One week later...

It's been a week now, and I've had some time to reflect and come to terms with the decisions that were made by family, friends, colleagues, neighbors, fellow Californians. I'm referring to California Prop 2 and Prop 8. And there's an undeniable truth that's come to light. My fellow Californians care more about farm animals than their fellow human beings. Don't believe me? How else do you explain this…



(click for full size iamge)

Animals were given more freedom (well, technically, that "freedom" is the ability to move around more comfortably) and a section of the population had their equality revoked and civil liberties taken away. Does that make any sense to you?



Historic indeed. But not the good kind. I can't help but feel that while our country took a step forward, we also took a step back. That's hardly progress.

We live in a world where America will finally have a non-Anglo president, but in a country that still seems content with denying equality and liberty based on differences.

To all the people out there who voted in favor of Prop 8, the ones who voted in favor of discrimination and bigotry, thinking that by doing so they would some how be protecting marriage, family, and children (and I really don't understand the "protecting children" argument) I would like you to answer the following questions:

1. How does divorce factor into your ideals of protect marriage, family, and children?

2. Why haven't you outlaw divorce?

3. Can I get a refund on all the wedding presents I've purchased for straight couples who got divorced?

No, I'm serious! If you really want to protect marriage, you need to outlaw divorce. It's done more to destroy your so called "holy matrimony" than anything two men (or two women) in a committed relationship have done or will ever do.

And, lastly, for those of you who continue to argue that Prop 8 needed to pass to "[prevent] other consequences to Californians who will be forced to not just be tolerant of gay lifestyles, but face mandatory compliance regardless of their personal beliefs" please consider this…

The Bible says "Do to others as you would have them do to you." — Luke 6:31 (New International Version) but if you choose not to be tolerant of me I hope you won't mind if I choose not to tolerate you. I guess I don't really have a choice, they're your rules.

Does this blog make me look gay?

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Where the boys are...

Single Rider Tour 2008 — part nine in a series

Yesterday I rated the three theme parks I visited, but there was an interesting difference between them that I didn't mention, namely, which park had the hotter guys. Totally not important — which is why this didn't impact the park's scores — but it's at least a little interesting.

While the concept of "hot" is relative when it comes to appearance, there are certain aspects that tend to remain consistent over a wide audience; how fit a person is.

I'll be the first to admit that I tend to be attracted to guys that many other's wouldn't be, especially when it comes to facial features, but since this is my blog, this bias is totally acceptable. I didn't take any photos to backup my findings, as that seemed a little too creepy.

What I find the most interesting is that the male guests were most attractive at Magic Mountain and least eye-catching at Disneyland. I have no idea why that would be the case. I would have thought that Disney, having the highest ticket price, might have an advantage — though they did let me in — but that was clearly not the case.

Maybe the hot guys are attracted to the park with the highest number of thrill rides? No clue, as most of the hot guys at Magic Mountain were obviously straight and the mind of the straight guy is as mysterious to me as the mind of women is to straight guys. I did see a few gay couples at Magic Mountain, which was kind of cool, so maybe I should have asked them.

Not sure if my findings are consistent with others, I don't believe there's been a lot of research done on this. What about you? Have you noticed a trend in where attractive guys (or girls) tend to flock to? Any theories on why?

Angel meets his guardian angel, bites hand that feeds him

Angel, the ebony ball of feline fur I'm kitty sitting until his relocation paperwork is all figured out, had to move into temporary housing last week while I attended a conference up north. His vet offers basic yet practical accommodations, plus they know him and really, who is better at caring for pets than the vet, right?

I opened the door just a few minutes before they closed for the weekend and the place seemed deserted. I heard some music way coming from the back of the office so I just waited patiently and give Angel a little more time to acclimate to being back at the vet. Before long, he emerged from the rear. Gabriel. I wasn't expecting a really cute latin guy to walk through the door, but I kept my surprise in check.

After explaining why I was there, he prepped Angel's equivalent to the hotel room I would soon be living in for a week and we talked about Angel's dietary needs general disposition. The conversation flowed easily, as it should for what it was. Soon it was time to move Angle from carrier to cage. This proved to be a bigger challenge than either of us expected. Angel pinned himself in his carrier good and Gabriel and I had to carefully coax him out. Angel's efforts to remain in the carrier were simply not meant to be and we convinced him to finally exit his transport.

As Angel explored his new 2-foot x 2-foot world, Gabriel and I continued our conversation, drifting away from talking about Angel and moving on to more less specific topics. Normally I have a hard time talking to an even half-way attractive guy, but it was different talking with him. If my timing was better I could have stayed and talked with him for hours, or at least until he had to lock up and head home, but I had still had to run to the office and pick up conference supplies and finish some last minute work before running home to pack and begin my drive north. When I realized this I suddenly became very self aware that I was going to have to find a graceful exit. In the blink of an eye, I went from someone who might actually be confused with a suave guy to someone who clammed up and started what would be just another awkward silence in my dating (and non-dating) life.

I looked at the watch that wasn't on my wrist — I'm pretty sure he noticed I wasn't wearing one — and said I had to head out. I'm sure it sounded more like an excuse than an actual reason, but he smiled anyway and my heart skipped a beat at the already building anticipation that if I hadn't just blown it with the awkward silence and "gotta run" moment, that I would get to see him again when I returned to take Angel back home. My next three hours on the road found me over analyzing my chance meeting with Angel's guardian angel, Gabriel. To be honest, I'm not even sure he's on my team, but there's no ring, and there was the tiniest blimp on my GAYDAR. This is where I should point out that my GAYDAR is often more wishful than accurate. So, really, no point in getting my hopes up.

****

One week later…

I'm back in my own county, driving up to the vet's office, secretly hoping that Gabriel would be there to greet me. I pause, take a deep breath, and walk through the door. "And you are…?" a cold voice asks. Damn, it's the vet. She always has this look on her face like she doesn't trust me, which I don't understand. I look over to the reception desk and see another woman, not Gabriel. I was both disappointed and secretly relieved. I explain who I'm picking up and as I'm saying Angel's name, lo and behold, Gabriel rounds the corner, our eyes meet, and smiles appeared on both of our faces. He said he'd get him and the bitchy vet retired to her office.

Standing side by side, assuming our positions from a week ago, it all felt so natural again. As he gathered Angel's food and carrier, we made small talk about Angel's stay. Turns out that not more than 10 minutes after I left the previous week, Angel had a bit of a panic attach that lasted the entire week. He wouldn't let anyone near him, howling and hissing at anyone within visual range. I sighed, as that's exactly what he did when he first took up lodging with me. He remembered that from our talk the week prior. Promising!

Less promising was the chances of getting Angel to calm down and get into his carrier. He was reacting as though we were trying to kill him, rather than to take him back to familiar surroundings. To make a very long story just a little less long, it took 15 minutes, a net, and Angel peeing on us three times, to get him safely into his carrier. Gabriel was so kind and compassionate — swoon! — during the ordeal he earned major bonus points. At this point there was three of us standing around Angel's carrier as he howled his protest, Gabriel, myself, and the lady from reception. This made talking with Gabriel, let alone the possibility of asking him out, less than realistic. So instead I settled the bill (a fraction of the cost of my own conference lodging), apologized again for Angel's "problem child" behavior, and made my way to the car.

Within seconds of leaving the vet's office Angel's howls had transformed into quiet meows, the same kind that he makes whenever I've had him in my car. But at that moment I could care less about his happiness as I wondered how I might be able to find an excuse to ask Gabriel out with Angel about to board a plane bound for his actual mommy and daddy.

Without a doubt, such thoughts will preoccupy my weekend and possibly even my upcoming vacation. But before I can think that far ahead, I must tend to one pee-soak kitty cat before he sits on my bodily fluid-free (feline or otherwise) sofa. As on Angel takes flight, with another soon take his place to snuggle up with at home? Stay tuned…

****

I just realized it's been more than a month between updates. Now that the nightmare work hours are behind me, I'll have more free time to, for better or worse, write. Fear not, this blog is by no means dead.

The Five Ws of Procrastination

Who is procrastinating: me

What about: figuring out the GC dilemma, and talking to the GC in general

When will you grow a pair and move forward: don't know, by the end of the week probably

Where does this leave you in the mean time: somewhere in the middle, neither good nor bad

Why are you procrastinating: because I'm afraid that I already know the answer, that I've known it all along, but I'm too scared to do what's right for me at the expense of someone else's feelings…it easier to just let it decay naturally without actively speeding up the process on my part.

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Damn. How did I end up so spineless and passive when it comes to things like this? And more importantly, why has this become such a pattern in my life?

OK. I promise that my next post will be gay, white-trashy, geeky, or some odd combination of the previous three in nature.

20/20 Hindsight

Why didn't I take that offer 6 months ago?

When you're burnt out, where do you find your bliss?

This has been (another) mentally, creatively, and physically draining week. Deadlines, last minute "oh yeah, can you do this when you have a moment, by which I really mean drop what you're doing and do this instead" projects, nearly completely sedentary for five or more straight hours except for keystrokes and mousing. It's all I can do but flat out lose it. But rather than let that happen, I'm trying to seek out the positives and not let the negatives take control. It's hard. I fear that one day I might lose that struggle.

After twelve-plus hour workdays, by the time I get home I'm a tangled mass of exhaustion and frustration; low blood sugar makes for a very short fuse. Any and every little annoyance or inconvenience pushes me to the brink. But then I remember that I must keep in control, find the things that bring back my bliss. My list of bliss builders is small, but mighty. The excitement a friend discovering a new passion, developing a new skill, shares with me. Reading about the adventures of another friend on a road trip across the nation. And on nights like tonight, it's realizing that it's Wednesday and my TiVo is happily recording a new episode of Mythbusters so I can enjoy it while I microwave a frozen dinner.

So that's where I find my bliss these days. Where do you find yours?

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[5 minutes later…] — So it turns out that for some unexplained reason, the "new" episode of Mythbusters that TiVo was recording is actually a repeat from last season, even though the schedule says it's supposed to be brand-spaking new. Well that's just the prefect way to end the day. Screw off Discovery Channel, I'm going to bed.

Why aren't you re-watching: American Beauty

I'm so ashamed. I'd forgotten how excellent American Beauty is. I had been putting of watching it for years. It's literally been sitting on myself, still in the wrapper, since the day I bought it 5 years ago. What a fool I've been for taking it for granted all of this time. The storytelling. The characters. The performances. The music. The cinematography. The art direction. It's a modern masterpiece. Kevin Spacey and Annette Bening could not have been more perfect. Thora Birch is entrancing. Wes Bently is engrossing. Chris Cooper is gut-wrenching. And Allison Janney is surprisingly heartbreaking even in the scenes where she doesn't say a word.

The DVD has been retired back to its case for an hour already but the high you feel from watching something truly exceptional and so utterly captivating is sticking with me. I feel so inspired to create, to reinvest time into the pursuit of the film making ambitions of days gone by, to remind everyone there's a experience waiting for them on DVD that outshines brainless summer television broadcasts and big-budget popcorn flicks at the theater or pretty much anything made in the past 10 years and you owe it to yourself to watch it as soon as you can. And apparently I was inspired to write the longest sentence in the history of this blog. Phew! If you've got a DVD player and receiver capable of processing DTS 5.1 soundtracks, I highly recommend watching the movie with the DTS 5.1 soundtrack over the Dolby Digital 5.1 soundtrack. I won't bore you with the details, but your ears will thank me.

Open a nice bottle of red wine—it isn't required to make the movie amazing, but trust me, it ties in perfectly even if only from a color pallet perspective— and watch this movie tonight!

Bedtime story

Angel has been especially needy when it comes to constant attention recently. I don't know if it's the season, or the weather, or just his part of his cycle of feline moods, but whatever it is it can be a bit of a challenge as he seems to always be underfoot, literally. And if I'm sitting then he must, of course, be sitting on me. Usually he restrains himself to sitting on my lap, but sometimes he likes to mix it up and attempt cozy up on my stomach, or chest, and once, my face (don't ask). It usually cute and I like to cuddle with him when watching TV and such, but when I'm trying to eat dinner after a 10 hour work day, it can also be a nuisance. Especially when it comes to cat fur ending up in my mojito salmon with brown rice. Ack!

Last night was warm here in the valley, and as such we were both restless. TV was worthless — nothing good on — and I wasn't in the mood for the commitment a DVD would certainly require. I also wasn't in the mood to contend with a cat that could not be satisfied with any amount of petting, scratching, stroking, or massaging. I turned on the air conditioning (a rarity as I'm a bit of an energy miser these days) and decided to finally crack opened the newest David Sedaris book, When You are Engulfed in Flames, I had picked up at my favorite Target over the weekend. I started to read, the familiarity of his writing immediately filling the void that was causing my mental restlessness. Meow? I keep reading. Meeeoow. I turn the page. Meeooooow! My concentration starts to shift. MEEEEEEOOOOOW! Right in my ear! With the book in my lap there was no room for Angel which was none to his liking. It was too hot to have 15 pounds of hot fur heating up my bare legs so I set him on the ground and proceed to read out loud in an attempt to regain my focus. Angel, apparently a closet Sedaris fan, immediately settled down, stretched out on the carpet and soaked in the first two chapters I read to him, quietly purring to himself into a peaceful slumber. Who knew all we both needed was a bedtime story.

Guess what I've been doing in the shower!

I'll admit, I didn't come easy at first. But after hearing about it on the radio I just had to give it my best effort. The first couple days were almost painful; it just didn't feel natural or even right. I wanted so badly to tell someone about my experimentation, to see if they've tried it before, but didn't in fear that I might jinx myself and never fulfill my goal. After a couple weeks of careful and conscience effort it started to become enjoyable, and finally just a regular part of my morning routine. What can I say, it feels good! But I still kept it a secret. Actually, I did mention it to Betty midway through my third month, and she was very encouraging but also understanding why I hadn't told anyone. Now, nearly five months later, I'm ready to come clean, so to speak.

I've been successfully practicing the art of the Navy shower! Why? What were you thinking it was? Oh, well now that's just dirty…

I didn't tell anyone sooner because a cookie told me not to, and I'm not one to go against the advice of a fortune wielding dessert. And while I could do a bit better — extra long hours at work has me all tied up in knots and it's taking more mental fortitude not to slip back into the old "Hollywood shower" ways — and conserve even more water, I'm still proud that simply by turning off the water when lathering up or brushing my teeth (yes, I'm one of those people, but I multitask by conditioning my sexy mullet at the same time) or shaving has saved over 1500 gallons of water in the past 60 days, an average of a little over 25 gallons a day! Unfortunately my water company charges a hefty flat service rate with a tiny metered fee on top of that so even though I cut back 33% on my daily water use I'm really only saving a little over $2 each month. But knowing that I've saved that much water already by simply changing a small part of my routine has me wondering how else I could be saving water. Or electricity. Or fuel.

Sure, all the big company's these days are touting about how "green" they've are because it's a buzzword in the media right now. I don't buy it. It's all for show. I bet none of the execs in these "green" companies would ever think to turn off the water while sudsing up. I may not have an MBA from Harvard, or drive a flashy $100,000 car, or make multi-million dollar donations to offset my carbon emissions, but at least I've taken the first step to actually live green in my own life. Well, a little more green. Baby steps, ok?

By the way, I won't even tell you how long it took I spent looking at iStockphoto.com for photos of sailors in showers. But diligence pays off…and I'm all about sharing the wealth, all $2 of it. Enjoy! And when your done, don't forget to take a Navy shower.

Decisions, decisions…

Last month I asked the Universe what it was up to. You know, the whole, things felt like they were slightly askew, that a shift was happening? Well, leave it to the Universe to pull the ol' Let's Make a Deal trick and present me with two possible doors to choose from and the prizes on the other side equally desirable.

Door #1: The possibility of something different and a change of pace, yet still somewhat familiar and a more defined path, but at the same wouldn't offer any opportunities to see more of the world

Door #2: The chance to really change things up, go in a uniquely different direction, revisit a dormant passion and also fulfill a personal goal of traveling, but without a definite path for the future

Each door has it's pros and cons. Each door provides a solution to a current life issue, but neither offers a total solution. My gut is split 50/50 on what to do.

One needs a quick response, is more of a sure thing, but doesn't put me closer to my goals. The other could take a while to play out and would meet my goal of travel, but is far from a sure thing.

Oh, Universe, you are ever the trickster. You're never going to give a guy a break, huh?

Five of a kind…a shitty hand indeed

Angel is a cheater. How do I know? He played a fifth deuce card tonight on the area shag. My gut instinct is to just roll up the carpet and put it in storage until Angel gets shipped to the land down under. What's keeping me from doing just that? The fear that he'll turn his pooper on my very white furniture and I have a sneaking suspicion that concealing skid marks from a kitty — or skitty marks, as only I would actually refer to them as — would be rather difficult if not impossible. Maybe that answers my question about whether or not to get a pet after Angel leaves.

Oh great and wise blogowebospherenet…what's a guy gotta do to correct this recent recurring behavior and keep kitty from krapping on the karpet? I need your help!

He dealt me another deuce.

Apparently my friends are the only ones thinking that my last few posts have been a bit on the overly "deep thoughts" side. And not the funny "Deep Thoughts by Jack Handy" kind. Angel, the feline I'm kitty sitting has taken it upon himself to provide me with new "content." Unfortunately this content is in the form of a deuce on my carpet. While I haven't been keeping an official tally of how many deuces this makes—I'm not exactly a card counter from MIT—I'm pretty sure we're at +4. I'm baffled by his fondness of playing the deuce on the shag carpet, as it would seem to be the exact opposite of his litter box, but maybe that in and of itself answers the question. I've been very good about making sure his litter is as clean as a litter box can be checking it before I leave the house in the morning and then immediately upon returning home and once more before going to bed. But tonight baffles me because he had minutes before used his litter box to tinkle in, so why, moments later would he decide that he should dump a massive deuce on the carpet? And why does he seem so damn proud of his action? Needless to say the moniker Angel is once again proving to be anything but. Hopefully we're now out of deuces in the poop deck. You're not going to hear me say shuffle up and deal, that for sure. Here's hoping he'll only be playing high cards from here on out.

Does anyone have any suggestions, short of sewing up his poop shute, on how to reverse this increasing pattern? I'm getting worried that he's going to start pooping elsewhere, like my hard-to-clean furniture.

Hey Universe, whatcha doing?

I don't think I'm alone when I say that the Universe is up to something. Within the past days and weeks, I've felt like things were slightly off. You know, like when your folks go out of town for the weekend and you throw a kickass kegger for all the popular kids in your school but somehow words gets out and everyone—and I do mean everyone—shows up and trashes the place leaving you to return everything to the way it was when your folks left, but even though you do your best it's never exactly the way it was before and your parents, while not sure exactly what, can just tell that something is different. That kind of off is what I'm talking about. Don't get me wrong, I'm not likening the Universe to a one of the guys from Weird Science, nor Kelly LeBrock. If anything the Universe was the nerdy kid that hung out at the Library on weekends and put together puzzles with his parents at Friday nights in their wood paneled rec room while drinking Like cola and snacking on Ants on a Log. But I digress…and not a moment too soon. In talking with other people, similar observations have been shared. One of my favorites is that the Universe is correcting itself. I like the thought of that, it gives me hope and a sense comfort that justice has a chance to prevail after all. Unless it's just fucking with us.

What about you? Have you felt a skew and shift in your Universe? What would you like the see the Universe help correct in your existence?

Social Engineering - Part 2

Here is Part 1, in case you missed it.

Things change over time. People change. Adapt. Evolve. In high school my goal was to be friends with everyone in the school, but a decade and a half later it's far more important to build closer, more intimate connections with a much smaller group of people. Trouble is, the more time you spend with people and really get to know them, you either discover there's a solid foundation of common ground on which to continue to build the friendship, or you realize that the relationship just keeps turning in tight circles, with limited hope for developing into anything richer and more meaningful.

That's where I've figured out I stand a better chance of success with a little social "engineering" on my part. After all the good times and all the wasted time, I'm actively analyzing the foundations my relationships are built on, calculating what I put into them versus what I'm getting out of them, and then I do the same but from the other person's perspective. "If I put less ______ into this relationship, will the relationship dwindle? Is there equal active participation?" I question myself. Recently I've noticed that I may have let feelings get in the way of being honest with myself about the quality of certain relationships. It's in my nature to be loyal, often fiercely so, and I let myself be taken advantage of. Well no more! Slowly I'm becoming more comfortable in addressing those unhealthy relationships and helping them evaporate sooner rather than later, hopefully withou hurting anyone in the end. Aside from mentioning it here, I try to remove myself from the situation in a way that the other party won't really even notice. And how sad that they usually don't notice.

Since everyone's life is following a different course, and we're all moving at different speeds, is it inevitable that relationships will fizzle out eventually? What's the component of the relationship that can prevent that from happening? Or has the notion of the relationship changed so much in our modern world that life-long friendships are becoming a thing of the past, forever lost to our ever shortening attention spans? My mom still regularly keeps in touch with her friends and roommates from college (the ones that are still alive, anyway), an impressive time span of almost 50 years! Seriously, is that even possible nowadays, even with so many forms of immediate communication readily available?

During one of my silent drives I came to the conclusion that the average length of my non-family relationships is about 4 years, after which time we all just drift apart. Most often it's a great distance that sets the comradeship drift in motion, but it's the local and lost connections that trouble me. The ones that have dissolved into the continuous torrent of work and private life that I find myself thinking about, and analyzing hoping to find out why it happened so that I can break the cycle before it happens to my current relationships that I've found value and possible balance in. And, like I mentioned before, all of my non-family relationships are found in current and (recent) former coworkers. Probably not the best formula for success, huh?

I know I should probably start striking out and looking to build relationships with people outside of work. It's just so much easier to bond with the people you work with because work is a huge common denominator and you're never without something to talk about. I'll admit I feel intimidated at the thought of trying to build a friendship from scratch, and I don't know if I'm at a point in my life where I have the confidence to do it.

So for now, I'm just going to make sure that I'm being the best person I can and offering the best friendship I can to the people who mean the most to me, even though I know that history is working against us. And I'll continue to keep reevaluating the balances of the relationships, looks for ways to make minor adjustments to keep things in balance when necessary. It take two people to make a relationship work, but it only takes one to make it not. I'll just have to cut my losses from the one-sided relationships, move on, and hope that seeing these people around the campus and town from time to time won't be an issue.

Kenny Rogers sang, "You've got to know when to hold 'em, know when to fold 'em. Know when to walk away and know when to run." That's a pretty good metaphor for relationships, every one is a gamble. But unlike poker, you really only win when it's a draw.

Social Engineering - Part 1

Over the past many weeks, I've been thinking a lot about relationships. Friends. Family. Friends that are more like family… The connections with people I have now. The ones I want to have. The ones that have faded away. And the ones I've chosen to move past.

But I guess I've always been interested in the how relationships and friendships work and can evolve/devolve over time. My freshman year was as exciting as it was intimidating. By that point in my life I had known for years that I was attracted to guys and in elementary school and even junior high it had been easy to hide from letting those feelings because dating anyone wasn't really an option. But high school, well that's when dating, going steady, making out, and awkward sex is pretty much expected to occur and because my high school was made up of about 150 students max—it was a church school—chances of finding a boy friend were slim to none. And coming out in high school, well that just wasn't an option. And to make matters worse for my homo hormones, the upper class guys were hot. They were also pricks and seemed very content to make this socially awkward teen feel all the more so. Except for one.

His name was Greg, a senior. He had an electric smile to compliment his friendly demeanor. He wasn't a jock, though he was athletic. He wasn't a geek, though I think he was smarter than he let on. He wasn't the BMOC (big man on campus) though he was well loved and could be seen frequently getting and giving hugs to everyone on campus. While too much time has passed to recall any specific moments, I do fondly remember a few times he would flash me a smile or a wink after I had endured the requisite taunting from his classmates letting me know no to worry about it. I vowed that during my next 4 years I would become the Greg of my tenure.

Squiggle dissolve a la Wayne's World to my senior year. I managed to reach graduation day without having to have a girlfriend, and obviously no boyfriend either, but I achieved my goal of being generally well liked by the student body and even the teachers. Looking back I realize now that such a goal had an unforeseen consequence, I ultimately didn't have any close/intimate relationships to show for my time there, not even after having some of the same classmates all the way back to first grade. Don't feel bad for me, I don't. I was happy—more or less—at the time even if I can't say I really miss those years now. While many people wish they could relive their high school days, I'm not one of them, I have no desire to relive the past or reconnect with those people now. I'm not the person they knew then.

So why the high school flashback? Well after putting in nearly five years of corporate office work, I'm able to confirm that aside from being paid to show up every day, it's more like high school than not. There's the same politics, cliques, rumors, backstabbing, a brain, a jock, a princess…I'm so Anthony Michael Hall (if he had a mullet) but this ain't no Breakfast Club. The stakes are much higher. Which is why it is sad that perceptions still rule over fact. I guess somethings will never change.

One of the perceptions that has me worried is how my relationships with others in the company are seen. Some of my coworkers are more than just coworkers, they're my friends. Right now I'm at a point in my life where the people who I'm closest to are coworkers, or previous coworkers. And that has me in a quandary. There's a lot of politics and social structure where I work, like high school. But unlike high school, this time it's not my goal to be friends with everyone. These days I'd rather just keep developing my current friendships so that when the inevitable change of department, company, or location occurs, those connections will still be there even if the actual people aren't. I find myself analyzing how these friendships are being viewed by other people, and I'm worried that they're being taken out of context. What sucks is that there's little that can be done about it, because people also see what they want to see. And then there's the people who use you to bolster their own careers. I really don't like the cut throat side of working in a corporate environment, but I'm not sure one can ever escape it.

Where does that leave me? On edge. Questioning my actions around the people I call friends, and the ones that aren't, and how each with view the other. Of course the workplace is meant for work, not social interaction, but humans are social beings by nature so eliminating the social element of working with people is just unnatural. Are developing personal friendships in the workplace a bad idea? Is it wrong to maintain a social relationship outside of work?

More to come… but in the mean time, leave your 2¢ in the comments.

Going out with a bang whimper

It's over! NaBloPoMo! 30 days! 30 posts! I was planning a big, elaborate, posting to celebrate sticking it out for a full 30 days, even during the times I had only my iPhone to rely on... on the damned Edge network no less.

But then I read L'il B's post, and fuck if she didn't totally hit the nail on the head. Guess I'd been feeling the same way, but didn't want to admit it.

Now I'm home, watching "Chuck & Buck", feeling like shit (my cold has returned and it's pissed that I tried to dismiss it), eating a piping hot quart of hot and sour soup to soothe my aching throat, typing this final post for November... for NaBloPoMo. I guess I should feel some sense of accomplishment, but really I just feel mentally, physically, and emotionally exhausted. And after all, I didn't cure cancer, or fix global warming, or even rescue a cat from a tree (for the record there's no such thing as a cat stuck in a tree, they're just trying to get away from annoying people and come down when they get hungry) ... I just textually vomited the contents of my brain once a day for 30 days in a row. No big whoop.

Will I stick with it? Yes, but not every day. Everything in moderation, right? Besides who wants to read the equivalent of the dry heaves?

Well, I'd love to stay up until it's officially not November any more, but I've gotta shit to do in the morning. And posting here isn't on the list. GKR out!

Oh, and kudos to Sara over at Moving Right Along for the kick-ass "mission accomplished" badge.

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Worst thing about today: Sickies again

Best thing about today: Duh! You read all that drivel at the beginning, right? WTF?! What do you mean "I skimmed it." Lame...

Wait, what was I gonna say?

Ok, this sucks. I had been thinking about today's post since arriving to work this morning. The office was completely empty. So quiet. About 5pm I get a call from Hootie to head up to the city to run some errands, grab some dinner, and hit up The Mint for karaoke in my old stomping grounds. Now that I'm home, I've completely forgotten about what I was going to write about, no doubt singing Third Eye Blind songs at the top of my still recovering lungs wiped my memory clean. Damn! Oh well, since my contractors are going to be working on the house in the morning I'll need to evacuate again so that'll give me all day to remember the post. Oh, and maybe even get some pics posted.

Does anyone know how I got back to the room?

No, seriously, I don't have a clue what happened between 2am and 4am.

Irony is a bastard.

Frequent readers (not that there's many, if any, left due to my lack of updates in the last nearly two months) may recall that I'm in the middle of remodeling my house to sell. If you care to refresh your memory, you won't have to travel very far back in blog-time — seriously, it was just two posts ago — to catch up on the details. Go ahead, you can do it now if you want, I'll wait for you...

...Just let me know when you're finished....

...Done? Oh, sorry....

...OK, looks like most everyone is back now so let's go ahead and continue.

So back at the beginning of September I hired a Realtor to help me sell my house. I actually got a team of Realtors excited about putting my house on the market. They were impressed at the remodel's progress and we're supportive of the decorating decisions I had made. I was on cloud 9. Then they told me what they wanted to list the house for. Bye bye cloud. And, worse, bye bye breaking even. But that's the risk that comes with owning property; no guarantees you'll be able to get more for it than you paid. It was a hard pill to swallow at first, but after doing more research it was obvious that the market was taking a tumble. Part of me thinks there's some conspiracy involving real estate investors and the media to start a panic to make the headlines of "plummeting values" and "disappearing buyers" into a reality for their benefit. But that's a rant for another time. Long story short, I accepted the facts and decided to keep moving forward.

My Realtors couldn't have been nicer, we really hit it off. Due to my insane work schedule and the quickly approaching extended business trips that would keep me away from the whole process, we decided to move forward as quickly as possible. Step one: sign the contracts. Check! Step two: termite and home inspections. Well, this is where things went terribly wrong.

The morning air was surprisingly crisp the morning I put my spare house key in the key box clamped on the door handle. This was the day I would find out what needed to be repaired in order to get my home on the market and hopefully sold before my competing neighbor's home. The combination was tricker than it looked and I spent more time than I had allotted for the procedure than planned and now I was running the risk of being late to work. Mind you, I'm at work before my boss about 90% of the time, and I stay later than her about 80% of the time, but I'm still worried that she's just looking for a reason to get rid of me. But, again, that's a theory for another time.

At work, the projects kept coming fast and furious. Even the simple projects took forever because nothing is ever simple in our world. Having to play tech support for the people on my team — and other teams, too! — didn't help in my ability to keep on schedule. Or have lunch for that matter. By 5:30pm, most of the building was empty, except for me and a couple other people whose colleagues end up dumping stuff on before heading home to be with their families. Single office workers, do you know what I'm talking about? Like the expectation is that it's no big deal for us to stay late just because we aren't married or have kids, while our married counterparts get to play the "family card" whenever they don't want to stay late. Hey, married people, just because I didn't go and get some girl knocked up doesn't mean that I don't have my own shit to take care of back home. At least you aren't going it alone but rather you have a significant other (and possibly some really cheap labor in the form of kids) that can help out at the homestead while your at work procrastinating and then handing off to us on your way out the door. Those of us who are partner-free almost deserve it more simply because we don't have that extra person around. Am I alone in this? PLEASE leave a comment and tell me what you think! But I digress. So the other guy still at the office is getting ready to leave which would leave me there flying solo. My brain power is fading, as is my vision from staring at computer screens for the past 12 straight hours. His argument on why I should just go home while I'm still functional enough to drive can't be beat so I give in, set my system to start its nightly backup process and turn off the lights behind me even though they'll turn off automatically in less than two hours anyway.

The walk to my car is painfully long but only because I've been sitting so long that I've lost much feeling below the waist. The 10 yard trek feels like miles and before the feeling can completely return to my legs, I'm sitting again, hands on the steering wheel, thinking about whether or not to get take out food or just make something to eat at home. I decide on cooking then put the car in drive and navigate the reverse of my morning route. It's late enough that there's not much traffic still on the road and the drive becomes a blur as I lapse into autopilot. Before I know it I'm getting off at my exit with just 5 more minutes to go before putting my car in park, shutting off the engine, and locking the doors behind me.

The air feels crisp again, kind of like the morning's. Walking up to the door I'm briefly thrown off by the key box attached to my front door. Then I remember that it was so that my realtor and the home inspectors could get in and complete their duties while I was tied up at work. Walking in the front door I'm almost immediately thrown off again, but I'm not sure by what. Everything looks the same, where I left it in the morning, but something is definitely off. At first I chalk it up to the fact that I'm exhausted and suffering from low blood sugar from working through lunch. But no, something is definitely not quite right. It's surprisingly warm in the house, as if someone had been running the heater. Well, they would have done that as part of the inspection I suppose. I turn on the light in the corner. Adding more light in the room reveals another clue; it looks slightly hazy in here. No, wait, my eyes are just tired from all the computer work. I shrug it off and take a deep breath in anticipation of letting out a great sigh of relief of finally being home before 10pm for once. Drawing the air into my lungs I pick up on something that smells like iron and burnt plastic. This time I can't come up with a reasonable answer as why my house would smell like that and I get an instant jolt of adrenaline … something in my house is burning!! But what?!

Tune in tomorrow to find out what happened next and why irony is such a bastard. And yes, there's a chance that I'm using the word "irony" in the Morresette sense rather than the true sense. It makes for a better title so get over it already!