I am being pedantic about it, either.)

03:48 PM PST (link)

Tuesday, January 21, 2003

Apopheniac.

I hate that I have these odd superstitions; while I like to think of myself as a skeptic and a stalwart atheist, I'm still drawn to the aura of cheap mysticism and apophenia. Combine that with some healthy OCD behaviour, and here I am.

For example, I always pick up playing cards on the street when I see them. I'm compelled to pick them up, unless the cards are wet or filthy or would otherwise cause me bodily harm to capture. I read them as a sort of random street cartomancy, a little sign from the universe. The last card I picked up was the eight of spades, which, depending on who you ask, can mean big changes in business or finance—interesting, given the recent events at my work.

The flip side of this compulsion, however, is that I'm very slowly finding a very strange and extremely mismatched deck of cards with which I should do something creative. Of course, when did I ever play with a full deck in the first place?

Anyway, the eight isn't very good, as omens go, so I've had my eyes open for a new card. On Sunday I almost picked up a candy wrapper. This morning I turned over a real card, but it was a 25-kilometer Mille Borne card instead.

Even if my little omens were real, I guess they probably wouldn't work like this. Damn this haunted brain.

04:22 PM PST (link)

Sunday, January 19, 2003

Newsflash: Empty Warhead Found In Oval Office!

Ugh. I'm so glad that that fucked-up week is over. When I wasn't fearing for my job I was swimming in circles. I took the opportunity Friday night to work on my heart disease prevention.

George W. Bush Axis of Evil World Tour Yesterday we managed to make it to the protest; We want the message against this war to be heard, whether George (or his handlers) are listening or not. I tried not to criticize the typography on people's signs ("Don't letterspace Futura Condensed Bold that way! That's just cruel!") and BF did his best not to mention that technically, we're not at war with Iraq yet—it's the sentiment behind the protest chants that's important.

We didn't hang around for very long afterwards, as we were (read: I was) tired and cranky by the time we got the Civic Center from dealing with so many people. So we headed home for an unplanned nap, walking past all the people stuck in cars, angry at all the traffic, idling and burning up plenty of fossil fuels. Amazing how many cars had just one person in them—no, not really. (Maybe they were picking up their fellow protestors who had to drive in from out of town. Yeah, sure.) I didn't see any of the blog folks who mentioned they'd be there, but I was glad to catch Sherilyn and Katrina before they caught the train home. (No, that is not them in the photo above, though they took some good pictures themselves.)

I'd forgotten that I'd put the simplistic-but-it-gets-the-point-across message "No Blood for Oil" on my top hat when a strange man on the street asked me when I last contributed blood. The Boyfriend pointed out that, as gay men, we're still not eligible to donate blood regardless of our HIV status. (OK, I pass out during blood tests, so I'm not a very good candidate for donation anyway; but that's neither here nor there.)

Today (after a nice time finally having Christmas with my parents) I'm trying to figure out a good way to express my feelings for W's too-ironic-for-words National Sanctity of Human Life day. Maybe Reese can recommend a political action group deserving of a donation? (I'm thinking NARAL, but I'm open to suggestion.)

06:35 PM PST (link)