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Friday, 20 May 2005 (live in this illusion) 8:42am Shandon didn't come home last night. I suppose I should be worried, but she's twenty (as of yesterday), so she can take care of herself. I figure she found a better place to spend the evening.
I spent most of it out shopping with Maddy, then having dinner and watching Clone Wars
at Unimatrix Zero. Ironically, I briefly considered spending the night, but didn't because I assumed was going to be
taking Shandon to work the next morning. Oh well. Maybe next time, after the guru concert.
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Thursday, 19 May 2005 (beside you in time) 2:57pm A movie opens tomorrow which I really want to see: Paul Schrader's Dominion: Prequel to the Exorcist. Short story: John Frankenheimer was hired to write and direct an Exorcist prequel, thus reviving his old trend of following up William Friedkin movies. Then he went and died. Paul Schrader replaced him. He didn't die. The studio rejected his movie, saying it was too psychological and not exciting enough. Renny Harlin was hired to rewrite, recast and reshoot the film. Sadly, he didn't die. The studio liked that one a lot better. It sucked, and subsequently tanked. (Which isn't always the case.) Now Schrader's original version is being given a very limited release. I'm seriously considering going to see it this weekend, possibly Saturday morning. I hate that it's playing at googolplexes—really, it feels more like a Landmark kinda movie—but at least I don't have to worry about there being in a crowded theater, seeing as how everyone else will be at that other, more well-known prequel. I'll have time on Saturday, since the Tim and Roma! Show shoot scheduled for that morning has been canceled "due to the impending 2257 regulations and the massive amount of preparation needed to get in compliance." The math is that we have about a month or so before the Christo-Fascist Zombie Brigade (tm Marc Maron) starts knocking on our door. Lotsa work to be done. Now I just need to figure out if I should wait until after that, when my new responsibilities are defined, to ask to become a real employee or go for it now.
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Wednesday, 18 May 2005 (der schwarze tag) 9:12am I brought in my blacklight lamp this morning. I haven't felt comfortable enough at a job since CNET to do so. It didn't feel appropriate when I was the bad man's admin, and I got laid off from the other position at that company before I worked up the courage to bring it in. Nothing fancy, just the lamp I bought at a Dollar General in Omaha and a blacklight bulb, but I like how it looks. It makes me happy. There's some controversy regarding the parking situation. Someone's car got towed yesterday by the building landlord, and there's going to be a reconsidering of who gets to park where, or at all. There are more cars than spaces, and I strongly suspect that I'm going to be out of luck. Oh well. It was nice while it lasted. At least I'll be able to read on the train. (I always say that, don't I?) As so many things are these days, it's triggery for me, bringing up my employment-related separation anxieties. First they decide that i don't get the parking space anymore, then they decide they don't need me at all... Not thinking like that. Not.
Besides, since the Child Protection and Obscenity Enforcement Act (aka Section 2257) was just signed into law. Keeping our
2257 paperwork up to date is part of my job, and it's suddenly become a lot more critical. So they have to
keep me. They might even make me a real employee. Maybe.
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Tuesday, 17 May 2005 (unsent) 4:03pm Shandon arrived last night; she'll be staying with me until moving into her new apartment at the beginning of June. Her job is downtown not too far from my office, and her hours are roughly the same as mine, so I'll be taking her to work in the morning until she moves. Considering how fucked up my arrival in San Francisco was, I'm glad I can help hers be not so rough. 8:12pm I'd hoped to get some writing done tonight. Shandon's out on the town—out of the apartment, anyway—so I have the place to myself. Instead, though, I'm setting up my profile on Nerve.com Personals. So there's no telling how genuinely productive I'll be. 8:40pm Turns out I'm being fairly productive after all, since I'd much rather deal with the pain of writing than the pain of filling out Nerve.com's questionnaire. "Best or worst lie I've ever told?" Oh, come on...well, actually, on second thought, that one's easy: convincing the world I don't exist. I'm not going to say whether that's the best or the worst, though. 9:05pm See, here's the thing. I write about my life. If I didn't, my mill would be greatly lacking in grist. When I'm writing about the last six years, my diary comes in incredibly handy. Indeed, it's fulfilling its primary purpose: where I was at any given time, how I was feeling, what I was doing, who I was. The piece I'm working on is about the debate between my brother Tom and I on the concept of fundamentalist xtianity, shortly after I skipped his wedding in September of '99. It was an intense and confusing time for me, as I was still trying to figure out my direction in life. It really shows through, bleeds through, in my writing from those days. I'm in a similarly fluxy period right now. I have a much better sense of myself as a person, as well as a fair amount of momentum and self-knowledge, but the future is still a big scary open book. So much is happening. Would you know it from reading these pages? No. Every time I try to write about the smaller things, or even the bigger things, I freeze up. I worry that I'm repeating myself, or whining, or that my dozens of anonymous readers will be bored silly. I lose sight of the fact that it isn't about them. (Which is to say, you.) It's about me. Always has been—or, at least, it always should have been, in spite of attempts by others to dictate what I can and cannot say—and always will be. I hate the thought that someday I'll need to refer back to a recent time period to see where my head was at, and find nothing. It's already happened, in fact. And if people stop reading...well, so what? It's not like I'm getting paid by the clickthrough or anything. Note to self: do not eat at the Nippon Sushi, aka No-Name Sushi, on Church. It costs twice as much yet tastes half as good as the location in Pacifica. It's not like I didn't already know this. Now I just need to learn my fucking lesson.
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Monday, 16 May 2005 (falling together) 1:34pm There are cons to every job, of course. At this one, it's downright ironic: pronoun mistakes. The thing is, they haven't happened at my last few jobs, which were very straight environments. Even at the worst of his verbal abuse, the bad man never even hinted at such a thing. I have to assume I not only passed to him, but that nobody else said a word. My month at the much friendlier dot-com also passed without incident. (Except for me having pneumonia for half of it, but that's a different kind of incident.) Here, though, it's happened a couple times, one of them being at the party on Friday night. Mentioning it then would have brought things to screeching halt, so I let it go. Interestingly, in both cases it was from very gay, almost effeminate men. My theory is that they're accustomed to boys who get dressed up and probably look every bit as femmey as I do (my years of hormones and electro notwithstanding) yet are still comfortable being called "he." As a result, the fact that I'm completely female-identified may not be at the forefront of their mind.
So, I'll politely correct them when it happens, and use all my resources to not take it personally. The pluses
still outweigh the minuses, in a big way.
Hey, whaddayaknow. I have an Amazon wish list. Funny, that.
Inside my teevee stand, I have some VHS tapes of the original Star Trek which I recorded two decades ago. I'm keeping them mostly for sentimental reasons, as well as reminders of just how heavy VHS tapes used to be. (Track down a tape from the early eighties, if you can. They feel like they're made of lead.) Trek used to be an incredibly big deal to me, and up until recently I would have been saddened by the thought of there no longer being a series on the air. No longer, it seems. I'm still a fan, but my priorities have shifted. Or something. Then again, I did buy that animated Star Wars dvd, and I'd love to the get the original Trek on disc. How the hell should I know? Stop looking at me like that.
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Sunday, 15 May 2005 (her ruminations) 4:17pm Though as a rule they don't recognize unlicensed stations, Monkey was able to pull some strings and get Nielsen ratings for Pirate Cat Radio. According to their numbers, my last two shows have had an average of two hundred and sixty-four listeners. That's just on the air in San Francisco; I have no idea how many people are listening online, though Monkey says there are eight hundred streams, and they're frequently full. Always nice to know a few people are out there.
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Saturday, 14 May 2005 (redoctrination) 9:56pm Yesterday had the potential to end as badly as it had begun, as it was the night of my first party at the pr0n company, a combination anniversary slash launch party. (The launch in question, a revamping of the existing site, hasn't quite happened yet, but that's okay. A dozen eggs, a dozen chickens, right?) At a bar at O'Farrell and Larkin, it was in a far sketchier part of town than either of the bars my mother begged me not to go to in Fresno. Ah, my old pal irony. I never liked the company gatherings when I worked for the abusive chain-smoker, and I haven't worked anywhere else long enough in the last three years for it to become an issue. I seem to recall not being so fond of such things at CNET, either, and actively avoided them when I could. But things would be different now, I was sure. I was right. I felt at home. I'd even taken a chance and got dressed up fairly trashy, fishnets with garters and the hooker dress which has borne witness to so much drama in the past. Thankfully, there was no strife this time around. Watching people dancing and drinking and carousing and genuinely enjoying themselves, my coworkers, a company to which I belong even though on paper I'm only a part-time independent contractor, led me to wonder aloud, is this real? part of me doesn't believe this is really happening. Collette, my date, replied This Is All Really Happening. Then I was struck with a sense of certainty about something which I'd only suspected before: I wouldn't be here if I hadn't broken up with Maddy. I don't even mean that it would have been Maddy next to me rather Collette. I mean that I wouldn't have gotten the job at all. I can't explain it beyond that, without getting into crunchy magic(k) stuff which I can't truthfully say I understand or even truly believe. The Mitchell Brothers' O'Farrell Theater was right around the corner. Since they were one of the company's first clients back in the day, a group of us were able to get in free, including myself and my date for the evening, Collette. She'd never seen the inside of a strip club, so it was perfect. In the past, if my boss was drunk and rallying the troops to go into a strip club, I would be more than a little uncomfortable. He even bares a slight physical resemblance to The Big Boss from CNET. In this case, though, I enjoyed it thoroughly. It helps when the boss is a...well, I don't want to say "flaming queen" because that would give the wrong impression. But, while I respect Tim, I've never felt less threatened by a male employer.
After watching the show in the New York Room and the sideshow of customers and workers for about ten minutes, Collette
and I decided to hit the road. (Again, consider how much we paid.) On our way out, we couldn't help but notice that the Copenhagen
room was unoccupied. So, we occupied it for a while. Then we went back to the Cozycave and occupied the futon for the rest of the
night—following the instructions of Sister Edith, without
whom I wouldn't have gotten the job in the first place, we went forth and sinned some more.
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Friday, 13 May 2005 (shine in the dark) 1:16pm Today has not been one of my better Fridays the Thirteenth. Not that they mean much to me one way or the other, any more than Mercury being in retrograde affects mine or anyone else's life. Or, more to the point, it only affects one's life if one believes that it will. When I woke up at half past three this morning, the date was the farthest thing from my mind. All I knew was that I was in pain. My hip was killing me, and it didn't take long to figure out why: the futon frame. Earlier in the evening I'd been all proud of myself for fixing an annoying squeak, but now it wasn't quite flat. It's hard to describe if you don't know what thet look like, but there's a kind of bendy part in the middle which should be flat when it's bed mode, and it was sticking into my side. I folded up the futon mattress as best as I could—those fuckers are bulky—and tried to flatten it out, with only marginal success. I briefly considered just staying awake, but figured I shouldn't do that to myself. Sleeping on the couch didn't sound very good, either. Eventually, I managed to make myself comfortable without being on the hurty bit. The fact that my side is only mildly sore rather than outright painful means it works. Still, the message is clear: I need to get a real mattress. The futon mattress isn't really cutting it considering the idiosyncrasies of the frame. So, that goes on the List. Thanks to extreme fashion indecision, I left the house later than I'd intended. The front windshield of my car was in dire need of a wash, so I took it to a nearby service station. Since I was already pointing that direction, I figured I'd take Lincoln to get to work. Before I left, though, I realized that the skirt I was wearing was all wrong. So, I went back to the apartment, changed, and headed back out. Now taking the freeway made more sense somehow, so I made a left onto Great Highway, vaguely aware of a car turning in the other direction suddenly flipping a U, hoping I'd still get work early enough to— Sirens and light. A cop car in my mirror. Not wanting to get around me, either. I pulled over, not sure what was going on. I mean, yes, I was getting pulled over, but why? I've never actually been stopped before. I think The Ex may have gotten a speeding ticket or two with me in the car, I don't remember for certain, but I'd never been nabbed. A few days ago, I realized that I didn't have a current insurance card. My policy was paid up—I'd managed to pay it just in the nick of time, thanks to my landlords letting me pay rent late without penalty—but they'd never sent me a new card, so I'd been driving for at least a week without one. I called and used their automated system to have a new one faxed to my office. Nothing. I called a few hours later and tried again. This time, it worked. I almost just put it in my notebook, but then thought better of it and went right out to my car to put it in the Imporant Stuff Pouch with my license and registration. The way my automotive luck's been going, I suspected I would need it sooner rather than later. At the cop approached, I got out my license. My hands were trembling, as they are wont to do. My license is in a billfold thing, so he asked me to remove it. Unfortunately, it only just barely fits. removing it is really tricky. It's difficult enough when I don't have a cop watching. Finally I was able to get it out without it bending too much, and he asked for my registration and proof of insurance as well. Those, I knew where to find. Do You Know Why I Pulled You Over, Ma'am? he asked. actually, I replied, i'm... Then it hit me, and not a moment too soon. oh. i didn't come to a complete stop when i turned off of great highway.. He almost smiled. That's Right, he said. Since You Were Honest, I'm Going To Give You A Break. If You'd Lied, I Would Have Ticketed You. He handed me back my paperwork. Just Be Sure To Always Come To A Complete Stop At Stop Signs. thank you, sir, i said weakly as he walked away. My hands were still trembling as I put the stuff back in the Pouch. Insurance, registration, and— Holy shit. The license was already in there. I don't carry around my license in my billfold, but rather a California ID. At least if I lose that, I can still drive. And, just like trembling hands, I tend to lose about half of my brainpower when I'm scared, so I'd dumbly given him my ID, not my license. What I haven't figured out yet is, did he notice? Was he that unobservant? He couldn't have noticed. If he had, he probably would have thought I was trying to slip something by him,and he wouldn't have let me off so easily. The rest of the drive was blessedly without incident, as has the day been so far.
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Thursday, 12 May 2005 (moving in stereo) 10:02am According to an article in Xbiz, a pr0n industry newsmagazine, my company is "housed in a converted bathhouse in San Francisco." A pretty big one, too; it took up all three floors of this building, though my company only occupies one. (A riveting personal account, if you're so inclined.) Aleister tells me there's even a leftover shower which still functions. Between that and hosting an open mic at an existing bathhouse, I couldn't be more proud. 1:57pm I had lunch with the producer of The Tim and Roma! Show today. (Sorry; we did lunch. Gotta get the jargon right.) Looks like I'm going to start helping produce the show, and also facilitating it being shown on both Access SF and Pirate Cat Television. Neat.
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Wednesday, 11 May 2005 (draining) 10:53pm I've been to a googolplex twice in as many weeks. This possibly the first time this phenomenon has occurred this millennium, and I don't expect it'll happen again before the third Bush administration. The fact that last week it was Serenity and tonight was The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy with Maddy (which I enjoyed), each movie versions of sci-fi properties I'm fond of, can only mean one thing: I'm still a huge fucking nerd.
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