What Was I Thinking???

Yeah, I worked Christmas Eve, and it was busy until we finally shut down at 9. I went home and ate something, as ws intending to go to midnight services whe my friend D. called and we ended up talking for about two hours about everything and nothing. He will be back in town for school in a week or so, and I have missed him.

I volunteered to work Christmas from 8-4, my reasoning being that (1) All my friends are out of town;(2) I have no family here and (3) Come on: it'll be a slow day, with people coming in to pick up a few things here and there that they might have forgotten ... What was I thinking???

Christmas morning it was about seventy degrees Fahrenheit (21 C) and 80% humidity, so I didn't get to use the really kewl bike tights that my sister sent me (and I haven't yet). I got to work and, within minutes, the store was packed with customers. These people were not just picking up a few things: they were loading up their carts with every kind of foodstuff imaginable! It was horrible! It never stopped! I never got a break and barely got to run to the toilet a couple of times. When it was time to close up the store, people still kept coming in. We had to lock the entrance door and post an employee there to keep them from coming in the exit door!

Of course, we were way understaffed, because nobody expected this much business, and the store was staffed completely by volunteers. We made at least a dozen closing announcements and finally, a manager had to walk around the store and tell individual customers, who were still shopping as though it were any other day, to please get the fuck out. It was hell.

The liquor side was shut, so I didn't get whisky for my egg nog. I wanted to eat somewhere, but everything was shut except for IHOP and Jack-in-the-Crack, so I went home, fixed a frozen dinner, and watched Almodovar until I got tired enough to sleep. That was my Christmas, and it sucked greatly. On top of that, I had to work Boxing Day, too, and every day until Monday, which will be the first time I have had time to think in a week.

The moral of this story is: even if they pay you extra to work on holidays, if you have anything, I mean anything better to do, do yourself a favor and do that instead. This season is enough of a retail hell without adding insult to injury.

Peace. Out.

Poo Days

Long time no blog. I admit to being a little be-otch. Many, many things be happening, O, Best Beloved. I sure hope this is in Lucinda Grave. I Love sans serif fonts!

Well, I wasn't, at least last week. Poor little thing, I was smitten from below by a nasty virus from Hell. Oh, shit .. LC isn't!!! Oh well. Serifs will have to do. Are you out there? Hello?

Anyway, I got this nasty poo virus. I call it a nasty poo virus because that's all you do, is hurt in your vitals and poo a lot, and the poo is legendary. The beginning is what we here in South Louisiana call "gumbo poo", and ends with the "Hershey squirts". It is accompanied by gastric disturbances that rival the separation of California from the rest of America by gastric default. Can I describe it better? The rumble in the jungle is the rumble in your pants.

So, I get over that. It cost me a day off work, which I can't really afford, being a wage slave. It also wiped (pun intended) out my supply of toilet tissue. So, I had to go to work to resupply my TP.

It has been hot and cold: one day it is around freezing and the next day I can ride in a t-shirt and bike shorts. It has been rather pretty out. Ducks be ducking, on the lakes. I be ducking traffic. Today is no different. Here, I was planning a day with no stress, just writing, watching movies (Fern loaned me a bunch of Almodovar) and (leisurely) putting my new house in order, and I get called in to work. Well, I can use the money, so I am going. Beats beating off (not really, but that doesn't pay a lot), so, it's into my tiny shower and a sprint to the store for me.

It's not cold now, but I'm taking my ski gloves anyway. Last night, my fingers got frosty. The wind is from the North, so it's easy riding to work. Wind in my face tonight, I guess.

Devon Sawa Rules!

Okay. Take it for granted that there are a lot of cute boys in the world: straight people keep popping them out like Jiffy Pop. Thank you, Straight People: I admire your work, though I would not like to have to do it. One of the absolutely cutest boys to ever exist is Devon Sawa. I know that I shall be judged for my shallowness (after all, a man should not be judged by the way he looks, but for his character), but you are all guilty of it. If you weren't, there would be no tabloid industry.

Devon, as a young man (he is now 30) was absolutely beautiful. He never was a great actor, although his work in Idle Hands, with Seth Green, was noticeable, but he was always nice to look at, and I have seen (and collected) all of his films, as way back as Twister. Oh, how gay, you might say, but then, I am. I also really like young men, and that isn't a new thing: I liked them when I was young.

Well, I haven't seen Devon in anything in awhile, and I miss him. He's supposed to have a new film out next year. I hope he hasn't gotten fat, and that he dosen't have to actually act much, because his forte' is just looking totally edible. Not that I really want to put Devon down, because I really appreciate all he has done to make the world a more beautiful place. And, I mean that.

Which brings me to the philosophical question that seems to seep into many of my posts: what happens to aging faggots?

There is a generation gap in the gay world. We had our own holocaust, and it was called AIDS. Nazis didn't do it, and, despite the blatherings of the religious right, we didn't exactly do it to ourselves even if Larry Kramer said that we were "fucking ourselves to death". I remember those times. I was there. I'm not saying that Devon is gay. He just represents youth lost.

Youth lost is never found again. That's why I am glad that Devon is still around. I find him inspiring. There are not a lot of guys my age around. There are older guys and there are younger ones. There is about a twenty-year gap in gay male culture. This has made a profound difference in our lives, although a lot of guys are too focused on fashion to realise it. Younger men used to pair off with older men: this has been an aspect of gay culture from ancient Greece. Now, younger men pair off together, which leaves old fuckers like me out in the cold.When you are old and gay and single, it is like a life's sentence: you are condemned forever o be alone. Of course, you are allowed on night stands and stand-up sex in public toilets, but forget having a "meaningful relationship". I hate being old and gay.

Devon rules because he is beautiful. Though he may age, his image in film is a consntant reminder to me of what it was like to be young and cute. And, in a culture that worships youth, as ours does, gay or straight, he belongs in my Pantheon.

Too Few Fonts!

Watched two awful disaster things last (let's see if it works), changing fonts, I mean. Oh, kewl: Courier! Used to have an old typewriter with Courier on it, only you couldn't change fonts, because they were built with set keys, one for each of two characters, which were chosen by a shift key which literally raised the key higher, so that it would strike an inked ribbon that scrolled past, leaving a character upon a piece of white paper. If you needed copies, you used carbon paper, and hit the keys a lot harder. That was a way to make a good impression.

Now I'm learning Bluetooth: go figure.

Oh, Gawd that felt good! I was tired of reminiscing over Courier. After all, I have been friends of a lot of fonts. I really have to thank Tal and Dave for that. I wish Garaband were availible: I love to write in Garaband: even the Italics look good.


There are a bunch of straight kids partying in the courtyard to the East. They are drunk and shouting and breaking things.

Pakistan's stern warning to the United States after our last incursion their territory is for internal use only. A lot of nations (including this one) make public statements for home consumption, with deals uder the table to do things which are otherwise, impossible. The words 'honesty' and 'politics' have only passing association. Pakistan is only too willing to have US military forces clean up paramilitary groups within their borders, as long as the people of Pakistan are aware that every effort is being taken to keep infidels off of their soil. Go figure.

I guess they went somewhere else to party. It is quiet now. Finals are over this week-end and the neighbuorhood will be very quiet, as students return to their families for the holidays. Meant to write more, but I.am tired. Going to warch the end of this movie with Kevin Spacey in it and crash. Wash day is tomorrow,

Bluetooth Dentures

I think I need bluetooth dentures. Okay, I am an old dewd, but I have definitely paid my cyber-debt, and I deserve my cyber-props. When I embarked upon this journey into an alternate lifestyle (not the fag one: the matrix) I took it for granted that the younger gay/jock/techno-geeks would keep up with me, even surpass me in my endless quest for a more complicated way to do a simple thing, through technology. Alas, and Alack (his cousin?), t'was not to be.

So, like, I got this little bluetooth adapter for my laptop, so I could better connect to to my kewl new phone, which has already baffled me, except I just found out how to do a direct link with it through an USB adapter, so, not bothered by hubris, I bought the damned thing, uploaded the software, and sought out to connect my utterly kewl new phone to my laptop by bluetooth.

Well, after about two hours, I finally found my phone's signal, and my laptop claimed that it knew my phone intimately, that they had been friends for years, had double-dated, in fact, and belonged to the same lodge. My phone keeps saying: "please wait".

Okay. So, correct me if I'm wrong: bluetooth is a protocol that allows cross-platforming between different devices (printers, mobiles, PDAs, laptops, blenders, vibrators) on a high-frequency, multi-sharing self-supporting network which allows open networking and closed, security-enabled data exchange within a short distance. Whew! Is that right? Am I stupid?

Maybe I just need bluetooth dentures. Okay: I loaded the software. I plugged the adapter into my USB port. I read the manual (which is written in 30 languages, but still doesn't tell you anything). I found my phone and asked bluetooth to add it, so I could experence connectivity beyond my imagination. I did everything right, according to the Slovenian instructions, and my phone says:"please wait." It has said that for an hour. I feel underdressed at a good restaurant.

This totally sucks, as I am ready to embrace the brave new world of bluetooth. How can technology deny someone who is so blithe to come to it?

Go figure.

Which Venture Brother?

Like the font really changes ... ain't seen it yet. I switched to Lucida Grande and it looks just like Trebuchet when I post it. Suckoreenee. Tal would appreciate what I'm saying, as would Dave, if they ever read this crap.

Well, working as a cashier in a grocery store sucks, even if you don't have a college degree. It sucks for all of us. It's been slow, after Thanksgiving, and it will pick up soon (I hope), because time stands still when it's slow. Of course, we are expected to do something, even when there is nothing to do. There is a current crackdown on idle time, with the LPs watching tapes to find out just who is chewing gum, reading mags or talking on their cells when they are bored out of their fucking minds. The endless Christmas music is like having a cheese grater applied to your fingertips and then having them dipped in a mixture of acid and hot sauce, while being continuously flogged by a cat-o-nine-tails made up of live cobras who have just been in serious arguments with mongeese (or 'gooses'?), who have just come in from all-nighters with the boys, smelling of whisky, having lost a large amount of what passes for mongoose money, fought with their mongoose wives, and anticipating Kiplingesque hangovers. Yes, it is that bad.

Idiots come into groceries. Of course they do: everyone has to buy food. Sometimes I believe that there is a vast idiot electromagnet under this town. It was turned on last night. People do the stupidest things. They expect you to read their minds. Some of them want every bag filled to bursting. Others want two items per bag. Some want the gallon bottle of milk bagged, whilst others will fix you with the death eye for daring to bag their milk. It is nuts.

I hate the fuckers who talk on their cells the whole time they are dealing with me: it is like I don't even exist. Some of them actually look annoyed if you speak to them and interrupt their conversations. I feel like taking my phone out and dialing someone at random and talking to them, just to piss the cunts off. How rude can you be? Very. You will never experience true rudeness until you have worked in a grocery check-out. When a price is wrong, it is your fault. When something won't ring up, it's your fault. When they read the goddamned price wrong, or they have the wrong item for the coupon, because they are stupid, it is your fault. When they just flat can't count, and you have to void half an order, it is your fault. Fuck.You can't win. All you can do is smile and be fucking polite.

Sometimes, when a customer is on its cell, I will mouth words, without speaking, until they have to put the damned thing down and actually talk to me. That's my puny revenge.

So, I stayed up all night, doing lots of stuff, some creative and some just jerking off. I watched Venture Brothers on Adult Swim (which I've mentioned before). It's a way kewl cartoon. I started thinking: if I was a cartoon guy, which Venture Brother would I really want to do? Hmmm... This took some thought. I like skinny, geeky guys a lot, so I thought about doing Dean. Dean is an obvious bottom boy, and he has freckles, and I love freckles. I'm sure Dean would love to take it up the ass. On the other hand, I love blond boys (like me) and Hank is blond. Hank is stockier, and, though I do like skinny boys, he definitely has the more spankable bottom. I'd definitely let Hank fuck me.

OMG ... I am fantasising about cartoon boys: I really need to get laid, RIGHT AWAY!

Sneaux?

Yes, I have been remiss ... I haven't written on my damned blog in a week, but my excuse is that quite a lot has happened (which I will relate more of in a later post/and/or post(s). For one thing, I am no longer homeless, thanks to my friend Chester and a hell of a lot of running around on my part, doing things. I didn't get the place I initially wanted, but, as it turns out, this is probably going to work out better, at least for now. It is actually about 40m from the place where I lived, years ago, on Highland, even thought the building has been torn down and a Jack-in-the-Box now stands there (more about that later).

So, even though it is an "efficiency" walk-up (which means carrying my bike up and down a flight of stairs), it has quite a lot of space and an actual view, albeit of the JITB parking lot, so I can watch people driving through and buying crappy food all day long, if I get really, really bored. I have been luxuriating in the total freedom of actually having a place to stay (which mostly means goofing off a lot and taking LOTS of naps). I actually get to cook food now, because I have a refrigerator that has real food in it, not MREs or take-out. Tonight, I had a bit of steak, a baked potato with sour cream and chives, and yes, oh yes, my very first egg nog of the season (with a stiff shot of whisky in it!). Oh, bliss!

Oh, yeah: I have an inflate-O-bed, with real sheets and pillows and a comforter on it, and a gas fire (so what if it isn't a fireplace?), and a brand new microwave that I just got, which is really cool, and didn't cost me much; and (best of all) I can snag two WiFi signals for free, even though the reception is poor, so I really can't do YouTube or other video ,most of the time: I still have to go to Cc's or someplace else for that. So,it's heaven on Earth.

So, I worked until 8 yesterday, and, when I got off, it was near freezing and pouring rain, and the weatherman (or men or women) had predicted snow. For some reason, people here find it necessary to spell snow as sneaux, as kind of a cutesy faux (real word) French word. The real French word for snow is niege, which hasn't got an 's' in it at all. Go figure. I rode my bicycle home (as usual) and was half-frozen and wet from the waist down when I got home (great word!). I lit the fire, stripped off my wet clothes, dried off, got into dry ones, and fixed dinner.

When you ride a bike in the rain, the back wheel throws water up your back. The water proceeds down the middle of your back, into your shorts, down your butt-crack and thoroughly saturates your balls. This is unpleasant. Just as unpleasant is having splash from the road fill your shoes, so your feet are cold and wet, as well. The feeling of wet nuts, a wet bottom and sloshy feet is indescribable: it took about an hour for my testicles to reappear: they were in hiding.

I got all comfy and warm and ate and watched Dark Knight, which was extremely kewl, and goofed off for awhile. I stay up late, so I was still up around 3:30, when I heard this familiar tapping noise on my window. I though, "no, it can't be ...", but, when I looked out the window, yes, it was actually snowing. This is South Louisiana ... snow is a rarity here. I went outside and took some video with my phone and some pictures, which I uploaded. I am going to try to put them on this blog.

The whole city pretty much shut down the next day (which is today): all the schools and a lot of government offices were closed. They closed a lot of bridges (which we have a lot of here) so a lot of people didn't make it to work. I don't like snow. I remember the very first time I met snow, when I was about 3. My parents thought it would be fun to dress me up in a little "snow suit" and take me outside and take pictures of me and the snow. I hated it and started crying. You can tell by my face in the pictures that I thoroughly hated it. Had I been older, I would have called Family Services on them. How sadistic! I could have gotten frostbite, and lost my fingers, and not been able to type this, years later. What a loss to the world that would have been!

At any rate, I'm going to try putting photos and maybe some video in my blog. I'll try to post more and fill in some of the other stuff that's happened lately. For now, I'm going to have another egg nog, with plenty of whisky: it's good against the cold. That's my excuse, and, if not medical science, then those big dogs with the Swiss ski patrols, at least, will back me up (or, is that brandy?).

Fate

Okay. So, I put down a deposit on a place, but the guy who is supposed to have moved out hasn't yet, so I am supposed to have a place I can move to this week, but it might not be the place I want, but another place, in Spanish Town, where my friend Ben used to live, but that guy hasn't moved out yet, either. None of this really bothers me much, considering how totally fucked up my life has been lately. Why should anything go according to plan? I'm getting used to making two or three plans at the same time, because at least one of them is bound to fail.

Spent the last night on Travis' floor. I can tell that having to temporarily house me is wearing on him somewhat, but he has really been super about the whole thing, and so has Fernando. We will ALL be glad when Carl has his own place.

Went by work to check my schedule and grab something to eat yesterday and Ken (who used to be my boss, in the liquor department) asked me if I could work a couple of hours for him because one of his people called in sick, so I did, only I wound up closing. That was okay, because I can use the hours, and I wouldn't have had anything to do, anyway, except what I'm doing now, which I can't do all the time because it would make me monomaniac. When T. (I'm using initials to protect the innocent) came to relieve me at 10, she said that she had chided him for the way he had treated me before, saying, "Now, Carl is saving your ass again. Don't you feel bad?" And, she said, he said yes.

Which brings me to the point of this post, if there is a point to this post:a lot of people actually like me, where I work. Pretty much everyone knows my situation, and several people told me last night that they are glad that things are getting better. One of my co-workers told me that she would help me get furniture, if I need it. Another co-worker told me that he never would have made it through what I have, and that he admired my courage and resourcefulness. So, maybe all of this crap has been for a reason. I hope not. I'm not a big believer in FATE. That implies that I have even less control over my life than I think I do, which is awfully scary.

At any rate, I will give Wallace's office a call today, and, hopefully, find out where I will be living and when I can move in. Travis and Fernando have been so sweet to me, and I really don't want to put them out any more than I already have. Who would ever have thought that my ex-boyfriend and his boyfriend would turn out to be the best friends I have? Go figure.

Now My Phone Won't Work!

Really! Just spent all that money on a new phone, and thought I had until December 19 to pay the bill, but they changed the billing date (apparently) and so, I went to text Travis and, lo and behold, my fucking phone wouldn't fucking connect! Goddammit! Is there no end to my tribulations?

So, I am back at CC's, blogging and charging. No idea what else to do today. I was hoping that I would be busy moving stuff and getting the electric turned on and starting to get settled in a new place, but not today. Guess not. Probably an MRE tonight and a movie until my battery dies.

I wanted to get one of those inflate-a-beds. I was hoping to sleep on that tonight. Wallace's secretary is supposed to call me tomorrow and let me know when I can expect to move in (and where). I would love an inflate-a-nap now. I wish I could take an inflate-a-nap with me, so, whenever I got bored and had a few minutes, I could inflate it and snooze. That would be so really coolio.

Hope the payment on my phone account goes through soon. Made it at Radio Shack. Supposed to be posted within 4 hours ... usually sooner. What an annoyance. Everything always seems to happen at once. Of course, that makes no sense at all: how could something not happen at once? How else would it happen? "Suddenly, something happened." As opposed to what? "Gradually, something happened?" How about: "It happened in a series of installments, as spelled out precisely in the enclosed brochure." How about: "Nothing happened?" Nothing cannot happen, by definition. "Nothing didn't happen" makes more sense, except for being a double negative of sorts, which makes it grammatically suspect. Which brings me right back to the subject of being bored and having nothing to do, which is probably what drove Nietzsche to stare into the abyss until he went all wobbly and retired from the philosophy business. Damnit, one of the reasons I got this kewl fone was to dispell boredom! Damned abyss pisses me off!

Things Still Suck (Kind of)

Frustration reigns. Went to Wallace's office today to rent the property on State St., but the guys who live there are not out yet, and it may be the middle of the week before they are gone. If they are not out, there is a flat on Spanish Town Rd. that I can have (in the same building that Ben Renda used to live), but that guy is not out either. I would not have a problem moving from the Spanish Town flat to the one in State St., if I wanted to do that later, but I still won't have a place to live until later this week. At any rate, I won't know anything until tomorrow morning, when Wallace's bookkeeper is going to call me. I did pay a deposit, and signed a tentative lease, so I have legal right of occupancy whenever the current residents of either place actually move out. Even if I do wind up in Spanish Town for a while, it will be okay.

So, I don't have anywhere to go tonight.Slept on Travis' and Fernando's floor last night (it was near freezing) but I don't want to presume on them too much. Can't afford another Hotel Night, because I need the money for rent and utilities. Crap.

I am at Zippy's right now, eating lunch and blogging. Don't know what I will do next. I would love a nap. Maybe go to CC's (where I can plug in: there isn't an outlet here). God, I want to take a nap!

So, I am kind of frustrated, but I know something will be better this week. So, if I have to wait a little longer, after all I have been through, it is really minor. It still sucks, though.