Wellington · Living

Wow. Just wow.

OK, to be clear: not WoW— no World of Warcraft here. In fact, I've totally forgotten to check in on it. Ah well, no loss. No, since I got out of work yesterday, it's been old school fantasy: curled up with a great book, maybe eating a little, sleeping a little, but pretty much reading the book from cover to cover. And cackling. Cackling like a madman.

Page 198 was key. I'm sure it's exactly what Rob was thinking of when he recommended Abercrombie's The First Law books to us, at the last Deadfire Gathering. Up to that point, I'd been seeing more signs of familiarity with stendhal9's "Dragons of My Dreams" campaign in them. But page 198 was pure, pristine, Deadfire, coming echoing back from the past and making me scare my cat with my cackle of pure, Awesomewrong self-recognition.

There's a bit of a spoiler here, and it's really only going to make sense to the Deadfire folks, so I'll cut it. But I have to record it here, for myself, and to let Rob know how much I owe him for this surprise. I hit the line "Have we got him?" and couldn't contain myself. Made for me, that line. Then, the suckerpunch a few lines away:

( Have we got him? )

I doubt few these days remember Gomer's annoying tagline. I always hated the show myself, but it's there in the back of my head: "Surprise, Surprise, Surprise." And I thought of it last night after my third surprise of the day.

The first was finding out early in the workday yesterday that the horrible database issue that's been plaguing us just stopped on its own. Since Thursday some unknown problem from out of the blue, had been slowing down our nightly loads, making us come up late enough to screw over the users, making my team and others jump around and furiously try to come up with solutions. As per usual, DBAs and Sys Admins were officially stumped, or unhelpfully suggested the issue must lay in our code. Once it mysteriously vanished (before we could get any code changes tested and pushed through), our suspicions (and ire) were naturally raised towards those two groups, and we'll no doubt never know what happened. But there's four work days of extreme stress I'll never get back. This was the unpleasant surprise.

The second surprise was coming home last night to find my stairs all painted and good. I'd been considering taking today off to finish off the painting (and considering the stress we'd just been through, I could have gotten my boss on board to let me.) But my upstairs neighbor beat me to it by taking yesterday afternoon off. This was a pleasant surprise, as I got to pretty much relax last night after all this stress, and, oh yeah, a crazy MIDTERM I had to take. I sat down in front of the TV and fast forwarded through the hot bits of Casino Royale on the TiVo, which I guess was another pleasant surprise, but not big enough to really note.

Finally, as I went to go to bed, I turned back on my phone, which I'd had off for test taking/relaxation purposes, to find my third surprise: a mysterious text message from an unknown number, calling me a whore. Due mostly to my exhaustion, I didn't quite piece it together until this morning. I sat in bed trying (poorly) to figure it out as I fell asleep: who might I have slept with in my free and easy days of yore who was trying to update their number with me? Was this some kind of booty call mistake I'd made coming back to haunt me? But, no, the solution was obvious in the light of morning: no ex-paramours involved, that_cad just got a new iPhone. At least I hope that's it.

Anyway, done with surprises for now. Done with pretty much everything: I want to crawl into a hole and hide for a few days. I'm thinking I caught a low-level cold this past weekend from standing in the rain. Or from the chills earlier this week while stressed. Oh, but wait: there's homework due next Tuesday which I have yet to complete. Ugh.

So last week I had my check-in fitness test, and afterwords, I didn't want to write about it. It wasn't really bad, but it wasn't good, either. So I decided to take more time to digest.

In that time digesting, life moved on, and my trainer introduced my new program for the next eight weeks: the Fear of God Program, at least, that's what I'm calling it. As of last night, I've only done two of the three workouts, and I fear what might be coming tonight. It's not a "horror" fear: it's more like the fear you're supposed to have of God. Here's an example: we're now doing four sets of everything, and with ludicrous weights, and he's pyramiding them. Last night, for my second set of four bench press, he stacks on 205 pounds. Three months ago, that was my theoretical one-rep maximum, as a calculation based on moving lower amounts more reps. As of last night, it's theoretical no longer: I managed to do two reps, which may mean 210 is my one-rep max now. (Yay for benching your own weight.) As I tried to push up the bar for the third time, fear came over me. I was thinking: if we're increasing the weight each set, or even every other, I was going to have to move this weight or more, twelve times, sometime in the next fifteen minutes. The feeling was fear of pain, fear of failure, fear of disappointing your authority figure, plus a little wonder of how far you've gotten and the glory of creation mixed in. Like I said, it's very like the fear of God. (Pete was merciful and dropped the weights for the next two sets. But we did two more sets: brutal.) Did I mention I have to as many pull-ups as I can four times a night? Four sets of clapping push-ups (on top of the bench press)? That's junior-high levels of fear of God, back when you thought that God must be an authority figure like your coach. Luckily there's nowhere to hang a rope to make me climb.

But I seem to be holding up, although with a little bit of insomnia from still coming down off the endorphins come midnight. This progress on the new workouts means I feel better about my results from last Tuesday's (9/8) test. So, I can talk about them now: I'm still 209 pounds, but my body fat was not below 20% like I was shooting for, but actually went up to 21.6%. So by some logic, I must have less muscle mass. I did have a resting/recovered heart rate so low my trainer and his boss both took my pulse to confirm it, so I guess that's good. But only my legs seemed to gain any size, although as per usual, the tape measure is a very imprecise measurement. Still, I would have thought I'd have gotten something to my shoulders or chest or arms or something. When he first measured my upper arm, it looked like I'd lost two inches up there, which is ridiculous. Turned out he'd put in the wrong place, but I'd still lost a quarter inch. That sucked, but after Thursday's workout, I wasn't worried about small upper arms anymore. Even by Friday afternoon, my boss was embarrassing the hell of me by going on about my "gun show" at our one-on-one. I think my arm pump from Thursday lasted more than a few hours: more like a few days. The chest pump I'm walking around with today may be here the rest of the week.

I am going to try, as hard as it is, to stick to doing the full-on three days of cardio a week. And that's serious cardio: if I go running, it has to be for an hour or more. I managed an hour run Saturday, in the rain, and unappropriate and I biked a couple hours and many miles on Sunday. But with stuff on Wednesday nights, doing three days means three days in a row, and I'm not sure I could do Friday, Saturday, and Sunday forever. Or worse, do an hour of cardio *after* one of these Fear of God workouts. So I'll probably be struggling to fit it in each week. Still, gotta do it if I want to see the fat burned off.

So, next test? If there isn't improvement, I'll be shocked. Plus it will prove God hates me, despite my proper fear.

Oh. I got the first assignment. While the course material may be easy, the work load is definitely NOT.

When he said 10-20 hours, I was thinking that was per assignment. He's saying per week per assignment, with most assignments going three weeks. And looking at the first assignment, 60 hours looks about right to finish it. Yikes!

Well, at least lacking motivation due to complacency won't be an issue. Now it's going to be more like having motivation problems because this horse has been whipped to much.

There's one part probably making some folks really worried, but I had to laugh. Two of the questions in the first problem set require proofs by induction. My reaction of AWESOME! is probably not shared among my classmates. It's probably good I'm not going to class physically, because my muttering "and you gave the whole thing away with your hint; now a baby can do this." would get me executed. Or making gleeful happy noises as I work on my most favorite of proof types. I mean, c'mon, isn't proof by induction the niftiest thing?

Hello?

Anyone?

So, it's fall. And, as of last night, my schedule is once again full, every night. This is probably a bad idea, but whatcha gonna do? Drop out of stuff. But which stuff? The important answer to that: not grad school again.

I signed up for another course in my glacial movement towards a master's, which is on Tuesday nights. It meets across the street from my office, but as it is scheduled to start five minutes after my workout session across the river in the South End, I'm taking it with the "distance education" option. Last night, sweaty, but with my arms pretty pumped, I got home to turn on the first lecture streaming live, and made dinner while watching. Modern course taking: nothing if not convenient! While I might end up watching recorded lectures later in the week, lying around in my underwear, I found out I will not watch live-streaming video that way. I was disgustingly sweaty, but couldn't bring myself to change while the course was streaming to my computer monitor. I know, I know, they can't be watching. But still.

From last night's intro, the course is looking like something I took in high school, updated for Java, and adding like two to three lectures of material that's changed since the day. It's feeling like another easy "A", which worries me, as last spring's course was much the same, and I ended dropping out of that one. That DB course was so easy, and so much like work (and the instructor was someone I worked with, as was a TA), that I had absolutely no motivation for it. After two weeks, I couldn't bring myself to even read the course notes, much less watch the lectures, because it was like tacking on five more hours of my job to a day. The instructor had said to me many times that I was overqualified for the course, and he didn't recommend I take it. When I figured out he was right, and dropped it, his response was "As I said." I'm sorry I lost the semester to it, and I don't want to make such a mistake again.

On the other hand, this one is programming I don't do on my regular job, and there is new material. I made have done the course in high school, but that was programming in Pascal, and this is far advanced. I figure if I dedicate Tuesday nights after workouts, and Sunday nights to programming, I'll be OK. But to keep at it, I've got to make sure I don't miss it, or drop behind on lectures, because I just know I'll end up losing momentum.

Well, this one is a WoW post, but I'll try to be fair to the non-WoW audience.

So, results of coming out to parts of my raid/guild:

It's all cool with the one guy who sort of started me thinking I would need to, to head off him worrying about his actions offending me if he found out later. He did worry a tiny bit in his first response about having offended me, but because we were having a direct conversation, we relieved that worry so quick, the whole thing was pretty much a "are we cool; yep" thing.

The other main person had already picked up from my personality that I was gay: she pointed out a couple of occasions where I'd said some pretty easily interpreted statements. So, it turns out I am pretty out there (ha ha), at least enough for the girls to notice. For bonus points, she also pointed out three other gay guys in my guild I hadn't noticed myself. Heh. Something to look into there, although it appears at least two are married.

In more directly WoW news, last night my ten man group downed Yogg-Saron. Our original intent was just to get some practice on Phase 2, which some of us had barely seen. Two regulars, including our raid leader, were missing. And we'd hit up against the raid time limit: so we were doing the "stay late for one more try" which, when it doesn't work, is so disappointing, but when it does... bam! Victory is sweet.

Analyzing it now, maybe it wasn't as remarkable as it felt at the time. Some of us had gotten a bit of practice as a team a few Mondays ago, when we decided to do an extra raid night just to see him. And there's five folks in my raid grinding against him in another 25 man raid. Plus we had Marco. Plus we had a few T8 and 3.2 gear upgrades since the last time.

But still, we got to Phase 3 on our second attempt, despite having had to train one person how to fight in the brain room from scratch. And we learned quick for never having seen the last phase. One of my prouder moments was helping with that: on the last official attempt before the raid time ran out, I managed to keep myself, the tank and three DPS up healing by myself, even though we knew it was a wipe (two other healers and our emergency healing switch-hitter were all down). The minute of extra practice they got on phase 3 convinced us we could do it, if we just did one more try, and bam, we got it.

All in all, despite having barely been on WoW this month, what with vacation and all, I'm doing great. I went from being denied T8 gear for weeks and weeks to having four pieces, plus conqueror badge upgrades and rare gems, all in the space of a week and a half: I got four significant upgrades Friday night. And, in the long-time coming category, Hodir finally dropped his trousers for me, so there's an end to being a Sex Slave for Hodir at long last. ;)

This is kinda a WoW post, but don't go anywhere. I'll keep the jargon low.

So, for what feels like the jillionith time in my life, I wrote some folks outting myself. (For you late comers who somehow missed all my posts and status and boyfriend search whining: yes, I'm gay.) No big news there about outing: it's just this thing you have to constantly do. This time is worthy of a journal entry because it's the first time I've had to do it with people who only know me via playing in a game over the Internet. I felt I'd better out myself to at least my raid leaders, based on a running gag in raid chat that might (although very unlikely) lead to some discomfort. Not for me: for folks who, if they found out later from some other source (like the entire Internet), might be worried they'd offended me, when they clearly hadn't.

I out myself to complete strangers on the Internet nearly constantly these days, what with all the match profiles etc. And I've had friends playing on WoW to whom I'm a known homosexual, but not because I told them on-line: they already knew me "IRL" as it's said. No, this time it was folks who've gotten to interact with me for months, but only via chat and voice, but still, to the point of knowing my personality pretty well, if not my facts. (I'd have said something to them about a boyfriend, if I had one, but if I had one, would I be on WoW so much? I'd have said something to them about searching for a boyfriend, but really, let's face it, WoW is where I go to get away from or just procrastinate the search.)

So, it's interesting: what do other folks notice about me when it's all filtered through guild chat, joking, raiding, and voice? How straight-seeming am I on WoW? I'm fairly sure I'm more out here in physical form than I used to be, but how far has my personality come? I know I still fly pretty low on gaydar, but I've been working on that, and here's a little test to see what else I might need to do. I'm pretty good at being myself, I think, but hey, it's WoW. It's a pretty homophobic environment some times. Am I really really fully myself? And, now that I'm come out, is anything going to be different with me? If so, what is that, and why don't I naturally show it? Fascinating, well, to me at least.

I'm not real worried about the folks I've come out to having a problem with it, or freaking. It's more a courtesy, politeness thing. They should feel free to joke and speculate about their own sexual proclivities without worrying much about misunderstandings. There is always that risk, of course: it never fully goes away in the population at large, and, well, WoW is the population at large. But these are friends of friends I trust closely, and probably already had heard, at least some of them. But better to find out now in polite emails than an explosion of offense later, like I was keeping a secret or something.

We'll see how it goes. And, yes, I will admit, a small part of me is all wishing for a little drama: it's a little excited that people might be talking about me! (It's a very small, stupid part of me, but I have to confess it's there.) Most all of me hopes for a total non-reaction, really, but hey, if there is a reaction, and it turns out for the best, I'll have done my bit to make a small bit of WoW a more enlightened place. Yeah, right. Well, you have to have something to keep you at this continual grind: there's no XP given.

Heh, there's a new WoW achievement for consideration: Came Out.

So, for complicated reasons of the plot, today I ended up wearing a white T-shirt and a cute 5-button vest to work today. And now I'm worried vests may be over for me, which makes me sad.

This is the last vest that had fit me, and now it doesn't. It just doesn't look right, because it's not gripping in the right places for the usual (fashionable) vest "look". It's my last vest, because as I've been shopping for them, and trying them on in stores, nothing has quite worked or been a large enough size. And I'm realizing that these things are probably because the "look" is for smaller, more flat chested guys. And, well, as much as I'd hoped working out would flatten me out, it's not doing that in the chest department. I finally get a flatter stomach, and it turns out I've got wide boobs.

So, as I let go of that mental misconception of myself as a tall skinny guy, should I be letting go vests with it? If so, what other ways do I have of mixing a little formal into my casual in such a way as to show off my arms? (*) If not, am I going to have to find a tailor to make vests for me? Before I make such an investment (sorry), I'd want to know it was worth it. And what to invest in.

Flist: be honest, and let me down easy. Or shower me with images of larger men with vests, so I can try to figure out what I'm doing wrong.




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(*) It's extra sad how the front of the vest isn't working, as I haven't had this good a side-shot in years. There's something about the way the short white sleaves contrasting with the darker edge of the vest makes my arms and shoulders look great. Plus I've currently got a tan, which never happens.

Why I haven't posted as much recently. I'm betting most of the following is obvious, but hey, at least I'm posting.

1) The Facebook/Twitter effect. When you don't want to have to think, a quick 140 character status message is very tempting. Here's the problem: the more people on Facebook (my boss, my mother), the more I have to pick very carefully what I say, meaning those 140 characters take even longer to think through, to get it right for a general audience. Talking about the weather is about all I've been able to Tweet. Also, having to check what replies have come in to Facebook, and then Twitter, before I twitter back, then see the replies in Facebook? Double-maintenance sucks.

My solution: Check Facebook/Twitter only twice a day, maybe three times if I can get to it at home. Ignore the status update emails coming into one of the the three email accounts I'm also checking.

2) Losing access to my Mac at work. Setting up this work PC to try to do efficiently all these checks is driving me mad. And only just now did I realize how much losing my Xjournal post client had affected my posting frequency. I'm trying out "LochJournal" right now with this post, in the hopes that having a PC LJ client will get me able to post around lunch again. So far, XJournal kicks its ass so bad I want to weep.

My solution: LochJournal so far, although if anyone has another PC client to recommend, I'll take it. It must be properly licensed; this laptop is Harvard's, period, with all kinds of compliance policies.

3) The Usual Too Much Work, Too Much Lifestyle Events Excuse. Squeezing in vacations when work is nuts? Hard. Vacations w/o Internet access so I have to catch up my Facebook, Twitter, LJ, and three email accounts when I come back? Hardbadhard.

My solution: Hope I'll catch up and get back to normal since I now have no vacations planned for months (well, Labor Day, but at least everyone else at work is off then too).

Well, here I am back to taking Fridays off for a little bit more, and let me tell you, it's the right choice.

Since the beach vacation really starts with the flight out early tomorrow morning, I could have worked today. But, clever little monkey I am, even months ago, before I had to take all those Fridays off in May and June, I figured I'd want a day to organize at home before going. Very clever. Work yesterday was hell. As per usual, every plan had to change at the last minute, all kinds of new (real) emergencies came up, and of course, everyone had emergencies based on their lack of planning about my being out. By five thirty, I'd had pretty much enough, but had managed to put most of it to bed. Then I went to what turned out to be a sucky workout. Then I rushed from there to home to play D&D long distance again. It was a long day: work had me in for an 8:00am early meeting, just because I wouldn't be available for a week. The D&D helped a lot: ironically, being surprised by a crocodile, grabbed in its jaws, and rolled around proved to be a highlight of my day.

But today? Slept in late. Gotten a leisurely breakfast. Found I've taken care of more errands than I thought in the past week, so there's less to do. Beautiful, even with the weather.

Well, at least so far. There's a few ways this could all go wrong today which I need to concentrate a little to make sure don't happen. But hey, good so far, so worth recording. And no matter what, it's better than having yesterday's workday today, before I have to get up at 5:00am tomorrow to catch a flight.

I should never work Fridays again.

Happy 40th Anniversary of the Moon Landing, Human Race. And thank you, NASA, for getting the recent lunar orbiter mission to snap some photos of the site. I always loved looking for it with the telescope of my youth, and always wanted to see the site from orbit... not that it was possible, the best of telescope resolutions being what they are. Still, it was fun to look for it, and glad I'll be able to see it via Google Moon soon.

Since this is my journal and about me and stuff, I must mention another countdown which has started. I've got roughly nine months until the same anniversary number of my birth. Interesting coincidence, no? Mom would tell these tales of being on a wonderful beach trip, watching the moon landing, and then go into euphemisms and leave the possibility up in the air. (Here I will attempt to beat people to the "moon shot" joke.) Considering the landing was in the afternoon, and there were already three kids running around, I doubt it was at that particular moment. Still, who knows, and it's meant I've always noticed this particular anniversary when it comes around. I recently found out I'm only a few days older than the owner of my gym; I'll have to ask him if he too notices this day in July.

Speaking of wonderful beach trips in July: this Friday starts my vacation. I missed the last Big Brickman Beach Vacation, so it's been two years. I really miss the beach: it was always a part of my childhood summers, and we've been getting together for so many years now in my adulthood I can't imagine missing it again. I'm really looking forward to the surf and salt air and sun and sunburn and even that super-hot sand that burns your feet. And my family, too. ;)

I blame trying to keep up with Twitter and Facebook for my failures to post to my journal. Checking them, checking my forums, checking checking checking, and I end up with no time to be. To write.

But I've got time to workout, because, dammit, I'm paying for it, so I'm going. So let's write about my workouts, 'cause there was a progress check, and more to write than can just be Twittered.

( Last night I had another six week progress test with my trainer. )

All good news, really. The best news, though, is that while I thought this six-week boundary meant the heavy lifting was over, and it was onto fat burning time, it's not. We're just going to really begin the hypertrophy phase in two weeks. I'd thought that this was the muscle-growing phase, and so with the boundary, that'd be the end of muscle gains for a while. But no, Pete's been upping the weights, but keeping a mix of strength and stability exercises all this time. He wanted to do that for eight weeks, then begin the low-rep, high weight, get-massive program. When I get back from my beach vacation, we really begin.

So, maybe not in the best shape for this summer, but hopefully in good for fall. And really, has there been that much reason to have a beach body this "summer" so far?

State T-shirt, bitches!!

OK, hard to miss Michael Jackson passing. But who else all died this past week? Quick, tell me, before they're totally forgotten...

Most entertaining quote I've read so far on Michael Jackson's death: "Once he dies, he doesn't have any obligation to perform."

My first reaction, was, well, duh. Then my second thought was that if zombies could be made of celebrities, concert promoters would have houngans/bokors on staff.

The third thought was that if anyone famous was already a zombie, it would have been Michael Jackson.

The trouble with me mourning his death is that I already mourned him lost decades ago. But I still have sympathy for his loved ones, and all those who loved him, for whatever reason. And I feel bad for all those who only ever knew him as what he turned into, without loving him before he changed.

Today is the longest day, not in hours, but in future memories. I'm sure that_cad and swirlychick will remember it always.

Congratulations to you both on being enfinaced.

Wellington Street has never been more fascinating to me. Take these quotes from the garden tour book, one describing the space at the Columbus end of Wellington, the other the space at the far (park) end:

"The Victorian, gothic style building was destroyed by fire many years ago. The vacant lot evolved into a horseshoe pitching area, complete with old sofas and miscellaneous chairs. ... [a] developer needed the land for staging. Couches, chairs, and horseshoes gave away to machines, disruption, and a ravaged piece of land. The developer left the entire parcel enclosed with chain link and no access. A few neighbors cut an opening and the path was made. Other like-minded South Enders began dropping off plants..."

"Wellington Street was a 'no man's land' back in the 1960s— the place where you might recover your stolen car. In the late '70s, the building at 32 Wellington burned, and, when the City razed the building, a headless body was found. It was never identified."

The garden tour this year went heavily into Wellington Street places, very likely due to the large amount of my immediate neighbors who work on the Land Trust, Wellington Green, and other South End community boards. I can't believe how much I got to find out about them.

My neighbors at 11, 13, 15, and 17 Wellington Street knocked down the fences between their back gardens and have been sharing one large 80-ft wide garden space, with four harmonious styles, for years.

My neighbors at 8 Wellington have an amazing roof-top deck garden that they've been tending for a decade. They had a photo album of their garden with shots of 111 Huntington slowly filling in as the pictures progressed. Their house is absolutely fabulous (had to go through it to the roof), and the roof garden the talk of the tour.

I swear, my empty window boxes are positively SHAMING me right now. I'm flushing red just thinking about them. I live on a street where the community broke into someone else's lot to guerrilla garden it, and I'm sitting there with empty window boxes right across from the scene of their struggle. Who knows, they may break in and take over...

Written from stop #20 (ignore the second floor).

In other news, apparently my downstairs neighbor's garden is on the South End Garden Tour this year. Who knew 3 Wellington would be on the tour? Not me. No warning given whatsoever. So much for walking around naked.

On the other hand, I don't begrudge the masses a peek at Wellington Living. After all, I've been publicly blogging about it for years now. I almost feel like going out and pointing out such sights as the Worst Cable Hookup possible, and Most Annoying Parking by an SUV in a Small Alley. But then, they're noticing those anyway...

A fabulous time was had by all at the Kiki Room in the Estate.

Enough dancing was had that DJ Wilhelm was generally held to have done his job. It turned out I could plug in Clothar, and so was able to manipulate the mix on the fly. Much manipulation ensued, to try to match the music to the immediate desires of the dancers. I was surprised to have to add a bit more disco, to skip the 80s until the end, and by the fact that the very handsome bartender Mark kept giving his DJ free drinks.

Our special guest was Miss Marguerite, also known as Perfect Peggy. She showed me up as usual with her extreme fabulousness. I'm amazed by this one photo (below):

We'll keep that for her first album cover, I think.

I didn't do much for Pride this year, but there were two special incidents that stuck out.

The first happened as the Pride Parade was still starting up. Like last year, they lined up the parade starting four blocks from my house. While I was getting my hair done at Cha Cha Cha, we'd seen folks drifting by Michael's giant plate glass window, in all their entertaining variety. unappropriate wanted a bit more time before we went biking, so I went down to see the parade start. Instead of having the parade go by me, since it wasn't moving, I went to the beginning and walked to the end.

At the end of the parade, around where the South End Branch of the Public Library is, I snapped this picture, which is really my neighborhood in a nutshell.

See, the lady in the wheelchair and the one with the green shirt and orange lai, they are there every sunny weekend, with clothing and nicknacks lined up along the library park fence. I have no idea if they ever really sell much, but they are there, and I always look, every time.

This weekend, they were invaded by drag queens, and they didn't even bat an eye: no, instead, they jumped on the chance for sales. Yuppie breeders were going by with their strollers, people were having a good time in the street, and neighborhood fixture black ladies were helping drag queens find shoes. Peace and love, everybody!


My other Pride story doesn't come with a picture, but still has a happy ending. So, unappropriate and I did go biking, which was a story completely unto itself. I got back, barely showered and ate, then raided for three hours. I made the whole raid hit a hard stop just so I could hit the dance floor at T.T. the Bears ("Heroes" night, of course) with unappropriate by 11:30pm. Again, the night at "Heroes" could be a whole story until itself, especially around the hot Tall One I chased most of the evening. But the real story happened when I was walking home.

Yes, I ended up walking home from Central Square, at 1:45am in the morning. This after a 30+ mile bike ride of some difficulty. Anyway, I'm walking south down Mass Ave, almost to MIT, when these two young black turks and their two ladies turn onto the avenue behind me... and start making noises. OK, yes, I dressed a bit gay. Not over the top, but the skin-tight eggplant T-shirt was kinda a giveaway. Whatever: Pride, bitches! Anyway, they're talking to themselves, and the two guys start in with actual comments. The one I still don't understand, but that got me to answer back, was the question, "How many balls can you bench press?" (Quoi?)

My answer: "Four. Yours and his, how about it?" The one who asked the question actually jumped back, and suddenly I had no fear, just sass. That's right, honey: here, queer, get over it. This is Massachusetts, baby! OK, I only thought those last two. All I said was, "Hey, see back over there? Gay Club: this is our neighborhood too." (OK, the club was the Paradise, skeavy and now under construction, so I don't go there, but hey.)

So then the two girls jump in with the defense of their men, by asking stuff like "Why don't you like pussy?" Answer: "Do you like it?" Much hemming and hawing as we continue walking. Finally, one of the girls asks, "Don't you like girls? Why would you turn gay?", and I give the flippant shock answer "Because dick is so good, right girls?" They nodded sagely, and one actually did a full-on "Uh Huh!" and that was that. A little pride and understanding, early in the morning.

Maybe I could have been a little less stereotypical, but at least I didn't give ground or act embarrassed. Full of pride is what I'd have to say I was, and that's fairly unusual for me. Can I get a "You Go, Boy!"?

Hey folks.

Just a reminder: this Saturday, June 20th, is the 16th Annual South End Garden Tour, from 10am to 4pm. It's a self-guided, at-your-own-pace tour of my absolutely fabulous neighborhood's gardens. It's great fun poking around in other people's obsessively kept backyards, getting a glimpse into their houses. There are some fantastic hidden corners of the neighborhood to see.

The money goes to a very worthy cause, the South End Open Space Land Trust: they support a lot of community gardens and open spaces, including the lovely garden parks at the two ends of my street. I plan to go a bit after noon, or later depending on how bad my hangover is from DJing my sister's party at Estate the night before. But in order to take other folks around, which I love, I'm happy to delay to meet up. I do need to be done by a hard-stop of 3:30 to make a gallery showing (it's quite a weekend coming up!)